Why I do not use Android

Recently, an article appeared on Habré that Samsung plans to launch its OS for smartphones this year (http://habrahabr.ru/post/169581/). The discussion in the topic is very hot - I have not seen so many comment pages for a long time. Since I have a recovery mod, write more than one comment did not work. So I decided to write my personal post comment about the Android OS and what I think about it. You probably already guessed that the opinion is not high.

With the release of the first versions of Andorid OS - the 1st version in October 2008, the 2nd version in 2010, the 3rd version in 2011 - it was not at first clear whether this was good or bad - one thing is clear, this is innovative! I enjoyed using the Nokia E61 at that time, after which I upgraded to the E72, and my friend switched to Android. I could not understand and did not understand why a phone with such low consumer qualities gained such popularity? From consumer qualities I mean:
- battery life
- ergonomic dialing and sms
- system performance
- quality of software

I keep a close eye on the development of the Android OS, and I’m still waiting for her to mature into something worthwhile, at least at the Windows XP level, when compared to desktops. The 4th OS version was already released and I got a tablet on the Tegra 2 CPU CPU. My expectations were simple - finally android matured, and also got a decent "adult" hardware platform.
And what do you think? For several days I was at a loss as to why this is a miracle of technology, so what can be sung by everyone who works with such wild brakes? Why does the browser run slower than symbian, constantly freezes and crashes? Why I can not connect to any of my VPN networks, and all the provided clients in the market are nothing but student tricks — and these are the best programs in the market top! Why can not I just at the level of MS Outlook or Thunderbird get access to my mail and apply elementary filters by folders? Why is there no email client that supports filtering?
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As you understand, my expectations very quickly turned into disappointment - the maximum that my device was capable of was Angry Birds and Internet surfing, although the price of the device made it possible to purchase an XBOX or an average TV. The keyboard purchased in the kit is gathering dust in the drawer of the table - it is extremely problematic to use it for its intended purpose.

For each item of consumer qualities I want to write a little more specifically with examples.


Battery life
At a time when devices on Android hardly fit into 2-3 days of battery life, if they are not heavily loaded, Nokia based on the Symbian OS worked fine for an average of 5 days. I think everyone knows it perfectly. And what do we have in the 4th android? Mega powerful processors, faster than those on which we played DOOM at one time, who are trying to revive this clumsy interface, and so there is only 2-3 days left to work, even on new devices.



Smartphone ergonomics
Basic actions for the phone: dialing, dialing SMS, answer a call. The remaining functions - the browser, camera and others I consider additional, which should not be more convenient priority.
I will tell you that after E72 dialing the number on the droid background is a sheer torment. Firstly, you do not feel the response of pressing the drawn buttons, but we will write this down to the technology, and not to the OS. Secondly, to dial the number you need to run some application in which to search for my contacts. When searching for contacts terribly freezes when scrolling, which causes irritation. Compare with Nokia E72 - in the main screen mode, we start typing the name / surname of the required contact and, lo and behold, the contact is already in front of our eyes - with two clicks we make a call. The speed of typing SMS and working with a notebook is more convenient on a symbian qwerty smartphone, tested on E61 / E72.



System performance
I’ll say that if a 2-core processor is not able to revive the interface of my phone, so that it simply does not slow down and stick, then I don’t need such a phone. It's like a microscope to hammer in nails.
On my Tegra 2 + Andoroid 4 tablet, sticking occurs almost everywhere - when unlocking, when launching applications, when viewing the market. If my desktop worked this way, I would immediately think about upgrading.


Quality of software
The highest quality software in the market is a game. This we will leave for housewives and a good pastime. I am also interested in the following programs:
- mail client
- VPN client
- video player
- RDP terminal

Mail clients, as the market shows - once, twice and miscalculated. One of the most popular - K-9 Mail is something ugly, like the programs of the 90s. I will describe why my native clients did not come up - I have 4 email accounts, several of them are corporate and several are personal. Forwarding mail from one to another is not an option. Some mailboxes contain about 200-500 emails per day, which need to be filtered by folders, since emails are reports of the work of certain programs. The native Gmail client, as it turned out, can only work with gmail mail. The additional native mail client “Mail” does not know how to filter and as it turned out it cannot work with gmail via IMAP, and as it turned out further gmail IMAP for android is generally some kind of mystery with which no one can cope. All tried-and-tested clients could not filter folders, as my favorite Thunderbird on PC (or Outlook) does.

A VPN client is also a separate sad story, which is constantly discussed in various forums. What is on the previous work, what was not possible to connect to the corporate VPN network at the present time. There were many dances with a tambourine - different clients were tried, the best, according to the Google Market version, but seemingly very flawed. Some of them even connected, but the network was not there - apparently there was not enough routing, but apparently no one took care of them in the programs. Native VPN also did not master the connection. By some miracle, we managed to establish a connection and even have a field for specifying the IP of remote machines, but for some reason they did not work.

Video player and RDP terminal
Everything is fine here, thanks to MX Player for the video player and several sensible programs for working with RDP terminals.


Advertising
A common problem with the software is that almost all the free software shows you some bullshit in the corner of the screen - neither the offer to buy the Internet quickly, or the advertising of underwear. The question is, why do I need this zombie? Why for PC Thunderbird or Google Chrome does not show me any nonsense that I don’t need, but on android everybody just considers it their duty to embed advertising in their unfinished software? If I had watched such an abundance of intrusive advertising in Google Chrome or outlook, would anyone use these programs? In android, it seems to me, this takes place in view of the nearness in the field of IT of the majority of users of the platform - they use what they gave, as well as a complete lack of competition.


Conclusion
The reader is probably already tired of my sobs, so I’ll wrap it up. Against the background of the release of new OSs for smartphones - Ubuntu, Samsung, I passionately want them to succeed and we finally have a decent platform for a smartphone that will not be full of commercials, and the software will satisfy our needs, iron will not be more powerful our desktop friends, and one charge will be enough for a week of use.
Thank you for your time.

P.S. Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet