Things I’ve learned as an Android user.

You can talk about freedom, or openness all you want, but it doesn’t really matter.

Innovation for the user isn’t happening on Android devices.

Moving from iOS to Android was an experiment to teach me something about other interfaces, to make me more well rounded as a strategist, and to challenge some of my assumptions about the ‘right’ or in some cases ‘only’ way of doing things.

All of that has happened.

But the primary feeling of owning an Android device is the feeling of being 6 months behind.

I bought a top of the line Galaxy SII in August. I’ve been using it as my primary phone since then, so for about 5 months total. In that time frame, I’ve waited for updates (none of which have ever come), waited for new and old apps to be ported to the platform (I’m still living sans-Instagram and Pinterest), and putting up with features of great apps that don’t work (I can’t record video on Path, or edit posts on Tumblr).

This isn’t really a complaint about Android. It’s a complaint about systems that are fragmented, both by OS and by hardware. And it’s a hint of ‘broken window’ theory, as well - if Google doesn’t care about this platform working well, why should developers.

I can completely understand the appeal of control, that Android devices promise. I was thrilled by it, for the first month or so I owned the phone. But that thrill of control fades, when you realize it can just as accurately be called management or maintenance, and it’s far from optional.

Assuming standard use, with minimal ‘management’ or ‘maintenance’, my experience on Android has been one of terrible battery life, intermittent crashing, software conflicts, and frustrating hardware issues (such as the infuriatingly loud buzzing noise the phone makes when vibrating, akin to a subwoofer rattling in a trunk). 

At this point, people will point out that 1) I’m not running Ice Cream Sandwich, 2) I should get a Nexus branded phone, rather than something running Samsung’s TouchWiz UI, and 3) I should root the phone, and just run Cyanogen, or something similar.

1) I can’t run ICS, Samsung hasn’t updated the phone.
2) That’s not an argument, it’s a suggestion that Android is a failed experiment, and that ‘open’ means failure unless you leave it unedited.
3) I don’t WANT to root my phone. I shouldn’t have to. If I need to make an unstable phone LESS STABLE to make it usable, it is a poorly designed and manufactured phone.

I’m not writing this as an Apple fanboy. I’m not writing this as someone who has no idea what he’s talking about, and hasn’t devoted time to trying to understand this platform.

I’m a reasonably experienced user, of a recent flagship device, of the most successful manufacturer of Android smartphones.

And I’m telling you, it’s not good enough.

There’s a reason a single manufacturer, with a line that has never exceeded the 3 phones it currently sells, makes the majority of profits in the smartphone industry (as of Q3 2011 numbers). \

It’s because, at core, they don’t really have any competition.

Interface Bilinguality

I’ve been using an iPhone nearly exclusively for 3 years, first a 3G, then an iPhone 4. I own an iPad, and a MacBook for my home computing.

After losing my iPhone and needing to replace it, I realized I was becoming interface monolingual, and it was probably hurting my thinking.

One of my biggest regrets is that I don’t speak anything other than english - I’m convinced this limits my ability to think outside of my ‘cultural box’.

I think that, as much as I love Apple products, doing all of my personal, and much of my professional, computing in OSX and derivatives, has disconnected me from a realm of possibility.

I use a windows machine at work, and have for the 4.5+ years I’ve been a Mac owner, so I still have some idea as to the desktop reality of non-Mac users.

But only owning Apple smartphones is a dangerous thing for someone who needs to think in terms of different user experiences and expectations. I might like the simplicity and user interface of iOS, but that doesn’t mean I can get away with being ignorant to the behaviours and options open to an Android user.

So, I replaced my lost iPhone with a samsung galaxy s2. It’s a great phone, totally different, and yet very similar (at least, similar enough to incite a lawsuit for copying apple’s industrial design). And I’m enjoying the feeling of learning a new user experience ‘language’, and seeing what assumptions and metaphors I’ve been ignoring completely, because I didn’t have the gestural or behavioural breadth to really understand that there were optional at all.

The underlying suggestion, of course, is that people working with technology and communication should intentionally avoid letting a set preference, or a belief in what is ‘best’ limit them from being fluent in different OSes, different hardware configurations, and different software choices.

You never appreciate the decisions that have been made, or not made, until you can see what happens when you head down other paths.

Yes, Apple takes 30%

But I buy more music directly on my iPhone than I have purchased at any point in my life - because iTunes / iOS has made it easier and cheaper to do so, to the point where the experience is better than piracy.

I used to spend about $100 a month on comics. I stopped because I was tired of having no space for them, tired of the weekly trip to the comic shop. After a few months, I stopped buying collections at the bookstore, again, due to convenience. I’ve probably spent more than $400 buying comics in the Comixology iPad app (over the last year). Again, ease, simplicity, and a better experience than piracy.

I used to spend nearly $150 a month on magazines, and then stopped, because I couldn’t justify the expense. Now, I buy at least one (and often several) magazines a month, again, on my iPad, and via iTunes.

So yes, Apple is charging 30% of subscriptions within their applications, same as sales happening through the iTunes system. Because, frankly, they are growing your potential market, as a music publisher, a magazine publisher, or a book seller. They are doing what you could not - fixing the barriers to consumption, and barriers to purchase, for your product.

Frankly, you could not have done this yourselves. And if you’d managed to hire the designers, developers, managers and consultants to create this model for you, it would have cost more than the gross amount of the 30% per sale that Apple is going to charge you.

Is it fair? Not really. Is it nice? No. But it’s not criminal. Because they already did you the favour of creating a channel where your products, rapidly losing relevance and consumers, can find a new audience that is both willing to spend money, and comfortable spending money.

They did it. You couldn’t, or didn’t. And with that, I start hearing a silent ‘only’ whenever I see a publisher talk about Apple’s 30% cut.

The Magic Point.

A friend has a phrase that I’ve adopted over the years, ‘The Magic Point’, meaning “the point at which your understanding of how a device works falls apart, and you say start explaining the outcome rather than the process.”

For example: Most people have a magic point with a computer, that starts at hitting the ‘on’ button.  They can tell you how to DO things with the machine, but not explain HOW those things are being done.

The majority of the time this phrase is used, it indicates a gap in knowledge.  But I’m beginning the think the magic point is a good thing.

Hitting that point is becoming beyond the realm of needing explanation. Once a technology descends below the magic point for 99% of the world, it is invisible - the same way no one notices the wheel as technology.

In the correct context, requiring explanation is, at core, a failure of design.

Aim for the magic point, and you can create an experience that completely ignores the “how”, and focuses entirely on the “what”.