I got rid of my iPhone yesterday. I’ve been gearing up to get a 4G just as soon as an unlock hack could be created for it. I have no plans to leave T-Mobile who I’ve been happily with since I got my first Visor Phone in 2001. They weren’t even T-mobile then. VoiceStream?
Anyway, the more I read and the older my iPhone got, I began to get frustrated with the way Apple does business. Then I happened to catch sight of the Samsung Galaxy on Engadget, my favorite tech blog. Its design is very iPhone-like but it runs Android OS and the best part, T-Mobile had a flavor of it right when I needed a new phone.
I cut the cord with iPhone and purchased the Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant. I got it for a good price after an instant rebate and about $50 I will get at some point on a Visa card. I like getting the card in the mail even though it would be better if it were simply an instant rebate.
So far I love it. And best of all, I don’t have to worry about hacking my phone. That’s one thing I liked when I had my Blackberry. That was the first time in a long time I’d had a phone that I didn’t purchase on eBay and hack somehow. I’m up for a good adventure most of the time but more and more, I felt I was risking bricking my phone whenever I did anything to it. I even fell for the old 3.1.2 upgrade debacle with my iPhone. In retrospect that’s when I think I really decided to get something else when I needed a new phone. So here I am, back in the fold, able to call T-Mobile when something goes wrong.
If there is “an app for that” with iPhone I have not noticed a lack of apps for that with my Droid. I did have to repurchase SplashID for Droid. I’ve now officially had that app with Treo, BlackBerry, iPhone and now Android. Still it’s a great app and worth the fee. One little thing that annoys me is that the password screen automatically defauls to upper case first so that’s an extra keystroke. It’s minor but something I had to get used to.
Way more vexing is the lack of straight across Outlook synching. Fortunately I already had a Gmail account so it has been OK, just going to take some getting used to.
I discoverd from my second favorite techsource, my brother the network engineer, that Android does not have the ability to pop up reminders on top of the lock screen. This is going to take more getting used to. I missed that on the iPhone and I was fully expecting Android to be able to do it. Alas. Another thing I’ll have to get used to is checking the notification screen or remembering to look at the tee-tiny icons at the top of the home screen that indicate meetings, appointments and texts. I immediately shut down the email notification. Jeez, that would never be off. I check three accounts, four if you count Gmail which I don’t. It would be better to have an icon that shows when I don’t have email.
The next hurdle is finding some sort of iTunes replacement. When I got the iPhone, beside really wanting one, I also wanted to carry only one device rather than two. I gave my old iPhone 2G to my mom so I can’t go back there. She’s pretty attached to it. So now my device also needs to play music. I’ve been disappointed so far but hope springs eternal. One thing I do miss is the ability to shake the device to advance the song. I also miss the ability to double click the button-dongle I purchased for the car. The hangup button on my headphones also worked. I have an older Passat that still has the cassette so I play my device that way. That I do miss.