iPhone vs. Andriod

OK, ok, ok.  It’s been done and said before, but since I’m a die hard iPhone user/(nascent) developer with a still-active Verizon line, I thought I’d drop my own 2¢ into the well.

Anyway, we picked up a couple HTC Droid Eris phones yesterday, and I spent a considerable amount of time tinkering with them (maybe not enough, given that they went to the lovelies: Jacque and Jeanie).  I am struck by one thing, however, since both Andriod and iPhone seem to be hitting the same functionality.

The iPhone seems parallel to the Gnome windowing system, while Android seems to follow the design guidelines of KDE.  I’ll explain for those of you who don’t use Linux.  Both Gnome and KDE are windowing systems built atop of X-Windows (the Graphical User Environment used in UNIX and Linux).  The differences between the two systems, and their virtues and failings have been endlessly debated by all the significant figures in Linux and OpenSource development, including Linus, himself.

Basically, it comes down to this.  KDE’s philosophy has been to provide the user with all the options available, allowing a plethora of customizable behaviors and themes — have an extra button on your mouse?  KDE can assign an action to it.  Gnome on the other hand attempts to anticipate the needs of the common user, and limits the opportunity for customization (maybe limit is the wrong word…) to the things that “most” people will need or use, attempting to keep the desktop metaphor consistent and clean across the board.

Having an argument ab0ut which is better is silly.  The Droid Eris is a nice looking phone that seems to do its job well.  I found the interface a bit confusing, in terms of understanding the various desktops which are sometimes app icons and sometimes full applications, but I expect that I would be comfortable in a couple hours of real use.  The iPhone’s UI, in my mind is still the benchmark, though: smooth and consistent (except in terms of settings screens, but I’ll blame developers there).  But Android is pretty cool.