GigaOm via Businessweek has a piece by Matthew Ingram and his decision process in (probably) moving to Android from an iPhone. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been somewhat having the same thought process here. Android with Jelly Bean has become a very powerful platform and the more I’ve played and used it regularly (over the past few years) the more I like it. Up until recently though I’ve still largely leaned on the iPhone for a lot of things but I’ve begun to reach the conclusion that’s largely unnecessary. Here’s a quick look at my daily usage …
Core Apps:
- Gmail / Email for both personal and work accounts. Yes it’s silly there are two apps and even sillier that they work a bit differently but this is not a critical issue for me.
- Chromea bit of a no-brainer perhaps, but it’s rather awesome on Android. Everything (almost) syncs. I can’t seem to get my passwords to load, but tabs and history are all there across every screen I use.
- Reader HD – I love this application and it’s become my workhorse for Google Reader consumption.
- Pocket – I’ve used the competing read it later services and really just love Pocket. I’ve even recently installed this on my Mac so I’ve got the full loop. The Chrome extension is a key part of the equation.
- Everything else I need or want to use is also there … Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram, Tumblr, WordPress, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Flickr (better on iPhone actually), Flipboard, SoundCloud, Spotify, Snapseed, Dropbox etc etc … all good.
The main place iOS still wins is in depth of games, but even that particularly on the more casual side, things are changing very rapidly in favor of Android users.
I think I might have felt that battery life was better on iPhone in the past, but my iPhone 4S eats battery just lying around and when I use it things drain just as aggressively. On the Galaxy Note, before I changed the ROM, the battery was amazingly solid. Given my choice to run an early beta of CM10, I’m sacrificing some time. I might actually go back just to get the battery life back.
The things I really love about Android though are how you can move between applications in a fluid and frictionless way. On iPhone you can only move content or share with the things the developer or sometimes Apple has selected for you. On Android, you can share to quite a few applications at any given time. This means I can quickly save content to Pocket from everywhere, blog something from just about everywhere and share a picture or link to any service I want.
I’m in control and I like it that way.
I need to maintain access to iOS for work purposes, but I could definitely be very comfortable without my iPhone in my pocket at this point.
So far, the biggest issue (if you want to call it that) on the Android side that I’m having concerns the hardware accessories. For whatever the reason (I suspect more laze on the part of the developers), it’s nigh impossible to get a good set of “gadgets” that work well with Android, particularly those based around BT4 – like Node, Cuckoo, and others. Quite frustrating, but at this point the benefits of Android easily outweigh the hardware extensibility of iOS.
My main outstanding issue is that you can’t copy and paste rich content through the clipboard. When I copy or share through email I lose images.
I am sure you said something about Nokia a while back! 🙂
Seriously though, after spending some quality time with a Nexus 7 (at the expense of my iPad) and being generally impressed by the quality of the hardware AND the innovative nature of some OS features, Android has been ditched in favour of an iPad Mini running iOS because:
* BBC iPlayer just works.
* Apps just work (and are of a higher quality)
* iCloud syncing to iPhone and desktop works
* I get to use Notes! (the one bain of any phone OS is the lack of a good consistent and synchronisable Notes app – that’s why I loved Windows Mobile.
* The app store is *not* full of crap.
* I know that users will be encouraged to use the latest iOS and not be locked into a cul-de-sac of some 3 year old release and so developers will make a better job of making things work.
Yes I hate the Apple Tax. Yes I want to see more innovation but having dipped my toe, the world is not quite ready….
Hugh – I hear you.
For notes I use Evernote. Syncs everywhere. iCloud sync is IMHO inferior to Google Sync and I can move full sets of data around very easily and gain access via browser as needed as well. Apple’s services infrastructure is still early …
App store argument is relative. What do you need? Games are better (there are more) on iOS, but all my productivity needs are met easily on Android.
Also – I’ve got a Nexus 7 and it’s quite nice, but compared to the Note and other newer devices it’s actually slow. When you’ve got a turbo-charged system flying through things it makes a substantial difference. I like the 7 for lighter reading … but the Note has become my goto. I’m hoping to get an even newer one as this is a pseudo-loaner from the office.