Android...Bland-roid

[nash]

Android vs iPhone? Android maybe better, but iPhone is way cooler. Why would I change my iPhone for Android? Come on.... why?

[roberto]

Open platform or proprietary...I'd go with open platform that builds on community innovation and industry manufacturing variety.

Sure, Apple has a flashier design, but Android has a greater variety of designs by different manufacturers. People's taste's can't be captured with a single style for all. Variety and the freedom to choose what best fits a person's lifestyle and habits will win every time.

[nash]

I hear you Roberto... I just happen to think that iPhones are cool. For me the "Open platform" argument doesn't matter because I can't do anything with it. In fact, being propriety means that I can't go and mess things up by playing around with it, so a blessing in some respects.

Could it be more about an ethos that owning an Apple brings to its customer base? The way Apple has this ability to direct the future, invent it, capture it, excite people about technology and show people something that they didn't know they needed? I love that about manufacturers. Some are so shy and always just react to markets. I guess that's the great thing about Avaya and what it is doing for the future. Capturing it, shaping it and delivering it.

Android just doesn't do it for me? More thoughts and inputs?!

[roberto]

As a consumer product, the iPhone "sleekness" may be aesthetically appealing, but from an enterprise perspective it comes down to reducing operating costs and SG&A and maximizing cashflow.

An iPhone costs $300 more than an Android phone, but offers the same "smartness" of today's smartphones.

Should a company pay $300 more per device for their employees and not get any additional value-added benefit?

An enterprise CIO/COO will vote with their company chequebooks, methinks.

[fuhrmb]

If you prefer coolness to usefulness, no reason not to stick with the iphone.

[zakabog]

It sounds like you already like the iPhone so I don't exactly understand why you're looking for advice I never really looked at the iPhone and thought "Wow that's a really cool feature", especially when my roommates excitedly hurry over to show me all the new features on their iPhones after a major update. Like when Apple finally added notifications, or when Siri started to work hands free, or when the built in gallery app first allowed them to sort pictures by where they were taken. They run up all excited to show me this "brand new awesome feature" and I just smile as I show them my phone has exactly the same features.

I've never seen a feature on an iPhone that I thought "Oh man I want that!" The first ones didn't even support multi-tasking out of the box, they have a half-assed version of widgets, and the phone OS treats you like so much of a child you can't even browse the files on the device since that's considered "too advanced" for most people (I learned this when my friend showed me this web app I wrote wouldn't work on his iPhone, I had to write a custom IOS app just to let him upload photos from his gallery.)

I'm currently using a Moto X (2nd Gen) and so far it's been fantastic. It has a feature called "Active display" that causes the phone to kind of "pulse" when I receive notifications (like texts, e-mail, Facebook notifications, etc.) This allows me to glance over and check my phone without doing anything, if I see a notification I want to glance at I can touch the notification icon and it'll display the notification as well as giving some options like "Reply" or "Mark Read" on e-mails. It's really useful to quickly look at and dismiss things that aren't important, or quickly respond to things that are. I can also use active display to quickly hover my hand over the phone and have it display the time, it will also do this immediately when the phone is pulled from my pocket, so I never have to touch any buttons just to check the time.

Another really great feature is the Google home screen which displays things that are relevant to me. I didn't have to add any of these options, it just learned it from my behavior. So the first thing in the morning it'll display the weather, I also see summaries of articles about things that I'm interested in (generally articles on technology websites), as well as the upcoming rangers/islanders schedule. Later in the day when I'm getting ready to leave work it'll show me the best way to get home (via public transportation since that's what I selected) or the best way to get to the gym (depending on if it's gym day or not.)

It's an extremely intuitive phone and it just works fantastically, plus it looks great. I think the design of the iPhone has gotten pretty stale and it's only recently changed but only barely "Look, we rounded the outer bezel and made it bigger just like the Samsung Galaxy! I mean... ummm... look at this innovation!"

Anyway, that's my pro Android, anti-iPhone rant, you obviously like your iPhone so I really don't think this will convince you, I just wanted to vent about my iPhone frustrations.