Who really likes Droids?

[hydrochloric]

I'm not trying to start anything here, but what's with all the iPhone hate?  I'm aware there are other phones, Droids, HTC, whatever that are better in many ways.  But...

I build computers.  I've repaired my laptop (an old MacBook Pro!  OMG!).  I work on my car, electrically and mechanically.  Is it really so evil that I want a phone that just works, without having to go though MORE work, flashes, ROMs, bootloaders?  Ask Kavik about the reliability of Droids.

Plus, Verizon, so far as I can tell, is made up (not the retail guys, it's not their fault) of butthurt-assholes that don't really give a flying fuck about their customers.  We used to have Verizon land lines.  Every spring, when it thawed, we would get constant static, so bad we couldn't hear.  Call up, get a repairman out, get the prob- OH WAIT THE FKING REPAIRMAN WOULDN'T SHOW UP.

Even my current phone (not even a smartphone) is from Verizon, and is a piece of shit they won't support.  It's an LG EnV Touch, AKA an LG VX11000, and it turns itself off in my pocket.  It butt-dials people all the time.  It butt-texts people.  It even butt-bought-an-app!  I thought, having had an iPod for years now, that a touchscreen would prevent that.  Apparently not.

And when I took it in to Verizon?  "Oh yeah, there's a battery issue.  I'll send you a new one."  Guess what never showed up?  Oh and their 4G?  Joke.  When the original 4G was coined, it was about 300 times faster than what the carriers are calling 4G (though that's not exclusive to Verizon).

By contrast, I'm on my 3rd iPod.  I managed to kill the home button on all of them.  Took them into an Apple store, and they replaced them for free.  (Okay, excluding when my 1st Gen died, but that was because it was 3 years old then).

So maybe it's not just Droids, or even the phones at all (though my first phone, some shitty Samsung flip phone, survived me for 5 years, didn't even fail when the screen broke, and survived getting chucked at a brick wall.  Do that with any modern phone, eh?).  Maybe it's the carriers.  Either way, the most reliable smartphone I've seen, and I've got many friends without them who agree, for someone who doesn't want to have to work to make their phone work, is the iPhone.  Not the best for someone who likes to mod their phone, but when you just want a smartphone that works...

Right, now let the -karma begin! 

[flutyr525]

so since ED likes droids so much...when is a droid app coming out for unysoc?

[ed]

so since ED likes droids so much...when is a droid app coming out for unysoc?

no need, use mobile site

[09legacyseoo7]

I'm not trying to start anything here, but what's with all the iPhone hate?  I'm aware there are other phones, Droids, HTC, whatever that are better in many ways.  But...

I build computers.  I've repaired my laptop (an old MacBook Pro!  OMG!).  I work on my car, electrically and mechanically.  Is it really so evil that I want a phone that just works, without having to go though MORE work, flashes, ROMs, bootloaders?  Ask Kavik about the reliability of Droids.

Plus, Verizon, so far as I can tell, is made up (not the retail guys, it's not their fault) of butthurt-assholes that don't really give a flying fuck about their customers.  We used to have Verizon land lines.  Every spring, when it thawed, we would get constant static, so bad we couldn't hear.  Call up, get a repairman out, get the prob- OH WAIT THE FKING REPAIRMAN WOULDN'T SHOW UP.

Even my current phone (not even a smartphone) is from Verizon, and is a piece of shit they won't support.  It's an LG EnV Touch, AKA an LG VX11000, and it turns itself off in my pocket.  It butt-dials people all the time.  It butt-texts people.  It even butt-bought-an-app!  I thought, having had an iPod for years now, that a touchscreen would prevent that.  Apparently not.

And when I took it in to Verizon?  "Oh yeah, there's a battery issue.  I'll send you a new one."  Guess what never showed up?  Oh and their 4G?  Joke.  When the original 4G was coined, it was about 300 times faster than what the carriers are calling 4G (though that's not exclusive to Verizon).

By contrast, I'm on my 3rd iPod.  I managed to kill the home button on all of them.  Took them into an Apple store, and they replaced them for free.  (Okay, excluding when my 1st Gen died, but that was because it was 3 years old then).

So maybe it's not just Droids, or even the phones at all (though my first phone, some shitty Samsung flip phone, survived me for 5 years, didn't even fail when the screen broke, and survived getting chucked at a brick wall.  Do that with any modern phone, eh?).  Maybe it's the carriers.  Either way, the most reliable smartphone I've seen, and I've got many friends without them who agree, for someone who doesn't want to have to work to make their phone work, is the iPhone.  Not the best for someone who likes to mod their phone, but when you just want a smartphone that works...

Right, now let the -karma begin! 

     To each there own, people who like apple will never like android people who like android will not switch to apple.  I am on my 6th android phone between work and personal.  I have had little to no problem.  Always leave work phone stock always mod personal phone to make the phone my own .
     My argument is all electronic devices have problems even apples as you mentioned, for the most part apple is pretty good at diagnosing and repairing issues in their stores with there devices. The problem is the other manufacturers dont have a store to bring them to which kinda sucks and most people in the verizon stores suck at troubleshooting.  A similar number of doa devices come right strait out of the box from apple as any other phone maker aka motorolla, samsung, lg, and htc. You are comparing one manufacturer to many manufactures which when you think about it it will seem like more droids have problems then just one phone. Next thing is some people create the issues themselves kinda like with cars modding things they know nothing about and fucking it up royally then calling the device a pile of shit.
     I work for verizon and yes the company in general are a-holes about supporting broken stuff and like with your apple products when you buy them you are better off going back to the manufacturer to get the device fixed or repaired then bringing it into a store as there are no longer tech support people in any of our retail stores.  LG is solely responsible for how crappy a phone the env touch was and pretty much left it in our hands to do the dirty work and figure out what to do with the customers stuck with it. 
    Droids dont need to be rooted rommed or modded whatsoever to work properly but it is something many of us do to try out new stuff before it is available to the masses, allows you to customize which keeps what you have from being generic (iPhone).  Not to mention my other beef with apple is that no matter what when you buy an apple product they now purposely leave something brand new in the industry on the table instead of integrating it into there device to make you buy the next one while its a smart business practice for them they are fucking the consumer over.  One better is time after time they will shit on what the other guy is doing then six months later say it will be introduced on their next phone or OS and call it revolutionary or game changing even though other software and hardware makers have been doing it for that amount of time. 
     Either way apple makes a great product and so do most of the other companies I know plenty of people who will argue for either side but for me Ill keep my droids.

[Kavik]

I'm not trying to start anything here, but what's with all the iPhone hate?  I'm aware there are other phones, Droids, HTC, whatever that are better in many ways.  But...

I build computers.  I've repaired my laptop (an old MacBook Pro!  OMG!).  I work on my car, electrically and mechanically.  Is it really so evil that I want a phone that just works, without having to go though MORE work, flashes, ROMs, bootloaders?  Ask Kavik about the reliability of Droids.
<snip>

Oh, I bet I could break an iPhone too 
Yes, I'd say the phone I got was bad, I'd say there are tons of others that have the same issues and more, but the same can be said for every electronic device out there.  I like to tinker and try to fix things on my own, that was my downfall in this situation, I should've just traded it in for a working one months ago 

 There are many reasons I've chosen against Apple in the past, I've hated every Apple product I've ever used.  When others love the old Apple II, I was all about the Commodore 64/128. Give me the simplicity of WinAmp and files that I can sort the way I want them over iTunes any day of the week.
 In this case the choice was made easy, when I got my droid verizon wasn't carrying iPhones yet, and verizon is the only carrier I've used with good success on constant coverage.  If I was just buying the phone now I probably would still choose something other than the iPhone anyway

[hydrochloric]

The problem is the other manufacturers dont have a store to bring them to which kinda sucks and most people in the verizon stores suck at troubleshooting.  A similar number of doa devices come right strait out of the box from apple as any other phone maker aka motorolla, samsung, lg, and htc. You are comparing one manufacturer to many manufactures which when you think about it it will seem like more droids have problems then just one phone.

You do bring up a very good point about the fact that Apple controls hardware AND software.  I tend to forget that, and that makes me forget how having those two separated can cause serious integration issues.  Although Apple is annoyingly picky about the exchanges.  iPods get exchanged like candy, regardless of how long they've been broken, or if the warrantee is up.  MacBooks?  ...not so much.  My current MacBook Pro is right before they went unibody, and the keyboard/trackpad occasionally just stop working.  Apple knows it, but it showed up after there had been two new generations of MBPs, and they henceforth don't deal with it.  So I have issues with them, too.

As for the argument that they purposefully withhold new upgrades....  I can think of some examples, true (no camera on the iPad 1, no video recording until the iPhone 4).  But other times it's because whatever the new thing is isn't ready yet.  (Thunderbolt comes to mind)  Plus, it's not like they're the only company that does that.  USB3.0 was out long before most companies started putting it on their laptops/motherboards.

I'm not really trying to argue you should get an iPhone, if you like the Droid, then certainly, go for it.  I don't really have a preference beyond my household being Apple-only since...  Well, before I was born.  My first computer was one of those old Beige PowerMacs from the early 90's.  At this point I would get an iPhone merely because I've gotten very used to the interface via my iPod Touch.

Besides, I hear lots of people mention business practices as reasons why they don't like Apple (and in one case, because of Steve Jobs alone.)  But really, you can point to ANY big electronics/software company and find the same issues.

I guess I was just trying to figure out why people seemed to dislike the iPhone so readily.  I know it will never quite make sense to me, since I do like them, I always just wonder what actual reasons there are, beyond most people who will just say they "hate Apple."  (Yes that is an answer I've gotten before.)

As to Kavik and the WinAmp/iTunes/whatever debate...  I've used iTunes, WinAmp, VLC, the Ubuntu Linux one (whose name I can't remember ATM), and a couple others.  All had their plusses, though some barely so.  I think the main reason I still use iTunes (apart from the superior integration in OS X) is that 98% of the time, I want to listen to an artist, and I almost always then listen to an entire album.  I don't tend to skip across artists, so the iTunes layout is great for me.

[Kavik]

doesn't fit the thread at all, but I just ran across this pic and had to share it somewhere