As i said a couple of days ago, my mind has been made up, i’m getting an iphone. But why? Have i been apple’d? Have i joined the cult?…. No and no. The answer is much simpler than… that…
Android
A few years ago (before the iphone came on the scene), the phone with the best hardware was the best phone. Now, that’s not the case. It’s much more complicated. In a nutshell there’s iphone OS and android. Phone operating systems. Let’s pretend no others exist just to keep it simple, just like we pretend no browsers apart from IE, Firefox and Chrome exist…
The iphone OS and the iphone are kind of intertwined, they’re all the one. You can’t buy a non iphone phone and stick iphone OS on it. So for that reason, android has an immediate (and huge) advantage – it’s not tied to one particular phone manufacturer or model.
Hence the reason it’s kicking ass and growing rapidly these days – it’s overtaking iphone OS but it’s wrong to say it’s ‘beating’ iphone OS or ‘better’ than it. The problem i have with android is that there is no one phone or manufacturer that has nailed it, like apple has with the iphone.
It’s all too disorganized and messy for my liking, like most new open source projects are. It needs more time to mature. With apple, you have the iphone, iphone OS and itunes. That’s all you need. Apple control everything which is both good and bad. For now, and in to the foreseeable future, no other company can bunch everything together under the one roof like that. Why does that matter? Well, most of us are lazy. We like shopping centers rather than individual shops. It’s just more convenient for most people if everything is in the one place.
So yeah, android is the reason i’m buying an iphone. Fast forward 2 or 3 years and i’ve no doubt things will be very different. Mobile is an area where everyone acknowledges is the next big thing or perhaps the current big thing, but just like with search, browsers, laptops, netbooks etc… it’ll be a bloodbath for years to come.
If i ever get to the stage where i’m wearing apple tshirts or queuing up overnight for some mystery product in a box with an apple logo on it, you have my permission to hunt me down and exorcise me.