Android woes
>> CraigRoberts
I've been a Desire HD user for 6 month now, most of that time running Android 2.2. Despite the inevitable and manifold minor bugs every time an App got updated, it was a small price to pay for iPhone-beating flexibility. I couldn't have been happier, all told.
At the weekend, I accepted the over-the-air update to install Android 2.3.3.
Whilst I've noticed lots of nice speed, stability and power managment improvements, some of the little changes have cokced things up slightly. Of course, UI changes often take some time to get used to, but some things have been changed so that they are far less elegant and bizarrely, more fiddly. Whilst that's disappointing, its not the end of the world.
What is far more frustrating is how some things just don't work properly now. Here are some examples:
The web browser now renders pages just a little bit smaller. Interface text is now a little bit bigger. No settings have changed and no tweaking rectifies this - its just made a load of websites not fit the page and text suggestions obscure what you're typing. Brilliant
The previously flawless Flash plugin now has an odd light stripe down one side of played video content. The predictive text on the QWERTY keypad no longer picks up sensible corrections like it used to. Barely at all, in fact. It's maddening.
So here is the big problem: who do you go to in order to raise those issues?
Google have an eminently unsupported "help" forum. Your mobile provider won't have a clue. And HTC? They like scripted answers. They like them very much.
The moral of this story is that whilst Android is utterly brilliant and definitely able to outperform iDevices on a number of functions, I'm beginning to feel the sting of the support issues that come with such sprawling fragmentation. I want Android to be the most amazing thing ever and its nearly there on so many levels.
Sadly for my aspirations, Apple still provides the best user experience for all of their paranoid lockdowns. They're fiercely protective of their band and that drives them to actively support their customers.
Something to bear in mind before making the jump. :-)
PS: the Sensation does look epic and I believe it is supposed to be the flagship handset that supplants the DHD, on account of its far more current dual core processor.