Uprading on Sprint: Moto Photon or iPhone 4S?

[CrackBerry]

Yup, the pdf came up fine when I tried the same link a few min later. Tried to edit the post, but it wasn't editable immediately. The Help Center is pretty good, I'm feeling a bit dumb as it is in most ways the user guide I was complaining about. Don't know how I missed that, I did look through Apps. That said, it covers importing contacts but not other data (at least that I can find), and I can't find how to save web pages to internal storage. Everything else downloads fine, and there's probably a simple fix for this issue...I just wonder why it isn't in the Save Page dialog.

It's that sorta thing I've been ticked about - I think someting will take 5 seconds, then I have to stop and RTM, find an app, or think about the issue differently when I was in the middle of a task. I ask a lot from phone software, bc it's not a phone it's a full time info assistant that I often want to do x with right now, not after RTM. With 100s of millions of users I expect the hard part of software development to get done - the hardest thing is making it trivially easy to use. Maybe I just need to be more patient and realistic about transferring to a modern, cloud oriented and more capable system.

Some of my issues have been user error, some have been not looking in the right place, and a few were just from being PO'd and not seeing the obvious. For others I think there's a difference in philosophy - I'd sorta prefer my phone to work less like a PC, where I expect to do some research as a requirement, and more like the Palm, where they made an attempt to make it intuitive and one-stop. (Yeah, Palm's pre WebOS code and quality were not great, but that's a separate issue from the design.) Here some of the RTM has to be upfront, and .

I'm really curious to try the fruit phone if Sprint will do a swap. The hardware is a step down from the Photon, but I want to find out why so many people are partial to it. Could be the Kleenex factor - to many, smartphone=iphone and "everyone has one".
Or not. I spoke to a grad student who had a Galaxy Nexus which he'd already rooted; the GN replaced his iphone. Not a newb. GN is obviously superior hardware to any iphone... and he said he missed the iphone. Plus I noticed one strange thing; it's very easy to sell the little thing. An ebay search showed Sprint iphones with bad esn(!) clearly stated in the headline selling for more than a clean Photon - and the P is a world phone with a bigger screen, 4G* <*when it works> plus a kickstand which works in 3 positions including with the cable attached.

Now if I could alternately load IOS and Android on the Photon I think I'd have the ideal try-it-out platform and perfect pocket assistant. Make that a Photon with LTE, since a future LTE signal works about as well for me as today's Wimax ;-)

[Deathwish238]

You would probably like Ice Cream Sandwich a lot. The UI is totally revamped and many styling queues remind me of WebOS, especially the app-switching manager. They got rid of the dedicated menu button entirely, makes it much less like using a PC.

Sprint is getting the Galaxy Nexus soon. When it comes out, you will enjoy the upgrade. If you don't want to jump to a new phone, I'ld consider putting a vanilla Android ROM on your phone. Do not go to your carrier for information about Android, they will know nothing more than what little they were trained.


What issues are you still having? I can say so far my only issue is the Sims 3 not wanting to download for ICS yet...but gaming is the least important thing for my phone to do. Seems like you have heavy use of Google Docs? I use Google Docs often, but rarely need to edit from my phone.




I've asked many iOS users what they like about iOS. None of them could tell me things that weren't app centric(with so many apps on each platform, apps do not define anything). People that like iOS so often like iOS for no reason that you can put into words. It's the same with Mac OS X. What's actually better about it? I use Windows 7 or XP daily and have no problems and I'm fine working on Mac OS X too. Most people with legitimate reasons to use OS X do it for a specific program(like for multimedia development). At the end of the day iOS is fine, it's great for people that are scared of computers. Other than the native Google syncing, the main difference for most people will be having no customizable homescreens, widgets or live wallpapers. iOS is usually doing less at any given moment than Android and is good at feeling fluid.

[CrackBerry]

DW38 --

Tx for your thoughts. I've been outta commission for a couple weeks, so I'm just getting to board posts.

My only experience with IOS is fiddling with an iphone in the store. The UI looked a bit toylike but I was able to use it immediately. For example, cut/copy/paste, cursor control and saving/marking web pages required zero minutes, zero seconds to figure out. The iphone hardware is a step below the Photon, but I'm finding that the hardware is an accessory to the software once you start really using it. I hear there are some strange limitations built in, but rooting fixes them.

So my reasons for wanting to try IOS are
1. Curiosity. It might be inferior to Android but I'd like to try it firsthand.
2. It has a reputation for having details worked out and bugs addressed. e.g., they had a battery issue at launch (someone screwed up) and went to work on it immediately. There's little doubt they won't quit debugging until it's truly fixed; they have the resources and too much to lose. You don't have to guess about OS updates: you get the latest IOS update the hardware can handle.
3. Rooting IOS is safe and reversible. Every post I've seen about rooting a Photon using a 32 bit PC to host it failed. Can't take that risk.
4. LTE. One reason I got the Photon over an iphone was 4G. In theory that saves one from Sprint's overloaded 3G network. It turns out that Apple was smart with this: Sprint's 4G usually doesn't work indoors and I don't have much use for it outdoors. That makes me wonder what else Apple thought through; they chose user experience over on paper specs. In 6 months when LTE starts to roll out the Wimax Photon will have nearly no resale value, an iphone 4S should be worth enough to offset a new LTE phone.

For Google Docs the issue was using it on the PC - it formatted a plain .doc into tables and then resisted editing the unwanted tables out. I hate it when software decides that I'm so stupid that it knows what I need better than I do.

My issues with Android can be roughly summarized as first, that I don't have time/energy to read and research various little things. It's to be expected that a new platform takes some user adaptation; I get the feeling that making the transition quick and hands-free was not part of the plan for Android. Second, the apps vary dramatically as to whether or not they get the job done.

A few examples
i) Importing various items from the old PIM, preferably without fiddling around getting things into the correct field.
a -- Import memos from Palm OS, without uploading to Google, with the categories intact. I have no doubt this can be done, it's just not in the manual nor is there an import tool.
b -- I'd like to import old calendar entries with their notes field. This is supposedly done by exporting to csv, upload to Google, sync to phone. I'd rather do this directly from desktop to phone
ii) Contacts - I don't expect any problem importing them. There is an issue managing the list of obsolete contacts it auto-imported; the option to manage contacts on the phone isn't obvious. So far it's a multi step process to delete each one, that's pure time wasting.

Which brings up the main issue with Android.

It seems that at random points I have to stop and RTM. I don't have time; I need it to just *&%$# work! EG I needed to save a 24 page email onto the phone. The email program reported "email saved", yet there was no way to retrieve it. It did not show in Downloads or Documents. Maybe it's there, maybe not. How cute.
When attempting to save it from a browser, Android demanded to send the file onto the SD card. I haven't installed one yet, and if I had I should have the option of where to save. With nearly 3 GB of free space on the phone it makes zero sense for the OS or a stock app to refuse to save a file.
This makes me want to take an arc welder to the little robot.

Somewhere, there's a procedure to force it to work. Not in the manual tho, and most importantly not at the moment I needed the damn thing to just *&%$ work. I needed to dl a 24 screen long list of apartments/shares for rent that minute, not after wandering around the net figuring out how to do it. Around here a decent living situation moves fast: the last leaseholder I heard from had 25 responses in 24 hours. I get very PO'd at a dev team that thinks "File|Save" should require the user to hit a forum or maybe write their own code to do the job.

It feels like Android wants me to putz around with the phone. I want it to let me do get stuff done.

I'm finding other things that weren't fully baked, such as the stock power management. Setting it to max sent calls straight to VM - phone didn't ring. Fail. There's no quality control on apps, but some are locked out (Roam Control, which may or may not work on the Photon even if rooted).

In sum, it seems that Android can do everything but it requires that I adapt to it and work around various issues. There are also hidden gotchas, like the times when calls go to VM. Right now I can't deal with that; I'd rather trade off some flexibility for shrink-wrapped, no-touch solutions. Later on I'll have more spare cycles and Android will probably be more polished, I could revisit it then.

Sprint is being obstinate about swapping the phone, so I will probably have to get ramped up on Android.

[Drillbit]

When attempting to save it from a browser, Android demanded to send the file onto the SD card. I haven't installed one yet, and if I had I should have the option of where to save. With nearly 3 GB of free space on the phone it makes zero sense for the OS or a stock app to refuse to save a file.
This makes me want to take an arc welder to the little robot.

You should go ahead and save it. Android tends to refer to the internal memory as the SD card. Remember, all those Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus don't have external SD cards as well, and I have been downloading and saving stuff form the browser.

Having said this, the normal Android 2.x way of doing this is to partition the built in memory into internal phone memory, which is the equivalent of the PC booting C: drive. This is where the apps are installed on primarily as well as important caches, data and contact information. The second partition is called SD and is usually much larger. This is where apps can be optionally installed, where music, videos, caches and other files can be kept.

When you connect an Android to a PC as a mass storage drive, the SD partition is the first thing you will see.

Assuming an 8GB card is preinstalled, normally HTC would take 1GB an assign it as internal phone memory, the balance being SD. Samsung would take 1.5GB to 2GB, the balance being SD. That way, you can download stuff into the phone without needing to buy another SD card.

Motorola on the other hand, takes 4GB to 8GB of the built in memory as primary internal phone memory. They did this so you can load up immensely on apps, more than the other two. I've seen many complaints about HTC running out of phone memory, but not on Samsung and Motorola. I think Samsung figured out the best balance. Because the internal phone memory partition on the Motorola is much more immense, the balance is that the SD partition is much smaller or not even be included.

To view downloads, there is an app called Downloads at the app screen. That's where everything that is downloaded from any app can be examined.

[kslam]

I'm sorry you're still having so many issues. As I said earlier, I'm a big fan of Apple products. I'm writing now from a MacBook Pro and I own an iPod Touch and an iPad. I can assure you that many of the issues you're having now, you'd also experience on the iPhone. You were lucky enough to use your Treo for a good long while, but you are part of a tiny minority who's actually transferring PIM from the Treo to Android or iOS so there is not a lot of built in support for that. On either OS, you'd have to spend some time digging around on forums to figure out the best way to do things. All of your other issues have pretty easy solutions and I'm tempted to go through and explain each one, but I don't have the time right now. They're all really very simple though and I'm guessing by the time you get this reply you'll have solved most of them.

You know, one thing I just thought of...if you're certain you'd prefer the iPhone, why not sell your Photon now while its value is still decent and then look for a used iPhone 4. The 4 won't be that much money and the improvements that 4S brings aren't that great, in my opinion.

Anyway, best of luck to you. If you do keep the Photon, I hope you learn to adapt. Like you, I was coming from the Palm world, but in many ways I now find Android to be more intuitive. You had the Treo so long, you learned the language very well. I suspect there was a learning curve with that as well which you may not even remember.

Best,

K

Can't help myself, I'll address a couple of your issues.. Copying and pasting is basically the same as it is on iOS. Highlight the text and hold your finger on the screen until a menu pops up where you can choose "copy." Similarly, holding your finger on a field will bring up a menu where you can choose "paste." There are several ways to save emails. The easiest way is to designate a label on Gmail that will always sync to your phone. I don't have my phone in front of me, but in the Gmail settings on your phone you can choose how far back to sync your phone for various labels; one of the options is to sync all mail. So, I have a label on my Gmail called "to phone." I apply that label to any email that I want to always be saved to my phone. You can set starred emails to always be saved to your phone too, btw.

[CrackBerry]

Hi folks

I tried saving and ... it works! When it prompts for "SD card" it means either a physical or virtual card. I also bought a card, not installed yet. The saved file isn't always visible under "downloads", it was in the app's individual folder.
Copy/Paste does work, got that a couple weeks back. It's still a little finicky, but that is a matter of user acclimatization.
I didn't know about the GM label thing - I have a bunch of work to do to set up Gmail as my primary mail account, pulling in mail from elsewhere.

"When you connect an Android to a PC as a mass storage drive, the SD partition is the first thing you will see."

OK-- I have the phone cabled to the PC now, data connection working via pdanet. What app do I use to see it as a drive? There's a MotoConnect item in the system tray, but it seems to be for some other purpose.

"You had the Treo so long, you learned the language very well. I suspect there was a learning curve with that as well which you may not even remember."

Ya know... I think you've hit it. I started with a Palm Vx, so moving to the Treo was not difficult. It's also an unusually intuitive OS *and* had a physical keyboard. And plenty of bugs. Now that I've stopped being PO'd, I can see that import tools for obsolete platforms were not part of the spec; most serious Treo users moved to a newer platform at least 2 years ago.

"On either OS, you'd have to spend some time digging around on forums to figure out the best way to do things."
I'm now thinking I'll keep the Photon. When it's cheap enough I'll get an iphone to fool with out of curiosity, but now it doesn't seem like a necessity.

Now I need to seriously ramp up on making good use of the Google model. I think I'll be posting here a fair amount!

Best,

L

[Drillbit]

If your Android is connected to the PC ias a mass storage drive, in effect, it becomes like a flash drive and you treat it as such. Just open it like a hard disk attached to your PC. No app needed. Just click My Computer and there is a new hard drive that didn't exist before.

[liam06824]

I still have a Treo and the SERO plan. Aside from not being certain whether to go Apple or Android, I have stayed with the Treo because I thought I would lose my plan if I upgraded.

Thanks.

[CrackBerry]

DB -- It worked. I just have to select "mass storage" off a menu which pulls down the from the notify bar, after that it becmes an ordinary drive letter.

Re the Downloads applet: it didn't catch email downloads, I found those when browsing the phone file structure. I noticed that you can see the files on the phone _unless_ it is set to make them visible to the PC.

DB and KS -- thanks again for the tips. I'm sorta surprised I've tripped over many small issues; it seems I can't handle open ended tasks well since I got sick. I have to get back to knowing that these are simple problems with mostly simple solutions.

Li -- Hey, welcome to the club. That means there were 2 people on Earth using a Treo until quite recently ;-).

You can certainly keep SERO; you'll get hit with $10 for 4G data and another $10 for the smartphone upcharge. It's still competitive with the cheapest plans and half the cost of VZ/AT&T though not the screamin' deal it once was. Right now it's also a lower level of service.
Resist any attempts to switch you to another plan with Sprint - nothing to gain but nearly twice the price. Probably the best way to do the upgrade is through telesales; with the store you can only use a corporate outlet and you do not get the same level of service... as I discovered.

I would advise blocking out 12 days to use whichever platform you want and try it out intensively. Try the apps you want, fool with it, see if you get 4G when and where you use it etc. Be absolutely sure how they are counting your 14 days and make a note of who you spoke to - they store is totally inflexible about returns, telesales may be nearly so. If you want to swap, call telesales and request a return pack a day early. They'll give you zero hassle IF you are unquestionably within your time window.

IOS vs Android: My hunch is there's a strong element of personal preference which is hard to fit into a checklist, so my 2c is try both. From what I've read, not from experience, there are more restrictions in IOS and all are fixable via rooting. Rooting it is said to be safe and painless, but you'll have to wait for jailbreak to be developed for a new phone/OS version - Apple does not make it easy.

***BUT TAKE NOTE*** Sprint LTE phones will be out in a few months, first the robot stuff then the LTE iphone not long after. LTE Waay >>>> Wimax; Wimax doesn't work inside anything more than a lightly built house. Even in covered areas it's spotty, e.g you can have six bars of phone & 3G signal and zero Wimax. Sure, there's always something better a few months out, but with Sprint's overloaded 3G it's necessary to take notice of LTE.

[Drillbit]

And so it looks like the Motorola Photon, along with the Atrix and Atrix 2 will be slated for Android 4.0 upgrades this year.