Recently I have been considering making the journey back to the "in" crowd and returning to the ever so popular iPhone. With my debate, I had to look at the numerous reasons why I left the Apple iPhone in the first place. I decided to compile a list detailing each reason and here it is.
1.No Multitasking - The Apple iPhone in all of its popularity and high demand is actually one of the worst multitasking smart phones available, if you even consider it a smart phone with its many downsides. The iPhone has come a long way in its support of push notifications but it is still not a great phone for doing more than one thing at once. Wouldn't you like to listen to Pandora internet radio and search the web at the same time? Well Android does.
2.Horrid Instant Messaging - While the iPhone instant messenger selection has come a long ways since its roots, the instant messaging programs available are still quite poor. Whether it be Beejive or whichever other IM program you may choose, the lack of multitasking on the iPhone makes it very difficult to actually carry on a conversation while doing other things on the phone. I mean honestly, who sits at their instant messaging program and doesn't decide to go fiddle with other things whether it be texts or Safari. The iPhone instant messaging scene has come a long way in that for a period of time, you can receive IMs while in other applications but this is still spotty at best and finding an application that will remain connected with the application not opened and on the screen is still a pain.
3. No good turn by turn GPS - While all android phones support the native Google Maps application which features FREE voice turn by turn navigation, the fine people at Apple have made it a point to say NO GPS navigation system found in the App Store can contain voice directed GPS. This is very sad and another example of Apple limiting the productivity of the iPhone
4. No physical keyboard offerings - With Android there are so many different phone options available that you are able to pick a phone with a keyboard or a strictly touch screen phone while Apple continues their "touchscreen-fits-all" iPhone offerings.
5. Google syncing - Each android phone wirelessly synchronizes all of your contacts, calendar dates, and email messages with your Google account. This allows for you to view and edit all of these from either your phone or computer. Any android phone that you put your Gmail account on can instantly access this information therefor eliminating the "lose of contacts" due to switching phones or factory reseting your phone. The iPhone has some WIRED syncing options which require you to keep files relating to the sync on your computer whereas Androids syncing is strictly over the internet and automatic saving you space and time.
6. Amazing, free apps - Google's Shopper, Listen, Scoreboard, Goggles and SkyMap applications to name a few are extremely great applications available to all Android Users. While the Apple App Store does have far more Application offerings than the Android market, let's be real majority of the "free" apps in the App store are complete and utter garbage or the first level to a game called a "lite" version in an attempt to get you to buy the full version. Not to mention the horrible advertisements included all over the applications. I'm not saying ALL the free applications on the iPhone are poor but if you have an iPhone you are going to have to fork out some cash in order to get your phone to do everything that you want it to do. When I had my iPhone I was forced to spend money to get a decent application to do the functions I needed it to do. This is why Apple pushes there "Theres an App for That" campaign so strongly. With my time on Android, I have only felt a need to "purchase" one application and that was an AIM client that functioned to the same level of one found on an instant messaging beast like the Sidekick.(You aren't going to find anything like that on the iPhone).
7. Google Voice - Google Voice is an interesting application that allows you to receive a FREE secondary number at the area code of your choice. You can use this FREE number to make FREE text messages to ANY phone number. So basically you can send and receive(in real time) FREE text messaging. If that's not cool enough, the application comes with 20 FREE voice minutes from your new FREE number and you can purchase more at a price lower than your actually phone bills price. You can also place cheaper international calls. Let's see the iPhone do that. It can't, the only supports a web application that can't do anywhere near as much as the Google application which almost makes me want to break out and sing Marvin Gaye's "Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thing".
You tell me which one looks better.
8. Personalization - To be honest, the iPhone's home screen is pretty darn ugly, and you can't help this unless you go through the jail breaking process. The ONLY thing you can customize about the iPhone home screen is the order the apps go, you can’t even choose which apps you would like to show up. The Android home screen is HIGHLY customizable and you can make it just right to suit you. You have full control over background image, icon's displayed and also widgets. I set up my home screen to show me my Twitter feed so I can keep up with what's going on in the Twitter world, as well as my calendar so I can get a good look at my weekly agenda all from my home screen while on my iPhone I can only look at my apps from my home screen, great. There are a number of widgets that can be added to do just about anything that you want whether it be to check the weather or play my favorite playlist on Pandora Internet Radio. Once again, this is all from my home screen. Ringtones and Notifications are also great on Android because it is very easy to associate whatever sound you want to happen with whatever you would like. You can clip your own songs, choosing the part of the song you want, and turn them into ringtones from free on the phone. While with Apple you can only create your own ringtones if you either own a Mac computer or jailbreak your phone. Another way Apple tries to force-feed you their products.
9. Replacements for Native Apps - Steve Jobs made it clear in his quest for supremacy that he will not tolerate apps in the App Market that do the same function as the native Apps. Only recently did Apple allow their users to download a different internet browser than the native Safari. Android allows you to choose which Native Applications you would like to use and which ones you wouldn't. You can even download a whole new home screen such as SlideScreenPro so that your phone can be personalized even more. I don't use the stock Android text messaging application, I chose a different one strictly because of appearance and I am able to make my phone look as nice as I want.
10. Status Bar/Notifications - The Android status bar really takes the cake for productivity. Using it, I can receive a text message, without being interrupted from whatever I may be doing on the phone AND read the text message without closing out of what I am doing. With a little configuration, I can even reply to the text message without ever switching to the text messaging application. The status bar on Android is a great innovative feature because you can drag it down and view basically whatever is happening on your phone. I can view text messages there, e-mails, tweets, missed calls and an endless amount of things, all of which I set up because I get to choose what is displayed.
This is just a beginning to the list, I could continue and probably go for another 10 reasons but this will suffice. I hope this helps you in your decision in purchasing a new phone. Android has so many offerings on so many different networks that the decision should really be easy. Why do you think that each major phone company in the U.S. is switching their top handset selections to strictly Android, bypassing Blackberry, Palm's Web OS as well as Windows Mobile? Because Android is the future. The market share in Android continues to rise. The iPhone is by no means a bad phone but when compared to the Android operating system, the Apple 3.1.3 OS is no where close in terms of productivity, personalization and other thins.
-Terry
