They have no remote inkling for tinkering whatsoever, quite the opposite in fact. The less time they spend fiddling and setting things up and making them work the better, and the better for me too, as I'm the one they all come to for help! Sure I'd love it if they all had Android devices because that's what I choose myself, and it would be a more familiar OS for me to help them with, but I can't hand on heart recommend Android in the operating system's current state.
They won't worry about the walled garden of the Apple ecosystem and any limitations of iOS, because the restrictions won't be apparent to these non-geek users. iTunes is a horrible piece of work on Windows (apparently much better on OS X, but I can't back that up with no OS X machine in the house), and they all have Windows PCs/laptops. But they won't worry about using the nasty iTunes software for getting their music from PC/laptop to the iPhone, and for the occasional backup, because occasional use wouldn't get you that frustrated. Plus being non-geeks, they have lower expectations of software in general, whereas I expect things to be smooth. In the case of iTunes, I don't expect it to become unresponsive whilst changing the artwork for an album of 12 tracks for example (particularly with 8GB RAM and an SSD under the hood, where exactly does that delay come from?!)
iCloud features will "just work" out of the box, if they even choose to use them, as none of these people have Macs or iPads, so will only benefit from the backup side of it, not the sharing of photos amongst devices. iMessage will again "just work" out of the box, and I reckon half of them won't notice or even care to wonder why certain messages are in different colour bubbles. As long as the person at the other end gets the message, and they get a reply, that's all that matters.
Personally, I have grown accustomed to being to configure everything exactly as I like it, for example:
- Dropsync sends my photos to Dropbox straight after they are taken. At some point after sat at my PC I will drag photos into folders based on the event or subject matter, and Picasa will face tag them and upload full resolution copies to Google's servers, and then they will all be accessible from every Android device I own; phone, tablet and TV. And that's every photo I've ever taken.
- Titanium Backup runs on schedules to backup all my apps and their data, and those backups too are sync'd up to Dropbox for safe keeping, should I lose my phone, or want to rebuild from scratch.
- All the birthdays and addresses of my friends and family are stored in my Google contacts, so reminders for buying birthday cards and navigating to their houses in the car is incredibly simple.
- I actually have full control of labels, stars and archiving within my Google Mail.
- I can pick any mp3 music file to use for a ringtone, a message tone, a reminder, and in fact almost any notification noise.
- My calendar is always on my device's home screen, so I always know exactly what is coming up.
- Particularly, but not exclusively, with Nexus, Sony Ericsson and HTC devices with unlocked bootloaders, I can actually run the particular custom version of Android I wish to choose. CyanogenMod is a stunning piece of work and has given lots of my phones completely new leases of life, as well as lots of tinkering opportunities!
Some of those are biased to Android because I'm a heavy Google services user, and some may even be possible with iOS, with which I don't profess to be an expert. However, my point is that I want to be able to do these types of "power user" things with my device, whereas the normal user wouldn't be the slightest bit concerned. What will matter to them is things like getting music onto the phone (iTunes), getting all the apps their mates have (App Store still winning here let's face it), maybe the odd backup when one of their mates loses their phone and loses all their photos (iTunes again). These types of tasks are still too involved with an Android device, no matter how much hand holding the Android OEMs put into their GUIs for events like plugging into a PC.
This is why iPhones are, at the moment, the correct choice for everyone else, but not for me (and many other geeks of course).
1 comment:
Interesting article. Agree with the appeal of the iphone for many users. Having had both I feel im more comfortable having more control of my device using android. Although still suffering the hangover of having all my songs in itunes...still major headache of mine. My geek-o-meter isnt on your level, but enough to just sqeeuze into the andriod club. Keep up the good work!
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