I've been avoiding comparing the 2 on public lists etc mainly because i
don't like the debate. I have several reasons why i like the idea of
android. It's open source, theentry to get into development isn't
horrible, or so my husband says. Iphone on the other hand i gather you
have to pay apple some fee or what ever to even get materials to develop
with. I don't know the full story there, just that i don't like the "pay
to play" idea so to speak.
Here's the problem with android though. Accessibility wise, it's a mess.
I feel a lot like they're just tacking on accessibility to android. With
the iphone, I just had to get my mom to turn on a setting, and there it
is, voiceover works and the whole thing talks out of the box. Most of
the apps are at least somewhat accessible also because apple ensures
that accessibility is at least somewhat considered. Ok, tunein radio is
missing labels on a few buttons as are other apps.
Android is another basket of trouble all together though.You have to
download then enable all the required things to make it accessible.
There's a nice pretty little android bug though which essentially makes
it so that people have to at least have a d-pad (directional pad) in
order to use android because they don't make the touch screen accessible
to the blind user. The touch screen is only accessible within apps
themselves. I strongly, strongly dislike this.
Iphone has a disadvantage because it requires itunes. The linux tools to
manipulate it are buggy and may not even compile in some cases. So if i
want to update my iphone now that i'm using it again, I have to install
windows. Ok i'll do it but blah. i hate windows.
Android, well i just mount my phone as a harddrive and poof i can upload
to it and so on. That's a plus.
Another downside to android is what the manufacturers do to the
operating system. Take HTC. They're probably one of the biggest culprets
of this. They remove stuff that makes the OS accessible, they break
things, then they add their home screen and other misc shit that totally
breaks accessibility. Samsung is another bad one.....I say this, and i
have a samsung phone. Samsung has been trying to get rid of their
galaxyS phones in favor of newer ones for a while now. I love my epic
4g. As far as accessible phones go, if you got rid of touchwiz and
replaced the inaccessible apps with ones that work, it makes a great
phone. But apparrently it's not good enough for samsung, they now have
the epic 4g touch out.....Touch? hah all that means is that it's yet
another touchscreen phone that a blind person can't use because google
won't make it accessible. Or rather they make it accessible by taking on
software rather then making it accessible from the ground up.
Ok i'll stop complaining now. What i like about android is the fact that
things can update themselves. That's actually nice. I've yet to see an
iphone do that, though i've heard that when IOS5 comes out you won't
need itunes just to update the operating system.
Pricing wise, android phones are obviously cheaper. apple as usual is
overpriced.
So there's my take on the old iphone/android debate.
Which do i prefer? Let's just say i've swung back to iphone for
accessibility. It fits my purposes even if it doesn't currently have
cell service.
