The Wall Street Journal recently announced that the iPhone will be coming to my carrier of choice, Verizon, in 2011. So, it got me thinking what it would take to get me to switch? I have written in the past on what I think the advantages of Android over the iPhone are, but only some of them are essential. Despite loving Android, I am not a "phanatic." I will switch to any system that meets my needs the best. I think the iPhone is a great piece of technology, but there are a few deal breakers for me. So without further adeu, here are the iPhone changes I would NEED to switch.
4" Screen. The iphone screen is just too small for a cutting edge phone. After looking at a Galaxy S, for me, a 4" is the perfect medium between the iphone and the massive 4.3" screen of the EVO and Droid X. Sadly, Apple's silly Retina Display marketing campaign has boxed it in from offering a larger screen without inscreasing the resolution.
Text reflow after pinch zoom. I spend more time browsing the web on my Droid than anything else. This is a huge deal breaker for me with the iPhone. If you want text to reflow on the iPhone you must double tap which reflows the text to the apple chosen font size. On a 3.5 inch high resolution screen, the text is just too small for me to read easily. This is Apple at it's control freak worst. I can't even choose the size text I want to read without having to constantly scroll side to side? Ridiculous! Apple needs to make double tapping after pinch zoom reflow the text like Android. Kinetic scrolling in the browser would be nice too.
Home Screen Customization. This is a core problem with iOS. My friends with iPhones were absolutely giddy when folders came out. That's like being ecstatic about being able to make shortcuts on your PC desktop. I realize that the iPhone is made to be idiot proof, but that doesn't mean people should not have the option to customize. People customize their Mac so this can't be an immutable decision for Apple products. When I turn on my Droid, my home screen has everything I need within a single touch. Weather widget, flashlight widget, mail count widget, direct dial shortcuts, most used apps, one touch directions to my house from anywhere. One swipe brings me to my Facebook, twitter, music, and calendar widgets. With launcher pro I have a dock with 15 shortcuts each with a "swipe up" action that acts as a secondary shortcut. For example, I have an icon on Launcher Pro dock bar that launches my browser, if I swipe up on that icon it opens my RSS reader; Swiping up on my camera icon opens my gallery, etc.. And these are just some of the dozens of customizations one can make with android. What can you do with the iPhone? Have 4 docked icons and then rows and rows of icons and folders. I don't want to have to open my contacts and scroll to find the person I call the most. I want to just do a single click on the direct dial shortcut. I realize that jail breaking allows much more customization (and I would definitely jailbreak), but it is not close to Android.
Here are a few things that I would really want, but are not deal breakers.
1. SD cards slot.
2. Micro USB
3. Removable battery
Android has many more advantages over the iOS, but iPhone is a much smoother experience than Android and has many more good apps. Without these three necessary changes, however, I could never see myself using an iPhone.
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4" Screen. The iphone screen is just too small for a cutting edge phone. After looking at a Galaxy S, for me, a 4" is the perfect medium between the iphone and the massive 4.3" screen of the EVO and Droid X. Sadly, Apple's silly Retina Display marketing campaign has boxed it in from offering a larger screen without inscreasing the resolution.
Text reflow after pinch zoom. I spend more time browsing the web on my Droid than anything else. This is a huge deal breaker for me with the iPhone. If you want text to reflow on the iPhone you must double tap which reflows the text to the apple chosen font size. On a 3.5 inch high resolution screen, the text is just too small for me to read easily. This is Apple at it's control freak worst. I can't even choose the size text I want to read without having to constantly scroll side to side? Ridiculous! Apple needs to make double tapping after pinch zoom reflow the text like Android. Kinetic scrolling in the browser would be nice too.
Home Screen Customization. This is a core problem with iOS. My friends with iPhones were absolutely giddy when folders came out. That's like being ecstatic about being able to make shortcuts on your PC desktop. I realize that the iPhone is made to be idiot proof, but that doesn't mean people should not have the option to customize. People customize their Mac so this can't be an immutable decision for Apple products. When I turn on my Droid, my home screen has everything I need within a single touch. Weather widget, flashlight widget, mail count widget, direct dial shortcuts, most used apps, one touch directions to my house from anywhere. One swipe brings me to my Facebook, twitter, music, and calendar widgets. With launcher pro I have a dock with 15 shortcuts each with a "swipe up" action that acts as a secondary shortcut. For example, I have an icon on Launcher Pro dock bar that launches my browser, if I swipe up on that icon it opens my RSS reader; Swiping up on my camera icon opens my gallery, etc.. And these are just some of the dozens of customizations one can make with android. What can you do with the iPhone? Have 4 docked icons and then rows and rows of icons and folders. I don't want to have to open my contacts and scroll to find the person I call the most. I want to just do a single click on the direct dial shortcut. I realize that jail breaking allows much more customization (and I would definitely jailbreak), but it is not close to Android.
Here are a few things that I would really want, but are not deal breakers.
1. SD cards slot.
2. Micro USB
3. Removable battery
Android has many more advantages over the iOS, but iPhone is a much smoother experience than Android and has many more good apps. Without these three necessary changes, however, I could never see myself using an iPhone.
Please take a few seconds to click on the ads on the right to help support this website.
I'm at work, but I'll try to comeback later and comment further. I love talking about mobile devices but it is almost not worth my time posting on tech blogs because it is full of so many fanboys yelling at each other.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice reading the opinion of non fanboys like you. I am the same way. :)
Thanks for the comment! I hope you enjoy the blog. Android suits my needs better for now so for me I like it better than the iPhone, but I am certainly open to switching if/when the iPhone works better for me (and it comes to Verizon).
ReplyDelete