Why Choose Android?

Apple. I dunno they are so fucking evil lately. This is not the Google or Facebook “Oops! We’re idiots!” kind of evil. No, this is the Microsoft “Use us or die!” intentional monopoly kind of evil. Google probably also want a monopoly but they are a bit nicer about it. Apple appear way more evil because they are shoving their monopoly in everyone’s face, just like Microsoft did in the 90s. But I will defer the Who is Eviler? discussion for a future post.

Antenna. Real or not, the issues with the iPhone 4′s antenna are scary. I won’t choose a phone that might work some of the time. I am not enough of an Apple fanboy to accept poor reception or a $30 bumper because Apple’s shininess outweighs a serious design flaw. I am only interested in products that JustWork™. I’m sure the problems have been blown way out of proportion by the media. The software miscalculation excuse seems plausible; it would be a classic Apple thing to do: make their phones appear to get better reception to upstage competitors. If they have been doing this, they should pay. My theory on why Apple didn’t pick it up in testing? All the iPhone 4s sent out into the field were housed in stealthy plastic cases to disguise them as 3GS which also insulated the user’s hands from the antenna. Even if this issue is resolved completely, I cannot forgive Apple censoring discussion boards on the topic. See above image.

Development. The Android SDK is written in Java which is my strongest language. Basically I would have to do less work to break into App development on this platform, so would tend towards the path of least resistance. In comparison, the learning curve on Apple’s iOS would be steeply prohibitive for an endeavour that’s just an experiment, and not my day job.

Android is just way more open. Anyone can develop. I can download and install apps without going through the marketplace. This also removes the potential risk of developing for Apple’s platform only to have them reject your app on submission, or worse, at a random time in the future because they suddenly decide they don’t like it. In contrast, Google appears to value making developers’ lives easier, instead of forcing them into a corner. This is a smart move. It makes their SDK more accessible. This will let people with really good ideas but limited programming skills into the market, which is a good thing. I also totally respect the Google for opening up a public issue tracker for the OS. Where is Apple’s equivalent? Forums? Hardly organised enough to be useful.

Multitasking. iOS 4 lacks multitasking polish. Users are reporting frustration when swiping through a billion apps in the 1×4 real estate of the switcher (see image). What is the point of this bloody switcher anyway? It’s completely redundant. Apps which support multitasking should just be backgrounded instead of closed when Home is pressed. Then you have regular app screens, folders etc. to switch between apps. As users learn where their apps are, this will be instinctively quick compared to the random placement of apps in the switcher.

Services. I use more Google services than Apple services (Gmail, Reader, News, Talk, Docs, Code, Calendar). I would expect a Google OS to have better native support for its own services than an Apple OS. Currently, there is no native support for Google Docs, but that will come. However, Google have been polishing their mobile web offerings so may not spend as much time on their apps. We’ll see.

Phones. In phone land, six months is a long time. Now we are starting to see Android phones that Don’tTotallySuck™. See Samsung Galaxy S and a promising review by GSMArena. We’re also seeing innovations like Swype, which is basically “drawing between the letters” without lifting your finger (see image). In my opinion though, all mobile typing has gone speedily downhill since the efficiency of T9 predictive text. Qwerty has no place on devices this small.

The Verdict? iOS has pleased me as a user, but I’m over just being a user. I’m sick of submitting feedback which is dismissed by egotistical app developers because 100,000 idiots bought their app and gave it a positive review after first use. On Android I could just write my own damn apps.

Why Choose iPhone 4?

Accustomed. I am quite used to using an iPhone. When it’s not being slow as hell it is really fun and intuitive to use for most things. I would have to learn a new OS and it might not be as good as I’m used to. On the other hand, a new OS may not have many of the iOS annoyances, e.g. Safari purging background “tabs” from memory then reloading when refocused and losing my place in a LONG list of articles I was sifting through.

Hardware. The iPhone hardware looks sexyawesome (putting aside antenna issues). I guess the ideal device would be an iPhone 4 running Android but that’s a long way off. I still reserve judgment until I see this device.

Maturity. Android is quite immature in some respects (e.g. no proxy settings for WiFi connections). But these may not effect me so more research is needed before I can say “Android does 90% of what iOS can do” or whatever. It’s interesting to observe a power distribution in the graph of open Android issues, with respect to perceived importance by the community.

Note: “Number of Stars” above reflects how many users “care about” each issue. There over 5000 open issues but in a power distribution only the first few are interesting.

This graph illustrates two things:

• There are a few issues which many people care about
  
• There are many issues which only a few people care about
  

Sync. iTunes syncs everything beautifully, and I might miss this convenience and security. It warms my heart to know that if my phone dies because I dropped it while texting on the loo, I have a backup and won’t have to waste time setting the whole phone up again. It syncs, in order of importance:

• Settings (all customisations, esp. WiFi networks and mail accounts)
• Google Contacts (very handy but have noticed some duplication)
• All my apps and their settings
• My iTunes music library which is highly organised (not)
• Browser bookmarks
• Calendars (don’t really use)
• Photos (could live without sync)

Android syncs all the Google stuff out of the box (except Docs) but it’s up to third party vendors to provide their own apps for the rest. There are apps to sync iTunes with Android phones, which is nice. But what about the settings and other crap? A quick Google suggests “rooting” the phone and installing custom firmware is the current solution. Blegh.

What Android needs is universal (works on any Android device) automatic back up to “The Cloud” (FTP, dropbox, etc.). I would imagine this working something like: first take an initial snapshot of the phone state and store on cloud, then each time a user changes a setting, downloads a file, or takes a photo etc. add metadata for this “delta” to a local queue of “stuff that’s changed on my phone”. Then when the phone is idle, gradually push this queue up to the cloud backup service. But WAIT until I’m not browsing the web or streaming audio thankyouverymuch. And you can save large queue items like video for when I’m on WiFi. I can has. Someone write this and I’ll switch to Android today.

Music. It’s a really great iPod. I am not so sure about other Android phones. But the Samsung Galaxy S music player seems pretty good, and audio quality gets a big thumbs up. It also comes with ear sunctiony headphones out of the box, which is a step up from Apple’s default earphones which are only good for trussing your roast chicken.

Apps. I might miss some iPhone apps. Also, I feel like I’d be losing an investment on bought apps. But rather than trust my vague feeling I have collated a categorised breakdown of my frivolous app spending.

It’s also worth considering the free iPhone apps I use frequently and would miss dearly. More broadly, this could make Android the phone equivalent of Linux in that I have to do work to hunt down and install the things I want, rather than just have them. Thanks AppBrain for making this easy.

	iPhone	Android	Comments
	IMDB	Free Official	Looks good.
	Tram Tracker	Free 3rd Party	Impressive that a 3rd party would write this.
	Last.fm	Free Official	The iPhone app still streams radio despite them making it not free via the desktop client. I wonder if the Android app is the same.
	Scrobbled	Free 3rd Party	Jailbreak app, submits every track played in iPod to Last.fm. Android version dependent on support for specific music player app.
	Flickr	Nothing	The free official iPhone app is very basic so I bought Mobile Fotos which I only use when I’m really bored. I wouldn’t use their mobile web offering.
	iTunes Remote	$4.99 3rd Party	Don’t use enough to pay.
	IceTV	Web Official	Acceptable if it remembers my login
	Wikipanion	Web Official	Any Wikipedia app needs bookmarks and font size control and I’m sold.
	Facebook	Free Official	Looks like garbage compared to the iPhone version.

The verdict? If a suitably polished Android phone came along, I probably wouldn’t miss the iPhone. As I rant on in Part 2 Android’s openness would go a long way.

Continued in Part 2

“During the 80s when DJ’s plundered old Jazz and R & B records looking for samples, Hip Hop in particular and electronic music in general were not the pop phenomenon and money makers we know them as today. There seemed to be a few brief sort of glory years back then, when the novelty of sampling and the rate at which it was being employed as a new technique grew faster than the rate at which any sort of copyright bureaucracy could maintain the law.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac

I think what’s great about this genre is that it has built-in nostalgia. Listening to a couple of tracks immediately brings back memories of the days (and nights) I spent playing games like Super Mario Bros. 2, Dexterity and Pokemon Blue. Chip tunes aren’t new, in fact it’s one of the oldest form of synth. But to think that this stuff is starting to be considered a legitimate art form worthy of airplay is just amazing!

You can check out Dot.AY‘s mix on the Game Boy Australia blog.

UPDATE: I should include the Good Game clip for completeness.

Today I received this email from Last.fm, whose personalised radio I’ve been enjoying FOR FREE since 2007.

Hi frostnova,

Your free trial to Last.fm Radio is about to end. If you’re enjoying it, why not
subscribe for only $3.00/month and continue listening to non-stop personalised
radio.

http://www.last.fm/subscribe

Best Regards,
The Last.fm Team

When I first joined, there was no mention of this “free trial” bollocks they’ve pulled completely out of thin air as if they are some kind of Ministry of Truth.

To be honest, I value Last.fm mostly for tracking my listening habits and haven’t used the streaming radio very much so I’m not ready to completely jump ship just yet.

What I’ve really been waiting for is for Apple to make “Genius Live” for iTunes, so you could listen to suggested tracks which aren’t in your library.

You can read about what other disgruntled users are saying, although I won’t be surprised if this thread gets censored.

After some furious Googling, this Australian has successfully purchased content from the US iTunes store. And without a credit card!

The biggest hurdle was getting a US iTunes account (trivial, now I know how).

1. Open iTunes and go to the Store.
2. Sign out of your “real” account.
3. Find any free iPhone application and Buy it.
4. When asked to sign in, Create An Account (make sure you select  US as country). Tip: if you use Gmail,  use username+us@gmail.com as your email address.
5. Fill in your fake US address details as generated.
6. When asked for a payment method, choose None.

If you just wanted a free app not available in your country, you can stop here.

If you want to buy MP3′s not available in your country, you need some US iTunes credit.

1. Find a store that sells online iTunes gift cards, such as OffGamer. Note, you can expect  to pay a premium for the online service. Some have  reported success with eBay but OffGamer were quite speedy.
2. Pay with your PayPal account. If you don’t have one… uh, why not?
3. When you get the gift card code (online), simply redeem it in iTunes.
4. Purchase your content!

I still have US$12 left in my fake iTunes accounts, which I’m sure will come in handy later. It’s not going anywhere.

Oh, and your US iTunes account can also be used to download iPhone apps that aren’t yet released in Australia, such as the Last.fm app. I can’t believe I didn’t realise this sooner!

But I digress. The game’s music by Joris de Man totally blew me away; an awesome mix of 8-bit chip tunes and modern beats, but with a dark, serious tone, which is something you don’t often get with this kind of “chippy” music. The best quality can be heard on the composer’s website under the Projects section (flash site so no direct link). Interestingly, his KillZone work appears strongly influenced by Harry Gregson-Williams of Metal Gear Solid 2 fame.

Now I would buy this music in an instant, but annoyingly, BOTH the iTunes and Amazon MP3 stores impose geographical purchase restrictions on the album. WTF? Encourage piracy, what? Annoyingly, I can’t even find it on the usual pirate channels.

While I’m on the topic, another awesome theme can be heard in Geometry Wars Retro Evolved on XBLA – a game which can only be described as “Asteroids on Acid”. Check out the music and the truly chaotic gameplay in this YouTube video. The sequal is also awesome but lacks the variety in weaponry.

And just for good measure, here’s a list of my all time favourite video game music, with links where I could find them (I take back every bad thing I said about audio-only YouTube videos).

• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty – Harry Gregson-Williams
• Metal Gear Solid 2: The Other Side – Norihiko Hibino
• Diablo 2 – Matt Uelmen
• Quake 2 – Sonic Mayhem
• Machines (more info) – Jim Croft
• Red Faction – Dan Wentz
• FX Fighter (another) – Martin Gwynn Jones, Justin Scharvona
• Grim Fandango (another) – Peter McConnell
• Halo – Martin O’Donnell & Michael Salvatori
• Tekken Tag Tournament (another) – Namco Sound Team
• Entomorph – Danny Pelfry

Inspirational!

The solution? Well I believe the problem stems from AirTunes using A LOT of bandwidth; 160 kB/s in my experience. I suspect this is flooding the wireless network as it has to go in 2 “directions”, i.e. from the MacBook to the router, then from the router to the Airport Express. So the solution I found was to disable the Airport Express wireless altogether and plug into my router using the ethernet cable. This eliminates one of the “directions” and so alleviates the flooding. The only problem others may see with this solution is that you need to move your broadband router next to the stereo. This isn’t a problem for me as it’s already there for the Xbox 360.

Now I can use my Airport Express for what it was intended, and it totally kicks arse. It’s just a shame Apple didn’t spend the time to test thoroughly in node mode.

Lately, I’ve been listening to and really enjoying Pendulum’s second LP, In Silico. When I first heard their singles Granite and Propane Nightmares on the radio, I was worried they’d changed their sound to “Hardcore Drum & Bass Ultimate Heavy to the Max!” After listening to the whole album, this is true to some extent but it seems confined to individual tracks which is a relief. I like a bit of heavy, but it just wouldn’t be Pendulum if the whole album was like that. Don’t be put off by the heavier sounding singles. Overall, this sequel to their debut album Hold Your Colour has a good balance between heavy drum & bass and chillout breakbeat. It’s classic Pendulum and that’s why I love ‘em.

I first heard Pendulum a few years ago on Triple J when Hold Your Colour was a feature album. Their single Fasten Your Seatbelt was the first I heard and I was immediately intrigued by a sound seemed unfamiliar to me. I’ve always been sucker for power synth, and had recently become an avid fan of breakbeat through bands like Hybrid. Then Pendulum appeared out of the blue, serving up a unique combination of these two styles. I dug a little deeper into the Pendulum universe and it was a revelation. Some years later I listened to a drum & bass station on streaming radio and realised this sound was not so unique to Pendulum. I listened sporadically for about a week but none of the music I heard could come close to being as good as Pendulum. So their unique sound could be summed up as being “Drum & bass that doesn’t suck”.

For over 12 months Hold Your Colour was easily my favourite album. The title track really blew me away with its pure, emotive vocals and impossibly complex chorus. The vocoded lyrics as best as I can discern are “Push in the knive, gauge open your eye.” The album art also alludes to this. Another stand-out track is Girl in the Fire with its acoustic core and catchy bass riff topped off with a good helping of formant shift. In my opinion it’s the first song I’ve heard to use formant shift effectively but with restraint as to avoid becoming abusive. You imagine the song without it and it just wouldn’t be the same. Slam is another favourite and is the most “Pendulumy” song on the album. It’s one of a few tracks which create an atmosphere that I can only describe as “Fun House Sound”, conjuring up images of scary clowns, silly mirrors, haunted houses and other cliches. With the most memorable lead melody, Slam is a perfectly structured song in the way it builds and releases tension. The first full-length track after the introductory Prelude, it’s a great way to open the album. Still Grey, Streamline and Plasticworld are all excellent but much lighter “chillout” tracks, and these are what gives the album its perfect balance between heavy and light. I must admit I prefer the lighter tracks as I find listening to them really quite relaxing.

In Silico maintains this balance if veering slightly toward the heavy side. This is not due to there being more heavy tracks, but rather that the heavier tracks really are quite heavy compared to their earlier stuff. Some could be mistaken for alternative rock. When I first listened to the album, I was a little disappointed by the heavier tracks. But then I had a reality check and realised “Hang on a second. You like alternative rock. You can like these songs because they succeed at being really great alternative rock.” After listening to the whole album I realised that In Silico had the same perfect balance that was present in Hold Your Colour, and like its predecessor it became an instant favourite.

With most albums by my favourite artists, I usually don’t have to think very hard to pick a favourite track. Normally, one stands out from all others after the first run through, and this case was no exception. I can easily say 9000 Miles is one of the best songs I have ever heard. The song, with its limited lyrics is still able to conjure up vivid imagery of one separated from his lover by a vast distance. The electronic nature of the music leads me to imagine the distance has something to do with space. It could be the distance between two ships in space, but more probable (9000 miles is not very far if you have a decent spaceship) is the distance between Earth and an orbiting satellite. I have, like, already filmed the music video in my head. It’s not often that music evokes such imagery, so when it does I’m always impressed.

Another awesome track is Midnight Runner, whose title is an obvious reference to the stimulant Dextroamphetamine either as a recreational drug, or as the pill given to U.S. Air Force pilots to combat fatigue (either seems appropriate given the futuristic theme of the album). I notice that there is a Cut Copy song with the same title, so maybe all these musicians are just rampant pill-poppers!

I’ve run out of things to say, so I’ll sum up by saying that Pendulum still rock out and if you liked their first album you should check out their latest one. Oh and here’s a video. It’s a pretty cool video and I think it redeems the song from the autotune abuse.

I think “Shuffle” is a silly name for an iPod. From the name, you assume it’s permanently set to play songs in random order. I just convinced myself that I could live with an iPod that only plays in random order. When I took it out of the box I found a switch that toggles between “shuffle” and “play in order”. OMG Apple! Why have I been without a Shuffle all this time? Because of the stupid name you gave it, you idiots!

*sigh* That said, it’s a great little MP3 player. I have a playlist in iTunes called “Hot Right Now” that I put on it. It’s smaller than a Nano, and smaller than most pieces of food I put into my mouth. So maybe a better name would be the “iPod Pico”? I think it’s a cute name. But when I started up iTunes, there was only one name I could give it. Warning: link contains J-Pop ^_^