Android

On this blog there is a page called Statistics which you can access by clicking the link above or clicking here: Blog: Statistics.  These statistics are updated every Month, manually for the time being but that will change in the future to automatically updated statistics.  There are other statistics that are far wider reaching they cover the life of the blog, since it was created.  According to those statistics the 3rd most popular OS platform for reading posts on this blog is Android [after Windows and Mac in case you couldn't guess].

I happen to have an Android phone, and while there are many things I do use it for, reading blogs is not one of them - not least for the fact that most blogs are catered toward the desktop browser.  This blog however does have a mobile template view which you should be presented with if you try and view it on a mobile device [I believe the full site view is still an option if you prefer it].  For those of you who subscribe through various services like Google Reader apologies but you are not counted in these statistics.

I have had an Android phone for 6 months now and I have to say what a pleasure it is to use and for the technophiles here is the phone I use:

The Samsung Galaxy S ii (White). I am I guess what you would call a heavy user.  My phone bill is typically 10 pages long although the last two months were 17 and 23, which is a lot of calls.  There are many things I love about Android but as it is my disposition to do so I feel the need to write a blog post that focuses on the bad points and things I don't like.  I could list everything I do like but you have probably heard it all before and it would become quite tiresome.

The first main thing I don't like is partly the fault of Android and partly the fault of developers who create Apps for it.  There is no close button on Apps so for the most part you find yourself pressing the Home key to return to the main 'desktop' if you will.  The idea behind this mechanism from Androids point of view is that users should allow the device itself to manage Apps and allow it to close those in the background that aren't in use.  The is nice in theory but doesn't work well in practice.  Leaving a web browser open at a particular web page and in effect "abandoning" the App just does not feel right.  The only alternative option in that scenario is to go 'back' through every page you have been to working down through the stack until you are clear and the App is terminated.  As was my pet hate with Windows 8 and as was the remedy to both, Android also includes a task manager which I find myself using a lot.

I don't care much for the argument that I am being a control freak there is a plain and simple truth here that sometimes an App may "want" to do something and continue doing it but you the user want to quit it.  The suer should not be denied explicit control and this functionality should be built in so that as a developer an App can receive its 'close' request and let it clean up before exiting, rather than being forced to close by a task manager - which will forcefully close the App and not wait at all for it to complete its housekeeping duties if it takes too long.

There isn't much I can say about the S ii in particular, as it has been said before by other reviewers smart phones are becoming more and more generic, they have varying specification but at the end of the day if they run the same version of Android there's not that much to set them apart, they may run at different speeds and get things done slightly quicker or have slightly better cameras but the interface and the Apps and all the rest will still be the same.  What I believe Android has done for mobile phones is the same as what Windows achieved for PC's - to completely standardise the interface and cause uniformity.  I deny that Apple achieved this with the iPhone as the iPhone is one device that also applies to iOS which again only runs on Apple devices, Single Brand Uniformity akin to Apple is not equal to Market Uniformity achieved by Android and Windows.  They run on devices manufactured by many different companies, they all more or less look the same physically as do desktop PC's, they do not really diversify in terms of design, there are a few different form factors as there are with Android devices like Mobile v Tablets etc but ultimately a PC will look like a PC.

I find myself uttering a phrase which I know will make many people cringe but I have to say it as it is my view:

Android is the new Windows