[General Questions and Answers] LightEater:
I'm getting tired of my iPhone 3G, it's beginning to show its age with ios4 and I'm tired of running jailbreak just to get features I feel the device should have out of the box. This hurts both the stability of the device (jailbreak apps take up ram which in turn tends to cause other apps to crash since they can't allocate enough memory) and the overall system coherency (most mods and hacks don't work well with others and it becomes a chore to set everything up nice and clean).

So I'm thinking of switching to Android, I've done some research and I'm mostly torn between a few handsets (Desire Z, Galaxy S II, Desire S etc), but I think I'll decide after I visit the store and get a chance to play with them.

More to the point - I have some questions about the Android platform in general before I take the plunge.

1) I'm a heavy music listener, and I love how the iPod app does music. It's brilliant. How's the android keep up in this department? Making and syncing playlists on your computer? Dynamic playlists on the phone? Playback controls on the lockscreen? Last.fm sync? Switching tracks with volume buttons (CM7 can do that) Any other things I should be aware of?

2) Assuming I'll be setting up with my google account - how does android handle gmail contacts? I can tolerate google dumping anyone I email into my gmail contacts, but I don't want all that garbage on my phone. Any easy solutions?

2b) Pictures on contact list - sync?

2c) Aliases? I have other accounts set up in gmail (work, private, spam) and I need to send mail from all of them. Possible? Easy?

3) Any decent todo list applications? Apart from the usual rtm/evernote. I had a real trouble with this on the iphone. Good ones did not have lockinfo integration and the ones that had were either too expensive or did not suit my needs.

4) Upcoming events, birthdays, todo's on my lockscreen. This is a must. Possible?

5) I'm a bit of a social network whore. More and more often I tend to arrange meetings with friends using facebook/buzz/mailing groups. This means notifications and ease of replying to messages on various networks. I know for a fact that the notification system on the android is heavens above the crap apple delivers currently, and this will probably feel way better and more natural than on the iphone. Are there any particular issues in this area?

6) Battery life. Currently my 3G can go up to 3 days on a charge (usually 2), depending on usage. But I don't use the internet more than I have to since the device is a bit on the slow side since ios4... This will probably change :) How much does multitasking affect battery? Can you define apps that you want to close when you quit and apps that you want to go into the background (like chats or ims) Or is there some other clever way of easily managing the stuff that's sucking your juice? Any recommended handsets that have a particularly good battery life?

7) iTunes syncing backed up all applications and settings - any comparable solution on android?

8) Visual voicemail on the iphone was the best approach to voicemail I've seen. Any such on android?

9) How much fuss is upgrading the firmware? On the iphone you just press a button, sync and go grab a coffee. After it's finished you restore your jailbreak apps with another click and youre ready to roll. How does this work here? Assuming I'll root and get CM after a few weeks when I'm sure the handset won't need replacing :)

And finally - any other things I should know? Features I that a user coming from apple would find appealing?

Thanks :)