Verizon No Longer THE Carrier For Android Enthusiasts - Handsets Show Up Late if They Show Up At All

Verizon No Longer THE Carrier For Android Enthusiasts Handsets Show Up Late if They Show Up At All A few years back, Verizon was the place to go if you were an Android user, choosing to heavily embrace and market Android phones because AT&T had locked up the iPhone exclusively. It's amazing how quickly things can change. JR Raphael over at Computer World has a good piece arguing that Verizon really has become the carrier to avoid if you're interested in getting the latest and greatest Android handset, given it has become standard operating procedure to offer new Android handsets much later than everyone else (HTC One), if they're able to offer them at all (Nexus 4). Notes Raphael:It's actually gotten to the point where anytime I write about a hot Android new device, I count the seconds from when I hit "publish" until the moment I see the inevitable disheartened comment: "Great news...except for those of us stuck on Verizon." Let's face it: With the exception of the Droid Razr HD phones last fall, pretty much every exciting Android device in recent memory has launched outside of Verizon's domain (initially, at least, if not permanently). In fact, if I were to list the devices I'd consider the best overall Android phones on the market right now, three out of four wouldn't currently be available to Verizon subscribers.The issue goes deeper if you also consider Verizon's decision to block Google Wallet in order to give their own Isis mobile payment service an unfair leg up in the market. The problem for Android fans currently on Verizon? Verizon Wireless continues to lead nearly every customer service study for postpaid carriers, so Android fans who head to other carriers not only have to deal with worse support and service, they also have to deal with significantly smaller LTE footprints and network coverage in general. In that sense, Android fans are sort of damned if they do, damned if they don't. Still, if Verizon's earnings last quarter are any indication, the seeming decline in serious Verizon Android support hasn't resulted in any meaningful loss of customers.

Reviews: ?Comcast Not just Android They are way behind on Windows Phones as well. Another really frustrating part is the way they insist on modifying phones hardware to suit them (ie the VZW logo on home button of the Note(?), or making Nokia take a different looking Lumia and make it look like every mid-range LG etc out there). Re: Not just Android said by psiu_nws: They are way behind on Windows Phones as well. WP = DOA so I can see why they are not putting much effort into it. Nothing compelling on that front - UGLY UI that is hard to use, low app selection, and just an overall poor experience. It is surprising on the Android front as VZ was a leader in that area. But then again when the overwhelming majority of your smartphone sales are iOS devices I guess you follow the users and what they want. Reviews: ?Comcast Re: Not just Android Not sure if you are trolling with that response or not, but if you're not: I find the UI to be quite attractive and graceful (note: have a life long affection for typography and design). Simple to use, all the apps *I* need (somewhere around ~150K at this point), and a great UX. This is coming from someone using a Trophy on Verizon -- running WP7 and it is roughly comparable to the original Nexus, hardware wise. And I would not take a new Android phone over it. Any of them. Have you used a WP before? Re: Not just Android said by psiu_nws: Not sure if you are trolling with that response or not, but if you're not: I find the UI to be quite attractive and graceful (note: have a life long affection for typography and design). Simple to use, all the apps *I* need (somewhere around ~150K at this point), and a great UX. Have you used a WP before? No trolling at all, Windows Phone, Like Metro on Windows 8 is a usability nightmare. Tiles are poor ways of conveying information. Constantly scrolling stuff like status updates and photos are annoying and almost always you end up missing what you were looking at or for. Add to that garish colors and some "flat" design cues with a huge sans serif font and you have the makings of really poor design. Everything I've seen on this design language (from Zune onward) has been really bad from a design standpoint. Flat designs = I don't have a clue and just took a 1st year approach to design: 1) Lots of white, 2) Lots of whitespace, and 3) Sans Serif font. It's just bad. Reviews: ?Comcast Huh. Well, different strokes for different folks! I mean it too -- I think having a variety of options available is great. Not sure about W8 -- I really haven't used it yet, sounds like 8.1 might be decent on a touch enabled device. But forcing (the Metro interface) it on the desktop, I still don't agree with (and this is from a WP, Media Center, Zune using person). clone join:2000-12-11 Portage, IN You didn't answer the original question, have you ever used a modern WP phone? My guess would be no. Because if you had, you would know that Windows Phone 8 is very highly usable. I've used every mobile OS platform out there, and it's no better or worse than iOS, Android, or BB10. Just different. And I have to disagree about the design language. It's very fluid and looks great. Coming from an admitted ex-Microsoft hater, I picked up a super-cheap WP8 Nokia (Lumia 521) just to play with, and I'm shocked at how much I actually *like* the device. Maybe the home screen is very flat, but the tiles are a very easy way to see the information you want to see at a glance. You can change the theme, so the "garish" colors change based on what you want them to be. This changes across most apps, too. On iOS, you get no information on the home screen. On Android, you have to hope and pray that there is a home screen widget for whatever app you need, and then hope that it actually works and/or displays the information you want. WP8 tiles just work, are very customizable and intuitive. The only thing I would change are the lock-screen notifications, but that's a minor complaint. Maybe for the hipster "design" crowd, it's bad. We know they won't use anything but an iPhone, anyway, so who cares about them? But for everyone else who doesn't base their smartphone purchase on whether or not they used Sans Serif, WP8 is a perfectly capable mobile platform that provides some competition to Android and iOS, and more competition is always a good thing. Reviews: ?Cingular Wireless said by itguy05:said by psiu_nws: They are way behind on Windows Phones as well. WP = DOA so I can see why they are not putting much effort into it. blah blah blah I'm a troll... please, from the rest of humanity, just STFU. Re: Not just Android said by inteller: please, from the rest of humanity, just STFU. You go first. Funny I felt the same but NYtimes bloger just did a small piece on verizon sales increasing because of windows phone. I only have the intenal verizon link so it could be all Puff. Here is the text though Windows Phones Gain Some Traction on Verizon Wireless By BRIAN X. CHEN NYT Blogs Tue, 4 Jun 2013 English 266 words ? 2013 The New York Times Company. All rights reserved There is hope yet for Windows Phone, the smartphone operating system that could. Microsoft?s mobile operating system, first introduced in 2010, has barely gained any traction on its own home turf, the United States. And it has only had moderate success overseas. But a new report suggests that Windows Phone may finally be gaining some momentum in the United States. Kantar Worldpanel, a research firm, issued a report on Monday that found that Verizon?s growth last quarter was fueled by healthy sales of phones running the Windows Phone software system. ?For Verizon, Windows share rose from 0.2 percent in the three months ending April 2012 to 6.8 percent by the period ending April 2013,? Kantar said in its report. Most of the Windows phones sold were Nokia?s Lumia devices, Kantar said. That number is still small compared with iPhones on Verizon?s network. Last quarter, of the 7.2 million smartphones that Verizon sold over all, four million were iPhones. Still, 6 percent growth for Windows Phone is significant in the American wireless market, where it seemed that the iPhone and Samsung?s Android phones were taking every penny of profit. * At Best Buy, Lumia Is Selling O.K. but More Slowly Than Android * AT&T Plans Marketing Deluge for Nokia Windows Phone * A Best-Selling Phone? It?s Not Just a Good Phone * Motorola Introduces First Phones of Its New Google Era * AT&T to Introduce Shared Data Plans in August Reviews: ?Verizon FiOS Re: Not just Android said by mikesterr: Funny I felt the same but NYtimes bloger just did a small piece on verizon sales increasing because of windows phone. I only have the intenal verizon link so it could be all Puff. Here is the text though Windows Phones Gain Some Traction on Verizon Wireless By BRIAN X. CHEN NYT Blogs Tue, 4 Jun 2013 English 266 words © 2013 The New York Times Company. All rights reserved There is hope yet for Windows Phone, the smartphone operating system that could. Microsoft?s mobile operating system, first introduced in 2010, has barely gained any traction on its own home turf, the United States. And it has only had moderate success overseas. But a new report suggests that Windows Phone may finally be gaining some momentum in the United States. Kantar Worldpanel, a research firm, issued a report on Monday that found that Verizon?s growth last quarter was fueled by healthy sales of phones running the Windows Phone software system. ?For Verizon, Windows share rose from 0.2 percent in the three months ending April 2012 to 6.8 percent by the period ending April 2013,? Kantar said in its report. Most of the Windows phones sold were Nokia?s Lumia devices, Kantar said. That number is still small compared with iPhones on Verizon?s network. Last quarter, of the 7.2 million smartphones that Verizon sold over all, four million were iPhones. Still, 6 percent growth for Windows Phone is significant in the American wireless market, where it seemed that the iPhone and Samsung?s Android phones were taking every penny of profit. * At Best Buy, Lumia Is Selling O.K. but More Slowly Than Android * AT&T Plans Marketing Deluge for Nokia Windows Phone * A Best-Selling Phone? It?s Not Just a Good Phone * Motorola Introduces First Phones of Its New Google Era * AT&T to Introduce Shared Data Plans in August wait.. how is an increase from a .2% share to a 6.8% share only 6% growth. That would be a gigantic amount of growth if the article is actually true. It would be a 34 times increase. 3300% guppy_fish Premium join:2003-12-09 Lakeland, FL kudos:1Reviews: ?Verizon FiOS More Karl Ain't Verizon BS Verizon was the first carrier to have the new HTC DNA, which I have, its only second to the Samsung S3 at the time ( bought last fall ), They have the S4 and others now, so this article is just utter BS Karl, why don't you find some thing else to go piss on, Verizon wireless is number one for a reason, sorry you have issue with that. Re: More Karl Ain't Verizon BS said by ptrowski: It's not BS, they are usually a month behind or more on Verizon. There's no disputing that. The One will be sometime in the summer. Plus the won't get the Nexus 4. So how is this all BS again? Verizon is behind because they are testing the AWS radios in these phones. See Verizon is rolling out LTE over AWS spectrum later this year which will double capacity. Which means Verizon will have a combined 20 MHz for downlink and 20 MHz for uplink on LTE on those devices,. compare that to the other carrier. T-Mobile and Sprint only have as little as 5 MHz in some areas. Gee I wonder which carrier will have less issues? kaila join:2000-10-11 Lincolnshire, IL Verizon is fat and happy..... With non-compete agreements with cable, a near completed LTE rollout, and the lucrative state of wireless right now (and VZ's position in it), why spend any excess calories rushing to put phones to market for paying customers? Yet another sign of what lack of competition brings. Reviews: ?Charter Leaving Verizon for this very reason I stayed with Verizon for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus device because I wanted the pure Android experience. I'm leaving Verizon because Verizon they did not provide the Nexus experience. They also made installing and updating Google Wallet incredibly difficult for most users. Verizon has big ambitions, but I'm not going to keep paying them top prices for their bad behavior. Reviews: ?Time Warner Cable ?Verizon FiOS ?voip.ms The landscape is changing Look anyone who has had Verizon (I've had them since the Cell One days) knows they are fascists with their network and devices (they didn't used to be), but maybe in their eyes that is value add. I think it is a hangover from the Bell days. The problem is that it's not just 3 phones anymore, 2 new phones comes out every week. And that means that Verizon is going to stop mucking up the software and concentrate on apps otherwise it's going to lead to lawsuits and dissatisfaction. The biggest move Jobs made was that he dictated to the carriers (mostly) that Apple is in charge of the drop, not the carriers. And you see having closed hw/sw how brilliantly that has worked. They call it "proprietary", but guess what open source is s**t because whatever choice you make is still a choice. My iphone just works, Nexus 4 while a brilliant phone still had a crapload of bugs that Google seems to permeate and I have no sense that they will ever be fixed. Google is in the ad business, the phones are a means to an end. Apple is in the hardware business, and their quality shows. So yes Android is like your funky cousin, and is looks like Samsung is the winner here. Now they just need to stabilize the line and offer up a regular update cadence and game over. Now with subsudies going the way of the dodo bird, this is going to put a big crimp on highend phones, and open a whole new mid-market and that means that the droid vendors will have to step up and actually support the software on their devices or they will go away too. Apple will be dragged in. I choose Nexus for now, because I feel it has an upgrade path, and that means that outside of my corporate phone NO VERIZON. I for the life of me have no idea why these hardware vendors just don't start charging a subscription so they can ratchet up their quality and provide lifecycle management for these phones. This is really an O/S now, so let's see a support subscription model. Sorry guys (Verizon), while I prefer your network for my business, I can't tolerate you as a consumer so go pound sand.

Source: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-No-Longer-THE-Carrier-For-Android-Enthusiasts-124504

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