How Samsung stole Apple's lead

[Mopetar]

And, as a side note, is there any software more universally frustrating to work with than iTunes? That was my biggest reason to research Android phones as opposed to just getting an iPhone myself, and I'm glad I did. I wouldn't want to fight with iTunes to figure out how to get albums onto my phone.

It's not really that bad on a Mac, but iTunes for Windows is a bloated monstrosity. I know that there are a few other options for media syncing options available for Linux, but I haven't used any of them recently so I can't comment how good they are.

 

[Dominato3r]

Who cares about this? Hell who even knows about it? Not the average Android user, I can't even count the number of Android users I've shown how to add widgets and shortcuts to a screen. Most literally know nothing about their phone outside of how to call, text and surf the web.

WHo cares about this? keyboard and launcher apps have million of downloads in the store

 

[SlitheryDee]

And, as a side note, is there any software more universally frustrating to work with than iTunes? That was my biggest reason to research Android phones as opposed to just getting an iPhone myself, and I'm glad I did. I wouldn't want to fight with iTunes to figure out how to get albums onto my phone.

I have heard this quite often and never experienced it. I have an android phone and I have literally purchased music that I already own and is part of my iTunes library just because I didn't want to bother picking through folders to drag and drop music onto it.

If you set up iTunes correctly it is far better than anything I've experienced with android. Plug your device in, check a couple of boxes to indicate anything outside of your smart playlists that you might want to add, click sync. Done. It's even easier with my iPad since they've implemented wifi sync on ios 5, which I assume is also true for iPhones that support iOS 5. I've never had any trouble at all putting exactly what music or videos I want on my iPods and iPad, yet I've had the same music on my android phone for months simply because I don't feel like mucking about in the file system.

It mystifies me that anyone complains about iTunes being frustrating. It has worked far better for me in putting exactly what I want on the devices I have that support it than anything else I've tried. The only thing I've tried that even approaches it is Winamp, and I'm pretty sure you can use Winamp with iDevices too. But why would you want to use something that is just like iTunes but not as intuitive when you could use iTunes?

 

[ponyo]

iTunes is complicated bloated mess. Worst software ever.

 

[QueBert]

WHo cares about this? keyboard and launcher apps have million of downloads in the store

Google claims 850k Android devices are activated daily, millions of downloads = a few weeks of sales. In the big picture Launcher Pro and all other launchers are used by a fraction of Android owners. Yes there are people who care, but it's the vast minority.

As for people complaining about iTunes, I use it but I next to never never actually open the software. It's smart playlist capabilities are 2nd to none. On my EVO 4G I have an app called iSyncr which lets me sync my smart play lists. I could not live without iTunes smart playlists

 

[psych2]

Some of those new device activations (1 million by now) are from people upgrading to new devices. If they purchased launcher apps, replacement keybords and other elements before those will show up automatically on their new device. I don't think those are counted for downloads as those are tied to your google account. IN any case it's definitely a pro and allows third party vendors to improve upon something without being constricted by OS release cycles.

Itunes is a bloated mess on windows, that is one reason why I'll never go back to iOS. Constantly taking an hour plus to sync my 3GS is such a PITA compared to an open file structure lol.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

If I had to guess, it's because the market has been doubling year over year for a while now, and there's still enough people who still don't own smart phones to sustain that for a while longer.

It will probably taper off more as the market becomes saturated, but I expect the next Galaxy phone to do even better unless for some reason someone like HTC comes out with something that absolutely crushes anything else available.

It's also because the GAlaxy S phones have rapidly become THE Android phone to get. The SGS2 sold far faster than the SGS1, and same with the 3 vs the 2.

you could say small screens are here to stay because the 4S sold at launch far faster than the 4....

i just don't think using those statistics is indicative of large screens here to stay.

People will buy whatever you throw at them.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

You know why Apple suck? Because they won't use micro USB.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

You know why Apple suck? Because they won't use micro USB.

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MD099ZM/A

 

[dguy6789]

Hopefully with the iPhone 6 they will invent, patent, and become the first phone manufacturer to have native MicroUSB support that doesn't need an adapter.

 

[dagamer34]

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MD099ZM/A

Very helpful to someone living in the United States.

 

[jpeyton]

iTunes is the #1 reason why I will never get an iPhone again.

The only two commands I need to use to move music/movies/photos/ringtones/playlists/etc. on or off my Android phone is:

Ctrl+C
Ctrl+V

 

[Chiropteran]

I have heard this quite often and never experienced it. I have an android phone and I have literally purchased music that I already own and is part of my iTunes library just because I didn't want to bother picking through folders to drag and drop music onto it.

If that is meant to be a glowing recommendation it fails miserably.

So it's such a hassle to add music to iTunes that you would rather buy it again than try to figure out how to get it into iTunes? Sounds wonderful, not.

 

[psych2]

If that is meant to be a glowing recommendation it fails miserably.

So it's such a hassle to add music to iTunes that you would rather buy it again than try to figure out how to get it into iTunes? Sounds wonderful, not.

That's how life looks in the reality distortion field lol

 

[ControlD]

iTunes is the #1 reason why I will never get an iPhone again.

The only two commands I need to use to move music/movies/photos/ringtones/playlists/etc. on or off my Android phone is:

Ctrl+C
Ctrl+V

I have to admit I am a little bit jealous. That and only being able to get music on my phone from one stinking computer. I had a hard drive die not too long ago. I have always manually managed all of the data on my iPhone so I figured it would be no big deal to get back up and running. Turns out the only way I could get more music on my phone was to completely wipe it and start from scratch. How is this in any way user friendly? The funny thing is, my comparatively cheap iPod Touch can get music from multiple computers without any issue at all. Go figure.

 

[QueBert]

If that is meant to be a glowing recommendation it fails miserably.

So it's such a hassle to add music to iTunes that you would rather buy it again than try to figure out how to get it into iTunes? Sounds wonderful, not.

Reading comprehension? He knows how to use iTunes, he doesn't want to have to drag and drop it to his Android phone. Loading music on an Android device is a PITA that the average person cannot do. Android does have Doubletwist, which is a piss poor iTunes clone, but a lot of people don't even know about it. He was saying adding music to iTunes is seamless and syncing an iOS device is also seamless. Where Android requires a good deal of knowledge to get music loaded on.

 

[SlitheryDee]

If that is meant to be a glowing recommendation it fails miserably.

So it's such a hassle to add music to iTunes that you would rather buy it again than try to figure out how to get it into iTunes? Sounds wonderful, not.

You misunderstand. I'd rather buy the music again through amazon's mp3 app and download it directly to my phone than try to drag and drop stuff from my iTunes folder to my android phone. I know dragging and dropping music isn't exactly taxing, but if you've got a very large library of music and want to rotate it semi-randomly over time, there is nothing in android that can match a smart playlist in iTunes set to sync automatically whenever the device is in range. I wish like hell that iTunes would somehow magically support my android phone.

 

[Mopetar]

Couldn't you use Google music? I never bothered to get it as I don't have much need for it, but a few of my friends who have tried it have good things to say. It might eat a lot of bandwidth to get everything uploaded, but after that you have everything available.

 

[supercheapit]

this is the very reason why i left the iPhone a year ago. Looking at my friends iPhone's now with a 3.5" screen looks tiny!

 

[MrX8503]

Why are people having such a big problem using iTunes? It's pretty simple to me.

 

[jpeyton]

Why are people having such a big problem using iTunes? It's pretty simple to me.

The easiest solution is usually the best. Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V.

 

[jessicalennita]

As samsung is launching new model every day it has become very difficult for the customers to choose the best phone. Thre are plenty of android models among the samsung with the larger screens. I would say that the screen size is one of the big deal that made samsung to beat the apple.

 

[ControlD]

Reading comprehension? He knows how to use iTunes, he doesn't want to have to drag and drop it to his Android phone. Loading music on an Android device is a PITA that the average person cannot do. Android does have Doubletwist, which is a piss poor iTunes clone, but a lot of people don't even know about it. He was saying adding music to iTunes is seamless and syncing an iOS device is also seamless. Where Android requires a good deal of knowledge to get music loaded on.

Come on, really? All you have to do is drag and drop. Any person that knows how to use a jump drive can figure out how to get music on their Android phone. Itunes obviously brings much more to the experience than simple file transfers, but it surely doesn't take a good deal of knowledge to get music on an Android phone.

 

[Dulanic]

Why are people having such a big problem using iTunes? It's pretty simple to me.

It's not a problem of using iTunes it's iTunes attempt to take over my PC with it's bloated self if I install it.

 

[Chiropteran]

You misunderstand. I'd rather buy the music again through amazon's mp3 app and download it directly to my phone than try to drag and drop stuff from my iTunes folder to my android phone.

Again, that sounds like a failure on the part of iTunes, not anything else.

I use amazon mp3 too. I have basically infinite space on the amazon cloud for my music. I don't drag & drop anything, I just keep all my music available at all times. It's really pretty simple unless you try to involve iTunes.