Before you jump into this post, you might want to check out what Android is all about. In short, it is a mobile operating system (like Windows or OS X on Mac) that was bought over by Google. Google wanted to make this OS open source so that any manufacturer or individuals can use this platform for free. Make funky, crazy and cool stuff with it.
The Ancestor of Android phones: G1
So then Google released it’s first Android phone, manufactured by HTC.
After that, more and more phones were released and companies like Samsung, Motorola or LG supported Android. We’ll talk about the history more if more readers, like you want me to :)
All these manufacturers then put on their own version of Android “skin” or “theme” that they believe would add value to Android. Just Google up the screenshots of HTC Desire and Motorola Milestone to see what am I talking about.
Let’s talk about main features that I think differentiate from the mass adopted Apple iPhone since this would be a hot debate. LOL. Warning: These are just my opinions so don’t hate me if you bought an Android phone and don’t quite like it. After all, it all depends on personal taste and preferences. In general, the theme for Android would be customization.
Notification system
That’s the thing that tells you that you have an sms, email or anything new that you might wanna know.
Many tech blogs and reviewers think that Android notification style is much more effective and non-intrusive. Here’s why
See the black bar at the top? Time, battery, signal etc etc are shown there. When you have something like a new sms, it shows there too. What is special about that bar is that you can drag it down. Showing you more stuff if you want. The most right picture shows you what it looks like.
So when you have an sms from your girlfriend/boyfriend, just tap it and it will bring you to the message. Also it will show you the first line or two of the message.
What about iPhone? Well let’s just say that the notification system is very direct. When you have something new, this is what it looks like.
The popup will appear like “in your face” manner. I guess you won’t miss it in this fashion. But for me, I prefer a more subtle and customizable notification system. For Apple devices, I would be interrupted by their notifications while I am playing a game or surfing on Safari. Some of you might like to attend to the SMS right away but I guess a beep to notify me would be enough before I get to it. Of course you can turn off notifications for some apps on iPhone and with Android you can get the iPhone style of notification as well.
Again, I would like to stress that in the end it’s your preference that counts :)
Customization
Let’s talk about the home screen of Android for a second
We have multiple home screens that you can put stuff on Android. This is screen 1 of my phone. The top has something we call widgets. It’s like a shortcut to apps but they provide functions. The one I have here quickly allows me to turn on/off my wifi, bluetooth, gps and mobile internet connection. So with 1 touch I can turn on my wifi and surf away. Unfortunately, iPhone users have to jailbreak their phones to obtain this feature.
Adding widgets is as simple as tap and hold at an empty space of the homescreen and walah, pop up menu with plenty of widgets to choose from. So I have added a Twitter widget that shows Twitter update from my homescreen without going into the app and a quick Google search bar. We are now one tap away from Google voice search.
So back to my point of customization of Android, you can see that you can do a lot of things with your home screen without even going into the app. With this, you can access things much faster. Also, you can replace almost any feature that you don’t like about Android. SMS app, keyboard, clock, calendar, email app and more. You can make them your default app so everytime you have an SMS, Android will open it up using your choosen app. Smart eh?
Keyboards are a good example for this feature. Here I have 3 type of keyboards and FREE! From most left: Swype, swiping instead of tapping to type, Google Pinyin for Chinese and HTC modified keyboard. It’s as easy as changing a few options to switch to these keyboards.
SMS app for Android
The most left is what Android gave me but I didn’t like it. So what do I do? I download an app, make it my default app. So now I use this beautifully customized SMS app. With iPhone, I believe you can achieve this by turning off/on notifications for apps you want or don’t want to use.
Well that concludes the first part of Android features, I will talk about more in the next post. See ya next time!
