Posts Tagged iphone

So I just switched back to an iPhone, after a 5 month experiment with an Android phone. I had the Samsung Nexus S, which was previously the Google flagship device. I liked it enough, although I had the Sprint version and had to go searching for the Ice Cream Sandwich update. It was definitely an improvement over Gingerbread, but I still had issues, mainly with battery life and usability of the GPS. When I switched to Android, it was done out of frustration with several things that have since been corrected in the iDevice ecosystem, the poor notification system being my main complaint.

After using a Nexus S since October, I am now gladly back to the iPhone. The Nexus, while having some cool features like NFC (though I never used it) and deep integration with Google products, especially Voice, ultimately left me yearning for a more consistent experience. In general, I find that Android as a platform does not have the UI cohesion that the iPhone has. It’s hard to put it in to words but, at the risk of sounding like a paid marketing shill, “it just works”.

Most of the issues I had with the iPhone were resolved with iOS 5, but it is definitely odd going back to a smaller screen and not having 4G. The screen difference, though minimal, is noticeable, but I find that I rarely use 4G, so I doubt I’ll miss it. I’d like to see a larger screen in the next iPhone. I hope that if Apple implements 4G in the next iPhone they use a low power chipset. Battery drain on the Nexus S with the 4G radio turned on was markedly worse than with it off, and I got really tired of playing the constant game of toggling off wifi/bluetooth/4G and using a process manager to make sure unnecessary processes weren’t draining excess juice. To me, a smartphone isn’t worth anything if it doesn’t last a full day of moderate use.

Lastly, there is a vast difference between iPhone and Android applications. Use the same app on an iPhone an and Android and you’ll see what I mean. This has nothing to do with Google as a company, or Android as a platform, and is almost entirely indicative of how developers and companies view iOS versus Android. This is not true in every case, but as a general rule iOS apps seem to be more polished and consistent. There are many things that are less than ideal about how Apple runs the iOS ecosystem, but you have to credit them with maintaining high standards when it comes to the end user experience. They have entire documents about button placement and tend to attract the sort of people that debate things like kerning and typeface choices. It’s tedious and a bit anal retentive, but it produces an unparalleled output to which people have really responded, and that includes developers.

I think that there are some really cool Android devices. I think Ice Cream Sandwich is a really cool operating system. I still really love my rooted Kindle Fire– honestly a bit more than the iPad I used to have, though that may be mainly due to the smaller form factor. I will probably try another Android phone in the future, and look forward to continued competition between all the smartphone OSes. For now, I have to go with the iPhone. It provides me with the most consistently pleasant user experience, and operates well enough with 3rd party services like Google and Dropbox that I can use it with all my other devices.

What’s your favorite phone, and why?