Related links:
To enter a full screen mode on the Nexus One, tap and hold until you get a semi-transparent bar with two buttons. Tap the first button to enter the full screen mode.
The new iPhone 4 now on par with the latest Android handsets hardware wise, making it harder for potencial buyers to choose between these two platforms. This is my take on the current situation.
Screen
The screen in the new iPhone is very impressive: IPS matrix with 960×640 resolution. It has a wide viewing angle, similar to AMOLED and Super AMOLED. Blacks are really good on these displays, since no backlight is used. AMOLED screen is less usable under direct sunlight.
The winner here is the Super AMOLED screen. If you need a perfect screen, get a Samsung Galaxy S. Just make sure it has no problems with Wi-Fi…
What about a “retina” resolution? It would make sense on a bigger screen. I’m afraid you’ll need a microscope to see the difference between the iPhone 4 and Droid screens. Why so many pixels then? Apple simply can’t use an other resolution without breaking all existing apps.
Controls
The Back button on Android devices is not only used to return to the previous screen within the same application, but also to return to the previously started application. Menu button might not be very intuitive in the first day of use, but it saves a valuable screen space. You’ll miss these buttons if you switch from Android to the iPhone.
The Trackball is rarely used, but it’s useful for precise link navigation in a browser and text selection.
Applications
Both Market and AppStore have a lot of apps now. Some apps in the AppStore are more mature, some apps exclusive to Android Market. One thing is true – most people can find everything they need on both platforms.
A few things are making the Market more attractive for users and developers: 24 hours money back and instant app publishing. Money back isn’t very attractive for developers with crappy apps though.
Flash
This one is simple, iPhone doesn’t have a Flash and most likely will never have. If you think that Flash is mostly used for displaying annoying ads, don’t worry, ads in HTML 5 format coming your way..
Flash is running just fine on the Nexus One. I can listen to podcasts, see streaming videos right on a webpage, without launching a dedicated app. Is it really necessary to kill Flash? Probably it will be replaced by HTML 5 in 2-3 years, but right now there are tons of Flash contents.
Notification system
Notifications are still the same on iPhone 4. See an example. Notification bar in Android is a much more elegant solution.
Cloud/Sync
Another strong point of Android is higher level of integration with online services. Address book can be synchronized over the air with FaceBook and Twitter, photos with Picasa web albums, podcasts with Google Reader… Google even has a demo of automatic over-the-air sync with music store recently at Google IO. Apple still charges $99/year for MobileMe and no sign of cloud-based music store yet.
Of course the iPhone/iTunes media sync still wins in terms of simplicity. Rating and playback stats sync is very nice feature to have.
Customization and open source
Widgets, home screens, messaging apps – many parts of Android can be customized or even entirely replaced. Open source helps coders like Cyanogen tweak the system on a deeper level and create a great mods.
That’s it, but maybe I’ve missed something? What features in Android / iOS is important for you?
On full brightness, the Nexus One without Flash Player got 3 hours and 45 minutes. Playing the video through Flash Player gave a battery life of 3 hours and 8 minutes. Not a big dropoff. At half brightness it was even better. The Nexus One without Flash got 3 hours 56 minutes and the Flash version got 3 hours and 31 minutes. Just a 10.5% change, which isn’t bad at all considering everything Flash Player does.
Dolphin Browser:
Stock Browser:
Complex web pages with a lot of flash ads make scrolling very choppy. To make Flash content load only after you click on it, go to the settings, tap Enable plug-ins and select On demand.
Just click this link in you Android browser: www.adobe.com/go/getfp10android
In a video below Ryan Stewart demonstrates how various websites running flash work on the Nexus One. As a bonus, you can see a new home screen (Android Froyo?) at the end of the video.
He also posted a few comments on YouTube:
ryanstewart: re: enable/disable flash. Yeah. There are three modes in the browser settings for plugins. Always disable, always enable, or on demand. On demand seems to be just like “click to Flash” so the Flash content is replaced by a little arrow icon and doesn’t load until you click it. I’ll try to do a screenshot or demo of how that works.
ryanstewart: yeah, double tap is the zoom mode. And yup, on YouTube it works exactly like the desktop player, when you press the button it takes you into full screen mode on the phone. You have to zoom in to make the button easier to press, but it’s not too bad.
We already know that Flash will be included in Android Froyo, and now Adobe gives actual rollout date:
We look forward to delivering Flash Player 10.1 for Android
smartphones as a public preview at Google I/O in May, and then a
general release in June. From that point on, an ever increasing number
and variety of powerful, Flash-enabled devices will be arriving which
we hope will provide a great landscape of choice.
A free media player that plays a lot of audio/video formats. Tested with a few files (WMV,FLV,MOV,MPG) and it works well. It kind of slows down on HD videos, as well as on AVI and VOB files – apparently no hardware acceleration is present.
Full list of supported formats:
4xm/8bps/aac/ac3/eac3/amv/ape/dca/imc/alas/rm/rmvb/nuv/
ptx/tta/wma/wmv/flic/flac/flv/g726/h261/h263/h264/mp1/2/3/4/smc/tmv/dvdsub/dvbsub
Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?hagtzcn7qdz
XDA thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=642713
Adobe is promising Flash 10.1 is going to hit smartphones in the “first half” of this year as OTA update. Some tablets will get flash too, with accelerated performance on Nvidia’s Tegra 2, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon and Freescale’s i.MX515. Unfortunately Android 2.1 is the minimum requirement.
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