An i for an eye, an Apple for an Android. It is not very often that I switch cellphones. For one, the transition is really pain in the ... like a bleeding hemorrhoid. Like, transferring contacts and messages, tinkering with settings and customizations that don't work (because you didn't read the manual), and stressing over it, and finally having them work well altogether again.
Ever since the cellphone and the PDA was commercially available, it was always my dream to have them both in one device. I used to have an Ericsson R320 and an Palm IIIc on my pocket. These are the 2 most important stuff I never left home without. I used to browse with my IIIc using a browser named Blazer over IR on my GPRS enabled R320, or when I needed quick internet, I would just use my phone to browse WAP websites. I used to get obsessed with it, that my phone bill skyrocketed. I also did some WAP publishing experiment myself.
After a year, I had read in some cellphone rumor site, that Sony and Ericsson will be working together with some phones, and one of them is the soon to be released Sony Ericsson P800. This was a dream for me, as I was looking for the perfect union of phones and PDAs. Knowing that this will be a reality, I immediately started saving up for it, and when it got released in December, it was the perfect gift that I could give myself. After selling my IIIc and my R320, and a little savings I would become one of the first few owners of this phone.
I would use this phone for some years, new upgrades will be available soon after, like the P900, P910 and the P1. But I wasn't lured to buy them, sure they are gorgeous phones but I was waiting for something more different, something more unique. I was gunning for the iPhone, it was already in the rumors mills, but nobody really was sure how and what it looked like. When it was launched, I remember watching Steve Jobs in awe as he presented Apple's newest toy. People lined up for it, I didn't, I bought it from a black market store. Yep it was expensive, but still I was one of the few who bought it and fully took advantage of what it can do. For the first time, I was able to browse whole web pages, not WAP site. I was very happy with it. I've set up my emails, and installed some applications from the web. Soon after, I found myself as an iPhone guru, people who bought the phone later would always ask me questions about their phones. When my brother came, he had the Palm Treo with him, I wasn't that impressed with the phone, and I guess he wasn't also after he saw my phone. He later purchased an iPod touch, it was good since, the Treo didn't do websites as well as the Apple counterpart. Soon after 2 generations iPhone passed, and I wasn't lured to buy them, even though it had 3G then later, had a faster processor (3GS). I felt it was just a minor upgrade, it wasn't enough for me to give Apple my much earned money. I was happy with my phone, as I have Wifi at home and in the office, so really, I didn't need 3G.
I had my iPhone for about 3 years now, I was one of the ones lucky enough to have the first iPhone. For all those years my phone served its purpose well. Make calls,send SMS, check my email and browse the net. I was also able to tinker with it for a long time, I was able to Jailbreak it, updated it, Jailbreak it again and swore never to update it again. But spending those sleepless nights downloading firmwares and breaking it was worth having the much coveted "copy and paste". And I must admit, that every time I upgrade the OS, it give my phone an new lease of life, and making it indispensable for a while. It felt like using an new phone, without the 3G or the faster processor. But now my iPhone is now stuck with OS 3.2, as the new iPhone 4 was unveiled, I realized that my phone was already aging. No more further updates will be available for the 2G model, but I'm not alone, 3G users are stuck with it as well.
And so it came to me that I needed to update.
This time it is different, many things have changed. I am a dad now, so gadgets just became second on the list of things to buy. Apple may be the game changer, but I am a changed man. Being practical is the priority now. And I still feel that Apple iPhone 4 wasn't worth drooling over, I feel it's just an iPhone 3.5Gs, placed in a glass casing (which needed bumpers for cushion and for the antenna issue) and runs a slightly upgraded version of iOS (the new name for iPhone OS).
Considering this, I decided to keep my iPhone a while longer. Because I didn't need a retina display, I needed a larger display to have full web pages load better. I'm fine with seeing pixels, I had been working with them for years now. iPad was the most logical choice to buy next, but practicality and another thing struck me.
Apple's iPad sure looks great, but its too darn costly, its an expensive way of watching movies and browsing the net in your hand. That was one reason I didn't buy it, the other thing that struck me was, there are alternatives that run other OSes.
Steve Jobs once said, that "it is in the software", and the iPhone is all about software. That made me thinking, sure the my old P800 looked great, but the P900 looked better, the iPhone 2G was good, but the 3Gs looked better, what made me switch was "software", looks wasn't really enough to persuade me to junk my old device.
And so I decided to take a leap from Apple iOS to Google Android OS. I will need to decide on which device to buy, here's a hint : "practicality".
It's not an iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment