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Comment Third-party apps are the kicker for me (Score 1) 587

I own both a Galaxy SIII and an iPhone 5 (iPhone since iPhone 3 - 2nd Android, HTC Incredible about a month, and SIII is for testing - but I've tested idea of making it my primary phone and relegating iPhone to testing)

I agree that iPhone OS and hardware are inferior to the SIII. Tethering is unstable on the iPhone compared to the SIII. Thing is, I have a few pieces of software that I paid for and are really critical to how I work and live. There are some Android "substitutes", but I've yet to find good solutions. I'd pay $10 or $20 or more if I can find apps that worked, or better still, to buy a ported version.

Comment Re:Dell is an idiot (Score 1) 408

I think the Android market share issue is overblown. Most of those devices aren't the quality of product that any American company would sell: they're low end Chinese 2.3 phones. More important, is Dell doesn't have a lot of credibility in the Android space. The fact that Android is popular doesn't mean anything for Dell's bottom line if they can't move the devices. Dell, Samsung, HTC, etc aren't in existence to fight the good fight and help Android rule the world. Their purpose is to profit for their shareholders. I think Dell realizes it's best to be a big fish in a small pond than an underfed fish in an ocean filled with whales like Samsung. And even though the Windows pond is small for mobile, Dell is a big fish in the other Windows pond, and they've had tons of success shipping those devices, for a long freaking time.

Comment Android not a good fit for Dell (Score 2) 408

Keep in mind that Dell is one of the few "mainstream" PC manufacturers that will sell you a top-line laptop with a Linux distro preinstalled and supported:
http://www.dell.com/us/soho/p/xps-13-linux/pd.aspx

So why stop selling Android devices (most popular mobile OS) and move to a platform that many don't think will go anywhere? Dell isn't known for Android; they're a trusted name in Windows machines. I've never seen a Dell Android phone or tablet in the wild. There's a good reason for that. Personally I think their Windows 8 devices will flop too, but they'll probably sell more of them than they do Android devices.

Comment Re:Android Store just more useful (Score 1) 255

I own both an S3 and an iPhone 5. I'm having a difficult time finding apps for the S3 that match what the apps I've grown to depend on in iOS. It's easy to quote statistics, but they don't tell me anything. I don't care if there's 700,000 apps if I can't find a good 100% replacement for an app like OmniFocus or Downcast. I've found a crapton of the same types of app on Android: a quick search on Google Play for "flashlight" returned 10,000 results (probably not all 10,000 are the same type of app, but search the first few dozen results so far shows me they are all apps that do the same thing) (To be fair, App Store returned a bunch as well: about 1200, 1/8 of the number as on Android)

Comment Re:Should I get an iPhone rather than Android (Score 1) 154

I actually own both an iPhone 5 and an S3. I've had 4 iPhones, and purchased the S3 b/c I wanted a test phone for mobile development. My plan: I'll make whatever seems the better phone my primary line.

My opinion: the S3 seems to be a superior phone. However, there are some really top notch apps on iOS, and I'm finding poor substitutes so far on Google Play (both free and paid). (TweetBot, Things, Downcast, and OmniFocus come to mind) Some of the "same" apps available on both are very poor on Android. Some of my favorite games aren't on Android (PopCap titles). Even where I've found identical apps, often there's no "Pro" version on Android that I can (re)purchase to get rid of ads.

Bottom line: the S3 is s superior device, and I love Android's features, but it's all about the apps. I'm really cheering for the S3, but I think it'll be at least a year before the ecosystem catches up. :-(

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