Thoughts of -e^(pi*i) man – Tien Nguyen

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Like every other obedient iPhone user out there I had been perfectly happy with my iPhone 4 over the past 2 years or so.

But once the iPhone 5 announcement came the Pavlovian effect took over and a stack of Chipotle napkins were needed to wipe the drool (yes only drool) off my keyboard.

A metric crap ton load of new features were announced: 4G, a larger screen, default turn-by-turn navigation, a larger screen, 4g, and…default turn-by-turn navigation, I was going to cut back on dog food for the next new months in order to get one.

Dog food is delicious by the way.

However eventually Apple’s two biggest enemies, logic and objectivity, took over and I realized that there was something out there that already had 4G, an even bigger screen that the iPhone5 (and was slimmer), and a turn-by-turn app that wasn’t giving up street view (and doesn’t suck scrotum).

Plus it’s already root-able, and who knew how long it would take for iOS 5 to become jailbreakable (a must for me).

Still, iPhones were never about the checklist of features it had, it was the intimate feel that the $100B in cash reserves that they have going into R/D, and the TLC  of 8-year-old Chinese girls staining it with blood, building the product that made the iPhone an “experience”.

Plus you can’t put a price on 3 years+ of familiarity where everything is second nature, every nook and nuance you can anticipate like a Jedi. It’s Apple and Droidranges really.

But on second thought yes you can. After Droiding it up for a bit, and being the extremely smart person that I am, everything was incredibly intuitive, and just as easy to use/do on the S3.

S3 Pros:

1. huuge screen, bigger than the iPhone 5, and it makes your  current iPhone look like John Clayton’s head
2. MAPS, every single user experience talking about iOS 6 maps hate it. From people not being able to find their street, directions getting all wonky, no public transit support, etc. It’s currently in BETA and will probably get better, but you don’t replace a perfectly usable app that millions have gotten used to with one that does not work very well. The S3′s Google maps works very well.
3. chargers: this was probably the dealbreaker. I have an iPhone charger at home, at the office, and in my car. Getting a new adapter for the new iPhone would’ve cost nearly $100, just to charge the thing. No thanks. Micro USB cables can be had for ~$2.
4. typing is a much more pleasant experience too. With more space between the keys, the ability to swype, AND the slight vibration with each keystroke makes typing much faster and much more accurate
5. widgets: I’ll probably not use them ever again in a few months but it’s way cooler and Apple has nothing that’s equivalent. But the ability to do a Google search from the home screen to prove someone wrong is priceless.
6. Gmail app is much better than the iPhone’s gmail app and default email app.
7. 4g + faster processor. Makes a noticeable  difference compared to the iPhone 4 doing simple things, I’m sure the 5 has a similar feel. The 4g is even faster than the internet connection I have at home that I pay $50/month for.
8. downloading apps is a much more pleasant experience, the App Store requires you to enter a password and accept an agreement every time you download a new app. The Droid does not, which if you have a mass list of apps to d/l onto your new phone makes a world of difference
9. animated background screens, COOL
10. the inclusion of back/settings buttons in the phone, it’s like the ability to right-click on a mouse, don’t know how I did without it before
11. expandable memory makes a 16gb S3 w/ a 16gb/32gb microSD card a much better value than a 32/64gb iPhone
12. great customizability. With the iPhone you had to stick your icons along their grid, in a specific order. There was a jailbreak around it but unnecessary with Android.
13. MAPS, every single user experience talking about iOS 6 maps hate it. From people not being able to find their street, directions getting all wonky, no public transit support, etc. It’s currently in BETA and will probably get better, but you don’t replace a perfectly usable app that millions have gotten used to with one that does not work very well. The S3′s Google maps works very well.
14. life enjoyment increased by 32% and the grass in my lawn got greener

S3 Cons (compared to iPhone)

1. image gallery is slower, maybe I’m missing something but there was no loading time needed when trying to find a picture on the iPhone, the S3 acts like it’s loading it remotely rather than on my phone
2. there’s no notifications page like on the iPhone, but the widgets do a nice job of replacing it
3. Spotify on the iPhone was better, there’s no Shuffle button on this app when entering a playlist, and again there’s a slight delay when skipping to the next song
4. can’t use my Lifeproof case to take underwater pictures which I never did…but wanted to eventually
5. probably will be solved once my case comes, but being so thin and a bit slippery (even compared to the naked iPhone), it doesn’t feel quite at snug in my left hand. For use in the bathroom the iPhone is a better experience for now
6. BATTERY drains quickly and is really slow to recharge compared to the iPhone. Can probably be improved by closing up unused apps, but the iPhone was always really good at battery management
7. slightly less support. Since an iPhone is an iPhone, with basically one used OS, you can Google an issue and your solution is there. Trying to find a fix for a Droid issue depended slightly more on the phone you have, which OS you have, etc.
8. S3 can’t cure cancer like the iPhone can

Overall experience

At first I felt horribly out of place with this new phone, with all the default widgets that they had it felt like buying an HP in 1998 with a ton of desktop items that I’d never use or need.

Plus I read through a few guides on how to transfer contacts over, but it was not anywhere near as simple. It seemed to be Apple’s fault though, since the sync to Google was not working, but after a few workarounds, the S3 picked up the contacts quite smoothly.

Transferring all my (dog) pictures from iPhone to my desktop onto the S3 was pretty straight forward too, that was a relief.

Not being able to transfer years worth of text messages (easily at least) seemed like a burden at first but is quite liberating after the fact. One should always look into deleting old text messages every few months.

In all, the main “upgrades” the iPhone 5 offered were: 4G, larger screen, and new maps. The S3 already has 4G, and even larger screen, and most are saying iOS 6′s maps took a huge downfall, which objectively gave the S3 a big win.

Still, the intangibles of how an iPhone feels is completely subjective and can’t be replaced. But after less than a day I’m as comfortable doing the basic tasks, after a bit of customization, as I’ve been in the past 4 years on an iPhone.

Maybe even more so.

Originally from 1/9/2006

Waking up this morning was quite possibly the most difficult task I’ve had to partake in so far this year … all 9 days of it.
Somehow I did manage to get up though and be just a minute late to class, but as I walked in I was already lost and confused among all the math speak.

The syllabus for the class itself reads:

Warning: This is a notoriously diffcult course

…

Finally the instructor, Greg Hjorth, is somewhat tougher than most professors in the department, and will make no effort to shy away from these diffculties, but rather insist that the students make a real effort to understand the key notions for themselves.

In other news while in my finance class I was browsing through my e-mail and read about the first UCLA problem of the week for the quarter. The winner is determined by those who submit the most number of solutions during the quarter, and who are then given the grand prize … math books.

After half paying attention in class I typed up a solution and then got this:

Hello, Tien,

Thank you very much for submitting your solution! It is correct.

Good luck in the future,

Olga Radko.

I hope the rest are this easy.

My submission said, “yes” (no just kidding).