RandomJoe

I listen to a lot of podcasts, a lot, most of them technology based, Tech News Today is probably the podcast I listen to most hours and the Engadget podcast the most anticipated (tell you why in a minute).

Before anyone starts to think I’m a crazy Google fanboy I just want to say I love my iPad 2 and it is a really great piece of technology, and might be one of the most revolutionizing pieces of products since the iPhone. I owned the first and second generation iPhone before I switched my smartphone to a Nexus One.

The problem facing podcasts and the podcasts hosts today is that they just don’t come of as experienced enough, or objective enough, and it has almost become a sort of platform racism in today’s podcast society. I was listening to The Drill Down podcast (a quite small and cozy tech-news podcast) last week and I felt like it was one of the worst situations like this I’ve ever heard.

As one of the last topic they started the discussion of one of last weeks arguably hottest stories, Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich event, they were disappointed in the event and spoke kind of short how good it was that Matias Duarte was going to find the soul of Android, and spent almost no time talking about features before they launched in to high praise of Siri, without really giving a clear indication they switched switched subject (from android = bad to iPhone = good).

The discussion start at 46:24 and ended at 52:58, and the discussion was only a comparison of iOS and Android, how iOS is fast on switching apps, how great iOS5 is and the biggest news on Ice Cream Sandwich is the font Robotica which is just a rip-off on Helvetica and the segment ends with a small note of Galaxy Nexus:

“even the iPhone 4S with it’s tiny little 3’5 inch screen is still more compelling to me, and I think mainly becuase of Siri”.

I don’t even know if this can count as a Android segment as they mention iOS more than Android (and yes I did a sloppy count).

Another quote from the segment is: “we see people being frustrated by their Android phone, it’s almost like Windows, many things crash a lot, it’s not as polished as iPhone or even Windows Phone, certain things crash a lot, phones starts falling apart, every device is a little diffrent”

As I said earlier I have had a Nexus One two years now and the crashing apps has become a very small problem, and crashing iOS apps has almost become an equal problem (my Safari and the recent iPad Facebook application is among the worst crashing on my iPad 2).

But The Drill Down is not the only podcast out there with this problem, some of the worst podcasts with this problem is Tekzilla, This Week In Tech (depending on the guests), Macbreak Weekly (which might be justified) and in some instances This Is My Next (soon to be The Verge) podcast can be one of the worst.

Tekzilla has a much bigger problem where the enthusiasm is a big problem and it influence their language and actions in a way that makes it a very non-objective view of the platforms. No better way to prove this than the last week when they were going through iPhone 4S and Ice Cream Sandwich, the amount time spend on the iPhone 4S and Ice Cream Sandwich is not even worth counting as the difference is very big, and the small time spent on Android they bring up at least 3 things they think are bad, while none bad things talking about the iPhone 4S.

And the enthusiasm for the iPhone 4S is noticeable bigger than for the Android devices (which might be a un-solvable “problem”). They actually have presented more iPhone 4 cases than Android Phones in the almost one year I’ve watched it.

I also listen to This Week In Google, All About Android and Android Central Podcast and you would think that they would have the exact opposite language than the more general technology podcasts out there, but they don’t. This Week in Google is very aware of the pros- and cons of the both plattforms, something which the other podcasts lack, other podcasts are more aware of the cons of Android and pros of iOS.

Google-centric podcasts talk highly of both platforms, they know them, they have lived with them and have a more objective view, a more correct journalistic view. Just listening to This Week in Google proves my point where they mention iOS in an esteemed manner, but being more favorably, and geeky if you will, towards Android.

Maybe this proves the point that you need to be more of a tech geek to use Android, or it proves that Android users don’t love Android (as Google pointed out in the Ice Cream Sandwich presentation), but I don’t think any of these point are true. I love Android, more than iOS and I’m pretty sure the guys over at All About Android can agree, the thing is that we as Android users are perhaps more open to change and living with something different. Maybe because we made the shift from iPhone to Android (since iPhone came first), or maybe because we are more open-minded as people towards our technology.

I have lived with an iPhone for two years, Android for two years and a Windows Phone 7 for three months, and I can tell you i truly like all the operating systems, but Android has so many more useful developer API:s than any other plattform. The thing I do most with my smartphone is listening to podcasts, and even though wifi-sync is a great addition to getting podcasts on a phone, it does not compare to the feeling when you’re waking up and you know you can start listening to the latest podcast right away, without having to turn on a computer, wait for the podcasts to download and then sync with the device.

The third party apps do this a whole lot better on Android than on iOS or even Windows Phone (and there are so many more examples of this), a lot of small tweaks like that which makes Android a more automated and functional operating system for me. But I still think iOS and Windows Phone is really good and I get why those platforms are better for some people, which many podcast hosts out there do not.

Filed under: Android, iOS, podcasts by Joakim Engstrom