So, I upgraded to a Motorola Droid in the spring of 2010 after being very frustrated with my Palm Centro. I actually bought 2 on a BOGO deal that they were featuring and updated my wife’s phone as well. (This was her first smart phone, and now she’s hooked on them, but that’s another post) The phone started out great, but it started to get “bit rot” really quickly. My wife “borrowed” an upgrade from another line and jumped to the iPhone in June of this year, because she couldn’t take her phone any longer. With her old phone available, I tried rooting mine. I had several reasons why I thought this was a good idea, from over clocking to running a stripped down firmware. That helped a little, but I still had issues with the GUI freezing up (my favorite one was when it crashed while launching the dialer app… what if I was trying to dial 911?).
So now I’ve been on an iPhone4 for about two months. I like it, but there are things I think Android executed better (I liked the Android GMail app better than iOS Mail). Having voice commands (Siri) work without taking 8 hours to start up (and usually crash half way through processing) is a nice feature, as well as all the Apple-iOS-AppleTV-iTunes integration. I miss the Google Navigation, but there are numerous other apps that are nice to have.
In two years though, will I get another Android? Probably not. The Droid was one of the only devices that was untouched by Motorola and Verizon, and if it had come with Blur on it I probably would have gone crazy. Since then, I don’t recall any “untouched” devices being offered, and looking at the current offerings as of writing, I still don’t see any (but you can get the “Verizon Wireless Exclusive HTC Sense Experience”).
Android has another problem, and many of the techno-pundits have already beat this to death: fragmentation. It’s real, I don’t care what you say. Think of it this way: Microsoft publishes minimum system requirements for manufacturers to stick a Windows sticker on their machines. If a manufacturer doesn’t want to do this, they don’t have to, but that doesn’t stop them from selling Windows on their machines (I’m thinking of the “white box” systems you can get from the mom and pop retailers). Google does the same thing: devices like the Droid gets certified by Google, and they screen print “Powered by Google” on the battery door. Meanwhile, others can sell devices without having Google’s blessing, but they don’t get to put things like Google Maps on there. A perfect example is the Pandigital tablets (an example, this Pandigital tablet is $160, for either a 7 or a 10 inch). I wouldn’t call them great, but they are cheap and they get the job done.
All of this variety is good thing for the consumer, since it creates choice. Choice then creates competition. Competition creates lower prices and more availability for the consumer.
This is a bad thing for Microsoft and Android though. Now they have to support x computers or devices, where x is an unknown, and large, quantity. Older computers can’t run Vista or Windows 7, just like older phones and tablets can’t run the current versions of Android. Meanwhile, iOS devices, and the OSX devices too (with the (reasonable) exception of PowerPC devices) all support, and can handle, the current OS version.
This whole post was inspired by this article and the accompanying image, which shows some of what I was talking about. What it doesn’t show though, is that after every update, the speed and responsiveness of my phone got successively slower, as that poor 500 MHz processor worked harder and harder. Meanwhile, my coworker’s iPhone 3GS got iOS 5 and still moved along like it was new.
For a two year upgrade cycle on a phone, that is unacceptable to me. I can see why a carrier would want the phone to be slightly lacking when you enter the renewal period, so that you want renew your contract. But this is dangerous, because then you can get into a situation where you upset the end user so much that they don’t want to ever touch another Android phone. This happened to me, I joked several times that I wanted to throw my Droid through a wall. Until the iPhone was announced on Verizon, I was planning on dropping back down to a feature phone, and getting an iPod Touch with a PEEL for my smart-device needs, because I had no desire to own another Android device.
Oh well, I’m happy with my iPhone and will stay with it, but I hope Android sticks around, since it creates a competitive environment for smartphones.