We will soon be marking the 2 month anniversary of the iPhone coming to both Verizon and South Dakota. With that in mind I felt it was time to share my experience with the device and discuss why after using it for less than a month I returned the long awaited handset.
Being the techo geek that I am, I was at Best Buy on February 10th to get the iPhone on the first day it was available. My first impression based on the lack of a line and the plentiful stock of phones at 4pm was that my excitement wasn't being shared by the rest of our technically challenged state. So with my trusty Droid Incredible de-activated (and now being enjoyed by the wife) and a new 16gb iPhone 4 in hand I proceeded into the world of Apple designed telephony.
Before getting too far into this I must admit that I have been using Android for well over a year so I had gotten quite familiar with the advantages/disadvantages and quirks of Google's now immensely popular operating system. With that said I immediately noticed and was immensely disappointed by what Apple's iOS didn't do nearly as well as Android in my opinion.
Android uses the status bar to let you know when you have email, texts, application messages etc. and these notifications can be viewed even without unlocking the phone. With the iPhone, other than a message box notifying you of a received text message, you must unlock the phone to see these notifications. Want to see if you have an email? Other than any audible notification you might have setup, you must unlock/login to find out.
Next on my list of shortcomings was the unavailability of widgets on iOS. With Android many apps include widgets that can be placed directly on your home screen. The functionality of these widgets varies and includes everything from consistently updated weather and sports scores to your Twitter stream all available without the need to open an app. To get anything even close to this on an iPhone, "jailbreaking" is your only option.
Then of course there is that whole Flash hubbub. Want to view websites that utilize Flash? Not going to happen. And to further compound things, if you've come to rely on any of the number of Google's free tools like Voice, Navigation, and Gmail like I did, the iPhone is not for you. All work to some extent but obviously no where near as nicely as they do on Android.
My last complaint is more of a pet peeve than anything else again tied to my familiarity to Android. I personally like to use my MP3's as ring tones usually assigning one as my main ringtone and using others assigned to certain people in my phone book. Assigning a song as a ringtone on Android is as simple as opening the music app, long pressing the song you want to use, and assigning it as your ringtone from the popup menu that appears. With Apple you either have to purchase the song as a ringtone from iTunes, or go through a long and convoluted procedure that involves an app, an email, importing into iTunes, and loading it back on to your phone. After all that you can finally assign the song as a ringtone.
Don't get me wrong, not everything was bad as there were many things I did like about the iPhone, first and foremost of those being the battery life. Coming from the Droid Incredible, the iPhone battery life was like going from a Pinto to a Cadillac. With the Incredible I had to almost be tethered to a charger getting though a full day of moderate use only on sunny Sundays while with the iPhone that same amount of usage had me still having plenty of juice left at the end of the day. Of course that is a good thing as unlike with most other phones where a spare battery is an option, the iPhone's one battery is not swappable leaving you looking for a charge somewhere.
Holding the iPhone one can hardly help being impressed by the design and feel of the phone. If Apple does one thing great, it is design beautiful tech and the iPhone is no exception. I did worry about the glass back on the phone to the point where I made sure to purchase a case before leaving the store. One drop from any height above 3 or 4 feet I feel could easily ruin your day. Otherwise design wise the iPhone certainly is a winner.
Finally the advantage also has to go to iOS on operating system fit and finish. Apple's operating system just seems nicer and for the technically challenged it is much easier to learn and use not to mention the interface between it and the most popular music program going, iTunes. Want to use and load your music and playlists from iTunes directly onto your Android phone? Forget it.
I had been looking forward to getting an iPhone since it was first released in 2007. 3 1/2 years later I got my wish and in less than 30 days I couldn't get rid of it fast enough. The Apple AT&T exclusivity deal that kept it out of South Dakota until now likely turned at least this guy into an Android fan and shortly before my 30 day trial period expired I was back at Best Buy returning my iPhone.
Now it is on to Verizon's first 4G phone, the Thunderbolt. More details to follow once I have had time to play.
No comments:
Post a Comment