Posted: 7/22/2015 6:48:28 PM EDT
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I'm sure we have cussed and discussed this but I figure to get it all in one place. I'm going to be getting a new phone, of one sort or another, within the next 2 months. I currently have an iPhone and am exploring for a different more Ham Friendly phone. OK what do I mean Ham Friendly? I kind of know what ham software is available for the iPhone - which in my opinion ain't much - but want to hear about what others use and why! Also what can be done with the other phones that cannot be done on a iPhone. This will probably flow over into a new tablet as well so am starting my questioning and research before it is time to take the plunge.
THANKS to all in advance!1 Sarge "I was a soldier, I am a soldier, I will always be a soldier" |
| I have always had Androids and prefer the OS. However, last year I dropped my $90/mo plan with Verizon and bought a Nokia Windows phone from AT&T for $50 and no contract. I pay $45/ for unlimited talk/text/data. Granted I'm no power user, but this has turned out to be a great deal. You get 1.5 gigs of 4G per month and then it throttles down to a slower speed. You can carry over any of that 1.5 gigs to the next month. The Windows phone has turned out to be very solid phone and OS. There aren't as many apps for that OS, but it's been a great phone so far. Sorry, don't know much about Ham related apps. |
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So far it's Android for me with a succession of phones and a couple tablets (and there will be another because the tab I bought for ham projects, while very powerful, is mechanically flimsy). I have an iPhone 5S for work but other than weather and email (and phone calls) I don't use it much at all. The apps I want are all available for Android, iOS not so much. I have not tried Windows yet.
But the short answer to Sarge's question, between your two choices I would take Android any day of the week. |
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Yeah Android has been the way I'm leaning as well from some of my minor research at this point. I want something I can do ham stuff on and still have a phone to use for the routine stuff. I spend a LOT of my time out of town, which I'm required to drive vehicles other than my own and the best I can do is a small mag mount and a HT. So something I can do other ham related things would be a real benefit to me.
THANKS for the replies to date and look forward to what folks have to offer. Sarge |
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My vote is for Android. I have a Windows tablet and a Windows netbook that are essentially running a variant of the Windows phone operating system and I am not a big fan. The whole Live Tiles and whatnot just don't do anything for me. Windows App Store doesn't even come close to having the amount and variety of apps that Android has, whether you're wanting games, widgets, ham radio stuff, etc. it's severely limited. On my Android I have access to a quite a few ham radio apps - satellite tracking, QRZ Callsign lookup, PSK31, SOTA alerts and spots, RTL-SDR, WSPR, ADSB, etc. about 50% of those are free. My buddy has an iphone and just about all the good apps you have to pay for. If the iPhone iOS clicks with you, great...they rub me the wrong way and I've never liked using them, but that's just my personal preference. I recently upgraded to a Samsung Note 4. It's not a small phone if that's what you want, but the screen size and interface are awesome. Most of my friends and family have iPhones, and they all have phone envy  Slighty OT but I use Ting as my service provider. It piggybacks on the Sprint & Tmobile networks (depending on if you have a CDMA, GSM, or dual band phone) and it's a pay for what you use plan. No contracts, I can leave whenever I want, my average bill is $20-$30 a month, I have 4G LTE coverage, and access to any of the newer model phones. You don't get any discounts on phones, but I save so much on my monthly bill it more than makes up for going out and buying my own phone. My last two phones have been lightly used Craigslist finds and have been affordable. I don't have as good coverage as Verizon, but I don't travel much or live in the middle of nowhere, so it's not a big deal for me. FWIW  |
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I've been screwing around with this for a while. I have some of each.
The only two iPhone apps I use with radio are Repeaterbook (free) and Pocketpacket ($6?). You can, in theory, attach a HT right to the iPhone for APRS, but I'm still troubleshooting the connection. I'm not on HF yet - my budget gets diverted constantly - so i haven't tried the various digital mode and SDR offerings for iOS. You can read about my adventures in packet radio here. I've got a Windows tablet. For work, it's great because it's fast and has all the programs I usually use in desktop format. It blows iOS away for productivity because it is just like the desktop I use. You can load in all the usual desktop software - cwskimmer, fldigi, echolink, winlink, everything. The problem is that the sound card isn't good enough for SDR and WindowsCE doesn't support most USB sound cards. If the tablet is that limited for ham, I suspect the phone is much less capable. I took an old Galaxy S3 from the pool of discarded phones at my office. It was free. I wiped it and installed some basic apps like dropbox, office, weather and evernote. I only ever hear great things about APRSdroid ($6?) so I got that. I also intend to use this thing for APRS only, so I bought Openstreetmap ($6?) and downloaded the surrounding states for offline use. I did a bunch of troubleshooting on the connector cable for my iPhone and couldn't get it to receive, so I said screw it and bought a Mobilinkd TNC. It shows up tomorrow. Beyond the three days I've played with the phone, I can say that there are some things I wish it did like iOS (namely, grouping icons) and some things I wish iOS did like Android (widgets). |
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A couple of months ago the XYL and I upgraded our phones. We were an all iPhone/iPad household ( 2 teenage kids) for a long time, but I kept seeing ham-related apps on Android that I wanted to try. So I jumped ship this time around and got a Samsung Galaxy Note 4 phone and a Google Nexus 7 (2013) tablet. I've used both of them with AndFLmsg, ADS-B for Android FlightAware FlightFeeder, SDRTouch, and KX3Companion with some success lately.
The rest of the family is still happy with their iPhones, but I'm having fun with the new amateur radio apps on Android now. 
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