First and foremost, the iPhone is way too small. The 3.5 inch screen is nice when I’m holding it 8 inches from my eye, but out and about it feels like my hands belong to Andre the Giant. I try to touch the screen and my thumb covers at least 10% of the surface area. How can you have accurate touches like that? I guess I should file down my thumbs and fingers. It’s so tiny that it killed all two-handed operations for me (especially since you can barely fit two thumbs side by side). I’ll admit that for some pockets, having a tiny screen is nice, but 4.3 inches might be better. This is just too small.

While the screen is too small, I’m happy that Apple has stuck to their decision to have one button that does different things depending on what version of the OS you have and how many times you press it and even how slow your presses are. It’s like opening a Christmas present every time I press the home button. Will I go to the home screen? The search screen? The recent apps? The Siri frontend for Wolfram Alpha? The music app?

To be fair, the small screen on the iPhone did introduce me to some new people. I heard that you can do a five-finger swipe to bring up the multitasking bar, but I couldn’t fit five fingers on the screen, so I had to go to Starbucks to find some fellow Apple users with smaller fingers to try. Then I found out that gesture just works on iPad. When will Apple develop a consistent user experience?

I like the missing software back button that is always in one place like on the Galaxy Nexus. On the iPhone, you can have it sometimes be in the top left with the word “Back” or “Home” or something else, or at the top right with the word “Done” or at the bottom as a “Cancel” button. This forces the user to be much more aware of the UI and whether something is a modal dialog, an action sheet, or whatever else. (Of course, the iPhone still has a power/wake button on the top.)

I also like the lack of indicator light on the iPhone. It’s helpful because I can make sure everyone knows I use Apple products since I have to always hold up my phone to turn it on to check for messages and people can see my important Apple logo and know that I’m creative. Why Samsung included a multi-color indicator light that tells me exactly what I missed without turning on the device, I will never understand.

The rest of the iPhone hardware leaves something to be desired. The Galaxy Nexus feels like a completely and thoughtfully designed product. By comparison, the iPhone is made of glass, something we intuitively think of as fragile. It’s also heavy/dense, giving it the consistant feeling of 80s technology that goes well with the click of the home button (or double click or long click or…). It’s not awful, but you’d think Apple could do better at this point. Some people will like not having the option to remove the back to get at the battery because that makes the iPhone almost as thin and as light as the Galaxy Nexus and gives you an excuse to buy a new phone every year.

The battery life itself is very good. I felt like the iPhone was lasting at least as long as the Galaxy Nexus on a fully charged battery, perhaps even a bit longer in some cases. Of course, I don’t have to worry about having the option of using it on 4G and possibly lowering the battery life.

The camera on the iPhone 4S is definitely worse than the Galaxy Nexus in both terms of front-facing camera (the 4S has a measly VGA camera and the Galaxy Nexus has a front-facing camera capable of 720p… a resolution the iPhone can’t even display) and in speed. If you want to get a picture of where something exciting was happening two seconds ago, the iPhone 4S will not let you down. Just press the shutter button when the scene is composed and you’ll get the scene that happens two seconds later. It’s like time travel.

And let’s talk about iOS 5. There is no question that the software is much improved over previous iterations in terms of copying Android’s notification system (though improved with X close buttons that are polished so much that they shrank to a size where you need a 2-year-old’s pinky to press them) and supporting Twitter. You know an OS has improved when Twitter is a selling point.

Unfortunately, the system still lacks much of the features that Android users enjoy. The majority of iOS users will probably think such criticism is bullshit, but that has always been the case. I imagine it’s probably pretty hard for a person who bought the car that made the most sense to him or her to explain to the person who bought a Prius because it was popular how perception affects the driving experience. The person with a personally-fitting car can attempt to explain why he or she likes a stick or more room, but the Prius owner will just believe that having the car pick gears for you is the best and would never spend enough time with any other car to appreciate the differences.

Still, if the iOS team ever wants to convert (or at least convice) most Android users, they still have quite a bit of work to do here. Then again, they probably don’t (or shouldn’t) care too much about converting Android users over to iOS. All the non-smartphone users out there remain the much bigger prize to go after (for both Apple and Google).

Other things that will sound like nits but drove me crazy with iOS 5 included having widgets only in the notification center. If I am adding a widget, I clearly want to see it where I want it. Why should I have to have it sit somewhere invisible that requires an extra swipe? What’s the different between being on my homescreen and having to open a full weather app (iOS4) and being on the home screen and having to swipe down the notifications to see the weather widget (iOS5)?

Another: why do I have to go into the Google Voice app to make a phone call using my Google Voice number? Google baked in support for alternate dialers into their OS; why didn’t Apple? If they’re worried about competition, why did they finally approve the app after a year-and-a-half and an FCC inquiry? Why is Siri letting people look at my private calendar while my phone is locked? And why on Earth is the web browser not the desktop version of Safari yet!?

The new WiFi-syncing is nice — I love not having to find the proprietary cable. But my god Apple needs help with iTunes. I have to reboot my computer into an OS they support and leave it on while my phone is plugged into a power outlet. As if iTunes weren’t already the worst software on the planet, I also have to waste a bunch of electricity keeping my computer on all the time in one of the two OSes Apple supports just to sync my data?

Apple’s universal support of voice dictation is a joke compared to Ice Cream Sandwich.

Some other authors have noted that iOS is ahead of Android when it comes to custom settings for apps, but I have to disagree. Why do I have to leave an app to go find the settings app to change the settings for the app I was just in? That’s completely illogical. Of course, some apps support changing their settings within the app and others don’t, so now we get back to the inconsistancy problem present in the iOS experience.

When it comes to web browsers, arguably the most important feature of any of these devices, there is no question that Android still has a big edge here. I’ve seen arguments on both sides for why iOS does not support third-party plugins–but doing a simple test proves that much of the web is still inaccessible from iOS. Worse, many pages render as large missing tiles featuring a checkerbox to keep the illusion of scrolling smoothly, even beyond the point at which the actual page ends. You try pinching to zoom and everything just stays fuzzy until your fingers stop moving. How am I supposed to know if the text is large and clear enough if it just zooms in and out on fixed pixels?

You’ll also see a bit of impossibility in iOS when you do simple things like trying to attach a file to an existing email draft or trying to attach a second file or trying to store any arbitrary data on your device. For the most part, iOS 5 does a good job of hiding its limitations, but there are plenty of times that you’ll still hit your head on a wall here and there.

The main problem I have with apps on iOS is that, well, they aren’t on iOS. I try to find my favorite keyboard replacement (SwiftKey) and it’s nowhere to be found. I try to get the ever-useful Wifi Analyzer, also not available. I’ve heard that the entire experience has a lot more polish on iOS, especially with the Twitter integration, so I gave it a try. I found one of my favorite links online and decided to open it on the Galaxy Nexus and the iPhone to verify it looked right. For the Galaxy Nexus, I simply clicked the Chrome to Phone button and it instantly popped up on my device. It looked good, so I long-pressed on the URL within the browser, picked share, selected my favorite Twitter app (hint: not the official one), and sent it with a tweet and a comment. I tried that on iOS, which involved trying to type the long URL in by hand in the stock keyboard. That was a pain, so I decided to long-press it in the Android browser again, share, and send it via Google Voice to the iPhone. I opened it in the iPhone, it looked pretty much the same as on the Galaxy Nexus (though tiny), so I copied the URL, pressed the clicky home button (just once), scrolled to the right through ten screens of apps, opened a Twitter app, pasted it into the new tweet box along with a comment, and tweeted.

It’s these tangibles where Android holds the huge advantage. And just like in sports, you can clearly teach the fundamentals. At some point, Apple may simple have to acknowledge that Android works better than iOS because Android’s entire open concept is woven into the product. Apps can properly communicate to each other without having to know of the other apps. The user can do what he or she wants. Even the launcher app can be replaced. Apple’s strengths are elsewhere; they should embrace that.

Apple has done some very nice work here. Both the iPhone 4S and iOS5 are a new pinnacle of the iOS platform. But in the end, it still comes down to something very simple: which device do I want to use day-to-day? Which phone do I reach for when I’m not doing a review? It’s still an Android phone. Without question.

Keep at it, Apple.

(For those who don’t know, this is a parody on the post MG Siegler did called “An iPhone Lover’s Take On The Galaxy Nexus.” I strongly recommend that you buy the phone that makes the most sense to you, whether it’s an Android phone, an iPhone, a Windows phone, or whatever. Any useful review will highlight the strengths and weaknesses of a given device and never tell you that it’s the one-size-fit-all solution.)

I wrote a review called [Review] ASUS Eee Pad Transformer – A Month With A Tablet In Disguise at Android Police, so I will not go into excessive detail here. If you are looking for a tablet that can actually be used to create real content, particularly for typing on the go, take a look at the Asus Eee Pad Transformer.

I see tablets as potentially fulfilling at least four primary purposes with many other specialized uses:

Communication is made easier by the tactile feel of browsing the web with the touch of a finger and responding to emails with an intuitive UI. Video calls are a reality for families and businesses alike and the technology will only continue to improve and become more affordable.

Art has so much potential when artists can interact with amazing technology, but it’s just not there yet. Although many artists have made excellent works using iPads and other tablets, there is just no comparison between a Cintiq and an iPad. I am excited to see what can be created when tablets reach even the sensitivity of a present-day Intuos, and I wouldn’t hesitate to spend more than what tablets cost right now for that kind of experience.

Productivity is also limited on tablets at this point. Sure, you can work on simple spreadsheets and even type on a word processor, but I don’t think many people would trade in a netbook or notebook and use a tablet to write the next great novel. Although there are always Bluetooth keyboards, they’re rarely convenient and definitely don’t help battery life.

Entertainment is impossible to ignore with a device that largely appears to be just a screen. Games and movies can be immersive but portable, personal but shareable. With HDMI ports and wireless video transfer, the entertainment of a tablet can be displayed on a larger screen to enjoy with friends (or to bask in the glory of your latest TV purchase alone).

Specialized Uses are easily found with new devices. Tablets can be excellent for presentations to small groups or for doctors to chart patient information (and imagine that tying in with an app like Google Body to allow doctors to give patients a clearer explanation of a particular health concern). They can be used as tools for communicating with those who have impairments. And they can certainly be used for thousands of purposes I haven’t even considered.

But tablets aren’t there yet. Of the fundamental four features (C.A.P.E.), tablets like the iPad and Xoom are off to a good start with communication and entertainment but have a long way to go with art and productivity. Because of this, I’ve decided to hold off for now. I think it will be a while before I’m satisfied with a tablet for artistic use, but productivity should come along quickly.

At this point, I have my eye on the Asus Eee Pad Transformer–an Android tablet that can function largely as a Xoom but which has an optional keyboard/trackpad dock that it can mount into to act as a simple netbook and double the battery life from 8 hours to 16 hours. Asus makes some excellent products, so I hope the Transformer does not disappoint. Although most tablets aren’t sold tied to a cellular contract, their use of mobile operating systems makes it clear that they will evolve at an exceedingly fast pace as smartphones have in the past few years. Hopefully buying a tablet in a few weeks would get me through a couple of years before the next one; with any luck, the art side of tablets will have improved by then.

There are a lot of advantages to a larger touchscreen, including making the UI easier to interact with because the hit areas can be larger. The biggest drawback is power use, though displays are becoming significantly more efficient (take a look at the LG Nova, for instance). The other would-be drawback is loss of portability, but consider this: The Evo 4G is only about seven millimeters wider and taller than the iPhone 4 despite having a screen that is 4.3″ vs. 3.5″ diagonally. So why wouldn’t Apple increase the screen size of the iPhone?

There are several reasons, most of which are obvious. The appearance has been roughly the same since the first version, so it’s easily recognizable. The smaller screen gives the iPhone longer battery life (particularly with how efficient the iPhone 4 screen is). The iPhone also has a higher percentage of female users who are more likely to have small hands (of course, they could offer more than one screen size, but that’s unlikely).

The reason that I don’t think is as obvious is the lack of a hardware back button, which is probably counterintuitive. Without a hardware back button, the iPhone could remove a lot of that wasted bezel (since you don’t need space for that physical button) and fit a much larger screen, but that’s a problem. The iPhone relies on software back buttons, which virtually every app implements, and the standard is to put them in the top left as a cancel or back button. If you’re using your phone with your right hand, that means stretching to the farthest corner of the device. When you’re looking at a screen that’s more than four inches diagonally, many people simply can’t stretch that far.

Contrast that with an Android phone where the back button is at the bottom (in portrait mode), so you can reach it easily. Phones are typically only a couple of inches wide, so the buttons are easily accessible regardless of how you’re holding the device. The screen can be 3″ or 5″ and not be affected.

Large tablets where your thumbs can’t reach across the device in portrait mode are a different matter and are much better candidates for on-screen buttons, so the buttons can be positioned close to where you actually hold the device (along the bottom of a given orientation). I’m excited to see how UI shifts as more and more tablets emerge, especially with the potential for a variety of operating systems.

Though I use my Nexus One for all my mobile needs, I still occasionally have to test things with the iPhone, and I’ve found that switching back is quite frustrating. Everyone touts the usability and user interface of iOS while commenting on how far Android has to go, but I’m definitely willing to take a stand and say iOS has plenty of issues of its own, big and small.

Keyboard
I was extremely used to the iPhone keyboard, so I initially found myself a bit slower, making occasional mistakes on the Nexus One. Now, when I try to use the iPhone keyboard, I am constantly hitting the wrong keys. I think that both keyboards are good, but you certain get used to a specific one. That said, there are some simple features that make the Android keyboard(s) better than iPhone’s. For instance, I keep the sound off on the keyboards I use, so I love the haptic feedback (slight vibration) I get with an Android device and typing on an iPhone feels, well, flat in comparison. I don’t have a sense of pressing any keys. The iPhone keyboard doesn’t even change the appearance of the letters to show if I am typing a capital letter or not. With Android, I’ve tried a few different keyboards, the default, Swype, and my personal favorite, SwiftKey, and I am much faster typing on an Android device.

Email
So here you are, typing an email on an iPhone when you suddenly realize you forgot to include this great picture that you took earlier. There’s no way to attach that image to the email now, whoops! In Android, you would simply press menu, attach, pick the program you want to use to select the file, and then pick the file. Another thing that really surprised me is the inability to configure sounds for email (or many other things for that matter… and why are app-specific settings not in the app they are for?). On my Nexus One, I have a different sound for my work account than for my personal accounts, so I know which account the email is for just from the sound. When the default new email sound plays on an iPhone at work, the half dozen iPhone owners nearby all check their iPhones.

Now opening your app… wait for it…. wait for it….
When I open an app on my N1, it is instantly open; few apps take more than a second to animate in. When I open an app on an iPhone, I get a fancy splash screen and then I get to wait. Well, that’s when the app developer actually bothered to make a splash screen. A lot of the built-in apps don’t have splash screens (Photos, Calendar, Clock, etc.), so you get a partial load and then a slight delay, and then the useful stuff appears. To be fair, as iPhone hardware has slowly improved, this is a bit less of a problem for each new iteration. Still, waiting is frustrating, and it’s even worse on pre-iOS 4 apps that don’t save state.

App Store
I really can’t believe this app is so bad. It’s extremely slow, categories aren’t even in alphabetical order, and it appears to do a screen dump if the phone sleeps for a few minutes. That last one is especially annoying on the dev iPhone that doesn’t have cell access because WiFi turns off after a bit, which means I get the “Cannot Connect to App Store” error message when the phone turns back on instead of simply seeing the page I was just looking at.

Quick access to info
Okay, so maybe some readers came across the previous two issues and thought, “Pssh, this doesn’t affect my speedy iPhone 4.” Perhaps not, but let me ask this: “How long does it take you to check the current date or weather?” Despite the much faster hardware, the OS really slows down the user experience for me. Obviously you can’t use widgets in iOS, but you don’t have to use widgets for these tasks in Android. You can just use the notification bar. The WeatherBug app can keep the current temperature in the notification bar, which you can also slide down for a forecast and to see the current date (standard part of Android). Want to see what that email is about that you just got? Simply slide down the notification bar to view a preview. These are simple tasks that I do a lot, so I don’t like the extra effort that they take on an iPhone.

New version, now go find a computer
The iPhone’s inability to be an independent computing devices was one of the biggest technological turn offs for me when I was considering it. Really, why can’t I get OS updates over the air (even if it’s limited to just WiFi because of the tired “AT&T’s network is overloaded” excuse)? The iTunes umbilical cord is even more annoying for those of us who use Linux as our primary OS.

There’s an app for that…. somewhere
Say a friend sends you a link to a Twitter account that he finds funny. You tap that link and open the browser, it redirects to the mobile version and then you see the content (assuming Twitter is somehow not down). Of course an app would be a better experience, so you have to very carefully copy the username from the URL and then press the home button, scroll to the right a bunch of screens, open your Twitter app, go to the search feature, paste the username, and search. On Android, an app can register to handle URLs, so tapping that link immediately gives you the open to open it in the browser or the Twitter app(s). Similarly, sharing a URL is as simple as long-pressing it, picking share, and then picking the app.

The other stuff
Why don’t the volume buttons control the volume of sound effects while I am playing a game? Why do I have to turn on the phone to check if I missed any emails/phone calls/text messages? Why are the home screens just a dump of the application list? Why do I have to scroll to the top of a web page to enter a new address? I guess the trick is to open the tab selector and close the current tab then pick New Page, but that still seems a bit excessive. There is a lot of value in having some basic buttons for your phone, especially for things that are useful in 99% of apps (back? menu?), and, unlike some iPhone advocates, I find the lack of buttons annoying. Fortunately, Apple is fairly good about enforcing their way of doing things, so apps usually behave in a pretty consistent way, implementing menus and back button in the app in a similar manner at the expense of screen real estate.

In the end, now that I am fully accustomed to my Nexus One, I have to say that I find it much more usable than iPhones. Not only is it more feature-rich, but it is truly a much better user experience for me.

Mom: “Son, the teacher said you had an accident in class today. ”

Son: “The other kids tickled me in my special spot.  I couldn’t help it, and I just let go!  But it is okay, Mom.  Last week, Jim Blackberry got squeezed really hard, and the same thing happened to him! Jim might be (in) a lower grade, but he’s really popular.”

Mom: “I have always told all the other moms how amazing you are.  You are so bright and vibrant and unique.  You are one of the best kids ever, but I suppose if you want to just point fingers and show yourself to be only as good as that Blackberry kid who peaked in kindergarten, well…. I guess I can just put you in the same class as him.”

The one hint that Apple still has some decency was Steve admitting the iPhone 4 drops more calls than the previous iPhone.  He played it down by saying that it was less than one extra call per hundred.  I thought for sure this nugget would be all over the tech sites, but they mostly focused on how irate Steve appeared.

Let’s do some simple number crunching.  We’ll be generous and say the iPhone 4 drops only one more call per two hundred.  If the 3GS dropped just one call per hundred, this would be a 50% increase!  I guess you can be “optimistic” and hope the 3GS dropped five calls per hundred, so the increase would only be ten percent.

I don’t know about you, but I want them to have to measure dropped calls per thousand or ten thousand.  That they can be measured in whole numbers per one hundred tells me cellphone technology has not come as far as I thought.

There’s been a lot of talk about how signal strength and its representation by bars on cellphones, especially due to the iPhone 4 having a significant problem with attenuation when held the “wrong” way. I’ve also seen a lot of people posting responses to articles asking things like, “Why can’t they just represent the strength as a percentage?” and “Why isn’t there a standard to representing signal strength?”

The iPhone 4 has a unique design that eliminates some attenuation that the antennas would face in a normal phone because the antennas are not surrounded by a casing. That means the iPhone 4 can not only receive signals at a higher level, but it can also transmit at a lower level. The problem is that the antennas are on the edge of the phone, allowing a user to directly touch them. Since our hands are capacitive, bridging the antennas can cause a problem. If the antennas were recessed, the phone would probably be fine.

Apple’s first answer was simply to hold the phone differently. After complaints about the issue gained momentum, Apple announced that they were “shocked” to discover their formula for calculating how many bars to display was incorrect. Those of you with memories will recall that Apple changed the way it calculated the bars in release 2.1 of iOS (called iPhone OS then), artificially inflating the number of bars users were seeing. Now they’re releasing a minor update to iOS that will give users a more accurate and honest portrayal of the signal strength; unfortunately for them, most people will just see it as “This update made me lose one of my bars!” An appropriate solution to the hardware problem is to cover the antennas with insulating material (or, at the very least, the problem corner). This can cost pennies per phone.

People seem generally confused about what the issue is and why it affects some people and not others. Anandtech did a good review of the issue, finding that holding the phone in a certain way could result in a signal drop of nearly 25dBm. Decibels are logarithmic, so a single bel represents a 10:1 ratio. If you take an artificial number such as 100 to represent your signal, a 10dB drop would be dropping it to 10. A 20dB drop brings it to 1, so a 25dB drop brings it to less than one percent of what it was. That’s significant attenuation that will definitely cause problems in any area with a mediocre signal.

The other interesting side of this issue is how everyone is focused on signal strength, which is not a good measurement of reception quality. It’s kind of like the emphasis of X app store has Y apps. If you need some drinking water, a single jug of water is much better than getting an ocean of oil (perhaps courtesy of BP). When I worked on satellite communications equipment in the Air Force, outgoing signals were measured in watts (quantity because the quality is assumed to be perfect, and you don’t want to overload a receiver) and incoming signals were measured in BER which means bit error rate, how many good bits per each bad bit, measured in scientific notation (so a shorthand of “-7″ would mean 10000000 good bits for each bad one). It’s a much more useful measurement than milliwatts or even dBm.

All this means: 1) the average consumer does not have an understanding of radio propagation, 2) there are a lot of ways to measure a signal, and 3) there isn’t a universal standard. Not only is there no standard for what a given number of bars should mean, it’s extremely hard to define. You can say a given amount of power, but that doesn’t take into account the sensitivity of the receiver. The iPhone 4 is capable of holding calls that most phones would drop in a hands-off scenario. The other issue is that your real signal is constantly changing as your phone checks with multiple towers and the signal is affected by nearly everything, so you can’t simply show the current signal quality/quantity. You have to average it out for a short period of time to avoid the constant jumping.

Really, we need a more useful standard. The current bars are the equivalent of a fuel gauge: The reading is relative to your vehicle but not to another vehicle. You might have a full tank (five bars) and someone else might have half of a tank (3 bars), but that doesn’t mean you actually have more fuel (signal). Nor does it mean that you can go further than the other person because you don’t know the fuel efficiency (receiver sensitivity). Even with a useful measurement like fuel efficiency, you still run into different conditions that affect it like highway or city driving (cell tower transmission quality, interference, etc.).

It’d be nice to at least show dBm and have the color change to red as it gets closer to the receiver’s minimum usable level. For now, unless a universal standard is created for all cell phones, you would do better to measure your signal based on calls dropped, call quality, and data rate than by comparing bars.

There are a few different reasons for getting a tablet, most of them revolve around the same reasons for getting a smartphone but with the need for a larger screen. The two most obvious uses are probably browsing the web from a convenient device and reading. I think tablets have quite a way to go before they can adequately do both for a reasonable price, so I’m holding off buying one for regular use until we see some good innovation. Then why would I pick up this SmartQ V7 tablet?

I needed a lower-end Android device for testing. I own a Nexus One, but that is still one of the better Android devices out there (especially with Froyo), so it’s good to have something on the other end of the spectrum for developing against. I looked at picking up a used phone such as the HTC Hero, but eventually I thought it would be more fun to pick up a cheap Android tablet. There aren’t too many Android tablets widely available in the US right now, so I picked up one in a shady back alley (of the Internet) deal. I’ve had it for a couple of weeks, so I thought I’d post a review.

Physical Factors
There is no real standard for tablet size at this time, so we’re seeing devices that are the size of large phones being called tablets as well as devices bigger than your average sheet of paper. What size is best? It depends what you’re using it for, and I haven’t made up my mind. The iPad is a very nice size for use but not so great for portability. The SmartQ V7 is in the middle range with a 7″ (diagonal) screen, and it actually fits into a cargo pocket. The screen is actually just 800×480 pixels, so the density is a little under the previous iPhones. If the dimensions were more like 1200×640, the device would be significantly more usable.

Weight-wise, it’s about one pound (480g). For some reason that makes it feel more solid (dense) than you’d expect, but it also feels a bit cheap. It is relatively durable though, which comes in handy when actually using it….

Usage
This tablet as a resistive touch screen. That means it requires physical pressure to sense touch. The advantage is that it’s cheaper to produce (than a capacitive touch screen; consider that this device was less than half the price of the cheapest iPad even after taxes/shipping/etc.) and you can use a regular stylus, your finger, or just about anything to interact with it. The disadvantage is that it’s less responsive, especially to swipe motions. The processor is not fast, so you’re sometimes left wondering if your swipe registered, and you may want to punch the tablet (or “test its durability”). For simple touch, it’s pretty good, but the processor and limited RAM can make that frustrating as well. If too much is going on at once (in other words, more than one thing), a touch can take a while to register. Sure sometimes it’s virtually instant, but other times it can be a few seconds. For that reason alone, I don’t think this product is a good choice for the average consumer (of course, it’s probably intended for tech users, considering it does triple boot).

I haven’t really played around with Windows CE on it (and doubt I ever will), but Ubuntu is decent. If you’re bored, you can play around with the simple paint program. If you don’t try to draw too quickly, the stylus is actually pretty accurate. Well, assuming you’re not as shaky as me.

As far as Android goes, it’s running 2.1, though the old home program is set by default. You can change it to the newer one, but I found that the new one had some color problems with the app listing pulled up. It doesn’t come with the Android Market, but you can find many other app sources pretty easily, and some of those have their own market app to access and downloads apps easily. This tablet works okay for browsing the web. It definitely has “stability issues,” meaning I see force close dialogs somewhat regularly.

The One Amazing Thing
Okay, so this tablet sounds pretty bad, right? Well, mostly, yeah, but it does have one impressive feature, and that’s the ability to really dim the backlight, which makes it very usable as a simple book reader (I recommend the Aldiko app), especially at night. I took a bunch of photos to try to demonstrate this compared to my Nexus One. Keep in mind, the Nexus One has an AMOLED display, which means it doesn’t have a backlight. AMOLEDs generally have a much, much larger contrast ratio than LCDs, and have very accurate blacks. That said, this tablet can get even darker than the Nexus One.

First, take a look at the clock app. Android has a great clock app that works well with a dock because it’s visually pleasing and can be made very dim (to the point where it almost seems like it’s not emitting light in a dark room). Here are two photos of that app. The first has the brightness maxed out on the tablet and phone. The second is in dim mode. I kept the camera settings the same for both photos. (For you photographers out there, the settings were F/5, 1/50 sec, ISO1600. And sorry for it being crooked… shooting photos in the dark is tricky and I didn’t want to apply any software correction that might affect the accuracy of the photos.)

Hopefully your monitor’s contrast ratio is good enough so you can see the tablet is indeed on in the darker photo. I also took some photos to demonstrate what that means for reading in the dark. This shows the devices at their brightest settings, then the Nexus One at its dimmest, and then both at their dimmest, using the same settings for each photo (f/5, 1/160 sec, ISO1250).

Some devices can’t set their displays dark enough to make that white background usable in low-light conditions, so Aldiko also has a night theme, which uses a black background with light text. I took three photos to demonstrate how this looks. The first uses the exact same camera settings as the previous three photos. Then, I let a lot more light into the camera by setting the shutter speed to 1/60 sec, and I upped the ISO to 2000, so you can see the tablet is actually on. Then I switched the tablet to the day theme (white background) and took another photo with the same, adjusted camera settings.

Other Features
This tablet has a USB port as well as an HDMI port (and it actually came with an HDMI cable!). Some people apparently use it to play videos on TVs via the HDMI cable. I haven’t tried that out, but that could be a decent use. It also has a kickstand and better-than-expected speakers, so it’s okay for watching videos on directly too. There is a stylus that easily slips into the tablet, which comes in handy for Ubuntu where many of the menu options are small. Since Android was designed for relatively small screens, the stylus isn’t really necessary. Also, it’s good to note that this uses regular (not micro) SD cards.

Conclusion
This is definitely not a tablet that is ready for the average user. The specs are pretty low, so it isn’t as responsive as it needs to be in order to avoid frustration. If you’re a developer, you could consider this tablet, particularly if you want to keep an Android 2.1 device around for testing. Still, an HTC Hero is probably a better low-end test device, and you might be able to pick up a used one cheaper than this. Of course, if your app runs well on this, it will run well on any main-stream Android device.

Dan Morill of Google said this:

Because it means everything, it actually means nothing, so the term is useless. Stories on “fragmentation” are dramatic and they drive traffic to pundits’ blogs, but they have little to do with reality. “Fragmentation” is a bogeyman, a red herring, a story you tell to frighten junior developers.

Ryan Paul of Ars Technica said this:

[R]estrictions effectively ensure that all Android devices that are intended to run third-party applications are basically the same with respect to application compatibility. In addition to mandating some consistent hardware specifications, Google has also taken steps to make the Android software more resilient to fragmentation.

And yet, we get people like Adrian Kingsley-Hughes of ZDnet saying things like

[T]here’s already fragmentation of the platform… For Joe Average, this created an ultra-confusing marketplace where operating system versions changed every few months. It also meant that compatibility issues were inevitable.

Apparently “Joe Average” has a tough time tapping on the Android Market icon and then downloading any visible app in the entire market. Google filters out apps that aren’t compatible with your device (due to both OS requirements and hardware requirements). That doesn’t sound ultra-confusing to me.

The reality is that developers will choose the lowest level of the Android SDK that they can build their apps against to target the largest possible audience. If a developer makes a live wallpaper, it will only show up in the market for people whose devices support live wallpapers. So the only real issue is the question of whether manufacturers and carriers will push out the latest version of the OS for their phones.

OS Updates
Undoubtedly, there will be older devices that aren’t able to handle the latest version, but those aren’t the high-end smartphones, and they will have prices which reflect that. As far as the phones that are capable of running the latest version, if consumers see that X manufacturer’s phones always have the latest Android version within two months, those phones will be popular, especially through word of mouth. If consumers see that Y manufacturer never upgrades its phones, those phones will be decidedly less popular. The same is true of carriers. And, fortunately for Android, the number of carriers and manufacturers behind these devices is not limited, so simple economics will put enough pressure on these companies that they’ll be eager to upgrade. We’re already seeing all the latest Android-based phones coming out with Android 2.1 (even ones that were slated for 1.6), and they’re all capable of running 2.2. With the huge performance improvement that Froyo brings, there is a large incentive for manufacturers and carriers to ensure they get Android 2.2 on their devices as soon as possible.

iOS Fragmentation
Anyway, people’s minds are pretty set on whether fragmentation is an issue or a scare tactic. I thought it would be useful to point out how this issue affects (or doesn’t affect) the popular iPhone because you really don’t hear much about it.

First, the iPhone has some advantages in avoiding fragmentation. It is made by one company. The OS is made by the same company. The phone is limited to a single carrier (in the US). The phone has very incremental improvements at one year intervals rather than spurtive, frequent improvements.

Despite these steady improvements, there are hardware differences that are further affected by the OS running on the iPad and iPod as well. Some devices don’t have a camera, some have a 2mp camera, some have a 3mp camera, some have a 5mp camera, some have two cameras, some have autofocus, and some have flash. Some support 3G and some only support WiFi. Some have 412MHz processors, some have 532MHz processors, some have 600MHz processors, some have 1GHz processors, and some we don’t know. Some have 128MB of RAM and some have twice that. Some have a magnetic compass. Some have a gyroscope. Some can lock orientation. Some are 480px wide, some are 960px wide, and some are 1024px wide. So there is hardware variation because devices must improve, or they will be left behind.

There is software variation too. Most devices are running a 3.x version, but that will change soon as some devices are able to upgrade to iOS 4 and some aren’t. Of those that upgrade, the features supported will differ. The iPhone 3G devices purchased for $100 a few weeks ago will never officially get multitasking. Hopefully the poor souls who bought those are able to wait out a two-year contract before realizing how essential multitasking is.

With all these differences, would you call iOS fragmented? I wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t call Android fragmented either. They’re both evolving platforms. Android had some catching up to do when the G1 came out, so it has evolved significantly faster than iOS, but evolution is not fragmentation.

When you compare any of the newer competing smartphones to an iPhone 3GS, you see what a difference resolution makes. For instance, the Motorolla Droid has a 854×480 display that is 3.7″ (diagonally). That gives it a pixel density of 265ppi compared to the iPhone 3GS density of 163ppi. The new iPhone 4 has a density of 326ppi, which is better than the Droid and significantly better than the previous iPhones. If you were to shrink the Droid display to the same size as the iPhone 4 display, it would have a pixel density of 280ppi—just 20ppi below what Steve Jobs says is the limit of perception. You can see what a huge difference pixel density makes in a previous post comparing the Nexus One display to the iPhone display.

The new display is also an IPS LCD, which gives it much better viewing angles than a traditional LCD; however, the contrast ratio is not amazing at just 800:1. That’s a huge step up from previous iPhones, but the Droid’s contrast ratio is 1400:1 and the Nexus One is 65,000:1 (source), meaning that the contrast ratio is likely to impress you if you’re using a current iPhone but not if you’re using one of many other leading smartphones. The “retina display” appeared darker than the iPhone 3GS, but we’ll have to wait to see if that’s really the case or just an issue with the demonstration setup.

Video Calls
Another big feature that was shown off is the ability to make video calls. For some people, this will be huge, but keep in mind that the iPhone 4 can currently only talk to other iPhone 4 devices and only if they are both on WiFi. This is a very different approach than was taken by the Evo 4G (which uses Qik), but the WiFi limitation is probably for the better considering the problems users have reported with AT&T’s network.

AT&T
Speaking of AT&T, they have made some notable changes to billing recently. The good news is that people who were eligible to upgrade an iPhone this year are immediately eligible to upgrade to the iPhone 4. The mixed news is that the monthly data plans are now $15 for 200mb and $25 for 2gb. There is no unlimited plan for iPhones, and tethering is going to be an additional $20 a month. If you’re a light data user, this is great news because you can pay less and it should lower the stress on AT&T’s network. If you’re somehow actually using 2gb a month, the news is not so good. Plus, the overage fees are distributed in “buckets” too. If you go over your 200mb allotment one month by even a single byte, you’ll be paying double for your data fee ($30) and you’ll get another 200mb. And, finally, the bad news: A new smartphone contract comes with a $325 termination fee. Meaning that even after the pro-rated change, you’ll still pay close to $100 to terminate your contract just one month early. I expect to see the FCC look into this, but who knows if anything will actually come out of it.

Design
The iPhone 4 is in the new case revealed by Gizmodo. It’s 24% thinner than the iPhone 3GS and even a half millimeter thinner than the Samsung Galaxy S. Some people love the design; some people hate the design; some people think it looks like a Vizio TV (I tend to agree, but Apple products have commonly borrowed design from other sources). The design is all about functionality and squeezing as much hardware in as little space as possible. It’s been some time since the Gizmodo leak, and in that time it has grown on me as a very industrial, function-over-form design. I definitely don’t consider it good-looking, but it’s not ugly either.

Other Improvements
The new camera sensor is significantly improved and has an LED flash. The pixel quantity (5mp) is nothing to get excited about, but the quality Apple is claiming is extremely impressive. We’ll have to wait until this is in real-world conditions to see how it really performs though, particularly in low-light conditions. It is also capable of 720p video at 30fps, which is very good for a cellphone (though, again, we’ll have to wait to see the quality). The strange thing is that, according to Apple’s specs, the iPhone is capable of outputting video at

1024 by 768 pixels with Dock Connector to VGA Adapter; 576p and 480p with Apple Component AV Cable; 576i and 480i with Apple Composite AV Cable (cables sold separately)

This suggests that there is currently no way to directly output the 720p video to a TV. I’m wondering if this is an actual limitation of the phone, the connector, or simply a site typo.

The iPhone 4 has a noise-cancelation mic, which is strangely at the top of the device rather than the rear. The phone now has an A4 processor similar to what is used in the iPad, which should give excellent performance for standard apps, but I’m curious to see OpenGL performance. The battery is slightly larger and is claimed to have better life. Unfortunately, battery life is another spec that requires some real-world testing. The phone now has a gyro, which should give better motion sensing (presumably for games because the accelerometer already seemed good).

Conclusion
Overall, the hardware is really solid, and I expect it to have a very good, quality feel. This is a huge leap ahead of the previous iPhone, but this revamp puts the iPhone 4 very near to other leading smartphones. The biggest problem is that this isn’t a major leap ahead of other smartphones, and now they have an entire year of improvements before the next iPhone comes out. For current iPhone users whose devices do everything or nearly everything they want, this will be an excellent upgrade, but I don’t expect many Android-leaning people to be swayed.