Yes. I switched to the iPhone 4s.

Three years back, I had the Blackberry Storm and last year I switched to Motorola Droid 2 Global (Android) and what a pleasure it was. This year, going to the iPhone 4s it’s even more pleasurable. I really have to give it to Apple for making it so intuitive, simple and clean (hardware and software aesthetics). Android still feels a little too geeky. So with HP/Palm and the Web-OS story I think there are only two choices at this point. The iPhone 4s or Samsung/HTC Android phones (Sorry, I will probably not go with the Motorola for a while now). So here’s my review and a comparison in general between the iPhone and Android phones.

In terms of Apps, you pretty much have a similar spread on both. However, I do miss Google Listen (the best Podcast app for Android). Until I find a good workaround, I will live with iTunes.

Primary Requirements whether an iPhone or an Android based phone

• The Phone aspect (for making/receiving calls) must work and be accessible easily and fast
• When in the gym or running on the trail, I need my music and be able to skip !!! (Motorola Failed BIG time on this)
• Podcast Apps
• Text/E-Mail support
• Good Fast Browser
• Needs to be a world phone

In my opinion, the iPhone wins in all departments (except Podcasts), only because eventually after time Android phones just seem to get slower!
OK – now here are my observations.

Why you would get an iPhone (4s running iOS 5.0.1)

Positives

• Simple, easy and intuitive with beautiful fonts and overall appearance
• You want a phone that just works every time and any time and is fast and spiffy
  (My Motorola Droid 2 fell short on this – gradually took too long to get to the phone to make calls etc.)
• You have an iPad as well and you’re part of the Apple ecosystem
• You want a smaller phone that you can hold easily in your hand
• You want a phone that integrates with your car, with your receiver at home and has a plethora of accessories
• You need a World Phone (Note iPhone 4s supports GSM/CDMA, while the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is only CDMA)
• Voice mail is awesome (I would never listen to Voicemail on my Android)
• Battery Life – You can tweak certain things to increase the life (also a negative, because it needs the tweaks)

Negatives

• You don’t drop your phone and you’re not clumsy with it (The iPhone fared pretty bad on the drop test – Gorilla Glass – Yeah Right!)
• You don’t care about Adobe Flash (Note: YouTube, NetFlix etc. run great)
• You don’t care about the Free Google Navigation (Google Maps works just fine)
• You don’t care about Google Listen
• You don’t care about Siri
• As a developer, you don’t mind writing Objective-C and be stuck to a Mac
• You don’t mind not having Chrome to Phone
• Battery Life – You can tweak certain things to increase the life (also a positive because its better than Android, for me)

Why you would get an Android Phone (Samsung/HTC – I can’t say great things about Motorola until I forget the pain I went through)

Positives

• You need 4G LTEL – Samsung Galaxy Nexus supports this
• You’re a podcast enthusiast – Google Listen is the best
• You can’t stand iTunes
• You can see the file system with your USB cable connected and easily transfer music
• You want a bigger screen
• You love Google and how seamlessly it integrates with Android
• As a Java developer, you want the choice of what OS you want to develop code on and developing Apps is relatively easy
• Pretty damn sturdy (My Motorola fell several times and didn’t even get a scratch)
• NFC support (which not too many places accept at this point)

Negatives

• A fraction slower navigating the phone (Not the browser or downloads etc. just the OS itself)
• Just too geeky and not a very simple user experience (compared to the one button iPhone)
• After about a year, the phone just doesn’t perform like it did when it was new
• Battery Life – Gosh my Motorola Droid 2 would be completely drained before I got in my car at the end of the day
• Really easy to build apps that are malicious. You could accidentally download them. There’s source code out there that teaches you how.

Overall, I wouldn’t disagree with folks who claim that Android 4.0 available on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is probably the best out there, but it’s still a tad bit geeky. However, it’s not a World Phone which is a requirement for me. Now, Looking back at my Motorola Droid 2 – I just felt that whenever I really really needed something – Like Music or GPS – it needed a hard reset using up 5 minutes.

For simplicity and everyday use, and guaranteed to provide the same level of exceptional usability all year round – I went the iPhone! It just works!

Usually with Android development in Eclipse, you will often be working with XML Files and trying to mess with them. Now while testing your app you will find a file.out.xml that gets created that completely messes up the Android build and shows errors. One way to avoid this is to use the following Settings in Eclipse.

Window -> Preferences -> Run/Debug -> Launching -> Launch Operation -> Always launch the previously launched application

I’m not sure what caused it, but you can change this behavior in at least 3 ways:

• Select Input Options button on the bottom left of Keyboard ==> Input Method ==> Android Keyboard
• Menu ==> Language & Keyboard ==> Keyboard Settings ==> Uncheck the Chinese & Japanese IME Checkboxes
• Long Press a Text Field ==> Input Method ==> Android Keyboard

See the snapshots for details.

It is inevitable. With the surge of Android based phones and reports that sales have overtaken the iPhone, Apple has to go beyond AT&T and attract customers that prefer other carriers. Soon, Apple iPhones will become available on Verizon and Sprint. Are we going to see another version Mac vs PC war again? Is Google’s Android going to emerge victorious? Microsoft is coming with the Windows Phone 7 OS and rumours are that Motorola is collaborating with them.

I’ve been using Research in Motion’s Blackberry Storm for over two years now and having played around with their crappy SDK, I personally think it’s the end of their reign. So, what about HP’s Palm acquisition and their Palm Web OS? Palm was on it’s last legs until they were rescued by HP, but how they’re going to compete with the Androids and iPhones remains to be seen.

The phone market definitely seems hot right now and so many players cranking out the coolest software, the state-of-the-art hardware and the carriers coming up with interesting deals to screw their customers, I wonder when I’d be able to go to a store pick up a phone I like, install any OS I like and use any carrier I want without being on a damn contract? In the meantime, I’m eligible for an upgrade starting tomorrow Oct 8th and I can’t wait to get rid of my Blackberry and go with an Android, but would it be worth to wait and go with the “cool” iPhone? I would go with an Android, but my wife seems rather anxious to get the iPhone and hasn’t done it because AT&T won’t work in our house.

It is possible that you downloaded the Android SDK, have installed the Eclipse Plugin but have not run the “SDK Manager”

Either run

SDK Manager.exe

Or launch it through CLI

tools/android update sdk

That should download all the necessary components. Remember, it is quite a slow process.

Are you getting this error Project is missing required source folder: ‘gen’ in your first Hello World example?

Within Eclipse, simply right click and delete “gen” folder in your Package Explorer and Build project again.