iPhone OUT...Android IN
 

I finally got rid of my iPhone (3G) for a few reasons. The biggest is probably because it doesn't support Flash, but I also wanted access to more apps and some of the other cool stuff that Android offers. I also noticed that music is a lot cheaper when you don't buy from iTunes. After just two days with the new Motorola Atrix I'm sooo glad I made the switch! I was a little worried about whether or not it would be as user friendly, but those fears disappeared really quickly. This thing rocks and is super easy to use. It's almost like they stole all the good stuff from the iPhone and then took things further and made them faster.

I was able to get most of my iTunes library up and running right away with Double Twist. I was able to find all my iPhone apps in the Android Market and I'm still finding cool stuff. One of the coolest apps is the TV Remote for my Sony/Google TV (not available for iPhone). I don't ever have to worry about finding the remote again because it's in my pocket!

Granted my iPhone was old and probably on its last leg, but I can't believe how much I was missing out on as far as speed. My browser actually works at the same speed as my desktop computer when I'm on my wifi. Still not sure why it would be so much slower on my iPhone. I'm sure the iPhone 4 is probably faster, but this is all I have to compare it to.

Drawbacks are the following...
- The power on button is at the back of the phone. It was really convenient to be able to wake up your phone when it's sitting on a desk just by pushing the button on it. It's a bit of a pain to have to pick it up to press the button.
- I miss Visual Voicemail, but I'm thinking there has to be an app for this. What do you recommend?
- Some of my iTunes songs still won't play on Double Twist because they are protected. Is there any way to undo that protection other than burning and ripping the songs on a CD? I have the same problem with 2 or 3 movies that I bought through iTunes.
- There doesn't seem to be much notification for when I get voicemail messages. As far as I can tell, there's just a little green light on the front, but I still have a lot to learn about this thing.
- I really hate product that come without a manual that goes through all the features. Providing the manual on the Internet is not the same. I want to sit on the couch and learn all about my phone without having to search the Internet. They did this with my Google TV as well and it really pisses me off.

This is my first phone with a front camera and an HD video camera, so that's pretty cool too. What does everyone recommend for on-phone video editing?

I'm sure I'll have many more questions as I dig into this, but if you've been hesitant about moving from Apple to Android, just go for it. The learning curve was way shorter than I thought it would be and I feel like I've gained some freedom.

Then you should be extremely happy.!!!!!!

As for the other things your smart phone will do....you will be wondering why you switched. You are already learning that. But you will overcome....just not as easy as you did with Apple.

Hang in there....Iphone hasnt had their accolades because of fodder.(there is a reason)

Best of luck with your android. Its a super phone once you get used to it!!!!!!!

I have to be honest. I can't tell if that was a vote for or against Android phones. It seemed to go both ways! :)

Oh dear - the 3G is ancient, that's why it's so slow. The iphone 4 performs really well, and even the 3GS still runs pretty well. Nothing wrong with android though - although the experience varies greatly by model. Google will likely be reigning this in with the next round. Have you tried out the cool docking thing?

Glad to hear it Wes. I dig my Atrix. It's not only super phone, its also actually a good "phone".

yeah I decided I wanted more than a computer so I traded in my att iphone for a verizon one... i now have a phone too! whole new world.

- I miss Visual Voicemail, but I'm thinking there has to be an app for this. What do you recommend?
- Google Voice
- There doesn't seem to be much notification for when I get voicemail messages. As far as I can tell, there's just a little green light on the front, but I still have a lot to learn about this thing.
- You should be seeing a icon appear in the notification bar, google voice.

Why did you get the atrix over the htc inspire 4g? Just curious. Check out xda-developers for all your android needs.

To be honest, I didn't research the different Android phones all that much. My daughter broker her phone, so we were getting her a new one anyway, so I took the opportunity to get one for myself as well. I'm with AT&T, so that narrows it down, but I mostly went with the recommendation of a few people I talked to and the salesperson I talked to, who also had an Atrix. I also see myself possibly picking up a Motorola Xoom in the future, so that had me leaning toward Motorola.

I keep seeing the commercial for the Atrix that plugs into a laptop, but when is someone going to come out with a phone that plugs into an iPad-like tablet? That seems like a no-brainer. How about a Motorola Xoom powered by my Atrix?

I really like my Inspire 4G over my wife's iPhone 4G. I also recently had a WP7 (Samsung Focus). I'd say the Focus was a better "work" phone as Outlook and Office integration is very good. I've got my Inspire rooted and been running Gingerbread for while, have it on the corporate wifi even with the somewhat limited proxy support offered in Android, have HTML mail via a 3rd party app.

I did the Inspire over the Atrix since I'll never use the extra docking station and other add-ons that the Atrix offers, plus there are some really good ROMs for Inspire. Mine is overclocked at 1.5ghz right now and stable with great battery life, all of the bloatwear and HTC Sense is gone. I've even managed to play around with the Radio, APNs and RIL (radio interface layer) a bit to get faster download speeds (seeing 5+ mpbs in places).

I'm interested in the next gen of dual processor Android devices, will be cool to see what is out there in a year.

Another thing I realized this morning is that Apple had me totally conditioned to the fact that I can't have a backup battery. I just had to remember to always have my phone charged or always have a power source. I had forgotten the days when you could actually have a backup battery and simply switch it out. I feel stupid for putting up with that for so long. On top of that, batteries for this thing are about $8 or $15 for a genuine Motorola. Nice!

For visual voicemail, like someone else said, Google Voice. Also check out a lot of the customization apps in the Market, like "Clockr" and "Beautiful Widgets". There's also "Minimalistic Text", "OneSeven", and "Circle battery". They're just cool little homepage widgets that let you customize your look. As far as apps that are actually useful, check out "Dolphin Browser", it's an alternative internet browser, and I like it a lot more than the one that comes on the phone. If you want to get into the rooting scene, definitely head over to forum.xda-developers.com. There's an unbelievable amount of knowledge over there. I'm pretty knowledgeable about it as well, so feel free to PM if you have any questions if you get into rooting and flashing custom ROMs. Google definitely seems to be well on their way to taking over the mobile phone industry, as all that's being seen is "I Switched from Iphone to Android and LOVE it". There's never anyone switching from Android to Iphone.

Dave, I just switched from my iphone 3g to an Inspire 4g about a month ago. There are definitely some things I preferred from Apple that I miss, but the speed and freedom on the Inspire are making up for it. I do miss some things like Netflix, but hopefully Netflix will come to Android this summer?

If you haven't already I suggest you find a forum for your phone. I'm pretty sure that there is an Atrix forum on Androidforums.com. Without the help of the people on those forums I would be lost with my Inspire. The main difference I see between iphone and Android is that Apple decided for you how things should look and operate and they won't let you change that. With Android you have the freedom to change whatever you want, but the drawback is that you have to know how to do it. For tech challenged people Apple is the better choice. I fall somewhere in the middle, so I've been able to tweak my Inspire to some degree, but not without some difficulty. For example, this weekend my mail (yahoo) stopped working on my Inspire. I tried everything get it working again, but no luck. However, I was able to get it going again by simply downloading a different mail application that as it turned out, I actually like better than the stock one that I had been using.

As for the speed, your old iphone 3g had a 620 mhz processor. Your Atrix has a 1 ghz dual-processor. That alone will smoke the iphone 3g speedwise. However, the iphone 4 also has a 1 ghz processor, but I don't think it's a dual core like your Atrix. If you haven't already, you should check your Atrix to see if there is an update available for it. I don't know if it's the same with the Atrix as it was for the Inspire, but At&t shipped the Inspire phones with some features disabled that were needed for it to hit 4g speeds. They finally released an update a week or so ago that enabled the Inspire to hit 4g speeds. This update literally tripled the upload speeds on my Inspire and almost doubled my download speeds (over the At&t network).

Anyone know more details on the network ATT payed a lot of money for? What kind of improvements can we expect?

I wish we could combine all great features of apple and Droid into one phone...and then combine all cell networks!!! All I want is a perfect world :)

BTW, google navigation on my Atrix is really good. Has traffic. Gets addresses by voice command very well.

> I'm interested in the next gen of dual processor Android devices, will be cool to see what is out there in a year.

Quad Core processors will be out by the end of the year...

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Right now is probably the closest you'll see to one cell network. Verizon and AT&T. Pretty much all other networks are obsolete at this point. You gotta remember those two companies run on two completely different networks too, one is CDMA while the other is SIM card based (the network name escapes me at the moment). They're two different technologies. I agree that it would be nice to see one nationwide cell company, with all phones as an option through that one carrier, but I think anti-trust would be an issue here as well. It's just like Northwestern Bell back in the day, when they were forced to split into regional companies because they were too much of a monopoly. However, look at those companies that were created, and where most ended up: as Verizon and AT&T. It all came full circle.

Try these very functional apps:

-Google Tracks: You can track your wakeboard sets, upload them to your google maps and share everywhere.

-Google Gesture Search: Syncs all your contacts, music etc then you draw out the name and choices are shown. Much easier than scrolling.

As for reformatting videos, search Daniusoft Video Converter on your computer. The trial-ware allows you to convert 3 mins of video to whatever format. For ~$60, you can get the license and well on your way to completing your transition.


Android FTW!

also, to answer your network question, look for a LOT more 4g coverage if you're on AT&T, that's going to be the majority of what that high-cost network improvement is going to be. Here at work we're running fiber to AT&T cell sites like mad, it seems like its all AT&T is doing. And fiber optics to cell sites means one thing....4G networks and stupid amounts of new bandwidth. If they keep putting fiber to cell sites like they are right now, their network will be able to handle a LOT more traffic in the long haul.

cool thanks. So more speed but nothing to increase reliabiity?

You should see increased reliability too. The whole reason there isn't reliability right now is because the network cant handle all of the bandwidth. By putting in fiber, they're increasing their bandwidth and unclogging the network by making more room. So you'll see increased reliability, as well as speed/4g coverage.

Random knowledge on the issue, just for the heck of it. I find it interesting. Not sure how much you know about the systems, but you have two traditional ways of of transmitting data underground: copper cable and fiber optic cable. Copper requires a send and transmit line, so they're called "copper pairs". Each pair can only carry one phone call at a time, so any main network backbone in the ground will be around a "2600 pair" cable size,probably 4" in diameter. Basically you have 5200 copper cables running through the ground just for that one cable, capable of 2,600 phone calls at once. With today's fiber optics, ONE fiber, the width of a hair, is capable of carrying something like 5 billion phone calls at once, sending and transmitting on the same fiber. So that should give you an idea of what the future looks like, based on the fact that AT&T (and other cell companies) are putting fiber in the ground like crazy. Problem is....fiber's capabilities are limited right now by the equipment on the end of the fiber. Once the end user equipment is optimized, lack of bandwidth and network clogging will be a thing of the past.