[Andys]

Its the price we pay to be able to listen to mp3s whilst GPS navigating in the car!

Or leaving my SSH session open while replying to a tweet and checking a website.

My point: until a super-fast android is released, would you rather have things slow but the ability to multitask, or fast but no multitasking at all?

[hyperbovine]

The iPhone can play MP3s while doing anything else, there are GPS Nav apps for the iPhone, and nobody wants to ssh from a phone anyways.

[jamesbritt]

"and nobody wants to ssh from a phone anyways."

Really? I got word that my site was down, and was able to shell in and fix it from my G1. Coincidentally, I happened to be at an Android developer meeting at the time.

I'll grant that the G1 (etc.) is a more of a hacker phone than the iPhone, but some of us really do like being able to code up a useful app and drop on our phones or easily share it with others, or VNC to a desktop machine to check something, or ssh somewhere to go a fix.

[gloob]

Actually, being able to ssh from a phone would be about the only thing that would convince me to get one. But I suspect I'm not exactly representative of the potential customer base.

[Andys]

It was the exact reason I chose the G1, its generous 5 row qwerty keyboard makes daily use of SSH possible. You can type numbers and symbols in your password easily and quickly, and you get a full 80x25 display.

[silentbicycle]

> and nobody wants to ssh from a phone anyways.

Actually, it's pretty handy (when your phone has an actual keyboard). I use pssh on my Palm Centro a couple times per week.

[hexley]

The iPhone can multitask just fine, it's just disabled by default to preserve system responsiveness and battery life. I have 6 apps open at once here.