There seems to be no hardware menu button where I can change settings on the phone itself or the apps. Maybe there is a virtual one on the screen but I quickly got bored and uninterested and put the phone down.
If you go to the settings icon, you can find many of the settings for the phone or 3rd party apps. How is that difficult to figure out?
The same can't be said for Android:
http://gizmodo.com/5826915/is-android-about-to-get-crushed
Android's user interface is not particularly intuitive....consistency's a huge problem. (I have way too many friends who've had an Android phone for months and still barely have a handle on the basics.) For example, within an app, the back button doesn't always do the same thing. Sometimes it takes you up a level within an app, sometimes it switches you to another app you were previously in, and sometimes it just quits to the homescreen. Constantly, accidentally closing out of an app while you're in the middle of doing something is maddening (and it happens all the time, even to advanced users).
Not an issue with iOS. Whenever you want to close out an app and return to home, you hit the Home Button. Pretty simple if you ask me.
Once you see one iphone you've seen them all. They all look the same, everything that happens with the iphone needs to go through apples approval. I don't like to be told what I can and can't do by the man esp if its my phone that I purchased. Also I would hate to be tied down to stupid Itunes, to do anything with my phone. I'm sorry but I never drank the apple coolaid so I have no iservices.
I don't get the 'once you've seen one iphone, you've seen them all' reference. Are you referring to the styling of the phone itself or the home screen layout? Again, the emphasis on customization shouldn't be the only thing you hang your hat upon. Customization is good to a certain degree but not everyone is a mobile OS pro, I'd rather use an OS that someone spent thousands of hours making intuitive and designing than to ruin their work with my customization's. The App Store still has more apps than Android in their market, so Apple isn't as overbearing as they might appear. If you are dead set on doing whatever you want with your phone, than jailbreaking is always an option.
Also please explain to me how is the ios5's drop down notification system better than the android's version again?
Text quoted from the link above:
Android may have done them first, but iOS 5 is about to do them better. iOS 5's notification system is almost a direct rip of Android's, but it offers more control over how notifications are displayed/removed/opened/sorted. The webOS notifications for the TouchPad offer that same kind of granular control, so Android needs to do better, too.
Also the smoothness of the ui is the only thing the apple fan boys have. Have you ever used a highend android phone? Have you ever used a rooted and rom'ed phone? They are just as fast if not faster than the iphone 4. Did you ever see them do benchmark test side by side? Most of the time the iphone loses.
Have I used a high-end Android Smartphone? Yes (EVO4G, Samsung Infuse & Droid).
Have I ever used a rooted or rom'd phone? No, but this comparison should really focus on what you get 'out of the box'/stock phones.
I have seen the benchmark tests & yes some of the Android equipped phones do beat the iPhone 4 but like I said in my earlier response, its not all about hardware/specs, its about the user experience and how the hardware is integrated into the overall package. Honestly, Android is no where near the fit and finish of Apple & iOS.
Yes a high resolution is nice, but its nothing more than a stop gap because the screen is just too small. You really can't type well with it and the screen real estate is just too small to do any serious web browsing. I wouldn't want to read comics online with such a small screen. Give me a 4.3 inch screen anyday. If the retina display was so great why is steve dropping the 3.5 inch format to go bigger?... I thought so.
LOL, this part so blasphemous I had to address it seperately. If any Android phone were to beat the resolution of the iPhone 4, Android fanboi's would be cheering to the high heavens. I've never felt like the screen was too small and I've always been able to type really quickly on my iphone's but who really wants to read comics/magazines/books on a smartphone? That's never been the purpose of a smartphone. If you want more landscape, pick up an iPad, Nook, Kindle, or whatever. I'd wager that the resolution is going to either stay the same or improve if the iPhone 5 does get a larger screen but there is a certain form factor you have to consider. Does bigger really signify better? Are we really going to see 5" or 6" screens on cell phones? Having larger screens on cell phones is to a certain degree a gimmick that many of the iPhone competitors have used to skirt their resolution issues or lack thereof. Increasing the size of the iPhone screen from 3.5" to 4" isn't Jobs or Apple's way of waiving the red flag, just another feature to add to the list.
LTE is real 4G, not hspa +, not wimax. To call LTE a joke without ever using it is pure comedy.
This is why I feel 4G is a joke & even your claim of real 4G is a joke as well. ITU standard 4G should be hitting speeds of 100mb/sec, we shouldn't be happy with 20mb/sec and allow cellular network providers to hoodwink uninformed customers.
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/111455/4g-is-a-myth-and-confusing
Verizon 4G coverage map:
http://network4g.verizonwireless.com/#/coverage
What they don't show you is the actual amount of area 4G covers. I'd love to see that map. Forget the lack of coverage, what about battery issues? They drain within an hour or two of 4G use, even if the next gen iPhone has 4G capabilities, I wouldn't count it as an advantage due to battery & coverage issues.
So how is the iphone not behind in the hardware front again? We have expandable sd slots, we can actually change our batteries, , have 4 choices of dual core processors, we have 1 gig of ram ( we are comparing the high end devices here ), and samsung's cameras rivals apples, but you can always improve the software by downloading it on the market to give you more options of adjustments. Most have 2 gigs of internal memory which is more than enough to run hundreds of apps and the sd card is used to just store music, movies, photos etc.
Expandabe SD slots = More $$$ spent to buy the memory cards, which would then price Android phones out of comparison. Apple has more built-in memory. I don't want to spend another $20-40 bucks to buy expandable memory if I just forked over $200 for my phone.
I'm sorry but are you comparing every feature within every Android phone to the iPhone? Pick the best Android phone and compare it to the iPhone, you can't mix and match features. It would lead the uninformed consumer to believe you could choose which processor you have within your phone, which isn't the case. As for the photo/video capture comparison, the iPhone 4 wins:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/199845/smartphone_camera_battle_iphone_4_vs_the_android_army.html
Lets just put it this way, after playing with an iphone 4 and being extremely unimpressed with it, plus I am so turned off by apple's business practices from how they over charge for their products, and claiming to be first in many innovations but they actually were not. (They basically just made it mainstream). I would rather use a flip phone than to use any iproduct.
See here's the real issue. I think many people have a bias towards Apple products due to their perceived impressions of the company or it's consumer and run towards the next closest alternative (Android in this case) even if it's not on par with Apple products.
Jack you are one of the cooler posters here but I will never see you eye to eye between our phones of choice ( unless you take my eyes out and put it on your own head, and even then I still might refuse to like apple. )
Awww schucks buddy, you're making me blush. We can agree to disagree, I just like the spirited debate aspect. Give it time, maybe you will think differently down the line.