The Pie Whisperer

I love my iPhone.   Well, I used to.  Now I really want to love it, but lately it just doesn’t seem deserving of it.

I’m one of those poor saps that made the mistake of upgrading their 3G iPhone to iOS4 which has turned my phone into an almost unusable mess.  Apps star up slow and will often crash.  Receiving an email while listening to music will sometimes cause the iPod app to crash.  I can no longer get a bluetooth device to sync to my phone.  Worst of all, the screen likes to lag out when I try to answer a call, which has resulted in me missing more than a few calls since upgrading.  

The simplest solution to this would be to upgrade to an iPhone 4, right?  Not so simple.  Ordering direct from Apple is not an option for me.  Currently ordering from Apple’s got a 3 week lead time if I were to order today, but I’m willing to pay $659 from Apple, especially when having an unlocked phone serves me no benefit (I’m on a corporate plan so I’m not going anywhere).  I’ve tried to upgrade through Rogers but I’ve been told by them that there’s none available and they don’t know when one would be available to me (on a corporate plan).  

So this leaves me with two choices: suck it up and deal with my dysfunctional iPhone 3G or switch to Android.  Until a few days ago, this didn’t seem like much of a choice for me, either, as Rogers has a pretty lame selection of Android handsets.  Two days, ago, this changed when Rogers announced that they would be getting the Samsung Captivate in the next few weeks so I started to give some serious thought to making the switch to Android.  

My biggest concern was the apps.  There are some apps on my iPhone that I am pretty dependent on and would not want to give up.  My biggest concern was an app called Lose It.  Back in May I decided it was time to get trim down (when I started I believe my rating on the BMI Index chart was “fat f*ck”) and knew that it wasn’t available for Android.  Fortunately, I was able to find an alternate to it called Food & Fitness Tracker that I actually like better (they also have an iPhone App).  All my other important or everyday use apps had an Android version or an alternate.  The only exceptions (at the moment) are GetGlue (which I just read has an Android app in beta) and Golfshot GPS (a golf score tracking / GPS app), the later of which would be a hard pill to swallow as it was a $30 app (which is the most I’ve paid for an app by a long shot - usually $10 is my max).

Another thing that has me leaning towards Android is my car.  I just ordered a new car from Ford (a 2011 Ford Fiesta, if you’re wondering) and apparently Ford Sync and the iPhone 4 don’t seem to work together and using Ford Sync was one of the features I was really looking forward to in my new car.  Do I really want a phone that isn’t going to play nice with it?

Taking that into consideration, it should be an easy decision but it’s not because I do love my iPhone or, at least, I love what it was.  I also love only having to carry one device around (if I switch to Android, I’d still use my iPhone as an iPod - I’m in too deep with iTunes).  I have a feeling the deciding factor will be what phone - the Captivate or the iPhone 4 - becomes available to me first.  As much as I loved my iPhone 3G, I just don’t think I can handle our relationship much longer.