Verizon fires a shot accross the iphone's bow

[dullard]

I can't wait for more reviews. My current contract (with Alltel but bought out by Verizon) is up in December, but my phone is broken and I've been borrowing a featureless and nearly batteryless ~5 year old phone for the last few weeks. I'll likely get this phone mid-November and just waste the last month of my old contract.

Does anyone know of a bulleted list of it's features?

 

[Deeko]

Originally posted by: Chris

Originally posted by: Deeko
fyi...Chris is a notorious Apple-proponent. There is nothing wrong with the Android platform.

Because the G1 was awesome. And fast. And had great battery life. Before Moto wants to talk shit about the iPhone, how 'bout they prove the Droid is worth a damn?

The G1 was a pretty good phone, yes. It came out a year ago - are you comparing its processor to the 3GS, that just came out? How about you compare it to something from that time, like the regular 3G? It performed as well, and had just as good battery life. Why would Motorola wait until the phone is out to start advertising? Do you think they, uh, haven't used the phone themselves already? Or are you just upset that someone dared take a shot at Apple?

*sigh* If high-level languages compiled into IL are so slow, can you explain why Amazon's back end is slowly but surely being converted from C++ to Java, or why much of Microsoft's new (non-legacy) code is written in C#? Today's languages are not the same as they were in 1996, you just have to know how to use them.

Back-end code. 90% of what you are running on the back-end is the same code which gets compiled by the JIT so it's not IL anymore anyway. With back-end apps the latency is in the data sources (database/web services) not the actual code so it's not a big win use C/C++, especially considering the complexity of the language and how you can shoot your self in the foot with memory management. With UI it's a different story, and sorry, the terms Java and "snappy interface" are not exactly synonymous.

Well, it seems you're at least trying to sound smart with this post, but you still missed the mark. I think you're talking about java web applets circa 1998, not the actual java programming language. I don't even like coding in Java and I won't whine that its painfully slow. ESPECIALLY since we're talking about cell phones here. The code is not the bottleneck on a cell phone, either. By the way - do you expect Amazon to right front-end UI components in C? Are you aware that Amazon is a website?

 

[dwell]

Originally posted by: Deeko
Well, it seems you're at least trying to sound smart with this post, but you still missed the mark. I think you're talking about java web applets circa 1998, not the actual java programming language. I don't even like coding in Java and I won't whine that its painfully slow.

So, basically, you're somebody who used Java in a CS course and you're trying to argue with a 13 year vet about the performance of the platform? Have you compared the performance of say, Google Maps, on a Blackberry (Java apps) and the iPhone (Objective-C, native code) even on the iPhone 1.0?

ESPECIALLY since we're talking about cell phones here. The code is not the bottleneck on a cell phone, either.

The code *is* a bottleneck on cell phones. Just look how godawful J2ME apps perform on cell phones compared to native apps.

By the way - do you expect Amazon to right front-end UI components in C? Are you aware that Amazon is a website?

I don't expect anyone to front-end any GUI in Java, because it's a lousy platform for front-end apps.

But, by all means, when Droid does come out, let's compare system responsiveness and overall UI snappiness with the iPhone.

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: eternalone
maybe something good could come of this who knows. We need and Iphone alternative in the world.

you mean another one like the other dozen or so that are already available?

 

[Deeko]

ha - yea, I'm someone that's used Java in a CS course. Its not possible that I was talking about code I've written when I mentioned those companies earlier. Its foolish to try comparing Blackberry Maps to Google Maps, they're, uh, different programs. As for your Google Maps comparison, have you tried comparing Google Maps on a G1 or Hero to the iPhone? Obviously that's a more relevant discussion here, since we're discussing Java performance in relation to the iPhone. Anyway, on a cell phone, especially in a network-intensive application (like Google Maps), the bottlenecks are generally the network itself, and the slow memory. Of course this can vary from phone to phone.

Considering the G1/MyTouch/Hero have a pretty snappy UI with an old, slow processor, I'm sure the Droid/Sholes will be just fine. I'm sure you'll hate it, but you're an Apple drone, so that doesn't surprise me.

 

[dwell]

Originally posted by: Deeko
ha - yea, I'm someone that's used Java in a CS course. Its not possible that I was talking about code I've written when I mentioned those companies earlier. Its foolish to try comparing Blackberry Maps to Google Maps, they're, uh, different programs. As for your Google Maps comparison, have you tried comparing Google Maps on a G1 or Hero to the iPhone?

Even better because Maps performs terrible on the G1 compared to the iPhone implementation. Never used the Hero but I have no reason to think it would fare any better than the G1.

Anyway, on a cell phone, especially in a network-intensive application (like Google Maps), the bottlenecks are generally the network itself, and the slow memory. Of course this can vary from phone to phone.

You can't blame sluggish screen draws on network latency. And it's debatable if Dalvik is actually slower than your standard JVM.

Considering the G1/MyTouch/Hero have a pretty snappy UI with an old, slow processor, I'm sure the Droid/Sholes will be just fine. I'm sure you'll hate it, but you're an Apple drone, so that doesn't surprise me.

Apple drone, that's funny. What does that make you? ABA?

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I imagine like other Verizon phones this one will have no wifi, which is annoying.

I always liked being a Verizon customer, but I've been an iPhone guy for almost a year and a half and have no desire to move to a different phone platform. I don't really care about any of the Droid's claimed advantages over the iPhone, and have yet to see anyone make what I consider a viable alternative. (Obviously that is entirely a matter of personal taste - I know many people who are delighted with their Blackberries.) I imagine I will upgrade to the next-gen iPhone at some point, but for the time being have no real issues with my 3G.

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: Don Vito Corleone
I imagine like other Verizon phones this one will have no wifi, which is annoying.

I always liked being a Verizon customer, but I've been an iPhone guy for almost a year and a half and have no desire to move to a different phone platform. I don't really care about any of the Droid's claimed advantages over the iPhone, and have yet to see anyone make what I consider a viable alternative. (Obviously that is entirely a matter of personal taste - I know many people who are delighted with their Blackberries.) I imagine I will upgrade to the next-gen iPhone at some point, but for the time being have no real issues with my 3G.

my wifi works very well and i have verizon. i havent "hacked" any part of it either.

 

[Codewiz]

OK lets put this to rest......

The different between the iphone and an android phone right now has NOTHING to do with Objective C versus Java. It has EVERYTHING to do with the fact that Apple highly optimized everything to could on the iphone to run smoothly on the SHITTY processors they had at their disposals. Palm did the EXACT same thing as Apple. That is why the Pre and the iPhone run like champs on the same processors that the android runs like shit on.

Take that same sluggish Android phone and throw a Samsung 1Ghz chip in it and it will be just fine.

My problem with the Pre is that Palm did not have time or expertise to create a coherent SDK. Palm is going to hurt BADLY until they get a decent SDK going. It is the same thing Apple did. Look at Apple the first year. They had nothing because they thought webapps would be good enough. Palm did a little better but provided very little power to the Pre developers.

Android is a great platform and I personally will say BETTER than the Objective C platform of the iphone. I hate to break it to Apple fanboys but Objective C is only used at Apple. No one gives a shit aobut it outside of apple. You can slam java all you want but it is widely used and isn't slow. It is a viable platform for development especially with the hardware coming down the pipe. Android will be tapping into a huge marketshare of developers that don't have to learn a new language. Objective C is just a fvcking pain in the ass.

This coming from a guy that develops code on his Mac Pro. Uses a macbook pro when traveling, has a macbook at home, iphone owner and a mac mini as a HTPC. So I use Apple products but Objective C is just a mountain most developers see little benefit to climbing.

 

[Leros]

I don't know if this has been said yet.

hese commercials are terrible. 99% of the general public has no idea what is being advertised. Only the geeks know what Android is and they don't even call it Android in the commercial.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: hanoverphist

Originally posted by: Don Vito Corleone
I imagine like other Verizon phones this one will have no wifi, which is annoying.

I always liked being a Verizon customer, but I've been an iPhone guy for almost a year and a half and have no desire to move to a different phone platform. I don't really care about any of the Droid's claimed advantages over the iPhone, and have yet to see anyone make what I consider a viable alternative. (Obviously that is entirely a matter of personal taste - I know many people who are delighted with their Blackberries.) I imagine I will upgrade to the next-gen iPhone at some point, but for the time being have no real issues with my 3G.

my wifi works very well and i have verizon. i havent "hacked" any part of it either.

this.

Verizon has been changing their attitudes about such features.

Wifi was included by default when the Omnia was released, but the GPS was locked out.
Eventually the Storm had the GPS unlocked (or was it always unlocked?), and they followed up with unlocking the Omnia's GPS.

From this point on, I can imagine all smart phones will have all the hardware included accessible from the start. Verizon is starting to realize smart phones is THE market to compete in, and they need to have the features in the phones.

 

[Deeko]

Originally posted by: Chris

Originally posted by: Deeko
ha - yea, I'm someone that's used Java in a CS course. Its not possible that I was talking about code I've written when I mentioned those companies earlier. Its foolish to try comparing Blackberry Maps to Google Maps, they're, uh, different programs. As for your Google Maps comparison, have you tried comparing Google Maps on a G1 or Hero to the iPhone?

Even better because Maps performs terrible on the G1 compared to the iPhone implementation. Never used the Hero but I have no reason to think it would fare any better than the G1.

Anyway, on a cell phone, especially in a network-intensive application (like Google Maps), the bottlenecks are generally the network itself, and the slow memory. Of course this can vary from phone to phone.

You can't blame sluggish screen draws on network latency. And it's debatable if Dalvik is actually slower than your standard JVM.

Considering the G1/MyTouch/Hero have a pretty snappy UI with an old, slow processor, I'm sure the Droid/Sholes will be just fine. I'm sure you'll hate it, but you're an Apple drone, so that doesn't surprise me.

Apple drone, that's funny. What does that make you? ABA?

Maps is terrible on the G1? According to whom, AppleInsider.com? I used a G1 for 10 months with 0 issues with Google Maps performance.

You're spinning your wheels (and frankly, just plain wrong/trapped in the 90s) on the whole Java thing. You can code for Windows Mobile in C++, doesn't that mean Windows Mobile should have the best app performance on the market? A well coded application on a solid device will run well, period.

And yes - you very much are an Apple drone on these forums, I don't know what you mean by ABA, and frankly I don't care. You hate everything that isn't Apple, and will find any excuse to bash it (even if it isn't true). Give it a rest, kid.

 

[Deeko]

Originally posted by: Leros
I don't know if this has been said yet.

hese commercials are terrible. 99% of the general public has no idea what is being advertised. Only the geeks know what Android is and they don't even call it Android in the commercial.

Droid is the name of a specific Android phone, which will be released by Motorola on Verizon (Verizon has released multiple ads attacking AT&T/iPhone recently). I'm sure there will be more specific ads in the future.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: Deeko

Originally posted by: Leros
I don't know if this has been said yet.

hese commercials are terrible. 99% of the general public has no idea what is being advertised. Only the geeks know what Android is and they don't even call it Android in the commercial.

Droid is the name of a specific Android phone, which will be released by Motorola on Verizon (Verizon has released multiple ads attacking AT&T/iPhone recently). I'm sure there will be more specific ads in the future.

seriously. It's called viral advertising for a reason. Gatorade did it with the "G" commercials, and a few weeks later expanded on that with more information. The only help in the original commercials was the copyright S-VC text at the bottom. Most people had no clue or only guesses as to what the commercial meant.

Eventually the advertising will be more informative and more focused. It starts with little to help draw in attention through confusion and intrigue, and then they capture them with more commercials later.

 

[sourceninja]

I like my iphone. I used to love it, until apple started removing and banning apps I wanted to use. When my contract is up next year I'm switching to anything else. I hope android takes off.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

Originally posted by: sourceninja
I like my iphone. I used to love it, until apple started removing and banning apps I wanted to use. When my contract is up next year I'm switching to anything else. I hope android takes off.

And, hopefully we get our long awaited youporn app on our Droid's

 

[maziwanka]

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus

Originally posted by: sourceninja
I like my iphone. I used to love it, until apple started removing and banning apps I wanted to use. When my contract is up next year I'm switching to anything else. I hope android takes off.

And, hopefully we get our long awaited youporn app on our Droid's

! hahaha

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: destrekor

Originally posted by: hanoverphist

Originally posted by: Don Vito Corleone
I imagine like other Verizon phones this one will have no wifi, which is annoying.

I always liked being a Verizon customer, but I've been an iPhone guy for almost a year and a half and have no desire to move to a different phone platform. I don't really care about any of the Droid's claimed advantages over the iPhone, and have yet to see anyone make what I consider a viable alternative. (Obviously that is entirely a matter of personal taste - I know many people who are delighted with their Blackberries.) I imagine I will upgrade to the next-gen iPhone at some point, but for the time being have no real issues with my 3G.

my wifi works very well and i have verizon. i havent "hacked" any part of it either.

this.

Verizon has been changing their attitudes about such features.

Wifi was included by default when the Omnia was released, but the GPS was locked out.
Eventually the Storm had the GPS unlocked (or was it always unlocked?), and they followed up with unlocking the Omnia's GPS.

From this point on, I can imagine all smart phones will have all the hardware included accessible from the start. Verizon is starting to realize smart phones is THE market to compete in, and they need to have the features in the phones.

ive been playing with the gps in my omnia for a while now, pretty damn accurate most of the time. i can even see myself move from one end of the house to the other. kids think its funny

 

[dwell]

Originally posted by: Codewiz
Android is a great platform and I personally will say BETTER than the Objective C platform of the iphone. I hate to break it to Apple fanboys but Objective C is only used at Apple. No one gives a shit aobut it outside of apple. You can slam java all you want but it is widely used and isn't slow. It is a viable platform for development especially with the hardware coming down the pipe. Android will be tapping into a huge marketshare of developers that don't have to learn a new language. Objective C is just a fvcking pain in the ass.

And the Android SDK is a ubiquitous platform? Hate Objective-C all you want -- 80,000 apps on the app store. iPhone development is what people want to do. Stanford's iPhone Development course is #1 on iTunes U for months. Android development -- not so much.

 

[Jack Ryan]

Originally posted by: Deeko

Originally posted by: Chris

Originally posted by: Deeko
ha - yea, I'm someone that's used Java in a CS course. Its not possible that I was talking about code I've written when I mentioned those companies earlier. Its foolish to try comparing Blackberry Maps to Google Maps, they're, uh, different programs. As for your Google Maps comparison, have you tried comparing Google Maps on a G1 or Hero to the iPhone?

Even better because Maps performs terrible on the G1 compared to the iPhone implementation. Never used the Hero but I have no reason to think it would fare any better than the G1.

Anyway, on a cell phone, especially in a network-intensive application (like Google Maps), the bottlenecks are generally the network itself, and the slow memory. Of course this can vary from phone to phone.

You can't blame sluggish screen draws on network latency. And it's debatable if Dalvik is actually slower than your standard JVM.

Considering the G1/MyTouch/Hero have a pretty snappy UI with an old, slow processor, I'm sure the Droid/Sholes will be just fine. I'm sure you'll hate it, but you're an Apple drone, so that doesn't surprise me.

Apple drone, that's funny. What does that make you? ABA?

Maps is terrible on the G1? According to whom, AppleInsider.com? I used a G1 for 10 months with 0 issues with Google Maps performance.

You're spinning your wheels (and frankly, just plain wrong/trapped in the 90s) on the whole Java thing. You can code for Windows Mobile in C++, doesn't that mean Windows Mobile should have the best app performance on the market? A well coded application on a solid device will run well, period.

And yes - you very much are an Apple drone on these forums, I don't know what you mean by ABA, and frankly I don't care. You hate everything that isn't Apple, and will find any excuse to bash it (even if it isn't true). Give it a rest, kid.

Agreed, and why does he still work with Java if he hates it so much?

 

[dwell]

Originally posted by: Deeko
You're spinning your wheels (and frankly, just plain wrong/trapped in the 90s) on the whole Java thing. You can code for Windows Mobile in C++, doesn't that mean Windows Mobile should have the best app performance on the market? A well coded application on a solid device will run well, period.

You can't get blood from a stone any less more than you can get good performance from a VM. Even shoddily written native apps will outperform fine-tuned VM apps in nearly all cases.

And yes - you very much are an Apple drone on these forums, I don't know what you mean by ABA, and frankly I don't care. You hate everything that isn't Apple, and will find any excuse to bash it (even if it isn't true). Give it a rest, kid.

You hate everything Apple. *Your* track record has proven that much. Android is your great hope at usurping the iPhone juggernaut. Good luck with that.

 

[dwell]

Originally posted by: Jack Ryan
Agreed, and why does he still work with Java if he hates it so much?

I do Java back-end development and like I said, in that capacity Java works well. I am in a department with 100 Java developers and every one of them will laugh at you if you even bring up the notion of Java UI. Heck, most of them are learning iPhone development.

 

[StrangeRanger]

Uhm... it's Verizon, they're gonna cripple the fuck snot out of it no matter what

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

Originally posted by: StrangeRanger
Uhm... it's Verizon, they're gonna cripple the fuck snot out of it no matter what

The rumor is that they won't be on this. Let's hope that rumor is true....

 

[Platypus]

Originally posted by: StrangeRanger
Uhm... it's Verizon, they're gonna cripple the fuck snot out of it no matter what

Read the press releases about this, Verizon realized it couldn't compete by crippling their phones and will be leaving the android phones open.

Also, shitty inconsistent moderation, these threads always run forever in OT but whenever I post something about verizon it gets moved to the useless phone subforum that gets 3 posts a day.