Decked out Apple IIgs vs. Decked out PLUS

[mcdermd]

I even see Kindle Fire HDs and Samsung Galaxys on display with various "Process X is not responding. Would you like to Close it?" errors on them. Granted, they are 10x better than the POS, cheap, generic Chinese tabs but crashiness isn't limited to the bottom rung.

 

[uniserver]

so basically Android = Crap ?

 

[techknight]

The thing with android is if your not running AOSP, (Basically Stock android), the experience is going to differ from device to device as each version of android is recompiled with all the manfacturer modifications and junkware. For example, Samsungs version is touchwiz and its pure garbage. Install a nice clean AOSP/Cyanogen copy on there and its blazing fast, less bloated, better response, and much more stable.

 

[mcdermd]

So long as you have a tab that you CAN load a vanilla Android onto, that's good advice.

 

[Gorgonops]

so basically Android = Crap ?

*eyeroll*

Imagine if instead of IOS being locked up tight in Apple's little vaults it was open source enough that any schmo could download it and compile it. (Copies made that way wouldn't have the "Apple Seal of Approval", but it would be *legal*. Google has something like a "stamp of approval" for android devices as a prerequisite for bundling the Google Play store application on the device, but it's not something a manufacturer legally has to do.) So then imagine some fly-by-night bottom-feeding electronics sweatshop in China downloaded the IOS code, minimally hacked it so it would run (well, at least boot) on the *very cheapest* ARM SoC they could find, paired it with the cheapest touchscreen that week (in many cases a resistive model, the same tech found in 2002-vintage PocketPCs/PalmPilots), shoved it in a shoddy plastic case with a knockoff battery that's good for about an hour, and shoved it out the door with ZERO testing. Do you think that device at $60 would work as well as an iPad Mini? Probably not, right? Would the fact it existed at all then mean "IOS == Crap"? Clearly it would according to your logic.

(It does demonstrate, I suppose, that an Android purchaser needs to exercise a bit more common sense than an iDevice buyer, at least so far as asking themselves: "Gee, the brand name one is $200 while this one from a company who's name is a random collection of letters and box is covered with nonsensical Engrish phrases is only $60. Should I *REALLY* buy the cheap one? How hard could making one of these things really be?" before they pony up the money. There's the cost of freedom for you.)

Anyway, Google "ipad apps crash". It's not like applications don't blow up on IOS.

 

[uniserver]

haha

I was just kidding. -- it was kind of an inside joke between me and dylan.

I'm sure if you have a tablet that costs the same amount as an ipad, android os works out just fine..

The Software is only as good as the hardware.

Dylan sent me this lot of off brand (rma returned defective) tablets with android on em.

And they work somewhat…

I have been going through them right now, trying to swap parts to make some solid ones, for xmas presents.

I'v always liked android every sense the T-moble G1.

However, my iPhones have mostly treated me pretty good. ( so far )

 

[mcdermd]

The difference is iOS tends to silently crash. The app closes or freezes. Android will happily tell you that it's puked on itself. I don't quite know which I prefer.

 

[Blinkenlightz]

For myself, I prefer to be told about the crash. But for any user who may call me as a result of the crash, I prefer the silence. A software crash may well be a one-time fluke occurrence, but many end-users are easily unsettled by an error message and will get worried, panic, etc... An app just closing itself is an annoyance, but the user knows what to do: re-launch and move on. If it persists, then ask for help.

 

[Gorgonops]

I always lean toward knowing WTF happened verses not, but I suppose the reverse is certainly possible. The nice thing about getting a message is *sometimes* if you get said message and Google with the right magic words it you'll find a solution to the problem, while if it just goes "blink" and the application/device dies/reboots you'll have nothing.

(In particular I managed to fix a problem related to the calendar blowing up on my old HTC Incredible with some creative Googling of the "process X puked" message; HTC's official solution to the problem was to reset the phone to factory settings and restore, which seems to be the suggested solution for a lot of iPhone/iPad problems.)

That said, I can't remember the last time I had a background process wedge and die on any of my Android devices... (Wait, no, I stand corrected. Totally forgot about the freaking Facebook widget. *sigh*) The web browser on my Samsung tablet does like to nuke itself occasionally (I dunno, once a week? depending on how many tabs I have open), but it's rarely been a problem since it's good at restoring windows after a crash. Is what it is, I guess.

 

[mcdermd]

I saw this one last weekend:

 

[Gorgonops]

Wow, that's an impressively vague error message, I'll give you that. (Never seen that before; it's apparently a generic "the Dalvik Java VM interpreter is wetting its bed" message and the best/most likely cure for it is to force it to purge its bytecode cache. Oddly it seems like the majority of hits on it are from people running rooted/development ROM versions or Kindle Fires. Maybe that says something about Kindle's "improvements" to base Android...)

 

[techknight]

With droid, only way you get anything is if your connected via the ADB drivers via usb debugging, and have LogCat connected. Logcat tells you the "bluescreen-like" info.

Sucks, but thats the way it is.