Many people try to compare the iPhone to Android Devices. While we are a bit bias there is really no contest when it comes to the ability and user capability of android devices. Android offers the ability to customize almost every aspect of your experience.
We will start by talking about a couple things people complain about when switching from the iPhone to an Android Phone.
- Visual Voicemail – The iPhone has a visual voicemail system built into the device as a standard feature. Android phones can have this feature easily and free by downloading free apps that offer the same service. One of these services are Youmail which you can read about and download in one of our older articles.
- Popup Text Messaging – The iPhone when receiving a text message gets a popup window on their phone that allows them to read and reply to it. While Android phones do not have this feature by default there are also apps for this that create the same user experience. One of these services are SMS Popup which you can read about and download in one of our older posts.
Now for the functions that you will get with Android that leaves iPhone behind the technology curve. The below features once you have you will never want to go back to the restrictive iPhone again.
- Alternate Keyboards – From text predictors likeSwiftkey to the innovative like Swype, you have a lot of different keyboard choices on Android. The iPhone has other keyboards, but they’re usually separate apps that require you to import text to another program it’s just the kind of system-level functionality that’s hard to get around.
- Custom Home Launchers – Third party launchers can add all sorts of extra features to the home screens of your device, like gestures, different kinds of shortucts, and even low-level settings that can help speed up an older phone. Whether you’re using the super-fast LauncherPro or the customizable ADWLauncher, third-party launchers add new configuration to your device.
- Widgets – There’s no substitute for the convenience of having a big weather widget right on your home screen, or a music widget to show you the currently playing track. Even more useful are the to-do list widgets, which is not only effective but necessary from people, as they don’t require you to actually look for your to-do list they’re always reminding you of what you need to do. If you’ve jailbroken,you can get widget-like apps for the iPhone, but you can only put them on your lock screen not the actual home screens that you’re always swiping through.
- Removable Storage & Battery -Android phones have the ability to take out, swap, and upgrade your battery and SD card. If you find that you’ve maxed out the storage on your iPhone, you’re pretty much out of luck, whereas with an Android phone you can pop in a new SD card and have more storage to play with. Similarly, you can swap out a spare battery for longer trips or even get an extended battery that’ll help your phone go longer without charging.
- Open Market – While the iPhone has their app store Android devices can download and install apps from anywhere on the web. Android devices come with the Google Android Market on them but there are others like the new Amazon App store and App Brain that allow you to use them. Also if a developer want to let you download directly from them that option is there.
- Custom ROM’s – Being open source people can take it, tweak it all over, and install their version instead of the one that comes with your phone. There’s little limit to how much you can tweak your Android experience. As with launchers, these give you a lot of system-level tweaks that you just wouldn’t be able to get this easily on other platforms. Whether it’s tweaks that speed up your phone or features like FM radio, custom ROMs are without a doubt one of the biggest advantages to Android.
- Flash – Flash is everywhere you go, and when you’re forced to view the web without it, you realize how much you actually rely on it day-to-day. Whether its accessing fully Flash web sites, watching Flash videos, or playing games, having Flash installed on your phone and tablet lets you access a lot of things you otherwise couldn’t have.
Ultimately as we talk bad about the iPhone, they are great phones. Our point here is that unless you want the out of the box phone without any customizations you will want to move to Android. iPhones are great no doubt but despite their popularity the customization is just not there.