I just recently switched from iPhone to Android and from the iPhone 4 to the Nexus 4.
Here are my impressions after a few weeks:
* Everything is so fast and smooth. It's the first Android device I've used that this was the case. My iPhone 4 was sluggish by comparison. I feel like iOS is getting slower while Android has been getting faster - at least on the phones.
* It's so much cheaper. $30/mo for tmobile pre-paid, no contract and unlimited data (though only 5GB/mo at high speeds).
* Lots of apps I used existed on the other side, and were as good or almost as good. Notably Gmail is better on the iPhone and Reeder still beats anything I've found on Android so far.
* I enjoy the bigger screen and find myself reading more on the phone than I did with the iPhone, but even with big hands it's some work to manage one handed use.
* The average quality of apps is pretty poor. So far I've managed to find nice ones for everything I wanted.
* Lots of things work in Android how they should work. The intents system is great.
All in all, I'm quite pleased. I don't think I'm ready to give up the iPad for a Nexus 7 or 10 yet, but it no longer seems like I'd be losing all that much even there.
UPDATED to add:
* The keyboard is just way better. I can type so much faster, and the result is that I'll actually use it to write emails now, instead of just waiting until I'm back at my desk. Some of this is due to increased size, but some is due to the keyboard software being that much better. For example, spelling correction is way better on Android. Just tap and choose after you've written everything else.
* Cut and paste is sort of frustrating on Android. One example: try to copy the url from the Firefox address bar. I've managed to do it, but it took a few minutes of trying various things.
Oh my goodness--the keyboard. Yes. I'm a recent iPhone 4s -> Nexus 4 convert, and I can say that the built-in keyboard is vastly better than the iPhone keyboard. And the predictive accuracy (I have a friend in the business) of the built-in Google keyboard is quantifiably and substantially lower than its other Android competitors.
I'm told Apple's keyboard is abysmally bad because it asks the question on a per-word basis: "Given these jabs at the screen, what is the probably that the user meant 'foo'?"
Just about everyone else looks at the words preceding and includes that when coming up with a probability.
I can understand that a swiping keyboard might be too freaky for some people at Apple, but the predictive accuracy of the jabby keyboard is just embarrassing.
The ability to quickly and accurately type things out is the number one thing that will prevent me from moving back to an iPhone. Even given a choice between stabbing at my much bigger iPad screen and swipe typing on my Nexus 4, I've found myself putting down the ipad to respond to emails.
I agree about the keyboard with a caveat (and this is based on my experience with the Nexus 7, I'm still hemming and basic about replacing my phone with an Android device) - the touch recognition relative to where you actually touch seems (if this makes sense) more accurate but less natural. iOS devices seem to put the touch at slightly above where I tap, meaning that it triggers where I'm looking at more than where I'm actually tapping. It's subtle but I find it quite difficult to type and web browse on the Nexus sometimes.
I do love swiping words now I'm used to it though. Shame there's a palpable mental shift that has to happen when I had to stop swiping for stuff like proper nouns though.
Interesting... I've always used Android and assumed the Android GMail client was better than the iPhone one. In what way is the iPhone GMail client better?
The design is quite a bit nicer. This is not just a function of iOS widgets, as the design isn't particularly native. I think the reason for this is that the Gmail iOS app recently got a huge overhaul and a lot of attention, but the Android one hasn't had one yet?
It's not bad by any means. It is more that I was surprised that a a flagship app was not quite as nice.
Re: Reeder, I'd highly recommend gReader (Pro), especially the new Holo beta available on their website. Super slick without being anywhere near over the top of visual effects and has all of the features that any RSS reader I've seen has had. I went through numerous RSS readers to finally find it and be quite happy with it. (Frankly, Google's Reader app is an embarrassment, but then again Google Voice continues to more or less be an eyesore.)
I'll check out gReader Pro. Thanks for the tip. I agree about Google's reader app. It's horrible, but that's what I've been using so far.
As an aside, I'll say that I've been trying out Google Voice and continue to find it a little confusing and hard to use. As a developer, I understand a lot of the tradeoffs and limitations, but even with that knowledge it's been confusing.
It seems to work quite well for what it does, but I can't help feeling that much of it must address use cases I don't have. Specifically voice mail transcription is something I care almost nothing about, just as I barely ever used visual voice mail on the iPhone.
Here are my impressions after a few weeks:
* Everything is so fast and smooth. It's the first Android device I've used that this was the case. My iPhone 4 was sluggish by comparison. I feel like iOS is getting slower while Android has been getting faster - at least on the phones.
* It's so much cheaper. $30/mo for tmobile pre-paid, no contract and unlimited data (though only 5GB/mo at high speeds).
* Lots of apps I used existed on the other side, and were as good or almost as good. Notably Gmail is better on the iPhone and Reeder still beats anything I've found on Android so far.
* I enjoy the bigger screen and find myself reading more on the phone than I did with the iPhone, but even with big hands it's some work to manage one handed use.
* The average quality of apps is pretty poor. So far I've managed to find nice ones for everything I wanted.
* Lots of things work in Android how they should work. The intents system is great.
All in all, I'm quite pleased. I don't think I'm ready to give up the iPad for a Nexus 7 or 10 yet, but it no longer seems like I'd be losing all that much even there.
UPDATED to add:
* The keyboard is just way better. I can type so much faster, and the result is that I'll actually use it to write emails now, instead of just waiting until I'm back at my desk. Some of this is due to increased size, but some is due to the keyboard software being that much better. For example, spelling correction is way better on Android. Just tap and choose after you've written everything else.
* Cut and paste is sort of frustrating on Android. One example: try to copy the url from the Firefox address bar. I've managed to do it, but it took a few minutes of trying various things.