My iPhone, Nexus One Comparison
Let me start by saying that this topic has been done to death. But I still think there’s a lot more to say about these two phones. I’m just going to gloss over the obvious, however, to avoid re-writing what has already by discussed to death.
Why The iPhone is Better
- More Polish
- The iPhone can’t do as much as an Android phone, but everything it does do, it does it pretty. Scrolling lists on the iPhone continue a bit off the page to let your know you’re at the end and the UI is way more consistent, even into external apps.
- More Accurate Touchscreen
- Not sure if this is a hardware or software thing, but the iPhone just tracks and finds your finger a bit better. Scrolling is a bit smoother and in general there are a bit fewer misstaps.
- Better Keyboard
- As an extension of that, you can type a bit faster on the iPhone, with fewer mistakes. The iPhone is more forgiving of blazing speed. I think the root cause here is no multi-touch on the keyboard. Which means that if you are blazing along with two thumbs and hit the next letter just before your last thumb comes off the keyboard, you’ll miss it. You do learn to deal with it though, and end up typing a bit more deliberately. In the end, you’re a bit slower, but probably only a couple words per minute.
- App Store
- Yes, there are more apps. But, if Android had 1/5 of the apps, but with better or at least comparable quality, it wouldn’t matter. It doesn’t though. Android apps are generally terrible with about 4 exceptions.
- Multitouch
- Enough said.
Why The Nexus One is Better
Android and the Nexus One have a lot of little things going for them. Out of laziness, I’m going to skip all the obvious things that other people have already covered in detail, like multi-tasking, screen size and resolution, battery life, turn-by-turn directions, voice recognition, removable battery and Google apps integration.
- Browser
- Believe it or not, I think the Android browser actually is a bit better than mobile Safari. The big feature is page reformatting, where it takes all text on the page and re-wraps it to exactly the width of the current viewing port. This means you never have to scroll horizontally or read impossibly small text. Before they created a mobile version, Apple Insider was, ironically, nearly impossible to read on the iPhone, even in landscape mode, but a breeze with Android. Plus, the Android browser makes better use of the available space by having no bottom status bar. And, being able to search the page text can come in handy.
- GPS
- The GPS system on the Nexus One is fantastic. You can tell the phone was designed with driving directions in mind. The Nexus One consistently shows my location to within 8 (or even 4) meters, and it’s not lying. When I view a satellite image, the little blue dot is always on my property, and a lot of the time very near the room I happen to be in in my house. The iPhone can get close to this kind of accuracy, but at my house the best it can do is an accuracy of about one city block. I remember back when the iPhone 3G came out and people were saying that turn-by-turn directions couldn’t happen because the GPS antenna was just too small. Well, I think the Nexus One has a bigger one.
- Podcasting
- It’s a bit of a shame that Android has a better podcasting app than the iPhone. No doubt someone out there could build one, but Apple won’t allow it. So, iPhone users are stuck synching to their computer every time they want to hear the latest podcasts. With Android’s Listen app, you just open the app and it starts downloading the new content. Plus, the Nexus One has better Bluetooth support. You can play/pause and skip forward/back with your stereo Bluetooth headphones, all while the phone stays in your pocket.
Phil Kulak
Mealfire
phil@mealfire.com
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