I think that assuming someone has an Android handset for any of the above stated reasons is a huge stretch. The majority of people don’t switch phones on a whim. How many people have a Droid because they have some sort of commitment to Verizon (family plan, work credit, etc) and wanted the closest thing to an iPhone they could reasonably get? I’d imagine that far outweighs the number of people who have a Droid because they wanted the latest shiny thing. It’s easy to lose sight of that in an echo chamber like gadget and software blogs.

I’m not saying Android isn’t a perfectly capable operating system. I’m sure I’ll consider it carefully in a few months when it comes time to upgrade. But I hardly think that Android users are, on balance, “geekier” or less “sheepish” than iPhone (or, for that matter, Pre) users is an accurate assessment.

Yeah, you know what I hate about Pogue? He writes a tech column for average users in a national newspaper and targets the columns for average readers of a national news paper. I HATE that. There’s no reason why he couldn’t target it for readers of gizmodo, engadget or slashdot. What a DICK.

Is there multi-touch right now? No. Is that what his readers will notice if they compare Nexus to an Iphone? Yeah.

(Will there be an OSS app that enables multitouch and breaks something else? Safe bet. )

Cheers!
Nenad

But android vs. iphone is the wrong question, as @bgurley points out.

http://abovethecrowd.com/2010/01/05/android-or-iphone-wrong-question/

I understand that he’s trying to write for readers who don’t really keep up with tech, and as a result anyone who is upset by his comments is not the target audience. So those of us who do know better don’t actually need his advice, but tend to read it anyway if only to see what he night be telling our under-geek friends and family.

When he glosses over facts and details, or even gets them wrong, it seems particularly harmful, since its not just misinformation, but misinformation targeted at people who have no other experience and will not hear another version. (Imagine writing a paper based solely from a Wikipedia article. On Simple. Wikipedia. That was written by one dude.)

Many of his readers will find they have the same frustrations about the products he reviews, but a lot of times that’s because he’s placing himself in the position of a semi-novice. Of course it helps to consider their point of view, but you need to grasp a topic in order to explain it. You don’t teach kids to read by pretending you’re illiterate.

Telling people that an Android device doesn’t have multi-touch hardware is like listing a car’s maximum speed as the speed limit on the 45mph road you drove. Yes, it was limited, but it won’t take all new hardware to fix the issue.

By all means summarize, generalize, and explain things in a way that non-technical readers will comprehend. But pay special care that your statements are not misleading or you will indeed feel the vitriol of well informed readers. In this case, the “Android Army” who knows better.

(yes, I’m a Hero owner who consciously decided not to buy and iPhone)