Droid Update

The Droid update has yet to push its way onto the review unit I have. So while I wait for that, I figured I'd mention a few nitpicks I've run into in the past few weeks.

*When you're on a call and the phone is next to your face, the screen dims itself to save battery life. Now let's say you take the phone off your face because you need to dial a number (like for example if you're drilling your way through an automated call) the screen is supposed to come "back to life" so you can press those numbers. That works 70% of the time. The other 30% it remains dark, so I have to quickly put the phone back on my face and remove it again till it finally realizes what I'm doing.

*The keyboard is a little slow at learning my vocabulary. When I txt, I write in shorthand a lot and every time I write "shld" the Droid fills in "Sheldon." Eventually it will learn what I'm trying to type, but it can be a little slow at times.

*The speaker sometimes stutters. I have the Droid set to chime every time I get a tweet or e-mail. 90% of the time it chimes fine. 10% of the time, the chime stutters for no apparent reason. This only happens with alerts (like tweets, Gmail) and not with music, alarms, or phone calls.

Ok, now some awesome things:

*I've gotten used to the virtual keyboard in portrait mode, which is shocking to me considering I preferred the landscape mode. I can't type as fast as I would on say a Blackberry Curve, but I can move pretty darn fast. Interestingly enough, I hardly use the Droid in landscape mode (only when using Maps or an app.)

*Some apps that are paid-only in the Apple Store are free in Android Market.

*All of the apps I've downloaded are awesome. I actually *use* them! I cannot emphasize this enough. The apps are awesome and I actually use them. On my iPod touch I find myself purging apps more often than I add. (I'll do a post later on my fave Android apps.)

*Push Gmail is great. Some people have commented that there's a delay, but I've only experienced that when reception falls (like if I'm walking into a train station.) I did notice that if you mess around with the system settings (like I did), it's very easy to disable the push Gmail feature without even realizing it. That forces you to manually refresh. So be careful not to shut off background apps that the Droid needs.

*3G is awesome. Since I got this review unit back in late October, I have been 3G-less only once, and it quickly came back up.

*The Droid has changed the way I use my cell phone. I used to shut down my phone every night, but now I find myself leaving it on 24/7. Kind of like I do with my iPod touch. I feel very connected with the Droid. It's like having a mini computer with me all the time, which is probably the best compliment one can give the Droid.

So how does Android stack up to the iPhone OS? IMO, Apple has the better interface. It's not perfect, but it's smoother. So if this were a race, Android would be 2 steps behind the iPhone OS. You hear that, Apple. Android is very close to catching up to you. It's younger. Fresher. And so close you can feel its breath down your neck. When's the last time any company did that?