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Just a thought. It is not as easy a question as you think. Think deep. in a world of Win7s and iPhones, imagine a breakthrough device that is non-touchscreen...
circleofomega said:
Just a thought. It is not as easy a question as you think. Think deep. in a world of Win7s and iPhones, imagine a breakthrough device that is non-touchscreen...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
its never gunna happen, without a touchscreen you need a keypad, compromising screen size, or size of device
We only have full featured phones because its an easy way for designers to create differentiation from competitors. But preserving ease of use is equaly important in reaching the target market. I think we are pushing ease of use to the limit at the moment and can see a time when a phone with the buttons 0-9, ring and hang up will make a come back.
So many people just want to use a phone and maybe send a text. Price is a big factor too. Plus the mobile phone markets are growing in less well off countries so a simple phone, similar to the one laptop per child, will have a market.
I would never have taken my posh phone to work (used to work in building trades), I used to get the £20 payg nokia phones.... and replace it every 6 months.
We might never have thought 10" laptops would make a comeback either.
Plus a few years ago a smaller phone was more desirable than a bigger one. We all walk around with bricks in our pockets again, only these bricks scratch easier.
Im not saying phones with buttons and 1" screens will retake the market but I dont think they will go away for a long long time. Decades, maybe.
A touchscreen offers the same ability as a mouse: point things directly
For browsing for example, it's a must have.
Also, if you have a grid of buttons, it's a lot of work to navigate to another button.
I think touch screens will exist for a long time, until other kinds of input are becoming true.
touchscreen phones are here to stay until something better comes along like a voicescreen
Has it been officially announced that HTC has cancelled the long-delayed Thoth, which was previously touted as the replacement for the Advantage?
Where would/will that leave us devoted big screen, mobile phone/pocket pc users?
I think the Thoth turned out to be the Leo.
I shouldn't worry - the Advantage was a tablet way ahead of its time. The market is opening up rapidly, and possibly the closest thing is the Dell Streak. Don't expect to find a WM 6.x OS on any of the new gadgets though!
rjstep3
I will probably replace my x7510 with a Dell Streak or a Motorola Droid X.
Whatever is available first in the Netherlands.
Although this set of problems makes me doubt about the Dell streak:
I had to sell mine, massive problems. I had a Dell Streak US AT&T version and I used it for a couple weeks before losing patience with it and selling it.
To list some massive problems.
1-It was almost unusable as a Speakerphone as it crackled at high volume and often was totally garbled, on the other end callers stated I sounded like I was speaking with a paper in front of my mouth.
2-Music also crackled every so slightly on high. As if the speaker was blown or complete garbage quality. This phone was new.. not 9years old.
3-Battery life didn't get past 4-5hours of use. Some online reviews state it gets better after 4-5 full charge cycles but I didn't see that.
4-Also when receiving a call the screen flashes, so you had to catch the Answer button in between flashes. This was very irritating.
5-The phone becomes unresponsive sometimes after you've just placed a call.. So it doesn't register your END CALL keypress.. so numerous times I ended up leaving whitespace voicemails on peoples machines since my Dell Streak wouldn't register end call.... it eventually allows you but what the hell ???
6-The ear slit was so small it's ridiculous, You have to perfectly place it over your ear or you'll not hear anything, it is a fraction the size of an iPhone ear speaker slit and I can't fathom why. The phone has a massive footprint. Also the ear slit edges are sharper than they should be, I could feel a cutting sensation on my ear whilst trying to find the perfect position over my ear.
7-Because you're pressing the phone to your head so unnaturally the Streak registers your cheek as key presses and does cool stuff like mute your call etc.
8-The native Dell keyboard is extremely poorly designed, using a third party keyboard such as Swype or Swiftkey was the only way to make text input manageable on the Streak. I've a very large hand as I'm 6'2. I can't imagine the reach difficulties those with smaller hands would face attempting to reach over the numeric keypad in landscape mode. Yes try reaching over all that way on the keyboard and not pressing the menu/function keys that run across the right of the phone while in landscape.
9-The proprietary docking cable drove me mad, especially since the device needed to charge so frequently. Why Dell couldn't opt for a micro-usb along side with their 30pin I can't understand. So anybody thinking of purchasing this better get extra charging cables for your car, office, bathroom, etc
10-It may be a limitation of Android 1.6 but not being able to copy text from a webpage is frustrating.
11-The phone is finished in a sort of material that isn't exactly anti-slip or easy to hold onto. This wouldn't matter if you could easily handle the phone, but again with larger than average hands I was constantly concerned it would slip out of my hand and fall to its end.
12-The volume keys aren't in the same direction for music and for call volume if I recall correctly, this was another quirk.
13-There's some issue with menu's and screen prompts being too narrow. With a massive 5inch screen I again don't understand why menu items are so slender resulting in frequent mis-presses or repeat presses. The menu across the top is prime example.
14-The speaker is on the back.. so go ahead, set down your 5inch Dell streak to watch a video.. oh wait.. the sound just became muffled and almost inaudible. Yes you better pick it up and hold it just right so not to cover the speaker. Same goes for the speakerphone, you better keep the phone elevated. Again, design flaw, there is tons of underutilized space across the top and bottom of the phone where speakers could have been placed.
There is likely some issues that I can't recall at the moment, but on the plus side.
1- the phone itself in handset mode had good quality voice calls. ONLY in handset, as speaker was beyond rubbish.
2-reception was good. I was on Rogers 3G 850mHz and had no issues at all.
3-Android made the world of difference, allowing you to download third party apps and do things like connect over wifi to a internal network to copy media/music files directly over to the Dell Streaks memory card.
4-5inches of real estate were great. Made browsing very pleasant.
I realize Dell isn't an experienced mobile phone manufacturer. Perhaps a wee bit more work into this product and they'd have brought to market a very decent device. Sadly the issues are likely far too great to simply overlook as quirks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wow, that is a damning criticism of the Streak, I was thinking of getting one, but I'll hold onto my money for the moment.
Actually, I am still pleased with using the Advantage as a tablet/PDA for the moment. Let's wait and see what happens with Windows Phone 7 before rushing into anything.
rjstep3
the Athena is an excellent phone, it just too bad that it runs on window.
some times the huge 5" size is quite annoying the pockets, but i love all the feature of the phone.
if we could only get Android working 100%
Hello all,
I'm a former iPhone 2.5G, 3G, 3GS, I4 owner, and have now spent two full weeks with the Captivate. I thought I'd give a few observations to those that are either still on the fence, or are just looking for something Captivate related to read.
I'll break this down into sections for an easier read.
First Impressions: The first thing that struck me was the screen (obviously). The screen seemed HUGE, even though it's technically only .3" larger than my I4. The rest of the form factor was very clean, which I like.
Hand feel: I have larger hands... That made my life with the iPhone rather difficult. I found myself fumbling with the handset, as well as the keyboard. I learned to handle it over the years, but it was not my favorite one handed device. The Captivate fit right in the palm of my hand. I appreciate the weight and overall thin feel of the device, while still giving me a large touch surface. The battery cover looked incredible, but it's brushed metal made it slick enough that I could easily see it falling from my hand. I had iPhone 2.5G flashbacks. I bought a Body Glove case to remedy the problem, and with that, I found the perfect cell phone case. It's wonderful.
Screen: What's there to say, really? It's beautiful. The color saturation and black levels are unrivaled by anything I've ever seen on this level. The only negative I have here is that I had an iPhone 4 previous to the Captivate and that really made the lower resolution on the larger screen noticeable. It was an adjustment, but I've made it.
Touch response: The IOS will always seem to be perfection personified when it comes to the touch response on a phone, but the Captivate gives the I4 a run for it's money. I do notice some recognition lag on the Captivate. Usually upon scrolling through the app list or in the browser. Just not quite as smooth as the IOS. This may very well be linked to the lag in the unmodified Captivate. I have not done the lag fix, as my best friend did the fix. It worked well for the first several hours, then started to slow down. Top it off with the fix going wrong and corrupting his file system.
EDGE and 3G: I know... I know... The thing is supposed to be a phone, and thus make calls... Boring, but definitely a nice experience with the Captivate. I notice the signal bars being a bit on the low end with the phone. I truly believe that they are designed this way, for better or worse. I say this because I get much better reception and call quality in poorly covered areas than my iPhone 3GS, which would typically show more bars. The data response on the phone is fantastic. I'm very happy with the speed of downloads, video streaming, and web page loading. Again the bars look low, but operate like they should show much higher. The negative here is definitely the lack of HSUPA. AT&T decided to disable this feature, I'm assuming, to help with the overly congested data network in iPhone saturated areas. Luckily for those of us with an android device, the community will soon remedy this (hurry up Rogers).
GPS: The biggest pain in my ass... I rarely use the GPS for turn by turn directions, as I'm a man and require no direction... But seriously, the GPS is integrated into every aspect of the OS, and the work flow and experience with the phone would be greatly improved if this functionality worked as intended. We seem to really be at Samsung's mercy here. I truly hope they come through. If not, I feel like there could be some possible modification from the Vibrant, where I've heard there isn't an issue.
WIFI: Very very happy here. The first Captivate I bought had a broken antenna. Wifi didn't work very well. After I traded it in it worked like a champ. I can pull incredible speeds, up and down stream from several stories above my wireless router.
Media Playback: Not super happy here. iTunes(on Windows) is a raging pile of crap, but at least it provided us with a one stop shop for music, cross platform organization, upgrading, and one click syncing. There isn't a real good solution here. I've tried a number of music players, but ended up right back with the Samsung player. It's completely functional, but not elegant, and not feature full by any stretch of the imagination. Now, movies are something different. Getting them to the device is easy, and playback looks incredible. The audio quality of music and movies is much better than my iPhone, but the media management and players themselves aren't up to snuff. That's really where Apple shows it's pedigree.
App Market: Another place where Apple man handles the Android devices. The market is improving at a blazing rate, but it has many issues that the App Store doesn't. With Apple having a strangle hold over the apps and reviews that make it to market, there is very little chance of malware making it to the store at all, much less to the Top Apps (review spoofing bastards). Thank god for Appbrain... That's all I have to say.
Community: Yes... Yes... Yes.... There are so many helpful and brilliant people in the Android community. That really gives me a feeling of longevity for the device. Even if the developer throws in the towel, there will be an entire group of people who seem to be more than willing to step in and tune the device to it's utmost potential. I'm so excited to see what happens when the Froyo roms start hitting. I expect this little phone to really turn some heads. Mine included.
In conclusion, I'm really happy with the phone so far. The GPS is testing me a bit, but I just have to take a few deep breaths and power through with my patience. I think that anybody coming from a Blackberry, iPhone, or any other device will be happy here. But there are some things you have to be willing to do. You must be patient. These phones can do anything, but sometimes the community has to have time to accomplish it. Also, you have to be willing to play... Seriously, tinker with your phone. Download every launcher you can find, download widgets, fonts, apps, play with your settings. Truly explore your phone. There's a lot here that you may not even know exists. Just because you don't see a feature, doesn't mean it isn't there. This isn't Apple, things aren't locked down.
Beautiful review!
The one thing I was most worried about with switching to a Captivate from an iPhone 3GS was the GPS issue as my Apple touting friends were poking fun at me and wishing good luck with getting a GPS fix to check in to venues etc but I haven't had a single issue at least as far as check ins go. I rarely if ever use turn by turn directions, which I could see being an issue if I did.
Overall I'm extremely happy with my Captivate, Android and it's flexibility with customization is a breath of fresh air over iOS! Even with jailbreaking iOS just seemed to be really lacking with quality customizations, sure there were widgets you could add to the lock screen etc but none of it seemed very polished even though there were commercial apps for it.
The only thing I would change about the Captivate would be to add a LED flash for the camera for those random indoor/evening snapshots and it baffles me as to why Samsung left that out, otherwise it would be close to perfect. A front facing cam would have been nice to have as well but I really think those more belong on tablets at the moment than phones, I don't really see myself making video calls when on the go but rather places where I would have a tablet handy.
Correction, two things I would change... The other would be the addition of a physical home button, I'm still getting used to hunting for the touch buttons at the bottom and often hit the wrong one still. It did help once I installed WidgetLocker though so I can press the volume buttons to wake as well as the power button as hunting for the power button was also a bit hit & miss.
The jury is still out on battery life especially as I have been constantly playing with it during to it being a shiny new toy so I will wait to see what real world usage is like.
I hear you on the customization. I am flipping between Launcher Pro and ADW Launcher right now, and it's nice to be able to change things up on a whim. Also, the different keyboards (SWYPE is amazing) also give a nice change of pace.
I don't really care about the flash, really. My I4's flash pissed me off more often than not. When the flash would go off it would cause everything that I was photographing to look like a mug shot. I never really needed a flash with my long history of iPhones, and I guess not having one on any of my phones just made it easy to not notice it missing.
Okay... After spending most of the day before yesterday getting myself all revved up to return my Captivate and show Samsung that their time table was unacceptable by going back to my iPhone 4, I would like to say that I am now once again back on the Captivate, and am shockingly more relaxed than I have been for the last 48 hours. That was the shortest lived, most misguided tantrum that I've thrown in recent memory... I just couldn't do it. The Captivate is, with all it's little flaws, an amazing phone that is really hard to step away from. To add insult to my little snap decision, my iPhone has a massive proximity sensor issue. I was face dialing through most of my conference calls today.
Sad... But anyway. Have a laugh at my expense. My wife asked if I was having some trouble with commitment. I had to remind her that I asked her to marry me... It's just with phones that I have a problem.
I love the openness of Android, the apps of IOS and the look of Windows Phone, however on their own, I'm not fond of any of them. I do have to say though since Android supports Flash Player, it would be the one I choose as when I had an Android phone I loved being able to stream from Desktop Sites. I sold my GS2 last year because I walked out on my job and needed the quick cash to get me by until I found a new one. So I've been using a temporary Nokia Symbian Phone since then as as I've got my upgrade now, I really need to get something that isn't on Symbian.
The weird thing is though, since using the device and since trying a HTC One in a shop, I do not like the HTC One because I prefer the build of this Nokia. I found the big screen of the HTC One difficult to deal with, I had to either slide it around on my hand or use two. The Power button is in the worst place possible, to unlock the phone you need to use two hands again and there is no tactile button that the GS2 had to unlock it that way instead. Speaking of that I hate touch screen or capacitive touch buttons, they're just horrible, I want proper tactile buttons, they feel much better and you don't hit them by accident all the time. The HTC One doesn't have a dedicated camera button either, like most Smart Phones these days, having used the Nokia for so long, it's so much better being able to press a real button instead of having to look at the screen all the time.
I don't like how the One or many other smart phones are so light and thin either. I don't feel like I have anything of value, there is no weight in my hand and I feel like I could forget it's there or have it slip out of my hand by mistake. The phone didn't feel comfortable either, I could get a nice grip and because it was so big, to have a good grip I would have to use a second hand the whole time, which makes the phone pointless IMO. I also don't like how the speaker grills had a gap in them, I don't like how they don't sit flush to the screen, what kept happening is my finger kept running over the bump of the speaker grills and the screen when I swiped up or down.
What I realized is these screens are so high res now and are so massive that Android doesn't function well and needs a redesign. Many UI elements are far too small on the screen, I found myself tapping the screen several times to get it to register where I wanted to hit. I found myself having to use two hands to be able to reach something on the other side of the screen. Windows Phone fixes this with the big tiles, which is why I liked testing it out, however Windows Phone has less apps than Symbian lol....
I cannot find a phone that I want to upgrade to.......
I keep thinking that the 920 delivers most of what I want, however capacitive touch buttons instead of tactile, lack of apps and no Flash player on Windows Phone kills it. There is no Android hardware that really appeals to me at all, the main problem is all the flagships are now 4.7-5 inches which is way too big and if you get a smaller one, you feel like you're getting the bastard child. The iPhone 5 is almost perfect, however it's too thin and light and IOS has no flash support and I hate iTunes with a passion, you have to wait ages for a jailbreak now.
I just want Nokia to make a Lumia 930 or whatever, have tactile buttons at the bottom, updated specs and for Microsoft to bring Flash Player to Windows Phone and then I'd be happy with going for that. Sadly I cannot find anything that exists right now that I like.
Consider not caring about cutting edge?
Many "old" units are still being produced/sold that could fit your needs better, where is the need for the very latest?
I'll never take my chance on anything else than a flagship device unless they get across the board good reviews, but they don't have to be the newest, I'd actually go from SGS1 TO SGS2 now if it wasn't for some minor details I don't like about it.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using xda premium
Hi long time xda fellows. Just wanted to share with you some of my thoughts
Brief Intro
This is just my personal thoughts and it only may apply to me so please don't feel offended by this article. Well, I am developing android apps for a few years now, doing this for a living. Developing various project for my clients most of the time I came across projects which involved "Make it work on android as it works on iOS" and I ended up with the same thing "I need to get an iPhone for testing". I finally took the step 4 months ago and purchased a used iPhone 5 16 GB. The reason was for getting an older version were pretty obvios: I did not wanted to spent too much money on a device which will be used primarily for testing. Iphone 5s was too expensive and 5C was basically an 5 with plastic body.
I am very picky when it comes to my daily driver device. I have owned in the past many devices, my first acceptable device was Galaxy S1 (oh, the lag of android 2.3), then went for Galaxy Nexus (which was quite a good device and I still own it and runs pretty acceptable), Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note 3, LG G2. Given the fact that I have small hands, I found G2 to be quite impressive: such small bezels, pretty acceptable firmware, good camera, great form factor and battery life... until I noticed the slippery back which was the main reason to get rid of it. I can't really understand why producers tend to get this shiny plastic as back-cover which offers zero grip. All the time I had the impression it will slip from my hands. I love the back material on black Nexus 5 and I hope they'll continue to use it on the next model. The Note 3 was quote a near perfect phone, contrary to many, I liked the fake leather back as it gave me good enough grip, the touchwiz isn't that bad, stylus was working very good but, after trying to get used to its form factor for 2 months I had to give up. It was simply to uncomfortable for me use, most of the time I found myself needing to use it with one hand and couldn't. Just try to put the shopping list on it and hold the note in one hand and the grocery basket in the other and then check what you buy. But this really comes to personal preference since I gave it to my wife and she says she'll never want a smaller device.
So back to main idea, I purchased a used iPhone 5 for around 350$ while iPhone 5s it is being sold in my country for around 900$. Since I got rid of Note 3, I told myself that if I paid for it, I should use it, so I started using iPhone 5 as a daily device. This means two gmail accounts, calls, skype and instagram.
First impressions:
Where is my notification light ? After years of getting used to it I find it a bit hard to live without. Many say it is not needed but to be frankly I prefer to look at the phone on my table to see if I missed something rather than waking the screen up. Not to mention that I recently released JeFeel app on Google Play and I receive a lot of Instagram notifications. For each of them my iPhone's screen wakes up.Not great for battery life I suppose. Let be honest, how much would a blinking led cost for production ? one cent? Not to mention the other cool things like RGB LEDs on most of the android devices which can be configured to know exactly what notification you received by the color it shows.
What's with this small text size ? Went to Settings to make it bigger and it seems that the Dynamic Font size only works on some of Apple's apps and the rest simply ignore it. I have good eye view and I really find it too small to comfortable read it. Might be because of only 4 inch of diagonal or something. It was a small relief to find the Bold setting which makes things a bit better. Not to mention browsing reddit funny pictures was not that fun.
After being spoiled for years with SwiftKey keyboard, with multiple language support, swipe, fantastic auto correct, I found to iOS keyboard horrible. The auto correct gives me more trouble than helping me so in the end I disabled it. Also to press 2-3 keys to get to things like comma "," or numbers/symbols I find it far from ergonomic. Basically these were my main three things I did not like, coming from android
After three months of usage
Well, believe it or not I got used to the small text size and now I find it acceptable. Still, the screen size is too small to do serious browsing or email answering. I find the keyboard to be still a pain to use. However, I noticed a lot of other things: * I like the notification center and how notification are shown on lock-screen. Swiping a notification opens the app to which it belongs to without the need to unlock. I like how when I read an email on my computer, the notification from lockscreen gets dismissed. Quite cool.
Control center is handy and I use it mostly to toggle auto rotate lock and media volume. Is great that I can access it from anywhere but sometimes I simply open it by mistake when browsing a webpage in landscape orientation
I like how auto brightness works and it really is pleasant for my eyes.
I like the fact that there is a physical button on front, I am definitely not a fan of using the Power button. On android I specially developed StandBy Touch Advanced app to deal with putting the phone to sleep without reaching the Power key. I took a look at iOS SDK and couldn't find a way to do it so I suppose this is not allowed. I have to say inhere that many Android offered quite a nice way of waking the phone from standy by: LG has KnowckOn, HTC has something similar, OnePlus one has it, if I recall well Sony too... Double tap to wake is way more convenient than searching for power key, especially on tall devices. i5 is not the case since it is easy to reach, but I use the Home key a lot to wake the device.
I am not a big fan of metal and I never use cases, I find it slippery and cold, however given the size of the iPhone, it is easy to hold it and never had the feeling that I drop it.
Battery life is not so great, I charge it every day.However it seems to be dropping constantly and I haven't noticed any battery drain (GooglePlay services drain rings a bell on android ?) I am 95% of the time in WiFi coverage and I did a test: I disabled the Cellular data, since WiFi is always on and have found that the battery life has improved a lot. So even if data is not used, I suppose that the cell module is active, most likely waiting to do a quick switch if WiFi turns to be poor. I would have preferred an option to keep it disabled until actually leaving the WiFi area. This things make me miss tools like Tasker on Android.
I like the screen and color reproduction. There is no back-light bleed and colors look real enough for me. Best LCD screen I had. Also the resolution is more than enough for 4" and I don't miss 1080p from android
iOS feel more smooth, I remember not resetting the phone for about 2 months and it was as smooth as in day one. Transitions are smoother, rotate is smoother, app switching is smoother. I like it, I feel that it's more polished than android and even the screen seems more responsive to touches.
some apps seem better on iOS, with more attention to details. My last app JeFeel relies a lot on instagram so I am using it quite a lot to check followers and pictures. Instagram for iOS is easier to use, easier to reload, I don't know, it just feels better. I also like TapaTalk more and some other apps like Reddit pics browser, skype, dolphin browser and so on. I sure miss FireFox since is my browser on PC and I would have loved to have bookmarks sync but since I don't to that much browsing, I'm ok with Dolphin/Safari. A special mention goes to Safari for reading mode (or how it is called) when it renders the text from the page at big size, making it easier to read. Great feature.
As android developer I rely on Google services: Maps, GMail, Google+, Drive and some apps are working ok, some are bad. The biggest disappointment is the Gmail app which is more ergonomic and nicer on Android. No contact pictures, no swipe to delete, I miss these features. Also the rendered text in emails is quite small, so it's good enough for email checking if you don't have many emails.
I haven't changed my ringtone yet because from what I saw I need iTunes for that... well that sucks.
Ah the camera, I don't think I made so many pictures with a phone. I know the camera is not top of the chart, but the form factor of the phone actually made it easier for me to take it out and grab a quick picture. Note 3 had a great camera but getting it out of the pocket, 2 hands needed to use it... You know where I'm going to.
I also like the silent toggle on the left size, very convenient but I would have preferred a visual notification on status bar, that is on, like on android.
As for widgets and stuff, on my android I initially did all sort of customizations and widgets but in the end I started to install more apps, drag shortcuts around and it became a mess. Basically I ended up with a grid of icons, just as the iOS launcher is. So for me, the lack of widgets is not a negative point
I don't like the dialer, seems so... I don't know... limited. No contacts photos on Recents/Contacts list makes it look boring. I also have like a 1-2 seconds delay between the moment I pick up and the moment the caller hears me, that is annoying and does not happen with same SIM on other phones
Unfortunately after 4 months of usage my iPhone's camera started to fail. Sometimes it worked sometimes it just shown black screen. After a few more days I have realized that the screen glass on top of the phone was raised 1-2 milliliters above the frame. I went to a service center (since no warranty) and they glued it somehow back, and now the screen is ok, but the camera still does not work. One nice addition was discovering that I can disable the whole camera feature, so I did and it disappeared from apps and Control Center. I guess that is the only customization of Control center hehe.
Since the camera is not working and I don't want to put any more money on this iPhone, I don't know how long I will be using it, probably until Nexus X or Moto X+1 is released. Or why not, IPhone 6. But overall I can say that the experience with iOS was not as bad as expected. Probably it has to do with me not using so many widgets and apps. I don't remember how many times I have flashed android phones with so many custom ROMs in order to achieve a better phone. Indeed on android you get more freedom, you install custom ROMs and kernels and you squeeze some more performance but this sometimes comes with the cost of bugs and instability. This is the beauty of android, you can customize it, want a toggle of auto rotate, you have it on a custom ROM, want different screen calibration, want to hide on screen buttons, want... you get the point. On iOS you are limited, you can't customize too much and after a while I guess you just get used to it. Unfortunately Android OEM's have started to implement various techniques that will detect rooting/bootloader unlock and will void warranty. We all know the famous Knox trigger on Samsung devices, so installing a custom ROM is starting to get harder and harder without voiding warranty.
Another point I'd like the mention is updates. On android things are starting to catch up, but still with updates through carriers and all the delays, after an android version is released you need to wait for 3-6-never months for an update. Of course this is not available for nexus line. The updates are primarily for flagship devices as previous year devices will take even longer to receive an update. This really forces me to look for a nexus when I get an android device and I sure hope they will get it right this time and not make cuts on screen quality or battery size as on previous models. Motorola seems to be doing quite a good job on updates and I hope they will continue to do so in the future. Android L seems like a really big change and I think it will start to catch up on next year's flagships, so mostly on Q2 2014 but given the skinning of frameworks like TouchWiz/Optimus/and others I somehow doubt the user will see too much material changes. I hope performance will improve since I can see small lag here and there even on latest models. As for iOS8 it seems promising, the new keyboard support will allow fixing one of my major annoyances, also battery statistics will offer more info on apps battery usage. I am curious to see how widgets on Notification center will be received but seeing Apple opening is a good thing. I am also keeping an eye on their Swift language and might start learn it since ObjectiveC was never ever on my taste. I really like the swipe on screens to go back, that is implemented on some apps and I am really curious to see how on bigger screen sizes, reaching the top left of the screen for Back option will fell file. I sometimes feel the need of a Back button. I fear that on 4.7 and 5.5" iPhone one handed usage will be hurt by having hard times to reach Back within an app.
So in the end, is iOS that bad ? It depends, for me, when I use the OS for a few seconds to launch apps that I am using, it does not matter so much what OS it is, as long as its fast and reliable. I find iphone 5 to be fast and smooth and it's a device 2 years old. I bet Iphone 5s with his TouchId and 64bits would have a bigger impact on me and to be honest I am starting to see phones with screen bigger than 4"... too big. It would be interesting to find myself buying iPhone 5S as my next phone.
Thanks for reading and sorry for the long post, hope I haven't bored you too much.