It took me awhile to consent to the smart-phone. First of all, I hadn't really even wanted a darn cell phone in the first place. I rarely needed it, I have a phone-phobia so I never call people (except my husband) on it. It was a convenience at best and a nuisance to keep track of. Having a phone with a texting and data plan seemed ridiculously overpriced and completely unnecessary. I already had a cell phone, a Garmin, and an MP3 player, plus a laptop for travel.
I got my first Android phone with "Unlimited Everything" from Sprint in August of 2010. Truthfully it was (and still is) an expensive toy. Yes, they are cool and convenient, but a toy nonetheless. I loved my phone. In December 2011, I was eligible for an upgrade and there was a newer, presumably faster, Android phone that would be free, so my husband talked me into going to the Sprint store to get it. As I was looking around the store at some newer phones I saw it - the newly available iPhone 4s - in all its glory. Recalling the voice of my petulant son, who delights in telling me how cheap I am and how my phone stinks, I began to consider purchasing the iPhone. My husband said, "go for it," so I bit.
I am not a Mac. I have never been a Mac. I am not sure I am ever going to be a Mac. I have worked on, supported and owned PCs. I have supported Mac's when I worked as a consultant, but was never a fan. My Android phone was very like a PC in that it was slow, had annoying resource constraints, and I would regularly have to force-close apps on it. I would have to remove apps to make room for others. My external SD card was full. Sprint also add all kinds of crap that can't be removed from the phone.
My new phone, the iPhone 4S, is FAST. I have added dozens of apps, Kindle books, and music. I've taken oodles of photos and videos. It isn't even beginning to tap the 16 GB capacity. My favorite thing about it is - it just works. It just works! It turns on. I tap a button and the app just opens. No freezing. No hanging. No forced closure. The phone just works. Its like an electronic miracle. The stupid phone does what it is supposed to do.
Why do I miss my Android phone then, you may wonder? First of all, I hate iTunes. I have always hated iTunes. Three years ago I bought 4 Microsoft Zune 8 GB MP3 players for my family for Christmas. Before Christmas, I installed the Zune software, bought Zune points, so the kids could buy music and/or video to put on them. I added our entire CD library to my computer hard-drive and put music on each of the devices. That same Christmas I also bought an iPod Nano for my MIL. I installed iTunes on her computer and put her entire CD library on her computer as well. After working with both products and their respective interfaces, I concluded that the Zune, and its software, was (and still is) vastly superior. I discovered quickly that iTunes was just as frustrating as I remembered it. I quickly realized that I would no longer be able to make ring-tones from my music library with iTunes - something that can be done easily on my Android phone itself. I sent a message to Apple support and this was quickly confirmed. the current release of iTunes had taken away that ability. Ok - that sucks, but fine. I found one of the two ring-tones I wanted and spent the 99 cents. The next day, it could no longer be found on my phone and created an error when I tried syncing back to my phone. I will say this, Apple customer support allowed it to download from iTunes again and it was restored with no problem. OK, so no custom ring-tones, but that's cool (I guess).
iPhone has a native map and GPS navigation system - powered by Google - just like the Android phone. Great. No wait. Not great. It doesn't have voice navigation. IT DOESN"T HAVE VOICE NAVIGATION! WHAT! What? No more Clair, our name for all GPS navigation voices, to gently tell us to ,"take the next exit" or kindly say, "recalculating" when we've missed the exit. WTQ Siri?? Where is she now??? Ok, fine. I downloaded MapQuest from the iTunes Store. It sucks though because iPhone never asked me if I want addresses to open into MapQuest. Android would have asked. Now when I click on an address link in an email or on the web it opens into the crappy "Maps" app and I have to copy and paste it into MapQuest. Plus, at Christmas, MapQuest incorrectly guided me into a very exclusive Southlake, TX neighborhood and I got pulled over by a motorcycle cop and almost got a ticket for having an Obama bumper sticker and a cracked windshield. Stupid app.
The iPhone Angry Birds demo has fewer levels.
There are a few other things that you can do with Android that you can't do, or do as easily, with iPhone. I still hate iTunes. But....I guess I may be an iPhone, even if I'll never be a Mac. The sole reason: the iPhone just works. It just works. Thank you iPhone.
