The Droid is just not for business users - beware

[bravo4]

Here are the ways in which the Droid is far inferior and not even usable from a business standpoint (at least for me):

1. no solid backup solutions - sure your mail, calendar and contacts can sync, but if you lose your phone and need to restore, plan on some hours and never getting quite back to where you were
2. no v-card (.vcf) contact file handling - this is common in the business world. Blackberry has been doing this for years, is it that hard?
3. No .ics file handling - get a meeting invite from a Blackberry or some calendar clients in this standard, can't even open it (pretty stupid).
4. You have to have an app just to kill other apps, tons of apps stay open, no way to close them upon exiting like on the Blackberry Storm. Ends up eating memory and killing performance and battery. My battery drains faster than my iPhones, and I thought the iPhone's was terrible. You have to baby this thing to nurse more battery life out of it.
5. Crappy apps, lots are not compatible with the Droid. Few are solid.
6. No media management - as a working professional, the last thing I have is time to mess with loading media. Apple makes it way too easy.
7. No auto-text - I need a dictionary I can edit for often used words and phrases (I couldn't do this on my iPhone but could on my Storm II, is this that difficult to implement?), shortcuts for auto-correcting into words or phrases often used.
8. Contact scrolling is lame, I can't jump to a letter section. More steps involved to search and find a contact. Slower than iPhone in so doing.

This is a frustrating experience for me. I've had quite a few smart phones for almost a decade now, from the old Nokia bricks to the original Blackberry, to the Moto Q and other WinMo devices and now this - though this is my first Android phone because I've read about such issues, I thought now would be the time to try on 2.0. Boy, was I mistaken. I am actually thinking of going back to AT&T after eating the ETF's! Ah! And their coverage is just so terrible. Or go back to a frustratingly slow and proprietary experience on the Blackberry Storm II. Sigh. Not sure what to do. I had high hopes for the Droid.

[hondamx525]

Posted this in your other thread



Quote:
Originally Posted by bravo4 View Post
The iPhone is vastly superior, the only way this phone has the iPhone is on it's somewhat openness and multitasking (both of which I had on my iPhone after being jailbroken).

Here are the ways in which the Droid is far inferior and not even usable from a business standpoint:

no solid backup solutions - sure your mail, calendar and contacts can sync, but if you lose your phone and need to restore, plan on some hours and never getting quite back to where you were

Backups for what? give an example about what you mean.

no v-card (.vcf) contact file handling - this is common in the business world. Blackberry has been doing this for years, is it that hard?

Is this something your blackberry could do or your iphone im confused.

No .ics file handling - get a meeting invite from a Blackberry or some calendar clients in this standard, can't even open it (pretty stupid).

Sorry dont know what this is.

You have to have an app just to kill other apps, tons of apps stay open, no way to close them upon exiting like on the Blackberry Storm. Ends up eating memory and killing performance and battery. My battery drains faster than my iPhones, and I thought the iPhone's was terrible. You have to baby this thing to nurse more battery life out of it.

Whats wrong with needing an app just to close apps? You have to jaibreak the iphone just to allow backgrounding, and then you have to install sbsettings on top of that. SO i dont see how its any different. Also the battery is new so the more full runthroughs you do the more the battery life wil improve.


Crappy apps, lots are not compatible with the Droid. Few are solid.

Compatibility will come, this is the first android 2.0 device and many people do not have 2.0. Apps will get updated as times goes on.

No media management - as a working professional, the last thing I have is time to mess with loading media. Apple makes it way too easy.

No auto-text - I need a dictionary I can edit for often used words and phrases (I couldn't do this on my iPhone but could on my Storm II, is this that difficult to implement?), shortcuts for auto-correcting into words or phrases often used.

There is a dictionary that you can add words to. Look for it in text and locale in the settings.


Contact scrolling is lame, I can't jump to a letter section. More steps involved to search and find a contact. Slower than iPhone in so doing.This is a frustrating experience for me. I've had quite a few smart phones for almost a decade now, from the old Nokia bricks to the original Blackberry, to the Moto Q and other WinMo devices and now this - though this is my first Android phone because I've read about such issues, I thought now would be the time to try on 2.0. Boy, was I mistaken. I am actually thinking of going back to AT&T after eating the ETF's! Ah! And their coverage is just so terrible.

The beauty is that unlike the iphone, you can replace the phonebook app. There are plenty of apps that replace the phonebook and have quick letter by letter contact jumping/management. Not everyone wants what you want, but luckily some do so the other apps are a good choice.

[steven s]

I didn't think it was designed for business?

[simms22]

Here are the ways in which the Droid is far inferior and not even usable from a business standpoint (at least for me):

1. no solid backup solutions - sure your mail, calendar and contacts can sync, but if you lose your phone and need to restore, plan on some hours and never getting quite back to where you were
2. no v-card (.vcf) contact file handling - this is common in the business world. Blackberry has been doing this for years, is it that hard?
3. No .ics file handling - get a meeting invite from a Blackberry or some calendar clients in this standard, can't even open it (pretty stupid).
4. You have to have an app just to kill other apps, tons of apps stay open, no way to close them upon exiting like on the Blackberry Storm. Ends up eating memory and killing performance and battery. My battery drains faster than my iPhones, and I thought the iPhone's was terrible. You have to baby this thing to nurse more battery life out of it.
5. Crappy apps, lots are not compatible with the Droid. Few are solid.
6. No media management - as a working professional, the last thing I have is time to mess with loading media. Apple makes it way too easy.
7. No auto-text - I need a dictionary I can edit for often used words and phrases (I couldn't do this on my iPhone but could on my Storm II, is this that difficult to implement?), shortcuts for auto-correcting into words or phrases often used.
8. Contact scrolling is lame, I can't jump to a letter section. More steps involved to search and find a contact. Slower than iPhone in so doing.

This is a frustrating experience for me. I've had quite a few smart phones for almost a decade now, from the old Nokia bricks to the original Blackberry, to the Moto Q and other WinMo devices and now this - though this is my first Android phone because I've read about such issues, I thought now would be the time to try on 2.0. Boy, was I mistaken. I am actually thinking of going back to AT&T after eating the ETF's! Ah! And their coverage is just so terrible. Or go back to a frustratingly slow and proprietary experience on the Blackberry Storm II. Sigh. Not sure what to do. I had high hopes for the Droid.

1. there are lots of apps that backup . plus , your contacts , calender , gmail , and apps sync with googles servers to your gmail account . if you do switch phones , log into your google account and everything comes back . ive done this with a couple g1's .
2. theres an app for that
3.?????
4.yea , it sucks having multitasking , and 3g, and constantly being connected to the internet..... (sarcasm)
5.lots of great apps on the market . i have 204 apps on my g1 , all of them wonderful .
6.what do you mean by media management ? because there are lots of great apps for that .
7. again , there are apps for that . YOUR choice of what YOU like.
8. cant say , dont know android 2.0 contact app . on 1.6 , you can press on a tab when viewing contacts and scroll by letter .

ive had a blackberry and a winmo device . android is different . you really got to get used to how it works . i didnt really appreciate it for a couple months after i got it . once i caught on , i think its much better than both . you really do have sooo much more options of what you can do with it , personalize it to YOUR needs . maybe shortly someone will "root" the droid . if so , the possibilities are endless

[radiopayola]

Replace "business" with "half-wit MBA culture"... I'm a business professional, and my wife's droid meets or beats the iphone I'm currently using for everything I do.

[bravo4]

@Hondamx525:
1. Full backup and restore, like if I lost my phone, bought another Droid, restoring to be completely where I was, apps settings and all (like the iPhone)
2. both
3. When you get calendar invites from Blackberry or Outlook users, you can't accept them!
4. On my jailbroken iPhone I could close each app when I was done. How do you do that on Android?
7. That is not auto-text, it does not replace text, just adds words to the dictionary for suggestions. For example, I need to be able to type like "aisc" and it auto insert "Android is so cool" - like on a Blackberry or in MS Word. Saves tons of time for much used phrases and terms.

1. there are lots of apps that backup .
2. theres an app for that
3.?????
4.yea , it sucks having multitasking , and 3g, and constantly being connected to the internet..... (sarcasm)
5.lots of great apps on the market . i have 204 apps on my g1 , all of them wonderful .
6.what do you mean by media management ? because there are lots of great apps for that .
7. again , there are apps for that . YOUR choice of what YOU like.
8. cant say , dont know android 2.0 contact app . on 1.6 , you can press on a tab when viewing contacts and scroll by letter .

1. haven't found one solid full-backup solution that supports the Droid yet
2. No there isn't, not from email attachments
3. When you get calendar invites from Blackberry or Outlook users, you can't accept them!!
4. There should be a smart/clean way to do this. I have an app called voicerecorder that keeps running itself. Not cool.
6. Like an itunes, something to organize and manage all the media on your computer and load your Droid with it - I'd love to explore your suggestions, I am admittedly new to Android.
7. Maybe I shouldn't trust the reviews then, so hard to find a good app. You'd think the default calling interface would be intuitive enough in itself.

So I guess waiting for Rooting will be key. Too bad.

Replace "business" with "half-wit MBA culture"... I'm a business professional, and my wife's droid meets or beats the iphone I'm currently using for everything I do.

Really? You can do the things I mentioned? I am just trying to be productive for work and have to work with lots of Blackberry users. I am surprised you can do these things or don't run into them.

[hondamx525]

Well technically, on the iphone you couldnt "close an app" when you wanted to, you could just make it not multitask. I dont think a task manager app is bad implementation in any way, just different than the iphone work around.

There is basically backup for everything, im not sure of anything that would reinstall your apps, but again i think that would come with an itunes like software for the phone if one ever gets created. Right now i think that is what google needs to help out android.

As for vcard, thats a verizon thing right? This being the first android phone for verizon you have to think of this as square one. Yeah blackberry has had it for years, but since it was first intro'd? maybe not.

Hope you can find some solutions to your problems. Android is a great and growing platform, but a few of the things you are mentioning were never claimed to be had by the droid. (v-card, .isc, etc.)
Ahh ok auto text i get it. Dont know if they have an implementation of that you, but i do know there are many different virtual keyboard applications to replace the stock one and some may have it, you would have to ask the developers.

Also, i believe google has been rumored to be working on some music software to add sync to the phones, but for now there are a few sync work arounds with different programs that you can look into.

[bravo4]

v-cards (.vcf) is a standard that has been around for quite some time, even Windows can display them and Outlook supports them (even Outlook Express).

I just don't have much options on Verizon. And I really just want something to beat the iphone... I think Droid has the potential, it's just so open that it's all over the place in terms of development efforts and organization. I hope that more devices means more support and more development energy. I think we'll get there. It's just surprising that Apple could be so far ahead of the game.

[simms22]

an app called back up for root users , obviously for root users only , that backs up everything and your apps and restores them too .
astro file manager backs up your apps , doesnt restore them . so does app manager and others . mybackup backs up a whole bunch of stuff .

[notxel21]

[QUOTE=bravo4;265449]Here are the ways in which the Droid is far inferior and not even usable from a business standpoint (at least for me):

WOW Bravo4!
It's seems for an individual who needs a mobile phone for what you define as being usable from business standpoint, sure didn't you're homework.
It seems as if you're nothing more than an Apple Fanboy!
Did you just jump on the hype of this phone without doing any research on it or the Android mobile OS?
Did you go to you're local Verizon store and ask a sales representative if all the features you rely on work on this phone and v2.0 at this current point in time?
With time I'm positive that all the things you've mentioned will work with Android 2.0 and beyond, but before you invest in a product I suggest doing a little more footwork, research, and reading before you make an important purchase such a mobile phone for a business professional like yourself.