I am Zef

It often is said that even if Android would be best operating system in the world, that wouldn’t matter much if nobody is developing applications for it. If I remember correctly iPhone’s application count is around 160,000 and Android’s is around 40,000 (although I wasn’t able to find the source on this). But of course, it’s not about quantity, it’s about quality.

After only a few days of using the Nexus One, I cannot really draw any definite conclusions whether Android applications are better or worse than iPhone applications, but these are my impressions after trying a few of them out.

The first thing I noticed is that it’s painfully clear that there are no Android user interface guidelines, or if there are, that developers are ignoring them. Note that Apple has rejected applications because they do not behave like iPhone applications ought to, which is a bit extreme, but it does result in a roughly uniform set of applications on the platform. Android is more like Windows in this sense, every application looks different. Some use super colorful interfaces. Others are all black and white (like many of the applications that come with Android by default). Even Google does not stick to one UI style. The messaging, Gmail and calendar applications are simple, black and white apps that look kind of boring. But its application menu, clock and photo gallery applications are super fancy looking.

Compare and contrast:

GMail:

Camera and gallery:

It is also clear that different Android devices have different screen resolutions. I downloaded a few applications where buttons were stretched and awkward looking. Rather ugly.

But looks aside — if you care about style and looks, Android at this point is not the platform for you — most applications are pretty functional. Especially the set of applications that does stuff you will never be able to do on the iPhone.

• Handsent SMS is an acceptable replacement for the rather sparse SMS texting application that comes with Android. Yes, on Android you can build an alternative SMS application, that is in fact a first-class citizen.
• CallTrack is an application that can automatically put all your incoming, missed and outgoing calls on a (Google) calendar. Useful if you want to keep track of who you called when.
• Shapewriter is a keyboard replacement that allows you to write text by sliding your fingers over the keyboard, rather than tapping. It works quite well. There’s also a ShapeWriter iPhone application, the difference is that ShapeWriter for Android can function as an input device in any application. Even if you don’t like the shape writer app itself, it’s cool that it’s possible. Right? Here’s a demo:

There’s also some applications that I use often that are very specific to the Netherlands. It turns out they almost all have Android equivalents, like an application to plan train trips (“OV: Trein”), a Dutch TV guide (“TV Gids.tv”), checking rainfall (“buienradar”), Dutch news (“Nu.nl”). I was surprised to find these applications in the Android Market.

As far as games go Android is far, far behind. Games like Robo Defense are fun, but hardly impressive. Maybe it’s because of the choice to develop applications in Java?

Either way, if you’re not a die-hard gamer. Android has quite a few nice applications. But the extreme niche applications you won’t find there for a while.

Today was a busy day at work, lots of writing to do, so I did not use my Nexus One a whole lot. However, this does give a more realistic idea of what the battery life of the phone is like and I must say, it seems not bad at all. I charged it during the night and it appears to be at about 50% right now (it’s about 10 p.m. as I write this). Pretty good!

Yesterday I talked about multi tasking wondering why there wasn’t a built-in way to easily switch between applications. Well, it turns out there is, simply by holding the home key for a second. Great. Exactly what I wanted. I have some colleagues also trying out the Nexus One and as we were talking about it, we came to the conclusion that Android may have issues with the discoverability of features.

How important is it that features are easily discoverable? When I buy a piece of electronics I hardly ever read the manual. I just use it. I did the same with the Nexus One, it didn’t even come with a manual (although there is an online manual). Could I have guess that holding the home key would bring up a task switcher? I don’t think so. Maybe eventually I would have pushed and held every button, just to see what would happen. But it’s not just the task switching.

On Android there’s a couple of these not-so-obvious interaction patterns that are kind of important to know. In an application you typically have a bunch of controls on the screen, which you can tap. That’s pretty intuitive. However, for some items tapping and holding does something different. After a while a pop-up menu will appear with further options related to that item. The semi-physical menu button at the bottom of the screen pops up a context menu related to the currently active screen. In some applications I spent some time looking for a search feature only to remember that there is a dedicated semi-physical button for that. In the very beginning I had the same issue with trying to go back to the previous screen (there is a dedicated back button).

Are those dedicated buttons really necessary? When I use an application on the phone, after a while everything that does not change fades away. I no longer notice the notification bar, or the physical buttons below, I only see the application. I no longer realize these are still there, even though at some point I will need them. I suppose this takes some getting used to.

Of course I’m used to the iPhone, which only has one button: the home button. The rest is access by taps and swipes on the screen. Are the iPhone gestures always obvious? I suppose not, but somehow the amount of video footage I saw of people using iPod touches and iPhones taught me how to use it already before actually having one in my hands myself, so I never had this problem.

Text input
I type a fair bit on phones: twitter, short e-mails, text messages. So the quality of the (virtual) keyboard matters a lot. I’m in the “special” situation (like many non-US citizens) that I write in different languages at different times. In fact I switch between two, sometimes three languages (English, Dutch and Polish). Both Android and iPhone have auto correction built-in. This feature will correct you when you are mistyping a word. A useful feature, but it only works if the keyboard is set to the correct language. On Android there does not appear to be an easy way to switch between languages, but even if there would be one, it supports neither of my other two languages. Typing Dutch on a keyboard that is auto correcting for English is not a pleasurable experience, I can assure you. Luckily today I found out you can switch auto correction off, which makes it bearable. Still, even in English I do not seem to get the same results as on the iPhone. Sometimes the space bar doesn’t seem to register my taps, and more than a few times I accidentally pushed the home or menu button while trying to tap the space bar. Navigating within text requires the use of the trackball. I find the trackball a bit of an odd thing, it does not respond that well and feels a bit strange to use, like you flipped an old-fashioned mouse, trying to move it that way. Switching between navigating within text and typing characters means switching between screen and physical buttons. Not the best experience. I prefer the iPhone keyboard and text navigation.

But it’s not all bad, as you type, the keyboard shows multiple corrections and completions for the word you are typing, which is nicer than the single one the iPhone shows.

One fantastic alternative text input feature is speech input. Given that you’re a (near) native speaker of English, you can push the microphone button and speak your text instead of typing it. You can do this in any context where text input is required. Very nice, provided that you are in a situation where speaking out loud does not disturb others (in my case it often does). I tried it a few times and it transcribed my speech almost perfectly. Great feature.

Impressions after two days of use
I have been using the Nexus one for two days as my regular phone now. I must say that I like more than I dislike. My major complaint right now is the virtual keyboard, which for me does not seem to work as well as the iPhone’s. This is a big deal to me. Also, the keyboard does not always appear when it should. In the messaging (SMS) application, I often have to tap many, many times on the text input field in order to let the keyboard appear. I noticed similar problems in other applications from time to time.

On the phone, I have been using the Gmail (e-mail), Listen (podcast listening/downloading), Seesmic (twitter client) and Messaging (SMS) applications the most. Google Listen is a very nice podcast downloader and player. After you figure out the right workflow, it works well. Definitely a better experience than listening to podcasts on the iPhone. It’s a nice feeling that you do not really have to plug-in the phone to a computer at all, there’s no need to sync, it can download everything by itself. When I wake up in the morning, my Nexus One already downloaded the latest podcasts and I can get on my bike and listen to them while I cycle to work. (I know, I’m sooooo Dutch.) Of course in between I shower and have breakfast too. The Gmail application is good too. Yesterday I mentioned that e-mail notifications arrive late and got some push-back for that. Indeed, I was wrong. Notifications from Gmail are instantaneous. On my iPhone I use the Gmail web app, which is very good, but after getting an e-mail notification, I do still have to go to the Safari app and reload to actually read the e-mail. On Android I simply tap the notification to read the mail.

Do I still prefer an iPhone over the Nexus One? At this point, yes.