I’m always in New York City.
While I prefer to make money blogging while lounging around the house, I can’t turn my back on a guaranteed income as a software consultant, so yes I have a regular job too. That being said, I’m in and around the streets and businesses of New York City constantly, and I see all of the yuppies, commuters, and hip kids all over. I see them in restaurants, bars, etc. They’re all glued to their iPhones.
You’d think that iPhone was the dominant technology, even though Android has more units out there. It’s reminiscent of the PC vs Mac wars. This time it’s Android versus iPhone.
The hipsters all prefer the sexiness of the Apple products. It’s the same in the offices. The office grunt workers all use Windows machines and outnumber the hip graphics designer types who use their Macs. That’s just the way it is.
Even when I’m at the place that I’m consulting at, there are a few younger graphics types who are ALWAYS on their iPhones. Even in Agile Scrum meetings for software development, they’re ALWAYS glancing constantly at their iPhone screens.
It’s funny because they’re way younger than me and I get the image of some toddler grasping for a security blanket. It’s like Steve Jobs created some kind of technology Crack and these are the addicts.
I always preferred the easily customized things. I like technology with options.
Even though I use Windows machines a lot, years ago I got into Linux and I love systems that let the users really tweak and change them around. I loved that Linux lets you run a variety of Windowing systems and you can really make the system look and act the way that you want.
Android is basically a Google fork of Linux, for mobile devices. Linux is a superior operating system to almost anything out there, on any device. They were putting Linux on many devices even before Steve Jobs thought of MacOS turning into iOS on phones. Maybe he actually stole that idea the same way he stole the Mac UI from Xerox PARC back in the day, then accused Bill Gates and Microsoft of stealing the GUI design from Mac even though Apple never invented it and stole it themselves.
You can choose to root an Android phone and even in unrooted phones you have many many options. You can change the Home screen program out for others, and just really have a great time making it look the way that you want. I also find that getting my hands on apps that are not in the Google Play Store can be useful at times.
There is one thing that always annoyed me about Android. It’s a man made issue. The operating system gets large and bulkier over time, so the older devices struggle to keep up. Not everyone has the option or the desire to upgrade their phone every few months so those who can’t or don’t end up with very slow devices. I’ll give this one to iPhone. I’m not saying that iPhone users don’t have OS or software issues to deal with, because they do, but I do notice that over time even older iPhones’ speed remains more usable.
The ability to customize an Android device just appeals to me more.
Recently my wife and I needed to upgrade phones. Her old Android HTC, which always had issues, finally almost died, and was very unusable. My Samsung Galaxy SII was working, but I was getting sick of having to do hard resets to get it running faster. Let’s face it, it was over 2 years old, which is a real dinosaur in phone years. There was also some nasty hardware bug involving the touch screen and low signal zones which caused the menu button to simulate being clicked umpteen million times per second. I wanted to move on.
I contemplated the iPhone but I just can’t pull myself from something as hacky as Android (Android wins Android versus iPhone for me) to something as Orwellian as an Apple phone, so I ended up doing some research and going with an LG G3, which I love, and my wife always wanted an iPhone, so she got the large 6 model. It’s the large one. It’s actually kind of hard to handle with one hand. The screen is about the size of my G3 even though the phone is itself large.
I got to play with her iPhone on occasion when she wanted me to look at or fix something.
I will say that the camera is top notch, better than the one on my G3. It take crisp low light photos that are great. That’s a device issue though and has nothing to do with the operating systems.
Other than that, I hate it and am glad I stuck with Android.
I can’t understand how anyone can love the iPhone so much.
Android has a home screen and you open your app drawer to see the apps. You can put more frequently used app icons on the screen just like on a desktop computer UI.
Apple forces the app icons onto the home screen.
Am I wrong here? That is what I experienced when using her phone.
Another thing is you can’t exit apps. You just hit that ridiculous single round button at the bottom of the screen.
I have the interface.
It’s funny, when I am walking through the underground tunnel that links the Port Authority Bus Terminal with the Times Square Subway Station in NYC, there is a serious of iPhone ads on the wall. Oh it’s so ‘sexy’…
When you are about to enter the Lincoln Tunnel from the New Jersey side, on top there are more sexy Apple iPhone ads…
It’s amazing how advertising and marketing color perceptions.
These people actually think that they are carrying some superior technology in their pockets, whipping it out every few seconds like electronic crack.
I know that the iPhone was the first of it’s kind and that Android took the idea from them, but Android improved on it and made it way better and more efficient of a device, and on different hardware specs. So in this space, Android is like Windows, but it is really Linux underneath which makes it better.
Do you really like your iPhone? I think they’re mostly fancy wrapped junk.
I believe that Android wins the Android versus iPhone war hands down. It’s Linux based with a better UI, and many devices to choose from. It’s easily customized too.
Talk back in the comments below as to why you think iPhone is better, and justify it.
