[Hero, G2 Touch General] dkelley:
<rant>

you will not be as happy if you leave android imho.

I'm surprised this is even a serious discussion.

Here are my personal reasons why I say that, after using ios and android devices full time professionally for a while and briefly dabbling in winphone7:

It's becoming increasingly accepted by unpartial reviewer and testers...

(except by:

those who have never used android for a useful length of time

or for those who are looking for very simple user experience without any interest in customization or for "power user" features

)

... that iOS is quite inferior to Android in many ways.

Apple notifications were almost useless until ios 5 and even now are only scratching the surface of what android notifications provide.

ios gives you app icons on your home screen. that's it. no widgets or spaces or custom layouts or sources of useful dynamic information (other htan completely USELESS counters on each icon showing outstanding notification events that have passed wihtout your knowledge because of how crappy iOS's notifications are).

ios gives you no customization other than crappy ordering control which is forgetful

I work wtih an ipad daily and it is a PAIN IN THE ASS - I have learned to hate iOS, specially for tablets or power users, but even for a phone os it is truly annoying and very limited.

windows phone is cool but also limiting, very very limiting, and has rather poor app support at the moment compared to either of the big ones.

there are several reasons why android has become the most popular mobile phone OS - and it isn't just because google gives it away for free.

It's also because Android is the only one that is fully customizable. windows phone is SORT of but not nearly as truly customizable as android.

IMHO the windows phone launcher fake app for android (in the market) is actually superior to the real windows phone device I was playing with because it supported android widgets. But if you want to try out windows phone 7, get that launcher - it truly does give you the winphone7 experience with all it's boring limitations.

the thing that's great about apple devices is the huge and still superior application/game support (if you spend the bucks or jailbreak it then install installous and cydia).

I used to say that iOS was better for little kids. but my little kids (2 and 5 at the time) used android tablets without ANY trouble at all. my little kids (now 3 and 6) use an iPAD without many issues either but do get confused when holding a finger too long on an icon and then out of hte blue they all start wiggling and next thing I know apps are being deleted by little fingers. Android turns out to be far more intuitive in this regard compared to iOS. sometimes dumbing down the OS can be taken to the point of making it more complex to understand. It's an either or situation here, but typically in other ways I do think iOS is easier for very very simplistic minds to accept. This should not be a benefit for anyone here however LoL.

the thing that makes android superior for adults is it's ability to be completely and easily customized for everyone who uses it. it's YOUR phone, use it how you like. don't let apple tell you that you can't sync on this computer wtih this itunes on this day in this weather - I swear to god it is nearly that flaky and limiting to use iOS devices. you have music on your phone and want to copy it to your friend's phone? nope. you want your frien'ds music? nope. not unless you're lugging your laptop around so you can copy the files to/from your itunes folder, NOT directly to/from the device.

also android has a free terminal emulator app in the market. it works perfectly and runs bash as well as my desktop. iOS runs somehting similar but makes it incredibly hard to get that sort of control, even after jailbreaking and installing tons of underground apps it is still a kludgy and unreliable bash prompt control system you get in ios which requires a separate terminal emulator to control it (even a term app on your same device will get you there, but that alone is pretty annoying to have to deal with since you first have to actually get your low level underlying linux type system working on the iOS device....)

maybe some of my iOS negative points are improved in ios 5 but it is still light years behind the flexibility that we are all imho owed by buying the device and buying a license to use the operating system in the first place. I OWN my files. I can put them on my phone or my friend's phone if I choose to.

I buy a mac or a windows computer and I can get at all parts of the OS and mess around with it completely. why can't I do that on an iPAD that costs 2 to 3 times as much as a similar android tablet which is a full linux-based computer right from the get go?

I have a lot of inside info and have watched the devices and OSes grow and change over the years. Historically, in many ways, the best os for smart phones was palm webOS. but the hardware/company were slow/moronic respectively (which is why my brother quit as VP of Engineering of PalmSource... check this link for an interview with him back when things were still early and exciting at palm's mobile operating system dev company: http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/...w-Michael-Kelley-and-John-Cook-of-PalmSource/ )

Anyway - android is quite literally the only way to go for a mobile OS at this time if you dont' want to be tied down to a specific vendor/company of hardware and don't want to be given one user interface with one way to operate the phone.

Ever noticed now winphone7 uses only about 60% of your display for it's main UI? annoying, at best.

yes, they're quick, iOS and winmo7 devices. and yes every brand has good hardware (and bad in some cases). however htc android devices do reign supreme in popularity and market share for a good reason (as outlined above by me and others). but even stock android devices are way cool.

having worked with android tables/phones and ios tablets/phones I have decided very definitely that I will never buy an ios device. having worked with winphone7 for a short time I found it quite acceptable, like iOS. but extremely uninspiring and it's customizability is even worse than iOS's.

</rant>