For as long as I can remember I’ve hated the iPhone. I have hated all that it stood for, I’ve hated Apple for “dumbing down” the smartphone, and everything that’s associated with it. Problem with this is, the only interactions through the years that I’ve had with the iPhone were from friends and colleagues that had one. Last week, I finally got one to keep and I have been smacking myself about it ever since.
I have always been a Blackberry user, my entire smartphone life has been view through the Curve, the 8830 Global smartphone, the Bold, and any other Blackberry you can think of. Why did I always use these berries that are black? Basically for the email client, for the management that comes with using a Blackberry Enterprise Server. From a server-side IT administrator vantage point, the Blackberry is the end-all, be-all. It’s amazing. The fact that I can shut down someone’s data usage with a few clicks is incredibly helpful. I can always shut down their wifi, phone call ability and many many other things. All of these things cultivate into something that you grow to love as an administrator because of the phenomenal control that you have.
And then, I got a hand-me-down iPhone 3GS.
Once I contact AT&T to change my plan, set up everything with them, I was almost immediately hooked. Why is this? It’s simple, the iPhone is intuitive, fun, and incredibly smooth. I’ve hated myself for a few days now to actually write this out. For someone that has hated the iPhone for so long, it’s very very hard to admit that you actually like it. I’m sure it’s very similar to someone who hates a certain group finally coming to terms with agreeing with a lot of their beliefs.
So why is the iPhone so great? Simple. Everything is smooth. Sure, for a lot of people who don’t care about “framerate” or simplicity the iPhone seems awfully dumbed down, this is not the case. The operating system itself is incredibly intuitive. Android users may want to rethink how smooth their phone is because as we should know by now all manufacturer UI’s really seem to bog android down. Is this sad? Absolutely. Every Android phone released in the past six to ten months has the ability to be as smooth as the iPhone, however, none of them seem to have the certain flair that the iPhone does. Why is this? Because of framerate limitations, because of manufacturer limitations and programs. If I look back and think, I consider basically every phone that uses a manufacturer UI on Android to companies that load their Windows-optimized laptops with crapware. None of it matters, none of it truly makes your experience better and all of it makes your machine slower. This sucks…a lot and it’s exactly what the iPhone lacks.
The iPhone is fast, even my hand-me-down 3GS doesn’t show signs of fatigue. Lets compare this to my G1. I’ve practically given up on using that thing for web browsing, or any other ability a smartphone advertises because no matter what hacked ROM I attempt to use, no matter what is running in the background, the phone is slow, it’s as plain and simple as that. While it pains me to say this, Apple really truly has developed a smartphone OS for the masses and it has been paying dividends since they introduced the iPhone and with good reason. Android is most certainly gaining moment and that is amazing. I’ve been extremely happy to see Android eat into Apple’s market share in the smartphone arena. The problem with this is, Apple still has the best oiperating system and really that’s what is comes down to on your smartphone, how well your OS runs. Android has the potential and has not shined as well as I have hoped, especially after converting to an iPhone.
Is Android bad? Asbolutely not. Problem is, just like with Linux, or even Windows to a certain extent, it is overkill for the average user. The average person doesn’t care that the processor in their Droid X is running at 1Ghz, they don’t care that it has a lot of internal storage, all they care about is how it looks while running, how fast it is, and how quickly they can access what they need. While certain companies have attempted to make Android more intuitive with things such as Ninjablur, Sense UI, and many more, the burden falls on Google to make their OS more accessible to the masses.
I love my iPhone, I love my Android phone. I love both because they both do certain things so well. Google needs to figure out how to make their operating system that much more intuitive and, if they were smart, stop releasing so many stop-gap phones from manufacturers. The biggest divide in the Android community is the variety, the amount of different OSes and phones that are available. While this amount of phones is amazing and will certainly do well, it makes Android feel almost like a “given”. The problem with the given is that not everything will be ready to go on your device. This is why the iPhone still seems to have momentum.
So, will I still be using my G1? Absolutely. While I continue to use my iPhone under the heavy load that I have since I received it? You bet I will. And that is exactly why the iPhone has it’s momentum, it’s market share, and it’s user base.
joe@bornmobile.com