I predict I’ll inevitably end up switching to Android. The alternative would be to get an iPhone 4, but that’s looking less and less attractive these days. Read on for Part 1 of my long-winded debrief. Part 2 is here.
Why Choose iPhone 4?
Accustomed. I am quite used to using an iPhone. When it’s not being slow as hell it is really fun and intuitive to use for most things. I would have to learn a new OS and it might not be as good as I’m used to. On the other hand, a new OS may not have many of the iOS annoyances, e.g. Safari purging background “tabs” from memory then reloading when refocused and losing my place in a LONG list of articles I was sifting through.
Hardware. The iPhone hardware looks sexyawesome (putting aside antenna issues). I guess the ideal device would be an iPhone 4 running Android but that’s a long way off. I still reserve judgment until I see this device.
Maturity. Android is quite immature in some respects (e.g. no proxy settings for WiFi connections). But these may not effect me so more research is needed before I can say “Android does 90% of what iOS can do” or whatever. It’s interesting to observe a power distribution in the graph of open Android issues, with respect to perceived importance by the community.
Note: “Number of Stars” above reflects how many users “care about” each issue. There over 5000 open issues but in a power distribution only the first few are interesting.
This graph illustrates two things:
- There are a few issues which many people care about
- There are many issues which only a few people care about
Sync. iTunes syncs everything beautifully, and I might miss this convenience and security. It warms my heart to know that if my phone dies because I dropped it while texting on the loo, I have a backup and won’t have to waste time setting the whole phone up again. It syncs, in order of importance:
- Settings (all customisations, esp. WiFi networks and mail accounts)
- Google Contacts (very handy but have noticed some duplication)
- All my apps and their settings
- My iTunes music library which is highly organised (not)
- Browser bookmarks
- Calendars (don’t really use)
- Photos (could live without sync)
Android syncs all the Google stuff out of the box (except Docs) but it’s up to third party vendors to provide their own apps for the rest. There are apps to sync iTunes with Android phones, which is nice. But what about the settings and other crap? A quick Google suggests “rooting” the phone and installing custom firmware is the current solution. Blegh.
What Android needs is universal (works on any Android device) automatic back up to “The Cloud” (FTP, dropbox, etc.). I would imagine this working something like: first take an initial snapshot of the phone state and store on cloud, then each time a user changes a setting, downloads a file, or takes a photo etc. add metadata for this “delta” to a local queue of “stuff that’s changed on my phone”. Then when the phone is idle, gradually push this queue up to the cloud backup service. But WAIT until I’m not browsing the web or streaming audio thankyouverymuch. And you can save large queue items like video for when I’m on WiFi. I can has. Someone write this and I’ll switch to Android today.
Music. It’s a really great iPod. I am not so sure about other Android phones. But the Samsung Galaxy S music player seems pretty good, and audio quality gets a big thumbs up. It also comes with ear sunctiony headphones out of the box, which is a step up from Apple’s default earphones which are only good for trussing your roast chicken.
Apps. I might miss some iPhone apps. Also, I feel like I’d be losing an investment on bought apps. But rather than trust my vague feeling I have collated a categorised breakdown of my frivolous app spending.
| Category | Spent |
| Must Have Apps I use every day – there’s only one PocketWeather AU |
$2.49 |
| Rarely Use Novel apps I don’t feel guilty for not using because they are cool. e.g. Tyrian, Hipstamatic |
$8.97 |
| Something Better Apps made redundant due to better or free alternatives. e.g. Metro Melbourne, Oz Weather, Quota |
$10.47 |
| Never Use Disappointments, games I’m tired of, impulse buys. e.g. Labyrinth, GeoDefense, Feeds, Sleep Cycle Alarm |
$25.10 |
| Total (My estimate of $45 back in January wasn’t far off!) |
$47.03 |
It’s also worth considering the free iPhone apps I use frequently and would miss dearly. More broadly, this could make Android the phone equivalent of Linux in that I have to do work to hunt down and install the things I want, rather than just have them. Thanks AppBrain for making this easy.
| iPhone | Android | Comments | |
 |
IMDB | Free Official |
Looks good. |
 |
Tram Tracker | Free 3rd Party |
Impressive that a 3rd party would write this. |
 |
Last.fm | Free Official |
The iPhone app still streams radio despite them making it not free via the desktop client. I wonder if the Android app is the same. |
| Scrobbled | Free 3rd Party |
Jailbreak app, submits every track played in iPod to Last.fm. Android version dependent on support for specific music player app. | |
 |
Flickr | Nothing | The free official iPhone app is very basic so I bought Mobile Fotos which I only use when I’m really bored. I wouldn’t use their mobile web offering. |
 |
iTunes Remote | $4.99 3rd Party |
Don’t use enough to pay. |
 |
IceTV | Web Official |
Acceptable if it remembers my login |
 |
Wikipanion | Web Official |
Any Wikipedia app needs bookmarks and font size control and I’m sold. |
 |
Free Official |
Looks like garbage compared to the iPhone version. |
The verdict? If a suitably polished Android phone came along, I probably wouldn’t miss the iPhone. As I rant on in Part 2 Android’s openness would go a long way.
