For some reason I always go for the underdog. Maybe it's just the British disease, who knows. But when everyone I knew was getting an iPhone I went for the new kid on the block, Google Android on a T-Mobile G1. A decision I've regretted for the last year.
I've moaned about Android before so no need to go over old ground but suffice to say my experience of Android has been of an inelegant OS that until at least v1.6 wasn't ready for general use.
I still think Android will be a significant positive force in the smartphone market, but Google's decision to launch their OS on the severely underspecified G1 really annoyed me. I accept early adopters pay a premium and suffer heavy depreciation etc but my G1 is only running the later Android goodness courtesy of the excellent work done by rom cooker Cyanogen. The G1 is unlikely to ever see Android 2.0 whereas the Original iPhone is happily running the latest version of the iPhone OS.
Which brings me to my iPhone; a second hand original GPRS only iPhone from a friend and it is, quite frankly, brilliant. It syncs with my Kerio Mailserver via Activesync, google calendars with Caldav and in true Apple style 'it just works'. I should add that I managed Activesync support on the G1 with an app called Touchdown. Works but the G1 memory is inadequate for the app and it doesn't integrate with the google calendaring app, which for some reason annoyed me.
Using a 2g iPhone on T-Mobile (who don't have EDGE) means web access is slow and painful but what use is speedy data access when you don't have the app support to do what you want.
As soon as my current contract ends it's bye bye to T-Mobile and a swift move to another provider and a 3GS. When it launched the iPhone was a game changer in the smartphone market and everyone else is still playing catch up as far as I can tell.
The is the ONLY thing stopping me from buying one today is the problem of not being allowed to program it.
ReplyDeleteWriting your own code and running it (freely) used to be a feature, not explicitly prohibited. Even my ancient pocket calculator feels more flexible than an iphone.
OK - so you can program it, but not without jailbreaking it, or buying a mac and having licensing restrictions on what you can write, install and distribute.
Actually that's exactly why I didn't get one in the first place. People I don't know telling what I can and can't do has always irritated me. However I don't program things and really need them to work. The iPhone does, for me. The G1 didn't. I think the Droid, or whatever it's called; the next generation of Android phones could be really very good.
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