A phone for each hand

[bcholmes]

In Haiti, people who can afford it often carry multiple phones because the reliability of cell service is so awful. Over the last few weeks, I’ve also been carrying two phones. My reasons are different: I’m a mobile developer, and I’ve been wanting to improve my familiarity with the Android platform. So here are my phones:

The one on the left is a Galaxy Nexus running Jelly Bean; the phone on the right is an iPhone 5 running iOS 6. Strictly speaking, the iPhone 5 is the newer phone; I’ve had the Nexus a few weeks longer than I’ve had the iPhone 5, but the 5 just replaced my three-year-old 3S (that’s 21 in mobile years!).

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Mirrored from Under the Beret.

Comments

[hellsop]

That Annoying Button moves around, to wherever the manufacturer puts it. That's where Samsung likes it. HTC put that button on the top narrow end, and the volume rocker's in the Annoying place. Asus puts that button where HTC does, but puts the volume rocker on the narrow end too.

The Google thing is ... well, I tend to adapt/embrace things pretty well, so I've been willing to let the Goog play with things and it's been pretty flawless. It's interesting to me that you contrast that with Apple's syncing because from where I am, the objection sounds a lot like the the objection many people have to iTunes as a music library-sync host. They're not happy with trusting iTunes to do what it wants, and end up making a lot of work for themselves trying to manage what iTunes is managing. Google, similarly, given the opportunity let itself loose on your contacts and data ends up handling a lot of what I ended up having to manage back when I was using (several generations of) Blackberries. People I have as contacts show up on the G-talk messaging service, etc. Most impressively, the slickness of moving from one Android device to a new one is almost as simple as "1. Sign into your Google account(s). 2. Go have a cup of tea. 3. Pick up device and see that your contacts, email, browser bookmarks and history, applications, and settings have all magically appeared on new device."

[bcholmes]

What bugs me is I keep hitting That Annoying Button when I don't mean to. Since it puts the phone into stand-by, I think it should be someplace where I'm only going to hit it when I want to.

the objection sounds a lot like the the objection many people have to iTunes as a music library-sync host

I grok that. For my part, I still have A Thing about my data being on my machine, rather than in Google's servers somewhere. Somewhere in the US, for that matter.

I'm similarly resisting all of Apple's suggestions of putting my documents in the cloud. Not interested.

Most impressively, the slickness of moving from one Android device to a new one is almost as simple as...

I just did this with my iPhone. I plugged the new one into my Mac, and it immediately prompted me with the suggestion that it copy the back-up from the 3S to the new phone. I was up and running almost immediately.

[maize]

I wonder if our different reactions to the side button are in part because of the case. I have an Otterbox case for mine. It doesn't change the locations of the buttons at all, but I wouldn't be surprised if it requires a bit more force to push that button when it's in the case. Fiddling with it right now, I don't think it would be easy to activate the button accidentally even if I did pick up the phone by that spot or whatever. I've never tried using the phone without the case, so I don't know if that changes.

[maize]

I actually really like that button on the side.

My Galaxy Nexus connects to our Exchange server at work seamlessly, so if you get around to trying it, it should work for you too, I imagine. (I manage our Exchange server, so I know that I didn't have to do anything special on the back end to make that happen.)

[bcholmes]

I actually really like that button on the side.

YOU MUST BE CLEANSED WITH PURIFYING FIRE!

[maize]

Um.. I guess that coukd be fun?

[maize]

(I should note that while I have a Galaxy Nexus running Ice Cream Sandwich, I don't have a lot of buy-in either way. I basically got it because I don't like iPhones and it seemed to be the only other viable option. I was really looking forward to the Nokia N9 with Maemo or whatever they were rebranding it as that day, but when they ditched the slide-out keyboard and signed on for Windows Mobile, they lost me.)