Between the folks at Mozilla, who are trying to
hide Firefox versions in an effort to make us all insane, and the folks at Google, who name and number Android versions all willy-nilly, I’m getting slightly annoyed.
Is the current version Froyo or Gingerbread or Honeycomb? Do I want an Ice Cream Sandwich or a Cupcake or a Donut? Is it possible to run a low-cal version of Android? What if I’m cutting carbs and mostly doing protein? Then what?
Seriously, Gingerbread is version 2.3 of Android, but Honeycomb is version 3.0, 3.1, and 3.2. Seriously? And if I’m buying an Android phone, I’m going to need to buy one running version 2.3, even though Android 3.1 is current, but only for tablets. Seriously?
Okay, and some phones only run Froyo and others only run Gingerbread, and you can’t upgrade from one to the other without a hack. Seriously?
I know Android is gaining market share because of the wide diversity of offerings, but there’s got to be some compromise between the der fuhrer approach of Steve Jobs’ Apple and the herding cats approach of Android. Oh, yeah, that was webOS. Sigh.
Reason 4: Very different user experience on different handsets
Love it or hate it, when you pick up an iPhone, it feels like an iPhone. It feels and works like a phone designed for use by a five year old, but at least it’s a consistent feeling. This is not the case with Android phones.
Phones from different manufacturers are wildly different, with different home screens, UIs, and feature sets. It’s so that you could buy two Android phones, put them side-by-side, and unless you knew they were both Androids, you’d think they were completely different devices.
I don’t want a phone that’s got a funky user experience. I want one that I’m used to and can describe to someone else, and they have the same experience. I want to be able to tell someone what I’m doing with my phone and have them know exactly how that’d work for them.
With Android, you can’t have that happen, even with phones from the same maker.
Reason 5: Probably can’t upgrade without jailbreaking, rooting, modding, whatevah
The history of Android phone upgrades is not a good one. Most manufacturers essentially design a model for a given OS, and if there’s an upgrade, your phone might not be able to run it.
The next version of the Android OS is the quixotically named Ice Cream Sandwich. If I were to buy an Android phone now, it’s highly unlikely I’d be able to upgrade it to ICS without a jailbreak.
And, like I said before, I don’t really have time to hack my phone.
Reason 6: App incompatibility
Okay, this is a huge, huge deal-breaker. Apps built for one handset often don’t work on another. It’s almost impossible to be sure that you can run a given application without trying. And when you look at the apps, the poor developers are often saddled with building a compatibility matrix for every phone model.
This lack of consistency is not good. Even Windows has better application compatibility across machines and you never know what’ll be inside your friendly neighborhood Windows PC.
Reason 7: Too much tweaking required
While it annoys me to no end that I can’t make minor tweaks and add utilities to my iPhone, the necessity of tweaking most Android phones to make them usable is unacceptable. First, I just don’t want to spend the time adjusting everything, adding programs, removing programs, and otherwise tuning, just so I can overcome the software design decisions of hardware engineers at the handset makers. Or, worse, so I can overcome the marketing deals put together by product managers at the handset makers.
Then, there’s the temptation. I’m a geek, so the temptation might be to spend hours or days futzing with the phone interface. This is not something I should be spending much time on.
Even though self-control is an issue, an even bigger one is the simple crapware nature of the delivered software on most Android phone handsets.
Reason 8: Poor tablet compatibility
Once again, compatibility is an issue. Many iPhone applications (actually nearly all of them) will run on the iPad. They may not be iPad-optimized, but they’ll run.
Not so much with Android. Even the SDKs between the two classes of device are different. Developers are coding 2.x software for phones and 3.x software for tablets.
They might as well have completely different names for all the native compatibility they have.
Reason 9: Little ongoing manufacturer support
Reason 10: Google
Let me be clear in how much I like and respect most of the people at Google. The individuals there are very cool. But the company sometimes seems like part Borg and part Borgia. If you need personal help, the company is virtually impenetrable.
On the other hand, there are some advantages
I know that when I go with the iPhone 5, I’ll be giving up some freedom and some self-respect. I’ll be selling my soul for the promise of the safety and warmth of the Apple mothership. This disturbs me to a level you probably can’t understand.
There are some good aspects to the Android experience I’ll be giving up. I’ll be giving up the ability to tune my launcher, which I could easily do back in the Palm/Treo days, but Apple doesn’t think we’re adult enough to manage now in era of iOS finger painting.
Beyond having tweaking control (without jailbreaking), I do miss the choice of models (you can have any color as long as it’s black), access to a built-in physical keyboard, and oh, what I would give for a replaceable battery!
Unfortunately, these few boons of Androidum don’t make up for the disadvantages. And, holding my nose, this is why I’m not going to buy an Android and why I’m waiting for the iPhone 5.
