Why I’ve Fallen in Love with the Nexus One

http://www.horsepigcow.com/2010/02/why-ive-fallen-in-love-with-the-nexus-one/

by tortilla • 16 years ago

43 34 16 years ago

A lot of Android's criticisms come from the fact that people expect it to be an iPhone - they want the screens to scroll like the iPhone, they want to navigate apps using header buttons (instead of the standard back button), they want shaking to undo, they want pressing the trackball to take them home etc. It kinda understandable, as the iPhone is almost everyone's first smartphone, but still pretty silly.

If they get over their iphone-centric view, they'd find Android has many strengths. The standard buttons (home, back, menu) actually improves usability immensely, since you never have to care how a specific app wants to place its navigation elements or options etc. You know the back button will almost always take you back/cancel, you know that if you're ever in doubt, the menu button will save you etc.

I also very much appreciate the fact that the phone doesn't treat me like a dumbass. For example, while the iphone is easier to unlock the first time around (pretty hard to miss the SLIDE HERE TO UNLOCK message), it becomes stupid and annoying after awhile and takes away from the aesthetic appeal. Or the fact that the only allowed customization you can make is to re-arrange your icons, rather than making the phone YOURS and seeing what you actually want to see.

mos1• 16 years ago

Your post also works if you swap the words iPhone and Android, and make some edits regarding a particular user's priorities. You could also swap one of the phones with 'Nokia N97', and it'd still work.

The joy of differentiation!

glhaynes2• 16 years ago

I don't feel at all that my iPhone treats me "like a dumbass". I could not have less desire to change the way I unlock my phone: by about the third time I did it, it was completely natural... so much so that I just had to think for a second to remember whether I have to slide to unlock each time (and I do so probably 100 times in an average day). It just "happens".

In cases where the designers can make a choice for me that's the "right" one, I'd much prefer them to just do that and remove any cognitive burden from me: I don't WANT more things to make a choice about in my life, it's complicated enough as is.

I certainly understand that other people feel differently, and I'm happy that they enjoy their Android phones. But I think our industry has labored for far too long under the assumption that everybody wants to tinker. The fact is, most people actively don't want to tinker; tinkerers are just vastly overrepresented in the group that designs these devices.

jsz0• 16 years ago

Completely agree. I really hate the mindset that someone who opts not to micro-manage something is an idiot or dumb. It's insulting to me. As someone who spends 8-12 hours a day immersed in technology I just have no interest in customizing my slide-to-unlock screen. If people want to do that type of thing more power to them. I'm not going to call them an idiot or infer they are dumb. It'd be nice to get the same level of respect in return.

martythemaniak2• 16 years ago

You completely missed the point of the unlock (and pretty much the rest that followed). I WAS talking about the defaults. Take a look at the Nexus One and iPhone unlock screens.

http://www.simonblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/1...

http://www.thesearethedroids.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/...

The nexus one is far more subtle - first time users have no obvious way of knowing they have to drag the green unlock button except for a small green dot that appears when you press. The iPhone is certainly more user-friendly here...except after that first time, it becomes annoying, whereas the N1's button remains pleasing. This isn't about replacing the lock screen, its about how the default works. This is one small example of how many other things work. In their endless praise of the iPhone, people are not aware (or refuse to acknowledge) the sacrifices and tradeoffs that go into making things obvious for first time users.

apotheon• 16 years ago

Why I Haven't Fallen In Love With The Nexus One:

no physical keyboard

joshu• 16 years ago

I am much happier with a Droid than my wife was with a Nexus One. But I rarely use the keyboard, to be honest.

NB: I have all kinds of conflict here.

Zak2• 16 years ago

I played with a Droid in a store and the keyboard was awful. Every other similarly configured phone, including Motorola's own Cliq had a far superior keyboard.

dpifke• 16 years ago

Since switching from a Blackberry to a Nexus One, I've found I use my phone to email/text a lot less, and to browse the web a lot more.

When I first switched, several people with keyboardless phones told me that I would get used to not having a physical keyboard after a while and not miss it. Five weeks later I'm not sure that's the case - I've gotten faster and more accurate with the virtual keyboard than I was at first, but I'm still a lot slower and less accurate than I was on the Blackberry (or the Palm Treo that was my primary phone before it). I absolutely cannot use my N1 to compose any sort of text unless I'm sitting still; with the Blackberry I could fire off a message while walking down the street.

For day-to-day usage, I think the increased utility from the web browser and other apps (Google Voice rocks!) probably outweighs the decreased utility from quick/easy SMS and email replies, but like everything in the engineering world there's a trade-off.

jokull• 16 years ago

I'm a pretty happy Nexus One user. Well I was until I picked up my iPod touch again and played with it. I now have even more respect for Apple. It's the level of polish and responsiveness that blows everything else out of the water.

pkulak• 16 years ago

Same here. It's the little things. Like how menus don't have any elastic when you get to the end. I could never tell if I was at the end or if the phone froze. I'm looking forward to checking out the Desire. The hardware buttons plus Sense could be pretty nice.

holygoat• 16 years ago

It seems that a lot of this guy's "this is awesome" points are cloud related — the gCal integration, seamless contact info from Google — and are the main reasons I don't want to move to Android.

Frankly, I think that Google already has too much of my information, and the recent Buzz debacle demonstrates that they can't really be trusted with it.

No thanks. I'd much rather sync with my local address book.

nuclear_eclipse2• 16 years ago

At least with android you still have the option to use different contact systems, dialers, calendars, and browsers if you choose to. Android, unlike iphone, is perfectly happy allowing to replace core functionality just about everywhere on the phone.

freshfunk• 16 years ago

I have my iPhone syncing with my google contacts, google calendar and gmail. It's very easy to do and probably the top link if you google it.

kqr2• 16 years ago

Actually, I believe the author is a gal : Tara Hunt

there2• 16 years ago

this is my main problem with android as well (current nexus one owner, former iphone owner): that unfortunately a lot of the core applications can't be separated from google services. the early releases of android on the g1 and mytouch 3g couldn't even be used past the welcome screen without forcing you to sign up for a google account.

currently there is no way to create and store local calendars or contacts. everything must be tied to an account, which currently limits you to a google account or an activesync/exchange account. i setup z-push (http://z-push.sourceforge.net/) on my server to act as an activesync server so i could at least sync my contacts to my own machine, but it doesn't yet support calendars. of course the built-in calendar app has no support for ical or anything standard, and expects you to do that all from google calendar's web interface and then sync that to your phone.

i just updated the "listen" application on my nexus one, which is a google-built application for downloading and listening to podcasts. with the new version released yesterday, it now forces you to store your subscriptions in google reader instead of just on the phone itself.

i'm sure there are many that have no problem trusting google with all of their data, relying completely on them for email, chatting, searching, reading rss feeds, and making phone calls through google voice, and so all of this automatic syncing with google is neat and useful. but there are those of us that would like to use alternatives or just prefer to keep everything on the phone itself.

as bad as apple is with their strict control over the iphone and its applications, at least they don't force users to use their .mac service. calendars, contacts, and every other application can be used without giving apple control over all of your data.

orangecat• 16 years ago

but there are those of us that would like to use alternatives or just prefer to keep everything on the phone itself.

So use alternatives. Searching Android Market for "calendar" and "podcast" comes back with lots of results. Unlike Apple, Google won't reject submitted apps for "duplicating functionality".

eplanit2• 16 years ago

At least there's a nice disclaimer that cues one (one who's looking for objectivity, that is) to stop reading at paragraph #1:

"That is to say, if I wasn’t addicted to using every Google app out there (calendar, mail, docs, maps, etc.), the phone may not have wowed me so much, but I AM a Google girl, so it fits beautifully into my lifestyle."

dminor3• 16 years ago

She's not saying she likes it because it's _from_ Google, she's saying she likes it because it makes interacting with Google services easy. Which is entirely objective, and apparently compelling enough to switch from her iPhone.

eplanit2• 16 years ago

Didn't say she was from the company. I was pointing out that she admits to being a thorough Google Fan-gal, enamored of everything the company produces. Fan-boys/gals typically aren't critical, and this article did not give me any objective insights. I read more emotional torment in it than I did concrete analysis.

Plus, what I do gather is more repulsive than attractive. Google is building a device to [ultimately] lock us into their services and devices (or make their services available solely via their devices)? This is great?

Same concern with Apple. I worry about the fans of both behemoths.

Zak2• 16 years ago

It seems like everyone but me hates the HTC micro-trackballs. I admit I've only spent a few minutes using one, but it seemed harmless at worst, and actually struck me as a very nice input device. Maybe I just have fond memories of my first laptop, an early Powerbook.

kylec• 16 years ago

I like the trackball too. It's great for moving the text cursor, something that's always frustrated me on the iPhone.

shade• 16 years ago

I just ditched my iPhone 3G today in favor of a Droid, and I love pretty much everything she mentioned here. I already use most of Google's services (GMail in particular, but the calendar is nice too) so it's a much better fit for me.

That, and I love the multitasking, and that the notifications are (in my opinion) much more useful since I can see that I have new emails or texts without having to actually unlock the phone.

I'm also very impressed with the navigation feature. The interface on it pretty much destroys that of every other GPS I've used, whether it was a stand-alone device or an iPhone app. Quick to load, extremely accurate, and surprisingly quick to notice and reroute if you don't take a turn.

I know a lot of people like the iPhone, and it's still a nice device, but I think this is a much better choice for me; I'm a heavy Google user (and have more loyalty to Google than I do to Apple) and I wanted fewer limitations.

ctrager• 16 years ago

I was in "Like" prior to the update that added multitouch to the browser, and prior to finding into Aedict, a Japanese/English dictionary app. After multitouch and Aedict, I'm in Love.

And, shameless plug: Did y'all try the free Hacker News reader app I uploaded to the Market?

http://ifdefined.com/blog/post/A-Hacker-News-app-for-Android...

aschobel• 16 years ago

Thanks for making this! Let me know if you want any help hacking on this. [username]@gmail.com

GeneralMaximus• 16 years ago

This is offtopic: can you buy an Android phone, remove the vendor-supplied version of Android and install a fresh, straight-from-SVN version of the OS instead? If an Android phone allows that kind of flexibility, I'll really consider spending some cash on a smartphone as opposed to another cheap-ass J2ME phone.

arantius• 16 years ago

It depends on which "an Android phone" you want to consider. Manufacturers can lock down the phone as much as they like.

The N1 however requires one simple command (which can and probably does void your warranty, depending on how nice HTC/Google feels like being) and then you can flash whatever you like.

For other phones, there's usually a nonsupported hack that will let you do the same.

Why I’ve Fallen in Love with the Nexus One

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