Commentary

Verizon: stick with Android

Verizon may finally get the iPhone. We’ve all heard that one before.

But it seems as though people are sure about this news. The most popular release date (which is purely speculation at this point) is January 2011. Even if it actually does actually happen this time around, I think it’s too late to make me an iPhone user.

I was the proud owner of silver Blackberry Pearl a few years ago. It was the first time I was able to browse the Internet on a mobile device, and I took full advantage of it. Google News, TechCrunch, NFL.com, Cubs scores—I had it all. But it didn’t last very long.

The summer before I left for college, I decided to make an economically smart decision. The data package that came along with my Blackberry was an additional $360 per year on my phone bill, and without a steady income, it didn’t make sense to pay more than I needed to.

So, an LG enV Touch came to college with me. I figured that as long as I could make calls and send text messages, I would be perfectly content with any phone. And the initial excitement of having a new cell phone distracted me from the fact that I could no longer surf the Web. Plus, the enV Touch had a touch screen. So it’s just as cool as an iPhone.

Right?

Very wrong.

It is no longer about calls and texts. It’s now about access to information, and I quickly realized that giving up Internet access on my cell phone was a big mistake. So, right when I was due for an upgrade, I invested (yes, invested) in a smart phone.

The obvious choice was an iPhone. But as a dedicated Verizon customer, I wasn’t willing to make the switch to AT&T. The next best thing seemed to be the Droid Incredible.

Wrong again.

The HTC Droid Incredible

The Droid Incredible is the better thing. As an avid Google user, I trusted that Android would be a nice substitute, but I didn’t expect that I would prefer it. The user interface is more customizable and seems much more functional than that of the iPhone.

Widgets are probably the best part of the Android operating system. I have an ESPN widget that displays news and scores for my favorite teams in each sport. This awesome widget was free, which seems to be more common in the Android marketplace than in the iTunes App Store.

So, will I be an iPhone user? Not any time soon. If Verizon offers both the iPhone and Android phones, I will stick with Android for the time being. I expect that Steve Jobs will make some improvements to make this decision much harder, but Google gets my vote for now.

1 comment about "Verizon: stick with Android".
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  1. Chris Ellis from Comcast Spotlight, October 25, 2010 at 2:11 p.m.

    That's exactly how I've been feeling now that I have a Droid X (and as the owner of an iPod Touch, so I can relate to the experiences of both interfaces).

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