Nice roundup Robert. I for one was hoping for another carrier announcement, but the latest rumor is now that since AT&T is giving early 6-month upgrades that must mean something is coming down the road soon. As for wireless syncing, I'm guessing Apple is waiting until they get the iTunes Cloud and the data center up and running – something we have to wait for unfort.

Was there any word if you could the front-faced camera at high res resolution in FaceTime? And is it true that FaceTime is going to be an open standard (and does this mean if could be ported over to Android phones)?

RIM is riding on their corporate email laurels. There's been no innovation from them in years. I had a Blackberry 8330 for a year and a half. I liked it a lot for the first year, then I started getting jealous about what Android could do. When the time came for a new phone I didn't consider anything from RIM because, except for WiFi capability, none of their phones could do anything my 8330 couldn't. I got a Droid instead.

I've been waiting for this to decide whether my next phone will be an iPhone or an android device with Froyo. FaceTime alone convinced me to go with the iPhone. I already use video chat significantly with friend and family, I can imagine the horrors of trying to give my dad tech support on how to get a video chat app going on an Android phone. FaceTime's implementation is incredibly easy that I doubt I'd have to teach him anything and that's a huge win.

AT&T looks like the deciding factor for me. My iPad isn't 3G. I'm paying AT&T 120/mo and I can't get tethering or hotspot to boot? That's nuts. I posted this on Leo's IRC this afternoon and a lady in Sweden or somewhere like that couldn't believe I paid that much a month. She said she pays $35/mo for her iPhone. What? Why is the U.S. so much more than other countries? And if AT&T has too much traffic why don't they stop advertising and use that money for infrastructure? Well, I'll be paying as much for Sprint, but at least my iPad will always be connected. I agree the iPhone is better, sexier. In many ways I drool for it, but not so much better as to outweigh the network differences. To me it feels very lame, and gives me a bad taste that Steve went with AT&T over others for only one reason: money. I thank Apple for many things. My desktop experience is much more enjoyable and productive, but that move really leaves a bad taste. In this day and age we shouldn't have to make these limiting choices.

While I love some of the features Apple announced, they didn't announce the one feature that might have kept me with the iPhone – another carrier. I'm sorry, but AT&T takes the “phone” out of iPhone! The funniest thing I heard at SXSW this year was in an elevator where a guy ended a iPhone call with, “Hello, Hello? F*ck”. Then turned to those of us in the car and said, “No iPhone conversation ever ends with 'goodbye' – they all end with, 'hello, hello'”.

I feel his pain – it is a very real experience that takes the phone out of my iPhone much of the time.

And then Apple made it easy for me to switch to another phone – to a real phone – they made the iPad. The iPad gives me the best of the iPhone and frees me up to buy a *real* cell phone. You know – one that let's you actually talk to people.

A phone that doesn't randomly give me voice mails when the phone has never even rung (happens on BOTH my kids iPhones as well, so it isn't just me!)

I'm probably going with the Sprint EVO. I just can't tolerate any more AT&T – I don't have the stomach for another two years with them.

Rob

How does the iPhone 4 stack up against the plethora of Android phones on the horizon: Shadow/Devour/Xtreme/Scorpion, from what you've heard about those?

That's kinda like asking how a MacBook pro stacks up against the latest Dell, HP, etc laptops. Some may have better specs and unique features, but Apple's user experience is unbeatable.

This whole EVO vs iPhone thing is so funny to me. It sounds like the 90's desktop wars all over again. Mac vs windows—speed bench tests. Google is the new Microsoft. Google's out Microsofted Microsoft.

Anyway, back to the EVO vs iPhone4… while Google offers open source geek “freedom”, the basic user also wants freedom, but isn't as concerned with tinkering. They want an easy to use product that creates safe and somewhat contained freedom. People trust Apple's quality control, because they've proved themselves trustworthy by creating quality products. If Apple approves an app I know it's safe and I know that it meets a certain standard. The amount of apps available creates the freedom to choose what I want, but I get to choose from a contained variety. That's why I think Apple wins.

But, I love the competition. It makes all of us the winner. I too wish Apple would ditch AT&T however—it's the only anchor I see weighing them down.

David – user experience is subjective, and I personally prefer the Android user experience to that of the iPhone. UX aside, I am actually interested to see how the specs and features line up.

I just ditched RIM and ordered an Android Incredible. I already have an iTouch and an iPad, so I wanted an Android phone so I could use apps on both operating systems.

I think Nokia and RIM are out of the picture. I predict that Microsoft will make some kind of a dent by the end of 2011.

It's not a rumor about not being able to tether to iPad – AT&T confirmed it on their Facebook page in a reply to my query. They said tethering only works on devices able to share internet with USB, so wifi hotspot sharing is out unless Apple releases a dual-30 pin connector cable and allows iPad to get data that way.

Interesting. You couldn't stand the Motorola Droid keyboard?? I MUCH prefer it over the Evo keyboard. Of course the biggest problem with Android keyboards is that non of them are really multitouch. If I touch down on one letter slightly before I touch up on the previous one. It completely screws your flow. Not so in the iOS

HTC EVO 4G is much superior than any iPhone, that includes iPhone4 (the Fake 4).
Lot of cheating going on at iPhone front. a) AAPL is trying to fool consumers into believing that iPhone4 is like EVO 4G, it's not. Evo 4G operates on 4G network, iPhone4 doesn't havey and can't operate on faster 4G network.

iPhone4 is much slower than HTC EVO 4G. All these article writters don't want to hilight EVO 4G strong points.

iPhone4 is not capable of hotspot at all, forget about connecting 8 laptops at the same time like HTC EVO 4G can.

iPhone doesn't have HDMI outlet, EVO does have.

HTC EVO 4G is faster than any phone out there on 3G/4G network, that includes any iPhone and incredible. I have seen this in many video reviews online.

HTC EVO 4G can change battery just like that $7 to $10. iPhone can't, AAPL has to make $800 million yearly from their junk battery service.
HTC EVO 4G is the super smartphone, iPhone4 is no where near. Thats a fact. Sprint also gives you unlimited data plan.

So, why the biase towards iPhone and VZ?

If a company comesup with better products and plan, the media needs to stop being biase and give credit where it's due. HTC EVO 4G and Sprint currently is the best combination.

Oh, cool, glad to see there's Android fans! I'm also glad I have a better phone today. But I love how this HTC fanboy doesn't want to admit Android's problems, either. Ahh, fun.

Actually, it wasn't for money. Verizon turned it down. Remember, Verizon is/was a complete control freak outfit, even worse than Jobs himself.

Great write up Robert – A few quibbles though…

1) Screen Quality = only slightly better that EVO? Come on Robert the EVO has worse ppi (217) than the Nexus One (252), the iPhone 4 is over a hundred pip more than the EVO.

4) If anything should be better than iPhone apps it better be Googles Using them as an example mutes your point though. Point 2? Do users/consumers care about the few apps that haven't yet been accepted? Or even know about them? Probably not. Side question: Are developers making any money selling for Android? My impression is they're not.

Totally location dependent. I can take you 10 miles from Mpls and get you Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint dead zones. Not just data but marginal voice.

12) Not necessarily sure I agree. Apple's whole philosophy has bean all devices as remotes to a digital hub and I don't really have a problem with that. They did show/talk book syncing/bookmarking. Will be interesting to see what Apple does once their data center is open/functioning.

Only one comment – about the syncing – the iPhone will sync contacts and calendars (as well as e-mail, of course!) with Google, if you set up your Gmail/Google Apps account as an ActiveSync account.

I'm fairly sure it doesn't work quite as well as Android – I know there are some contacts fields that don't map correctly. But all-in-all, it works pretty well with Google's services.

I think what people generally don't get is that Apple designs devices that do exactly what they say they do, but not necessarily any more (or any less).

You may see more 'flexibility' on the Android side – which naturally comes with openness. It's the cathedral vs. bazaar.

IPhone 4 is ahead for only a short time, I am sure lots of android devices will beat it soon at least in terms of specs. And I love how apple fanbois are talking about features now. They always said it is not features that decides how one buys a phone. Thanks to Google, Apple has been forced to innovate new features. Also I love how the hardware features like HDMI out is not considered important by fanbois because Apple does not have it. And in any case turn by turn navigation is far more important than having gyroscope or ifacetime or whatever to the average users anyway. And please dont compare hardware improvements in IPhone 4 to android 2.2, hardware stuff will be done by OEMs

I wouldn't say RIM is out of the picture, not completely at least. For consumers, I'd say they're getting there VERY fast.

They make GREAT keyboards. Noone can touch them there. And I think that combined with their business features will keep them a strong player for enterprise and a small market for other consumers.

But I agree that I don't see how they're a significant player in consumer devices in 3-5 years. Their OS just sucks. We'll see what 6.0 brings, but I'm not holding my breath…

AT&T is perfectly fine for most of the country. Verizon sucks in places too. San Francisco is definitely not indicative of the rest of the country. Thankfully.

Don't oversee the new “bada” phones from Samsung! The new Wave is really great and there is more to come. also bada is an open system like android and Samsung is the world market leader in mobile phones.
Tom

I still believe Nokia can say a lot also in high-end devices, and wait for the N8. Apple is not my thing and I defintiely prefer Android to it.

I just don't get why Americans are so carrier oriented: can't you just unlock your phone and use it on other networks?

Anyway, I'd never spend €700 for an iPhone (prices here not official, but I bet it will be 699) when I can have a good N8 with tethering, multitasking, flash and all stuff I need for something around €400/450 (which is still a lot)!

world market leader in mobile phones is Nokia, and Symbian is an open system too!

Good analysis, lousy conclusion. Come on, Robert, it's Requirements Analysis 101. The iPhone with AT&T is like a fish out of water. The prettiest fish in the lake is not quite so gorgeous once you drain the lake. The most important component in the mobile phone equation is being able to make calls and use the data services flexibly, reliably, and cost-effectively. AT&T flunks all three tests when compared to Sprint, Verizon, and even T-Mobile in many areas of the country. No tethering, dropped calls, and metered data access gives any mobile device on the AT&T network three F's in my book. Buy a nice watch for your wife instead of a new iPhone. You'll both be happier.

Agreed – thankfully. I've been an AT&T customer since back in 2002 when it was AT&T Wireless.

I can tell you this – In most of the places I end up, I get better coverage than VZW or Sprint. It truly is a “your mileage may vary” situation.

I've also observed that my iPhone appears to drop more calls than any of my Blackberry devices ever did. On the same network. It's hard to tell which end dropped the call – but I think I've had more dropped calls on my iPhone in 2 or 3 months than I had with all of my Blackberry devices combined. Now, that's definitely not an analysis based on empirical data

Flavio: That's exactly it. It really is very enticing to get that $400 subsidy. And all you have to do is sign away your soul for two years

Great write up, but the syncing comment is a misleading one Robert: Unless a user has a deep Gmail and Google Calendar integration like you do, nothing is synced – and btw, Apple provides the same for a .me user. Secondly, it doesn't sync any of your content. You need to get an SD card reader to get music or pictures or video on or off the phone and once you want to do that, you'll need various programs to deal with the different type of media. So as much as I like my EVO (for different reasons than syncing), I'll happily plug my iPhone into my computer to transfer the 30GB's of content that I have on it, and only use one piece of software to do so. Even in the foreseeable future Android won't offer anything comparable, Apple integrates with their desktop programs seamlessly and Android simply doesn't offer anything comparable when it comes to media organization on a computer.

David, couldn't agree more. There are some folks who will always want the doors wide open and are comfortable with greater “flexibility” due to temperament and technological acumen, but there are—it would seem—a lot more who want to purchase a product that out of the box does exactly what it was reported to do and emphasizes a clean, simplified user experience at the expense of greater flexibility.

RIM has peaked with their value-add. Exchange 2010 has a rich set of ActiveSync policies and I know a lot of companies out there that have started to dabble into the iPhone Enterprise deployment kit. It's also one less server and licensing scheme to deal with.

When the Froyo update comes out for the EVO, there will be no comparison. Android has leapfrogged the iPhone OS in capabilities and possibilities.

I've had an iphone and now own an evo. Both have their pros/cons.
The major advantage to me about the evo is the speed of the phone. I use the internet a lot on my mobile device and until you use the evo for some surfing you can't appreciate the difference in speed. On the iphone web surfing was so slow (on 3G or wifi) it was annoying.
As for the bad battery life…it's actually not as bad as some of these reviews would have you believe.
I still like apple products but although the iphone is sleeker and sexier, the evo wins hands down for me for speed alone.

Even assuming we trusted everything PC Mag writes, that still leaves AT&T with two F's. And there's obviously more to the United States than the 18 cities covered in the PC Mag survey. So… I'll stick with awarding 3 F's.

The universal jacks are amazing with Android phones. I ran into Best Buy for something else and chatted with a phone guy. He wanted to see my Nexus One but I was running low on juice. He whipped out a standard micro USB and we charged up as I showed off.

Meanwhile, in iPhone land, a friend of mine goes to tech conferences and says she always brings an extra iPhone cord or two because everyone needs to charge up and she makes contacts by having the hard to get in the middle of nowhere iPhone cords.

I know this is a bold statement…but this has got to be the most incoherent and useless rant I have ever witnessed on the Internet.

Everything you have said in this post is wrong. Everything is synced, deep or not. If you are using those applications and choose to sync, they are synced.
You don't need an SD card reader/adapter to get files on and off your computer!! That actually made me laugh!! How could you own an Evo and not know this!? As soon as you plug the USB cord in, you are prompted with a menu that takes up your whole screen giving you a choice to Charge only, Sync, or Mount as disk drive. Choose “Mount” to access the phone's directories from your computer. You can then drop and drag any file into any folder. Use your mouse or touch pad for that task. Usually I put my MP3's in the “Music” folder.
This could also be done on the early Android phones a year ago. If you want to take jabs on media, how about this, you want to put your friends MP3's she got from iTunes on your iPhone. good luck! Your Evo will happily accept any file and find the album art and artist info for you instantly. So unfortunately for you, it looks like “only one piece of software” is one piece too much. Stop lying kid, you just got exposed.

More .. I don't know about more … look at who is losing vs gaining market share.

generally they ripped off features … but that is no different than any other company.

Umm, you might want to do a comparison again. Outside of IPS screen & 802.11n you're fairly far off. Battery life enhancements too must be tested, I'm not taking Jobs' word for this (again).

Hmm, I suppose Apple never actually said the iPHONE would be capable of carrying on a PHONE call, so you are probably correct.

What kind of Android's problem did you observed?

I am a long time Blackberry user. I read lot of debate on HTC EVO and iPhone 4. I am very interested in purchase either device. The main reason is the front cam. Why? I am deaf and American Sign Language user. My friends will be using the front cam more often.

Just like Rob Scoble granted a point to EVO for its voice quality. I suppose as a deaf person granted point to iPhone 4 for superb grapic display quality? hehe.

What I am trying to tackling is the AT&T's new pricing plan. My concern is that that in near future the direction of AT&T and Apple's decision to make the FaceTime popular and put it on 3G network. The usage of video will go over the capped 2 GB. The data plan for me is becoming expensive. I would like to use Qik and Fring due to its interoperability. Right now, FaceTime will be on wifi and connect to iPhone 4 only although Steve Jobs said it is open standard.

Deaf people have express their concern to AT&T and FCC on pricing issue in lieu of function equivalent.

Sprint offers unlimited data which is appealing (http://www.sprintrelaystore.com). Also they offered a special pricing for deaf people to make it function equivalent which is a plus. AT%T does have a special plan for deaf people. (http://www.deafmac.org/blog/2010/att-iphone-tap...) But, it is not the best plan comparing to Sprint.

Maybe someday I will have the luxury of afford two phones just like you, Rob Scoble.

I only jump on the Apple bandwagon following the joneses because I know fanboy out there will focus on building a better app to cater my need as a deaf person. Although, with Android's openness, can they equal with what Apple have in lieu of accesibility issues?

Hope you Android fanboys and Apple fanboys can help me clarify up my clouded thoughts on EVO and iPhone

Go Evo. Qik on 4G is insanely good, the app is free on Android Market and AT&T will butt rape you on the bandwidth it eats up. If you think the network is bad now, wait until iPhone 4 comes out. Do you want to fall asleep on Qik, or leave it open mistakenly and get a bill for $40,000? Fring Skype also works great on Evo, and it's free. Chances are always better with open-source that developers will make apps suited to your needs.

Also, Super AMOLED technology in Samsung Android phones is better than the IPS technology in the iPhone 4.

Says who? Can they make 600,000 for the first day? Can they make them affordably? Do they offer a clear benefit to iPhone 4? Do you have pictures to demonstrate how much better that display is?

I am thoroughly looking forward to the moment Apple announces their deal with Verizon only because there will be a mass exodus from AT&T. I think AT&T's network will improve leaps and bounds once it offloads a few million users.

dc

Its a shame people even consider the iPhone as something useful. They have been slightly glorified games consoles from the start. I have worked in IT for 20 years, working with some of the best technical minds and using the most developed systems, only one of these people uses an iPhone, but only wanted it due to apples amazing marketing as he knows nothing about it. Apple have always made second rate products, their user experience may be highly regarded among people who are less technical but seriously now, does anyone really think all the “features” apple advertise for their products actually matter? When will any of the said features actually be a benefit in a mobile device? The fact is, android and the open handset consortium are already technically better with their software development, yet dont lock things down as Apple would. If you all want to live apples way or not at all, then fair enough go for it, but for the rest of the more up to date world, that actually care about having a good, useable device, have a look at the HTC Desire or one of the other well made android phones.

If you were to opt for the iPhone, good luck to you, im sure you`ll need it!

May I also say, terrible review Robert. No information regarding the things that matter and the wrong decision in a lot of cases. Id go further into it, but im not sure you would appreciate the criticism