Two high-profile Apple devotees have switched to Android in the last few weeks; one of them had an ulterior motive (Guy Kawasaki has moved on to Motorola), but Andy Ihnatko over at TechHive had to do some serious soul-searching before he made the change.
We're pretty sure they still love Apple products, and Ihnatko has reassured his readers that he does, but what it boils down to is this: iOS is still great, but Android has become awesome and for his needs, at least, Samsung's Galaxy S3 has won him over. He details his journey of self-discovery in a three-part column.
One feature that Android has over iOS, Ihnatko writes in part one, is the keyboard. Swype functionality and the SwiftKey app make entering text into an Android device, especially on a touchscreen, many times easier than tapping it out on an iOS device. Entering text on the Galaxy S3 is also simply less disruptive than trying to do the same on an iPhone, where one mis-tap can punt you into speech-to-text mode.
(We at iTechPost would also like to add that Damn You Autocorrect exists for a reason.)
Ihnatko also loves the Galaxy S3's larger screen, which means crisper Web pages and also a larger keyboard, but what won him over (as he describes in part two) is how apps can work together much more easily than he can manage in iOS.
"Most of the things I do with my phone involve using one app to obtain a scrap of data, and then pushing it into another app to work on it a bit, and then sending or sharing it using a third app," he wrote. He also allows his love for Apple to shine through, though only in disappointment: "My heart breaks a little when I have to try to do the same sort of things on my iPad. I find myself thinking 'I wish I had encountered that page while I was using my Android device, where this task is simple, instead of my iPad, where it’s needlessly difficult.'"
Customization is also far easier on an Android phone than it is on an Apple device. Sure, Apple makes things seamless and easy to find and palatable for pretty much everyone, but if you want to change something fundamental about an Android phone, it is possible to customize it to your exact needs, which Ihnatko does not hesitate to do.
He stresses that people will find phones that fit them — Android isn't necessarily better than iOS, but an Android phone simply fulfills his needs more effectively.
Apple devotees out there: Would these features make you consider an Android phone? Conversely, if there are any iPhone users out there who switched from Android, tell us why in the comments!
