Delicious LiveJournal Links for 11-9-2009

[andrewducker]

• Nokia shipped more than double Apple's smartphones last year.
  RIM in second place, Apple in third.
  (tags: apple nokia phones)
• Tough love is good for children
  It found that children from the richest backgrounds were more than twice as likely to develop the key characteristics compared to those with the poorest origins.
  
  Additionally, children whose parents were married were twice as likely to show such traits than children from lone parent or step-parented families, the report said.
  
  But it added that when parental style and confidence were factored in, the difference in child character development between richer and poorer families disappeared.
  (tags: psychology bbc children)

Comments

[robhu.livejournal.com]

All the reviews I've seen (and my personal tests of Android) make it look very much like a grade B product next to Apple's. I doubt, given Google's history with software development and the way Android works - that it'll ever be 'better' than the iPhone. However it could be that it's cheaper or not much worse - in much the same way that Linux gets market share although arguably for most users the experience is quite a bit worse than using Windows or Mac OS X.

Nokia's N900 on the other hand is (I've heard) excellent. I had a n800, which ran the same operating system - and that was fantastic. However it's a super premium end phone - if that's to get traction Nokia will need to massively reduce the cost.

[andrewducker]

I didn't much fancy the G1 - but all the reviews of the later phones show that Android is rapidly increasing in usability and power. The reviews of the first Android 2.0 phone are all rather glowing. Still a few bits and pieces to work out, but good enough that my next phone will almost certainly be an Android.

Unless Maemo overtakes it by then, of course :->

[robhu.livejournal.com]

The reviews I read of Android 2.0 still all said "not as good as the iPhone" which is unfortunate as you'd expect a new release to leapfrog ahead until the competitors new release leapfrogs ahead of that.

The only thing that non-iPhone phones potentially have going for them atm that is really significant AFAICT is that they can have better screen resolutions (and Flash).

[andrewducker]

The reviews I've seen have said that some things the iPhone does better, some the Droid does better.

The main thing that non-iPhones have going for me is that I can install any app I like on them. If Apple did that then I'd have one already.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

BTW - did you read any review that considered the Droid to be superior to the iPhone? Every review I've read is like this one: "It's the question that everyone will ask, so we might as well get it out of the way now - is this an iPhone or HTC Hero killer? And the answer is no."

[andrewducker]

Seen a couple that say that The Droid is better at some things and the iPhone is better than others. The inbox is supposed to be better for dealing with everything in one place (but I suspect that's a matter of taste). And there's the usual stuff about background apps and more freedom and having a physical keyboard. But if those don't matter to you then I suspect the iPhone still aces it.

[andrewducker]

Just remembered the other thing Apple doesn't do - background apps.

Having to relaunch an app because I wanted to check my email would annoy the hell out of me.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

That is annoying.

Apple's argument is this tradeoff is why the iPhone gets excellent battery life.

[andrewducker]

I can understand that argument. But I'd rather have them say "If you run multiple apps the battery life will drop" or even pop up a "Background app X is sucking the battery dry, kill it?" than mandate that I can't run them.