Software Journal

Moving from BlackBerry to Android (or iPhone)?  There’s an app for that!  But first, let us begin with Dilbert.  You can also read this starter on uncommunication devices by Scott Adams.

First, the handoff issue.  When you make a call using WiFi, and then you move away where you have no WiFi, your call doesn’t handoff to the 3G/4G network.  It simply drops.  That doesn’t happen sometimes.  That happens every time, by design.  Your phone even warns you that the call might drop, and you look at the phone with squinty eyes and ask in your worst possible Shawshank Redemption voice – “How can you be so obtuse?”  This problem of soft handoff has been studied for a very long time – take this 1997 paper as example.  The BlackBerry has an excellent handoff mechanism, you can start in WiFi, go to 3G, come back to WiFi, repeat and rinse, and keep talking.  The workaround in Android is simply to disable WiFi calling until “they” figure it out.

Secondly, aah the synchronization issues.  At other times I have written that in 2020, the cellphones will have no synchronization to do, since the cellphone will be the only device that will synchronize with the cloud.  One thing that you learn only after you buy an Android phone is that Google really wants you to use GMail.  At the least, all the synchronization options are built around Google contacts and Google calendar.  Perhaps Google will eventually get it, that I just don’t want to move to GMail (email systems are like soft drinks – everyone has their own preference), but for now, I am serving Google’s fantasy.  My earlier Outlook + Blackberry + BB Desktop Manager has now led to: Outlook, Google Calendar Synch, Google Synch on my android device, and the Outlook contacts are not really synchronized, they are just imported and exported.  I am sure there are tons of apps that do tons of things, but that whole line of reasoning is sounding to start silly.

Thirdly, the battery life.  Both iPhones and Androids have atrocious battery life.  Best workaround is to keep your cellphone mobile phone wired at all times.

A few things that work very well in Android are the swype typing, the mobile access point and the camera.  I have stopped carrying a camera, and the pictures come out just fine.  Consider this picture from the Benjamin Franklin room at the State Department.

All said and done, Android is better than the Blackberry at thousands of things – BlackBerry is better than the Android if you actually make or receive calls.  This situation is summarized in the following Russian couplet:

купил айфон а чо с ним делать

где кнопки чтобы нажимать и

как мне позвонить сереге

а вот и он звонит и чо

That roughly translates to:

I bought an iPhone – what to do with it?
Where the buttons to press?
How do I call Sergyi?
Oh, here, he is calling and now what?

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Posted on Sunday, July 31st, 2011 at 12:16 PM in review   |  RSS feed