The Pac-12 women's tournament final could have far-reaching consequences that lead to the Final Four in New Orleans.
That is, if all goes according to plan and top-seeded Stanford faces second-seeded Cal in Sunday's finale at KeyArena in Seattle.
The fourth-ranked Cardinal (28-2, 17-1 Pac-12) opens the tournament Friday against the winner of Washington State and Arizona State. No. 5 Cal (27-2, 17-1) plays USC.
The potential third meeting between the Bay Area schools could determine seedings for the NCAA tournament, which begins March 23. The teams split their league series in January.
"It has the feeling the first three seeds are already set," Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said.
Top-ranked Baylor, No. 2 Notre Dame and No. 3 Connecticut have separated themselves from the rest of the competition. Yes, Stanford handed Baylor its only defeat over the past two seasons, but the Lady Bears lost All-America guard Odyssey Sims early in the game in November.
The NCAA tournament's final No. 1 seed probably will be awarded to the winner of a Cal-Stanford matchup if both schools advance to the Pac-12 finale.
The importance of earning a No. 1 seed isn't lost on VanDerveer "to give ourselves the best chance to get to the Final Four."
The loser in a Cal-Stanford showdown presumably would receive a second seed and be paired in a regional with Baylor, Connecticut or Notre Dame.
Stanford is hoping to reach its sixth
consecutive Final Four, Cal its first. As a result, Bears coach Lindsay Gottlieb has a different perspective from VanDerveer.
"We know we put ourselves in a pretty good position to get a good position," Gottlieb said. "We're focused on winning the Pac-12 tournament; that's important to us, and if that leads to a No. 1 seed it's pretty incredible that we're in that spot."
Cal, in particular, has reason to stay in the moment. It has survived some close calls this year in winning its first Pac-12 regular-season title, which the Bears shared with Stanford.
VanDerveer senses something special about Gottlieb's team.
"It seems like they had good teams in the past few years but always were a game short," VanDerveer said.
But tying the Cardinal for the Pac-12 crown and having a veteran team has the Bears ready to make a run in the NCAA tournament.
"Cal knows how to win," Stanford senior Joslyn Tinkle said. "If they're up by 20 or up by two, they're scrappy.
"We have a little redemption if that matchup comes. We want to play them again to prove we deserve to win the conference."
Tinkle, who has played in the previous three Final Fours, also understands what's at stake.
"We want that No. 1 seed," she said.
Contact Elliott Almond at 408-920-5865. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/elliottalmond.
New York Knicks' J.R. Smith (8) drives past Oklahoma City Thunder's Serge Ibaka during the first half of an NBA basketball game Thursday, March 7, 2013, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
New York Knicks' J.R. Smith (8) drives past Oklahoma City Thunder's Serge Ibaka during the first half of an NBA basketball game Thursday, March 7, 2013, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
New York Knicks' Amare Stoudemire (1) shoots over Oklahoma City Thunder's Serge Ibaka (9) during the first half of an NBA basketball game Thursday, March 7, 2013, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Oklahoma City Thunder's Kevin Durant (35) reacts after scoring during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the New York Knicks Thursday, March 7, 2013, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
NEW YORK (AP) ? The Kevin Durant-Carmelo Anthony duel was postponed, though J.R. Smith filled in nicely ? for three quarters.
The Oklahoma City Thunder finally silenced the Knicks' streaky shooter in the fourth, hanging on to beat New York 95-94 on Thursday night when Smith missed a turnaround jumper just before the buzzer.
"We've been hurt on those game-winners a couple of times this year and we didn't want that to happen again," Durant said. "So we just had to lock in and get a stop."
Durant scored 34 points, including two free throws with 1:38 left that put Oklahoma City in front for good. He also had eight rebounds and six assists.
Russell Westbrook struggled over the final three quarters but finished with 21 points, six rebounds and five assists, plus provided tough defense on Smith's last shot in the Thunder's first trip to New York since Dec. 22, 2010.
Kevin Martin had 16 points as Oklahoma City posted its third straight win, fighting off a spirited effort by a Knicks team missing Anthony. The All-Star forward missed his second straight game with what the Knicks said is a stiff and sore right knee.
"It was a great fight. I mean we put up a heck of a fight out there tonight," Knicks forward Amare Stoudemire said. "We played great defensively, offensively we were playing well, the ball was moving, so we can be happy with the way we played but still a little upset that we lost down the stretch."
Smith scored a season-high 36 points but was just 2 of 9 from the field in the final period, 1 of 5 on 3-pointers. He said afterward he probably should've tried to drive on the last possession.
"My jumper was pretty much good all night except for the fourth quarter and just didn't go in," Smith said.
Neither team led by more than two points over the final 10? minutes. Durant scored 12 in the final period while Westbrook was shut out.
Smith missed a 3-pointer with 33 seconds left but the Knicks had a final chance after Durant was off on a jumper with about 9 seconds to go. Smith got the ball in about the same spot where he hit a winning jumper against Phoenix earlier this season, but his shot was long as the Knicks had their two game-winning streak snapped.
Anthony was hurt Monday in Cleveland, falling to the court without contact as he tried to catch a pass. Coach Mike Woodson said he is day to day and doesn't believe the injury is serious, but the Knicks said the same about Jeremy Lin last season and others in recent years, so their fans won't relax until they see Anthony back on the floor.
He surely would like that to be sometime before the Knicks visit Denver next Wednesday for his long-awaited first trip back since the Nuggets traded him in February 2011.
In the meantime, the Knicks showed again they've got enough guys to compete without him ? but not enough to beat a top team like the Thunder.
Raymond Felton and Stoudemire each had 16 points for the Knicks, who were playing their fourth game in five nights against the rested and more athletic Thunder.
The Knicks were only 4 of 18 in the fourth quarter, making just 1 of 9 3-pointers.
"In the fourth quarter we just tried to come out and play lockdown defense, and I think that's what we did," Durant said.
Anthony's injury prevented a matchup between the NBA's top two scorers, his 28.2 points per game slightly behind the 28.6 Durant came in averaging as he tries to lead the league for the fourth straight season.
But it was still a loud crowd for the Thunder's first game here in more than two years, since they weren't scheduled for a game at Madison Square Garden in the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season.
"You missed it last year with the shortened season," said Oklahoma City coach Scott Brooks, who played for the Knicks in the 1996-97 season. "It's one of those things, especially for myself because I like coming here and seeing all the excitement, and that was one of the disappointing things of looking at least season's schedule. We didn't have a stop here in New York City."
He said it would be exciting and he was right, mostly because of Smith's big night.
The reserve guard shoots often even when he's not doing it accurately, and just Sunday he threw up 14 3-point shots against Miami while making just three. But the Knicks needed him to keep shooting without Anthony, and he was locked in during the middle two quarters.
"He was making some tough shots. He's one of the guys in this league that you can guard well and he can make a tough shot. He was in a zone," Brooks said.
The Thunder scored 16 straight points, going ahead by 10 en route to a 35-26 lead behind 15 first-quarter points from Westbrook. The Knicks fought back to tie it at 48 on a basket by Kenyon Martin, on his second 10-day contract and getting his first extended playing time since signing late last month. Smith scored 18 in the second period, but the Thunder regrouped to take a 59-56 lead to the locker room.
The Knicks surged into the lead with nine straight points, highlighted by Stoudemire's dunk over Serge Ibaka, and went ahead 75-69 with 2:07 left in the third. Smith made sure they kept that margin going to the fourth, hitting two 3-pointers in the final 34 seconds to make it 81-75.
NOTES: Oklahoma City G Ronnie Brewer didn't play. Brewer was a starter for the Knicks to begin the season, but eventually lost his place in the rotation entirely after a lengthy slump and was dealt to the Thunder for a second-round pick at the trade deadline. ... The Knicks wore jerseys saying "Nueva York" as part of the NBA's Latin Nights series.
In this Saturday, Jan. 5, 2013 photo, a person demonstrates using a credit card in an ATM machine in Pittsburgh. ricans stepped up borrowing in January to buy cars and attend school, while staying cautious about using their credit cards. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
In this Saturday, Jan. 5, 2013 photo, a person demonstrates using a credit card in an ATM machine in Pittsburgh. ricans stepped up borrowing in January to buy cars and attend school, while staying cautious about using their credit cards. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Americans stepped up borrowing in January to buy cars and attend school, while staying cautious about using their credit cards.
Consumer borrowing rose $16.2 billion in January from December to a total of $2.8 trillion, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. That's the highest level on record.
A category that covers student loans and auto loans grew $16 billion following an $18.3 billion gain in December.
Isaac Lebwohl, an economist at Credit Suisse, said that his analysis of the monthly report indicates that almost 90 percent of the gain in that category came from student loans. The Fed does not separate out the auto and student loan data in the monthly report.
Consumers barely increased credit card debt in January, when Social Security taxes rose and lowered take-home pay for most workers. A measure of credit card debt grew only $106.1 million after a $3.2 billion drop in December.
Credit card debt remains 17.2 percent below the peak set in June 2008. Analysts suspect consumers will stay cautious with their plastic this year, largely because of the tax increase.
The tax increase will leave a person earning $50,000 with about $1,000 less to spend in 2013. A household with two high-paid workers will have up to $4,500 less.
Still, other factors could offset the rise in taxes.
The job market has improved and pay is slowing increasing for many workers. The economy created 200,000 jobs a month from November through January, up from 150,000 in the previous three months.
On Friday, the government will issue the February jobs report. Analyst forecast that employers added 152,000 jobs last month, although recent data suggest hiring may have been stronger.
The stock market has also surged this year, pushing the Dow Jones industrial average this week to a record high. And a housing recovery has helped lift home prices.
A separate Fed report Thursday showed Americans have regained the wealth they lost to the Great Recession and are increasingly taking on more debt.
Household wealth increased to $66.1 trillion in the October-December quarter, the report noted. That's about 98 percent of the pre-recession peak. Household debt rose 2.4 percent, the sharpest gain in nearly five years.
The increases in stock and home prices since then mean Americans' net worth has now topped the pre-recession peak of $67.4 trillion, private economists say. Wealth had bottomed at $51.4 trillion in early 2009.
Household wealth, or net worth, reflects the value of assets like homes, stocks and bank accounts minus debts like mortgages and credit cards.
LONDON (Reuters) - Current efforts to control Britain's increasing deer numbers are not enough to stop populations spreading out of control, research by the University of East Anglia showed on Thursday.
There are now more deer in Britain than at any time since the Ice Age, the scientists said.
Without natural predators, populations are continuing to rise, causing a serious threat to biodiversity. High numbers of deer can threaten woodland birds, carry infections such as Lyme disease, damage crops and cause road traffic accidents.
The research team studied the numbers, sex ratio and fertility of roe and muntjac deer across 234 km sq of forested land and heathland in Breckland, East Anglia, to measure the effectiveness of deer management.
The team found that while deer management appeared to control numbers at a stable level, it was only because thousands of deer are pushed out to the surrounding countryside each year, helping to drive the further spread of the animals.
In the Breckland area studied, 53 percent of muntjac from the estimated population need to be culled and 60 percent of roe deer just to offset reproduction, the scientists said.
These figures exceed previous cull recommendations of 30 percent of muntjac and 20 percent of roe.
Even higher numbers could need to be culled if populations are to be reduced, the scientists added.
"Native deer are an important part of our wildlife that add beauty and excitement to the countryside, but left unchecked they threaten our woodland biodiversity," said Kristin Waber, who conducted the study while a postgraduate student at the University of East Anglia.
"Trying to control deer without a robust understanding of their true numbers can be like sleepwalking into disaster. To effectively reduce and stabilise the population establishing numbers is vital," she added.
Culling large numbers of animals can be an emotive issue in Britain, which sees itself as a nation of animal lovers.
The British government was considering a badger cull last year to stop the spread of tuberculosis in cattle but delayed the plan due to public opposition.
Critics said the cull would be ineffective and public opposition was widespread, more than 150,000 people signing an online protest petition initiated by former Queen guitarist Brian May.
Survival realty reportedly experienced a boom prior to the predicted Mayan Apocalypse on Dec. 21, 2012. But what happens to the market after each failed "apocalypse"? Though it's easy to assume that demand for survival shelters and underground Doomsday bunkers would plummet, Realtors say that's not the case. In fact, Realtors insist that the survival real estate market remains steady -- and predict that it will remain strong in the future.
According to Realtor James Kozlik, who specializes in selling survival real estate in Emigrant, Mont., the market was never dependent on theories of impending apocalypse to begin with: In fact, survival bunkers have been built and sold for decades in anticipation of world war, the threat of thermonuclear weapons, Y2K and other potential cataclysms. His thoughts are echoed by Michael White, a survival property Realtor in northern Idaho, who adds that as long as the fear of war, global financial collapse and government distrust exist, survival real estate will always be in demand.
"Most [potential buyers] are much more motivated by political unrest, fear of the government turning against the people, the government coming for their guns, and complete world financial collapse than an apocalypse. If anything, President Obama being re-elected has increased business since Dec. 21, 2012," White told AOL Real Estate. "Currently, around 60 to 70 percent of my buyers are survival-type buyers."
Kozlik added that in this still-struggling economy, people have become increasingly interested in investing in survival properties and off-grid tracts of land "just in case" anything might go wrong. Kozlik himself was part of a group who built an underground shelter in 1990, and today lives in a different survival-style, off-grid shelter, where he raised his children.
"People just want reassurance that their family or loved ones will be protected from 'whatever,' " Kozlik told AOL Real Estate. "Then, of course, there are some others who just think living in a bunker underground is a cool way to live!"
It's important to note that there are currently no hard-and-fast statistics on survival real estate, nor is there an MLS category for "survivalist properties." (Although White says that he observed survival-type property sales at their peak during 2005 to 2008, which he credits to the real estate boom). White says the lack of solid information on survival real estate sales can also be attributed to privacy factors: Many "survivalists" still prefer to be kept anonymous.
'Just Regular People'
Though White admitted that he did have buyers who purchased property solely for the Mayan Apocalypse -- groups widely known as "Doomsday preppers" -- he conceded that these types of buyers were a mere handful and that their quantity was insignificant compared to buyers motivated by other factors. (White told AOL Real Estate that in one of these cases, the group of preppers ended up selling the bunker after Dec. 21, and "fell apart" entirely.) He said that generally the interest comes from regular people of varied backgrounds -- though usually moneyed.
"I have sold survival or self-sustainable properties to a very nice, upper income couple with small children. I've sold to a young 20-something with a huge trust account," White said. "I've sold survival properties to a married ex-military officer from Florida. I've sold to two sisters who were teachers, and their retired father. I've sold to upper-income conservative Republican types, to right-wing political radicals, and also to libertarians and hippie, New Age types. All types of people."
This widespread interest across varied social groups could be possibly explained by a general desire for escape: Kozlik said that survival-style, off-grid remote living has many perks that city living, say, does not. "Howling winds," for example, become inaudible. The structures are earthquake resistant and solid, and owners are able to be entirely self-sufficient, independent from mainstream utility grid systems. Survival shelters are also usually surrounded by acres and acres of pristine, untouched natural environment. It's a lifestyle, he said, that is not just smart and forward-thinking, but can also be rewarding.
"All our children learned to hunt, grow veggies, forge for wild edibles, build houses with recycled materials," Kozlik told AOL Real Estate. "Really, it was all about a lifestyle choice for us, and still is, as we create survival into the 21st century, in the midst of global economic and political shifts."
A growing breed of homebuyers may share Kozlik's sentiments: Vivos, a company specializing in luxury survival shelters, has released a line of "economy class" bunkers that will only set buyers back $9,950, reports CNN Money. It also quotes Vivos as claiming that after every natural disaster, reservations for these no-frills survival bunkers skyrocket by 1,000 percent, and that there is a growing interest from "regular people" in doomsday bunkers that are designed to appear like a home from the exterior, but boast the ability to be completely closed off from catastrophe.
For those who are able to drop serious bankroll on a luxury survival bunker, there are some more impressive options. A 32-by-10-foot corrugated steel shelter (see gallery above) designed to be buried 20 feet underground can purportedly withstand bomb blasts, as well as nuclear, chemical and biological disasters. The shelter, which is being sold for $59,900, can accommodate three to four people and comes equipped with blast doors, an air filtration system and under-floor storage. Think that's crazy? In Kansas, there are plans to build a multimillion dollar underground missile shaft-style bunker that features an indoor farm, pool, movie theater, a stockpile of five years worth of dry food, and space for a medical center and school.
See also: Luxury 'Doomsday Bunkers' Promise Survival -- and Pampering Man Makes 'Doomsday Bunker' Out of Stolen Trailers, Police Say Need a Nuke-Proof Bunker? Shop eBay
More on AOL Real Estate: Find out how to calculate mortgage payments. Find homes for sale in your area. Find foreclosures in your area. Find homes for rent in your area.
Follow us on Twitter at @AOLRealEstate or connect with AOL Real Estate on Facebook.
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About a month and a half ago, I walked into an AT&T Store, handed over my iPhone 4S, and asked to be switched from my unlimited iPhone data plan to a new LTE data plan.
I bought the first-generation iPhone and I bought it early, during a brief and wonderful window before AT&T realized that offering an unlimited data plan on what would prove to be the greatest mobile Internet device ever created was a terrible idea. Those of us who still had Unlimited iPhone data could keep it, so long as we didn't make any changes to our service.
The LTE Data Plan, in contrast, includes a monthly cap of 5 GB.
Any mathematician will confirm that 5 GB is indeed lower than infinite GB. I'd hung on to that unlimited data plan like it was a rent-controlled apartment in midtown Manhattan. I kept it even when unlimited data meant that I couldn't sign up for tethering and Wi-Fi hotspot features.
I'm telling you all of this to make an impression. I wouldn't have given up unlimited data unless I could swap it for something I wanted even more than the ability to stream Netflix 24/7... something that hadn't existed during my previous five years as an iPhone owner.
A great Android phone.
Things have changed
Here's what changed: Android got great. The OS got great, and the hardware got great. One of the sweet benefits of being a tech columnist is that I get to try out every significant new phone for a month or so. Time after time last year, I'd pack up and send back another flagship Android phone, switch back to my iPhone exclusively, and spend the following few weeks missing a great feature of the Android phone's hardware or OS that I'd come to rely on during my testing.
And so, by the end of the year, the idea of continuing to use an iPhone exclusively, or even as my primary phone, was no longer appealing. That's why I willingly parted with my unlimited data plan. On my new LTE plan, I can swap my iPhone's SIM with other phones and get the high speeds all of the other digital features of the AT&T network.
My positive reviews of new iPhones and new editions of iOS have always been sincere. Wait, "sincere?" Sometimes, they've been downright florid. I've been so enthusiastic that I've often been accused of saying those things because I'm an Apple fanboy.
I've always had a standard response. "In 2007, I switched to the iPhone because it was way better than the Windows Mobile device I was using at the time," I would say. "If someday in the future somebody makes a phone and an OS that's a better fit for me and my peculiar needs than the iPhone, I'll make the exact same choice."
Yep: that day has come. I've had a Samsung Galaxy S III since the summer. Throughout 2012, I kept its SIM slot empty and I used it as a WiFi device, but that wasn't good enough. When I switched my data plan in January, I imagined that I'd be shuttling my SIM between my iPhone 4S and the S3 several times a month.
Nope. There's a SIM extraction tool in my wallet (tip: it's the only way you can find the damned thing when you need it) but the card stays in the S3.
Why would I put it back in the iPhone? My Galaxy S3 is working great, and with only one exception, I only notice improvements, not drawbacks. I made a slow, cautious, and careful examination of what I want and need from my phone, and at the end of this mobile warrior's pilgrimage, I couldn't escape the conclusion that the best phone for me is no longer an iPhone.
In this three-part epic, I'm going to walk you my decision. It's the story of why Android 4.1 and the S3 got me to switch. No way is it an argument about why anybody else should drop their iPhones and switch to a flagship Android phone.
This isn't the story about how Apple has lost its way and no longer innovates. It hasn't and it still does. This is merely the story of one dude who got a new phone. Nonetheless, my tale presents a picture of the strengths of modern Android.
Killer Features
"Gosh, it's lovely to access and adjust hardware settings directly from Android's status bar, instead of drilling down through device menus!"
"Siri will send a message or create an appointment no matter how I phrase the request...I say it and Siri just plain does it!"
Noted, and noted. But these little nit-picky feature comparisons weren't a major influence on my choice.
Four broad, unique features about Android 4.x and the Samsung Galaxy S III spoke directly to me and convinced me to switch, particularly after I'd waited for the release of the iPhone 5 and iOS 6, and spent a month with Apple's latest "big screen" device. If I had any evidence (or even a strong hunch) that Apple would be adding some of these features in the next year, I might have stuck with the iPhone for a while longer.
Here are the first two:
Better keyboards
I put a great amount of text into my phone over the course of an average day. I answer emails, I Tweet, and I capture lots of ideas and information as I go. I rarely do something as silly as write a whole column on my phone -- that's what my iPad is for -- but all the same, my phone is most valuable to me during tasks where I'm inputting full sentences and paragraphs.
SwiftKey makes typing easy.
The iOS keyboard doesn't offer me much help here. It gives me word-based autocomplete and I can use speech-to-text.
The first feature is swell. As for speech-to-text, I can truthfully say that I activate it every time I write anything longer than a sentence or two.
This isn't a compliment. It's a major source of pain. The microphone button is crowded right next to the spacebar, and iOS speech-to-text activates with a single careless tap instead of with a deliberate tap-and-hold. When I'm typing fast, I'm accidentally triggering speech-to-text All. The. Freaking. Time.
It drives me bananas. iOS speech-to-text is like the waiter who keeps interrupting my dinner conversation to ask how I'm enjoying the meal. It could improve its performance by a thousand percent if it would just stay the bloody hell out of my way.
Alas, I can't express my displeasure with the iOS speech-to-text button in the form of a 10% tip. So I'm forced to write a column about it instead.
In Android, this same feature is activated with a tap-and-hold button. Why doesn't iOS take this same obviously-sensible route? Why isn't it a user-configurable option, at least?
But I digress.
I can type more quickly and accurately on the Galaxy S3 than I can with an iPhone. That's partly due to the fact that it has a truly large screen, and it keyboard is therefore physically wider. But the real Win of an Android keyboards is its enhancements to the classic "tap and type" mechanism.
Android offers Swype-style typing as a built-in option. By sliding my finger from key to key instead of lifting and tapping, I'm sending more information about my intentions to the OS. It makes this mechanism faster and more accurate than tap-tap-tap. Swipe-style typing also makes the phone easier to manage one-handed. I can search for a name in my contacts without even slowing down my walking.
And if you don't like any of the keyboards that ship with Android, you can install one of your own. My add-on keyboard of choice is SwiftKey. It's doubleplus-brilliant and costs just four damn dollars.
iOS tries to guess what word you're trying to type, and dutifully enters the rest of the letters for you if you tap the spacebar. SwiftKey does that, and (in my experience) it does it more accurately.
SwiftKey also tries to predict the word you're going to type next, based on its context within the sentence. A three-slot rack of "next word" predictions appears above the keys...and SwiftKey is a very good guesser. If you happen to be writing a common phrase (like "Last week I went to...") you'll find that you can bat it out in just a few taps.
I find that typing on an Android device is faster and much less annoying than typing on my iPhone. It's not even close.
This example also points out some of the philosophical differences that often allow Android to create a better experience for the user. Why is the iOS keyboard so stripped-down? Why can't the user customize the experience? Because Apple's gun-shy about adding features at the cost of simplicity and clarity. They're not wrong; it's a perfectly valid philosophy, and usually an effective one.
But sometimes, an Apple product's feature lands at the wrong side of the line that divides "simple" from "stripped down." The iPhone keyboard is stripped-down.
If you don't like how Android's stock keyboard behaves, you can dig into Settings and change it. If you still don't like it, you can install a third-party alternative. And if you think it's fine as-is, then you won't be distracted by the options. The customization panel is inside Settings, and the alternatives are over in the Google Play store.
But I'll be honest: the fact that the Samsung Galaxy S III doesn't suddenly go bip-BONG! and stick a purple microphone in my face when I'm mentally focused on what I'm writing is reason enough for me to prefer the Android keyboard.
Seriously, Apple. This is the single iOS quirk that makes me hate my iPhone. Every time it happens, it yanks me out of my task, and as I scowl and dismiss the microphone, I wonder if you folks put a lot of thought into this feature. "Press and hold to activate speech-to-text" needs to be a user-settable option.
?
A large screen, for real
After just a couple of weeks with the Samsung Galaxy S III, my iPhone 4S screen stopped seeming "normal-sized." At first it became "small" and ultimately it became "too small."
And when I put my phone in a car dock, the iPhone now seems minuscule. There's almost always more information on the Samsung's screen. It's all easier to read, and the controls are either larger, or they're or grouped less tightly, which makes them easier to hit. The iPhone seems to disappear in the dash.
Mind you, I've been driving with iPhones for years and I was always very happy with them. But to me, the difference between an iPhone 4S or even an iPhone 5 screen and the 4.8" display of the GS3 is like the 24" color TV in my parents' living room and the 45" HDTV in mine.
Is a larger screen better with every app and in every situation? Naw. The user interfaces of phone apps include two kinds of views: list views and content views. I spent days doing side-by-side comparisons in all kinds of apps. The iPhone 5 rarely displays significantly fewer list items than the GS3.
But content views are a different story. The larger screen almost always offers a superior experience.
The Galaxy S III's screen has roughly the same pixel density as the iPhone 5 (they're both greater than 300 ppi). When I'm reading a book, I can see more of the page, and the wider content margins are more comfortable. I get to see more of a map without having to zoom or scroll. I can see more of the email message, and more of the article in my newsreader. A movie or video is large enough that I feel as though I'm seeing all of the rich HD detail I was meant to see. When I'm reading comics, I don't need to keep twisting the screen to read panels that have different orientations.
The screen of the iPhone 5 sometimes makes me feel like I'm reading a grocery receipt, not a book. And I never used to read from my phone in bed. Now, if my (still quite beloved) iPad is downstairs and the Galaxy S III is on the nightstand, I'll spend an hour reading from the Samsung rather than risk cold feet.
It's clear. I find that the Samsung's larger screen is always at least as good as the iPhone's and it's usually better.
But at what price? The GS3 is indeed slightly larger than the iPhone 5. That'll be a huge, huge problem for you if you like to go from bar to bar trying to win sucker bets in which the guy with the largest phone has to buy the next round. Otherwise, when is this marginally-larger size an issue?
Oh, all right. The iPhone 5 is narrower, and unlike the SG3, my thumb can span its entire keyboard without any stretching or shuffling.
A win for the iPhone 5? Not to me. The iPhone is still too tall for me to easily operate with one hand, because an app's top row of controls is usually just out of reach. And Android's superior keyboard designs, plus the fact that the GS3's keyboard is wider and less cramped, more than makes up for the thumb stretch.
Even if it didn't, one-handed operation isn't the defining element of my mobile computing experience. I've always been a mystified about why Apple seems to place so much importance on that one idea, particularly when it conflicts with so many other, equally-good ideas...like putting more content on the screen without sacrificing readability.
When somebody argues that "It's not really more information...it's just the same content, scaled up to fit" I wonder if they've spent much time with a variety of Android devices. That's categorically not what I've encountered with about dozen different Android phones of various sizes in the past year, in test after test after test.
People whom I know, respect, and even consider to be friends have dismissed large phone screens as a cheap marketing gimmick that targets gullible consumers in the showroom, and which doesn't offer any practical benefits.
Yikes. That's so incorrect, so far out of whack with reality as I experience it every day with the Samsung Galaxy S III, and with other flagship Android phones, that I can't even mount an argument against it. I can't think of anything to say other than "Nope. Wrong."
Still to come...
In Part Two, I?ll share the other Two Android Features That Made Me Switch. In Part Three, I?ll discuss the best-known downsides about Android that turn out not to be true?or at worst, turn out to be manageable problems instead of dealbreakers. I?ll discuss the less-famous downsides to Android that are indeed major ongoing bummers.
Finally: why hasn?t Apple lost its way? And why was this three-parter so hard to write? Stay tuned.
