[Terretta]

> "Wifi Tethering. I don’t need to tether often, but when I do, I do. I rooted my phone quickly, just so I could use one of the many apps in the Marketplace to tether my laptop via Wifi. Worked flawlessly, no extra charge."

That's tantamount to saying "I jail-broke my iPhone quickly, so I could use one of the many apps on Cydia to tether my laptop via WiFi" ... except you don't need an app for that because tethering is built into iOS. You need a different network provisioning file in the States, and elsewhere in the world tethering is enabled by default.

I liked the form factor of the HTC Aria but found his following points to be deal breakers, so am back to iPhone for now:

- every couple of days, you do need to reboot the phone

- no cellular data while you are in a call

- no cloud push in Android 2.1

- separate email apps for Gmail and everything else

- IMAP email is very weak; really weak

- the OS (and therefore the apps) are really clunky at switching between voice/data/wifi

I was also put off by the extremely popular apps carrying name brand logos that disclaimed association with the brand while asking permission to make charge calls from my number.

[theBobMcCormick]

The no cell data while in a call is a CDMA issue, not a phone issue. An ATT or Tmobile Android phone can use voice and 3G data at the same time the same as an iPhone.

Also, I'm not sure how the no cloud push in 2.1 can be a reason for switching from Android to iPhone. Does the iPhone have a cloud push feature equivalent to the one Android 2.2 cloud push feature? I'm assuming that's the "no cloud push" feature he's talking about, since many Android apps have push messaging for email, IM's, etc. (I've had push Exchange mail since at least Android 2.1, IM's have always been push-instant, etc.)

[matwood]

I'm not sure if it's equivalent, but setting up the iPhone to treat your Gmail account as an Exchange Active Sync account gives the iPhone most of the cloud push features (Mail/Calendar/Contacts). I can add a contact on my iPhone that syncs OTA to Google that then syncs to my mac address book.

Google voice texting and messages don't integrate perfectly yet, for example if I get a GV text on my iPhone and read it it doesn't show read in GV on the web (unless of course I use the GV app/html5 site to read it). Also contact groups do not sync from Google Contacts.

[ben1040]

I'm not sure if it's equivalent, but setting up the iPhone to treat your Gmail account as an Exchange Active Sync account gives the iPhone most of the cloud push features (Mail/Calendar/Contacts). I can add a contact on my iPhone that syncs OTA to Google that then syncs to my mac address book.

The contact/calendar syncing is great and in my mind really makes MobileMe a hard thing to justify buying. The push mail is nice as well, but I found the limitations to be a little annoying (but not enough to keep me from using it on my iPad):

http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...

Specifically, deleting a message from your inbox is the equivalent of pressing the "Archive" button in the Gmail webapp.

If you drink Google's kool-aid about never deleting mails, that's great, but I don't. As a workaround I created a tag called "0-To Delete" (so it showed up at the top of the folder list when alphabetized) and rather than delete mails, I apply that tag. Gmail tags the message and removes it from the inbox, and then at some point later on I can actually delete all the mails with that tag.

[Sidnicious]

This is easy to fix.

Check the account's Advanced settings, and make sure that the account's Deleted Mailbox points at the "On the Server" trash. You may also want to confirm that the Sent and Drafts mailboxes point to their Gmail equivalents.

You can archive a message by moving it to the All Mail folder.

In iOS 4, there's an option at the top level settings of accounts created as "Gmail" accounts to archive or trash messages deleted on the device, I'm not sure how this relates to the above settings.

[ben1040]

Check the account's Advanced settings, and make sure that the account's Deleted Mailbox points at the "On the Server" trash. You may also want to confirm that the Sent and Drafts mailboxes point to their Gmail equivalents.

If you're using the Google Sync feature (to get your mail, contacts, and calendars pushed live to your device), Google presents your Gmail account as though it were an Exchange account. Consequently, iOS doesn't let you change the folder mappings like you can with an IMAP server.

[Sidnicious]

Good point.

I work around it by setting up the Google Sync account on the device without mail and adding it as an IMAP account as well.

[vetinari]

> I'm not sure if it's equivalent, but setting up the iPhone to treat your Gmail account as an Exchange Active Sync account gives the iPhone most of the cloud push features (Mail/Calendar/Contacts). I can add a contact on my iPhone that syncs OTA to Google that then syncs to my mac address book.

No, this is not equivalent to cloud push. Application-specific push (in this case google sync) was part of Andoid 1.0 on the first G1.

[Andys]

> The no cell data while in a call is a CDMA issue, not a phone issue.

Yes, I have successfully browsed the web in the middle of a call, using 3G(HSPA) on my G1.

[martythemaniak]

Tethering is also built into Froyo, which I've been happily using since May.

Also, "no cellular data while you're in a call" is a CDMA vs GSM issue, not an Android/iOS/Blackberry issue.

[bho]

Unfortunately, the Droid X does not have Froyo yet, nor is the bootloader decrypted yet, so there's no way to get 2.2 on it as of right now. Hopefully it gets it soon, since the Droid 2 announced today does have it.

[kyleslattery]

I also wouldn't be surprised if tethering were disabled in 2.2 for the Droid X like it is on the original Droid.

[generalk]

That's tantamount to saying "I jail-broke my iPhone quickly, so I could use one of the many apps on Cydia to tether my laptop via WiFi" ... except you don't need an app for that because tethering is built into iOS.

It's built into Froyo (Android 2.2) as well.

- every couple of days, you do need to reboot the phone

Don't know if that's a phone-specific issue. Haven't had to reboot my Nexus One except for the Froyo update and instaling third-party ROMs.

- no cellular data while you are in a call

Limitation of the Verizon network. If the iPhone goes to Verizon it too will have that restriction.

[sprout]

I've found I do have to reboot my MotoDroid occasionally. Usually the guilty party is GPS - it absolutely refuses to give fine location unless I reboot the phone.

I've also had issues with airplane mode totally ruining my 3G until I reboot. (I now avoid airplane mode.)

[WiseWeasel]

By that time, Verizon may support 4G LTE, at least in major metropolitan areas, which does support simultaneous voice/data usage.

[starnix17]

I agree with your tethering comment, but FWIW there are a handful of tethering apps you can get without rooting Android that allow any user to tether for free.

[elblanco]

I pretty happily use PDANet for some basic stuff.

[ktsmith]

You don't have to jailbreak the Droid X to get tethering either however Verizon charges $20/mo for the feature.