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.

Sharing URLs
A really handy feature that I didn’t know about until recently is the ability to share a URL you are viewing in the browser. Long-pressing on a URL in the location bar brings up a menu with the option to “Share page” or “Copy page url” (it can also include “Save image” and “View image” depending on the context). Choosing “Share page” reveals a menu with several options. At the top are the built-in choices such as sharing “@Delicious,” but below those you can see options for specific apps. Selecting “Twidroid” allows you to share the link via Twitter from right there. You don’t have to open the full Twidroid application, and you don’t have to worry about the URL length (as it’s automatically shortened with your URL shortener of choice). Just type a few words and send away. You can even hit “Attach” to add or take a picture or video (both of which are automatically uploaded and linked for you). I don’t care if you call this “multitasking” or “app interlinking.” I call it awesome.

Shortcuts
Most people already know that Android has folders, and it even has live folders (folders which have their contents populated by an app, such as a list of Pandora radio stations), but Android also has the ability to create shortcuts. I don’t just mean shortcuts to open apps; I mean shortcuts to open very specific parts of apps.

One of the applications that I use fairly frequently is One Bus Away, which allows me to see which buses are going where and when they should arrive. The default view that opens is a map view, which I personally don’t use. I know the stops I use and the routes I ride, so I nearly always want to go to a specific stop. I’m frequently in a hurry, checking if I’ll be seconds away from catching the bus, and the slight delay going from loading the map view to loading the stop I want feels a lot longer than it really is. Fortunately, Android has the answer: I can create a shortcut directly to the exact stop that I want to view. I simply long-press on the home screen, select “Shortcuts,” select the desired choice, (potentially further customize it, such as picking a specific bus stop in this case) and the icon is created. Touching that icon will jump right to the correct spot in the app.

Conclusion
These are the types of features that are so simple but add so much to the experience of using an Android-based device. Is Android perfect? Of course not. But can it do some amazing things? Absolutely!

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0bb4", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="18d1", MODE="0666"

You may need to run sudo reload udev and/or disconnect and reconnect the N1. Check adb devices again and hopefully you’ll see “HT9CSP123456 device” or similar.

First off, we have to clarify the concept of multitasking. On a desktop, notebook, netbook, etc., you will frequently have multiple programs open at a time and often more than one is visible on the screen. In most cases, these programs are actively running (usually with priority given to the application in focus) and using some processing cycles. Sometimes the background applications do need to use resources, such as an instant messaging client or music player. Sometimes they don’t, such as when you are actively playing a game but left a browser window open in the background.

The misconception is that Android handles all these processes the same way, forcing them to fight it out in a cage match with the winner getting processor cycles. Fortunately, that is not the case.

Unnecessary Processing
Most of the time the limited screen real estate means you don’t need background processes running for applications that don’t currently show any UI. Essentially, the processing associated with an activity ends, but the activity remains in memory until that memory is either needed or the activity is back in focus (obviously this is a bit of a simplification). When an activity goes into the background like this, it typically does any saving necessary. That allows the memory to be recovered aggressively, if needed, without creating delay at the time of recovery.

Some iPhone apps actually have similar behavior, but they store their state to the phone’s storage rather than the memory. This allows you to reopen an app, starting from the same point you ended it. Clearly, both Apple and iPhone developers see this ability to quickly switch tasks as valuable, despite that it isn’t “built in” to iPhone OS.

Necessary Processing
The other key situation is something called a service, and this is where the differences between Android and iPhone OS are most noticeable. A service is a process that does not directly have UI or an activity associated with it. A process for handling the reception of instant messages is a good example. You don’t want to sit on a screen all day to wait for new messages. You want to be able to check your email, browse the web, or play a game. The service can run in the background and unobtrusively notify you of new messages.

Apple’s Situation
Apple sees the need for some apps to have background processes; the music player is a good example. Apple just hasn’t fully opened the door to letting the third-party developers run background processes. Instead, they allow for push notifications.

But push notifications are not the complete answer. They have an extremely limited 256-byte maximum payload. They are not secure. They require extra infrastructure. They overwrite each other. They are designed for text only. The application cannot manipulate the push notification data if it is not running. And, worst of all, push notifications are extremely intrusive! Implemented properly, push notifications could be the correct solution for some situations, but they currently present a bad user experience and have limited value to developers.

Additional Uses
Besides music players, instant messengers, and SSH connections, location-based services like Google Latitude are virtually useless without background processes. Another example of a background service is common in feed readers such as NewsRob. While you don’t have the app open in the foreground, it is still able to periodically fetch new feed items. That means you can later open that app without an internet connection and still read your favorite feeds. With iPhone, you have to actively open each app and tell it to cache the data for offline reading, wait, and then repeat for each app you might want to use (such as during a plane ride).

Even if you disagree
Finally, even if you believe nothing of what I have written and still believe that background processes waste a huge amount of processor cycles and drain your battery, then you should ask yourself how the Nexus One has a battery life comparable to the iPhone’s when it has a faster processor that is pushing more than twice as many pixels, it has more RAM, it runs third-party background applications… not to mention the battery is user-replaceable ($25 for an Android battery; roughly four times that for Apple to replace an iPhone battery). It must be from HTC stealing Apple’s innovation again *sigh*.

Here’s the disclaimer: I did my best to fairly show the differences between the screens of a Nexus One and an iPhone. Both phones were set to maximum brightness and were indirectly lit in an attempt to avoid glare. The Nexus One has a much greater tendency to reflect light than the iPhone. The camera (Canon 7D) was set to output to JPG because I didn’t want to subconsciously favor one display over the other when processing from RAW. The full-sized images are around 7MB each, so I created a resized version (1024×683 from 5184×3456) and, in some cases, a detailed version. The detailed version is a crop from the original image with no resizing. I just took two 512×683 crops and put them together. I didn’t label them because the Nexus One is always on the left and the iPhone is always on the right. Images embedded in this post are 400 pixels wide and link to the larger versions.

Home Screen

The iPhone’s home screen looks rather bland compared to the Nexus One. The icons are fairly similar, though you can see that the Nexus One icons are smaller and varying shapes (some iPhone 3rd party icons are different shapes, but transparency is not properly handled by the iPhone OS, so these only look transparent with a black background).

The Web – New York Times

For most people, the web browser will be the most used feature of a smartphone. These photos illustrate the difference that a higher resolution makes. Though the displays are close to the same physical size, small fonts are unreadable on the iPhone. I recommend viewing the full sized version of the detailed photo.

The Web – Image

Both phones are browsing a photo on Flickr, but you can see that the iPhone can’t display the full image at its native size (note that the Nexus One is actually zoomed in a bit on the image because the image is only 500px wide). The difference in the shadows is probably the most noticeable part of this comparison. The Nexus One appears to display oranges a bit brighter than it should. The iPhone loses detail in darker parts of the photo.

Maps – Satellite View

Though both displays a very usable, the Nexus One looks particularly crisp compared to the iPhone here.

Maps – Traffic View

I had a particularly challenging time getting these views to be zoomed identically across both displays, so don’t put too much emphasis on these. I did notice that the iPhone didn’t report construction on its maps application, but the overall data was basically the same. Again, the Nexus One appears much sharper.

PDF

Though you’re unlikely to read significant amounts on either phone, this PDF comparison shows the advantages of a higher pixel density. This also makes me question the recently-unveiled iPad as a serious reading device (its long side is only 1024 pixels, 224 more than the Nexus One, despite being much larger).

Apps – TV.com

As you can see, the TV.com app has a different interface on iPhone OS vs. Android. The Android version is able to show a lot more data at one time, though part of that is due to not needing a static menu on screen. During video playback, the actual video doesn’t take up the full width on the Nexus One. Here, you can see the greater range of colors on the Nexus One, particularly in the detailed photo. I also noticed that the iPhone’s black was a bit blue and not as dark as the Nexus One’s black. The Nexus One picked up a bit of glare but was still very usable.

Final Thoughts
One thing that really stood out during this test was how much more the Nexus One screen shows, and I don’t just mean in pixel count. Since Android has support for more than one button, applications do not have to waste screen space by displaying a menu. In most cases, that means displaying an extra row worth of information.

The Nexus One definitely has a more significant problem with glare, but it also has much darker blacks. It is a little over saturated around orange colors, though not significantly so. The iPhone screen does a good job of diffusing light, but the blacks never look fully black. The colors seem well balanced with less range, but the lower resolution really hurts the iPhone when it is next to the Nexus One.

If you haven’t heard, the Nexus One (N1) has been released. It’s the newest Android-based phone, built by HTC and being “pushed” by Google. Unfortunately, ordering one has caused trouble for many people, myself included.

Rather than paying $400 for an iPhone via AT&T, I thought getting the $180 N1 would be a great deal, especially since I could switch to T-Mobile and pay just $80 a month for the plan (less expensive than either Verizon or AT&T). Unfortunately, I filled out the form and got the error: “You are not eligible for T-Mobile service at this time.”

Sadly, that’s all the info Google provides, other than comforting me with the option of buying it straight up for $530. I have no idea why I am ineligible. My roommate has a G1 on T-Mobile, so service is available. I have never had a contract with T-Mobile, so it’s not a matter of being an existing or past customer ineligible for upgrade. I’ve checked to make sure I can transfer my phone number, and it’s eligible for transfer. Why am I not eligible?

Update! Success!
I did it again and changed two things, and it worked. I’m not sure which of these two mattered, but here they are in the hope that they’ll help someone else:

1) Per eperor’s suggestion, I asked for a new phone number.

2) I changed my service area to downtown Seattle (where I work) rather than my home address.

This worked for me; good luck to everyone else!