My Experience: From iPhone 2g -> 3g -> 3gs -> Droid

[CRPercodani]

Oh and one other thing on the whole numbers game. The iPhone is sold world wide, and those huge numbers you see aren't just US sales, keep that in mind.

 

[elucas730]

You also have to remember that the best phone is not for everyone. Some people will love iPhone because it's not a very smart phone. I've owned iPhones, and they can't compare to Droid.

Oh this is definitely true. Two different phones for two different people. The iphone is for people who are not technically savvy - you know the kind that spends $2000 on an imac to just check email and surf the web because it has an easier interface. The droid is for the more technically savvy who will trade off a little bit of ease of use in return for more flexibility and functionality.

 

[koticphreak]

For those of you Apple fanboys out there hoping for a switch to Verizon, the Iphone will NOT...I repeat...NOT be coming to Verizon.

Probably true, not sure how many of you know this, but Apple originally approached Verizon for their iPhone, but Verizon said "we want it done our way", apple wouldn't have it, Verizon told them to go f themselves, at&t jumped at the opportunity.

 

[quentinfisher]

Maybe Verizon's had a change of heart? Obviously with the Droid and Eris the usual restrictions their know to do aren't present, which makes the phones a lot better to me glad they did that. They are not stupid, Apple knows there are people who won't buy an iPhone because of the network, and they know Verizon would make them a lot more money than AT&T, and Verizon knows their smartphone subscriber base would skyrocket if they got an iPhone, so I'm confident the idea of a partnership is still present in both companies minds. Now whether they will stop being stubborn and work out a compromise is still to be seen.

 

[Fabolous]

Maybe Verizon's had a change of heart? Obviously with the Droid and Eris the usual restrictions their know to do aren't present, which makes the phones a lot better to me glad they did that. They are not stupid, Apple knows there are people who won't buy an iPhone because of the network, and they know Verizon would make them a lot more money than AT&T, and Verizon knows their smartphone subscriber base would skyrocket if they got an iPhone, so I'm confident the idea of a partnership is still present in both companies minds. Now whether they will stop being stubborn and work out a compromise is still to be seen.

Verizon definitely is making some concessions for the Droid. First of all, they completely removed VZ Navigator, which was a pretty easy way for them to make money. I mean, they're even advertising the Google Navigation! The old VZW would never have even considered it (the one that turned down Apple years ago). I agree that an Apple-Verizon deal could still go down.

YouTube - Verizon DROID Homing Device

 

[wbbgjr]

For me the deal breaker with the iphone is that it's battery is not removable. I like to buy an extra battery and keep it around when I travel. The non-removable battery probably also makes it impossible for 3rd party companies to design larger capacity batteries.

 

[JohnMcClane]

Based on Verizon's ad campaigns... I wouldn't be surprised if the iPhone never comes to Verizon.

I doubt it too... Apple would have to be willing to give up the CS issues to VZW...

 

[hondapro]

OK hold on a second. Everyone is comparing the first gen Droid with Android 2.0 to the iPhone 3gs. If you must compare the phones compare the Droid with a 2g iPhone with 2.x software. Give the Droid a chance people jeez! When the iPhone came out it had plenty of problems.
I also hate that everyone tries to compare how many more apps there are for the iPhone. The iPhone has been around for much longer than Android and I think the Droid is going to be the start of Android getting more popular, and how many of the iPhone apps are useless crap? I agree there are problems with things like the camera, it takes pretty sad pictures when not in a lot of light. Lets see how it is after a few updates, and I seem to remember the iPhone didn't even take video when it came out, just saying.

Give Android some time people! It is still young and growing very quickly.

 

[QrafTee]

OK hold on a second. Everyone is comparing the first gen Droid with Android 2.0 to the iPhone 3gs. If you must compare the phones compare the Droid with a 2g iPhone with 2.x software. Give the Droid a chance people jeez! When the iPhone came out it had plenty of problems.
I also hate that everyone tries to compare how many more apps there are for the iPhone. The iPhone has been around for much longer than Android and I think the Droid is going to be the start of Android getting more popular, and how many of the iPhone apps are useless crap? I agree there are problems with things like the camera, it takes pretty sad pictures when not in a lot of light. Lets see how it is after a few updates, and I seem to remember the iPhone didn't even take video when it came out, just saying.

Give Android some time people! It is still young and growing very quickly.

Sorry, it doesn't work that way. You can't compare a 2001 Solara with a 1996 Camry just because they're both 3rd generations of their respective models (I used 3rd gen as an example and I know it's not right).

You need to compare models of similar types within roughly the same time frame.

 

[hondapro]

Sorry, it doesn't work that way. You can't compare a 2001 Solara with a 1996 Camry just because they're both 3rd generations of their respective models (I used 3rd gen as an example and I know it's not right).

You need to compare models of similar types within roughly the same time frame.

OK I agree with that, you make a good point. Atleased give the Droid and Android some time. The iPhone has been around much longer and Apple has had time to fix problems with there device. I dont dislike the iPhone, its a great device. I am just trying to make the point that devices like these are bound to have some problems when they come out and we should just give it some time to be updated and fixed.

 

[Yugami]

Wouldn't the Droid get super sluggish with a lack of interal memory though? I imagine it'd start closing apps and such when multi-tasking with a low amount of memory available.

Think about it. The apps are stored in memory. It's not like your computer where your programs are stored on your hard drive and the processor has to transfer the data to memory and run it. Your programs are ALREADY in memory. Why should they be taking up more memory when they run? I'm not familiar with exactly how Android handles it but I assume that not much more memory will be taken up by these apps when they are running.

 

[QrafTee]

Think about it. The apps are stored in memory. It's not like your computer where your programs are stored on your hard drive and the processor has to transfer the data to memory and run it. Your programs are ALREADY in memory. Why should they be taking up more memory when they run? I'm not familiar with exactly how Android handles it but I assume that not much more memory will be taken up by these apps when they are running.

I believe the memory you're referring to is internal memory such as that of NAND Flash. I don't believe apps are stored on RAM because that is usually volatile memory which would erase everything as soon as the phone was off. NAND Flash is a SSD which is a hard drive essentially.

The ROM is read-only, so you can't use that for storage because it's reserved for the OS primarily.

Different from both RAM and ROM is internal storage which is where the apps go and is 256MB on the Droid.

 

[Legacystar]

The phone has a certain amount of memory for things to run seperate from the storage memory

 

[uberjeff]

Probably true, not sure how many of you know this, but Apple originally approached Verizon for their iPhone, but Verizon said "we want it done our way", apple wouldn't have it, Verizon told them to go f themselves, at&t jumped at the opportunity.

Actually other than the first part of your statement you are completely wrong. There were a number of factors at play that killed the deal between Apple and Verizon on the original iPhone. I'm not going to go down a laundry list of all the reasons, but the main ones were....

1) Financial, Apple did not want to follow the current model where the wireless company buys the handset from the manufacturer, offers it on subsidy and that is that. Apple demanded 25% of the monthly service revenue from the line. (This was the major deal killer and has since been abondoned with AT&T and their foreign distribution partners.)

2) Apple wanted sole control over support of the device with no in store Verizon support of the device. Verizon wasn't willing to release the post sale support to a 3rd party, something that Verizon has a history of being good at and sees as a competitive advantage.

3) Distribution, Apple demanded that the sole distribution be at its stores and corporate Verizon Stores. As attractive as that probably was for Verizon on a financial basis, it would have been unfair to their thousands of authorized agents, most of whom are exclusive Verizon dealers. If I was an AT&T authorized agent and was told I couldn't sell the company's most in demand phone I would have told them where to shove it. It wouldn't surprise me if a number of them did.

I do believe however if Apple hadn't dictated the above stated financial terms and found AT&T willing to sign over the farm to make the deal some sort of compromise probably would have been found to problems 2 and 3. If I recall correctly it was the problems Apple had negotiating similar financial agreements with foreign carriers that led to a return to the original financial model with AT&T for the iPhone 3G forward.

 

[uberjeff]

For those of you Apple fanboys out there hoping for a switch to Verizon, the Iphone will NOT...I repeat...NOT be coming to Verizon.

A family member of mine works for R&D at VZW, and that rumored Apple/Verizon talks over the summer? Never happened. VZW has absolutely NO desire to work with Apple, as that would be going back on their "Verizon is now Open" campaign. They are very supportive of the Open source movement, and committed to Google.

Sadly your family member is either wrong or misinformed. I have first hand knowledge from Verizon Wireless' CEO that he personally had discussions with Steve Jobs about future cooperation. I did not receive, nor expect to receive any more detailed information than that, but I do sit in on conference calls that your family member obviously isn't a part of. I'm not giving anything away. Lowell has since made public statements that he had these discussions with Steve Jobs. As he stated at the time, he would be stupid not to. Its not to be said that anything will ever come of the discussions, but with LTE around the corner and AT&T's exclusivity period coming to a close it would be silly to bet against it. Sadly for Verizon, by the time it happens the iPhone will be much less of a big deal than it was 3 years ago. I think Android will have a lot to do with that.

 

[QrafTee]

Sadly your family member is either wrong or misinformed. I have first hand knowledge from Verizon Wireless' CEO that he personally had discussions with Steve Jobs about future cooperation. I did not receive, nor expect to receive any more detailed information than that, but I do sit in on conference calls that your family member obviously isn't a part of. I'm not giving anything away. Lowell has since made public statements that he had these discussions with Steve Jobs. As he stated at the time, he would be stupid not to. Its not to be said that anything will ever come of the discussions, but with LTE around the corner and AT&T's exclusivity period coming to a close it would be silly to bet against it. Sadly for Verizon, by the time it happens the iPhone will be much less of a big deal than it was 3 years ago. I think Android will have a lot to do with that.

You must be pretty loaded to have those connections. Can I have some money?

 

[joscon]

The Droid is running on the nations most reliable network. 'Nuf said.

All the apps. All the technology. All the prim & polish mean $hit it I can made a damn call!

Oh and don't give me this AT&T has so many iphone users, thats why the network is blah blah.... ZVW w/ all its BB and other smartphone users still has more of the market share for one simple reason. The network. Period

Just my .02

 

[Legacystar]

Actually other than the first part of your statement you are completely wrong. There were a number of factors at play that killed the deal between Apple and Verizon on the original iPhone. I'm not going to go down a laundry list of all the reasons, but the main ones were....

1) Financial, Apple did not want to follow the current model where the wireless company buys the handset from the manufacturer, offers it on subsidy and that is that. Apple demanded 25% of the monthly service revenue from the line. (This was the major deal killer and has since been abondoned with AT&T and their foreign distribution partners.)

2) Apple wanted sole control over support of the device with no in store Verizon support of the device. Verizon wasn't willing to release the post sale support to a 3rd party, something that Verizon has a history of being good at and sees as a competitive advantage.

3) Distribution, Apple demanded that the sole distribution be at its stores and corporate Verizon Stores. As attractive as that probably was for Verizon on a financial basis, it would have been unfair to their thousands of authorized agents, most of whom are exclusive Verizon dealers. If I was an AT&T authorized agent and was told I couldn't sell the company's most in demand phone I would have told them where to shove it. It wouldn't surprise me if a number of them did.

I do believe however if Apple hadn't dictated the above stated financial terms and found AT&T willing to sign over the farm to make the deal some sort of compromise probably would have been found to problems 2 and 3. If I recall correctly it was the problems Apple had negotiating similar financial agreements with foreign carriers that led to a return to the original financial model with AT&T for the iPhone 3G forward.

Imm always telling att fan boys this. att only has it cause they are getting the short end of the stick and verizon wasn't willing to do that.

 

[shotinthenads]

As a recovering iPhone addict new to the Verizon network....I don't want Verizon to get the iPhone, ever. I (so far) love the Droid and I do not want Verizon to move away from Android. I want to see Verizon embrace Android and encourage the development of new handsets.

 

[abiyng87]

Hey Stangs, a fellow MR member here, was just reading your twin thread over there. It really is funny the difference in tone in the replies.

Anyways, i just did the same thing. I still have my AT&T service for now, but each day it's getting less and less likely that I will keep it.

I did a little test yesterday with my iPhone 3GS and my Droid. I had my fiance command the 3GS and we both started at a locked state, then went to the same website to see which phone was faster. On wifi the iPhone was consistently almost a full second faster, so obviously it renders faster than the droid. But when we switched of wifi and went to 3G cell networks, the Droid was consitently almost a second faster. That says a lot about the quality of Verizon's network...

No one can deny the fact that iPhone is about as user friendly as it gets. Seriously, no other phone holds your hand like that. but that isn't to say that this is always a positive thing. As more of an 'advanced' user myself I find the Droid incredibly intuitive and amazingly freeing in its ability to do anything I could ask for it. It just comes down to whatever a particular user needs, as someone else pointed out.

Anyways, good luck with the Droid. I'm loving it so far, and have a sneaking suspicion that it will stay that way.

 

[Stangs55]

Oh this is definitely true. Two different phones for two different people. The iphone is for people who are not technically savvy - you know the kind that spends $2000 on an imac to just check email and surf the web because it has an easier interface. The droid is for the more technically savvy who will trade off a little bit of ease of use in return for more flexibility and functionality.

I wouldn't quite make it that simple. I consider myself an enormous gadget nerd. I build my computers, participate in all the betas, and have become addicting to tweaking anything that can be tweaked.
I'm not a big fan of Macbooks or iMacs--they're great for coffee shops and mom's, but not me. I own a couple, but use them only for basic tasks. However...to me, the iPhone is a different beast. I don't really need to tweak all the intricacies of it's UI and OS. I think they've pretty much nailed the streamlined, efficient experience with 3.0. Yes, I have jailbroken it to open up multitasking and 5 icon rows...but aside from that, it does what I need it to every time (besides make a phone call )
Give the Droid a more responsive UI and I'll be happy to leave my iPhone behind forever.

Hey Stangs, a fellow MR member here, was just reading your twin thread over there. It really is funny the difference in tone in the replies.

Anyways, i just did the same thing. I still have my AT&T service for now, but each day it's getting less and less likely that I will keep it.

I did a little test yesterday with my iPhone 3GS and my Droid. I had my fiance command the 3GS and we both started at a locked state, then went to the same website to see which phone was faster. On wifi the iPhone was consistently almost a full second faster, so obviously it renders faster than the droid. But when we switched of wifi and went to 3G cell networks, the Droid was consitently almost a second faster. That says a lot about the quality of Verizon's network...

No one can deny the fact that iPhone is about as user friendly as it gets. Seriously, no other phone holds your hand like that. but that isn't to say that this is always a positive thing. As more of an 'advanced' user myself I find the Droid incredibly intuitive and amazingly freeing in its ability to do anything I could ask for it. It just comes down to whatever a particular user needs, as someone else pointed out.

Anyways, good luck with the Droid. I'm loving it so far, and have a sneaking suspicion that it will stay that way.

Appreciate the feedback I was surprised at the reaction there as well...if anything, I thought that the Droid forum would be yelling at me and the iPhone community would be agreeing with me (or at least having an intelligent conversation). Ironically, it's been the opposite...just goes to show the maturity level of each device's respective target audience.

And FWIW, I've bought my wife a used Verizon Motorola Razer off ebay and plan to cancel my AT&T when it comes in Why ebay? So that when the Droid2 comes out in time for Christmas 2010, I'll have a pending upgrade

 

[endo]

Did the same thing myself, minus the 3gs. (went 2g->3g->Droid).

My home coverage was cycling between "No Service" and 5 bars on the iPhone. AT&T had refunded me about $500 in bills because even they agreed something was horribly wrong with their network in my area, even though it showed excellent 3G coverage on their map. They waived the ETF and last bill without me even asking (great customer service in this regard, but then again I was starting to get to know their tech support people a little too well).

So far, really like the Droid. Great coverage in crappy areas. 0-2bars of meter is a stronger signal than 5 bars of AT&T.

Add to this that my iPhone 3G was incredibly slow. I had five screens of apps, but that shouldn't matter on a device that doesn't allow background processes. There was lag starting any given app. I hated all the silly animations that would play and then transition to a blank(ish) screen, waiting for the requested app to *really* start.

Since the 3GS came out, owning a non-3GS is a nightmarish experience. iPhone OS 3.0 is horrid if you don't upgrade to a 3GS (for $400). In my experience, the Droid is immediate where the 3G was laggy. I did disable all animations in the preferences (not sure if that has any effect).

Additionally was highly bothered by the App Store philosophy. I don't want Apple to have to approve applications before I can use them. I think this model has a horrifying effect on the potential of the iPhone development community. I looked heavily at iPhone development, but I am unwilling to invest thousands of hours into something that may be ham-handedly rejected by Apple because "it competes with a feature they'll be offering in the future." I'd bet this has a huge chilling effect, and keeps good minds far away from the iPhone.

I like the keyboard on the Droid. I was quite fast typing on the iPhone one as well, my issue was that it took up screen space. All controls had to be on the screen. That used screen space can be quite an annoyance when using something like VNC or an SSH/terminal session.

The iPhone still rules in one area though, it's UI is incredibly easy for anyone to deal with. It's designed for the masses, and it's efficient, clean, and simple.

 

[endo]

I did a little test yesterday with my iPhone 3GS and my Droid. I had my fiance command the 3GS and we both started at a locked state, then went to the same website to see which phone was faster. On wifi the iPhone was consistently almost a full second faster, so obviously it renders faster than the droid. But when we switched of wifi and went to 3G cell networks, the Droid was consitently almost a second faster. That says a lot about the quality of Verizon's network...

I tried something similar with my iPhone 3g last week (before I picked up the Droid). I was at a basketball game at UCLA and decided to check my website at halftime. My iPhone took about 1.5 minutes to download it, and this isn't a very big site (just a simple Drupal forum+blog thing). I then borrowed my brother's VZW Blackberry Tour, and tried the same thing with Opera. <5 seconds.

The cause? EVERYONE in that stadium was on their iPhone. Literally you could look around and find a dozen within a few rows, and there were probably 2-3,000 people in the stadium. The iPhone's success is its greatest failing, as AT&T can't handle thousands of customers per cell site who actually USE their smartphones on the Internet.

 

[QrafTee]

Appreciate the feedback I was surprised at the reaction there as well...if anything, I thought that the Droid forum would be yelling at me and the iPhone community would be agreeing with me (or at least having an intelligent conversation). Ironically, it's been the opposite...just goes to show the maturity level of each device's respective target audience.

And FWIW, I've bought my wife a used Verizon Motorola Razer off ebay and plan to cancel my AT&T when it comes in Why ebay? So that when the Droid2 comes out in time for Christmas 2010, I'll have a pending upgrade

Why would the iPhone forum yell at you? You praised it in every way imaginable really. You only knocked the service (which in all reality has nothing to do with the iPhone's hardware).

I tried something similar with my iPhone 3g last week (before I picked up the Droid). I was at a basketball game at UCLA and decided to check my website at halftime. My iPhone took about 1.5 minutes to download it, and this isn't a very big site (just a simple Drupal forum+blog thing). I then borrowed my brother's VZW Blackberry Tour, and tried the same thing with Opera. <5 seconds.

The cause? EVERYONE in that stadium was on their iPhone. Literally you could look around and find a dozen within a few rows, and there were probably 2-3,000 people in the stadium. The iPhone's success is its greatest failing, as AT&T can't handle thousands of customers per cell site who actually USE their smartphones on the Internet.

I thought the "s" meant speed. So maybe you needed to use an iPhone 3gs for a fairer comparison.

 

[endo]

You only knocked the service (which in all reality has nothing to do with the iPhone's hardware).I thought the "s" meant speed. So maybe you needed to use an iPhone 3gs for a fairer comparison.

The long downlad time was purely a function of the network. On wifi that website would have loaded in 1/10 the time. A 3gs would not have been any quicker, the hardware was not being taxed.