There’s been a lot of hubbub and fanboyism recently over the release of the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone OS 3.0 software. I know loads of people who own iPhones, including a very good techie friend of mine and my brother (okay okay he only has an iPod touch, but big deal). I’ve used iPhones and their software. And to be quite frank, I’m not that impressed! Some people say I’m a hater, and I readily dispute that. I love the hardware design in Apple products. I wish every phone and laptop could look like an Apple. I also love how the software integrates perfectly with the hardware, and how applications run so smooth. But I also realize that when you make both the hardware and software things tend to work like that.
I am a proud owner of a Windows Phone. For a Christmas/birthday present my wife bought me an HTC Touch Pro (or AT&T Fuze, however you look at it). Let me tell you why I love it. This way, I know that everybody who reads this article and buys an iPhone did it because they knew the differences and made a decision and didn’t just do it because it “looked cool” or saw a stupid commercial (I enjoy watching them however).
Reason #1: “Freeeeeeedoooooom!”
Yes, I’m quoting William Wallace. Apple has put the King Edward iron fist around their baby the iPhone, and everyone knows about it. You don’t like something about the OS? Too bad. Maybe in 6 months a firmware upgrade will fix it. Or maybe iPhone OS 4.0 will. My HTC came with an AT&T modded version of Windows Mobile 6.1 with a skin on top called TouchFLO 3D that was supposed to make it more finger-friendly. It also came with a host of apps from AT&T (I call it crapware or bloatware), and like a new Dell, it was dreadfully slow. Did I wait for an AT&T upgrade? Did I take the phone back? No way! I searched the web, found my new friends on Fuze Mobility and XDA Developers, and downloaded and flashed a new operating system, or ROM, right to my phone. Problem solved! The entire device was so responsive after that, and I didn’t have anything on it that I wasn’t going to use. Since then I have upgraded my phone to Windows Mobile 6.5,
An HTC Touch Diamond II running Windows Mobile 6.5
which in my opinion rocks (I’ll write a review on it eventually). Can an iPhone do that? There are stories of jailbreaking iPhones, unlocking them, etc., but can you modify the OS freely and make the phone work for you by eliminating system components or default apps? Not the way a Windows phone can. (P.S. There are also stories of Apple breaking jailbreakers… not cool Apple, not cool) Just as a last example, today I stopped liking the default touch keyboard the phone has. I kept typing the wrong letter! (I’m sure anyone with an iPhone has done this before) So what did I do? I browsed the web and found a new keyboard program, fingerkeyboard. It installed in seconds and now I don’t even use the hardware keyboard unless I’m typing a long email.
Reason #2: Variety Is the Spice of Life
Let’s say you go to an AT&T or Apple store. What are your choices for an iPhone? Well, it’s a candy-bar-type style, there’s white, black, 3G, 3GS, 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB. They all have a 320×480 capacitive touchscreen, they all have a camera, they all are almost exactly the same. Now check out the variety of Windows phones on the market. Some have capacitive screens, others resistive, there are candy bars, sliders, OLED displays, Wi-Fi, accelerometers, Bluetooth 2.1, hardware keyboards, microSD card slots, 720p video recording, 8MP cameras – take your pick! Personally, my phone has a 480×640 touchscreen (yes, it has as many horizontal pixels as Apple has vertical… on their newest device), Wi-Fi, hardware keyboard, a 3.2MP camera that also records video, FM radio, to name a few features. Apple is brilliant in that they offer only a few models of the iPhone, thus driving up their margins. But is that what people want? Heck, some Windows phones don’t even have a touchscreen (for those technically-challenged people). The bottom line is – if you want a smartphone, you can find one that fits exactly what you want and runs Windows Mobile. And oh yeah… if you want the iPhone, have fun with AT&T.
Reason #3: Anything You Can Do I Can Do… Just As Well If Not Better
Did you forget to shower this morning? There’s an app for that. Do you need to see exactly where your friends are from space? There’s an app for that too. Do you want to know what an iPhone can do that a Windows Phone can’t? There is NOT an app for that. Why? Because there is an active Windows Mobile developer community that has been active for years, cranking out great applications that sometimes preclude the more famous iPhone apps. GPS, widgets, Skype, games; if you can name it Windows Mobile has it. Also, Microsoft will soon launch their Windows Marketplace app store, making all of these applications available from one place (some people estimate the number of Windows Mobile apps at around 20,000). Windows Phones also rival Apple’s MobileMe service, which can sync text messages, contacts, and appointments (among other things) from your iPhone to a personal account on the internet. This is very handy if your phone is lost or stolen. You don’t have to lose everything! However, MobileMe charges about $100 a year for this service. Microsoft has recently launched an advanced beta of their MyPhone service, which accomplishes the exact same thing – at no price to the user. So although the iPhone has 50,000 apps and however many downloads from the App Store, Windows Phones are right behind and just as competitive.
Reason #4: Can your iPhone Do This?
I am completely bewildered that the iPhone lacks some completely reasonable and noteworthy features. It almost seems to me that they purposefully released an underperforming product and are slowly adding features that should have been there in the first place, charging customers for an entirely new product every time they upgrade the features. The first iPhone lacked 3G. What? The technology wasn’t even new! Almost all current Windows Phones at that time, even on AT&T, had 3G capability (see AT&T 8525). The iPhone 3G had a weak camera with no video recording. The new iPhone 3GS is just barely getting a 3MP camera with video recording. Check out this site and we’ll talk about the “new features.” Windows Mobile has had cut & paste and voice command as long as I can remember. Windows Phones have had 3MP cameras since mid-2008. Windows Mobile 6.5 has built-in stock widget and voice notes apps and has a dedicated YouTube app available for download. Internet tethering has been available for over a year on AT&T with Windows Phones. They all have MMS capability. The point is, Windows Phones have been doing this for YEARS. Apple is just now making it available and charging $299 plus a 2-year contract for something you should have had 2 years ago. In addition, here are some tricks the iPhone has yet to learn. Multi-tasking. Apple claims the battery will drain too fast. Hmm… sounds like a bad battery to me. On my Touch Pro I can surf the net, listen to music, take notes in Microsoft Word or OneNote, play Solitaire or another game, check my stocks, and text, ALL AT THE SAME TIME. My battery will still last all day. Windows Phones have a file system with a familiar Windows registry. All Windows phones work like a Windows computer. There is an internal flash hard drive that contains system files and a registry. You can have a My Documents folder packed with Word, PowerPoint, PDF, or Excel documents from work or school, and even edit Windows settings in the registry. If I want the backlight to turn off after so many milliseconds of inactivity, I can do that. I like that kind of access. That’s just a small list of things Windows Phones have been doing for ages, and the iPhone STILL can’t do at least two of them.
So that’s my two cents on the iPhone. I can go on for a lot longer, but I’d rather not. Let me say this again: I love the iPhone. I love how it looks, feels, and works. When it was first released it revolutionized smartphones with its touchscreen, accelerometer, smooth touch user interface (UI), and “real” browser. But I love my phone more, and everyone else has caught up to and even surpassed the iPhone. They all have large high-resolution touchscreens, a slick touch UI, a sharp camera with video capture, accelerometers, app stores, a fast full browsing experience, and you can get one however you like on whatever provider you like. So the ball is in your court Apple: you’ve revolutionized smartphones once and now it’s your turn to do it again. Don’t come back until you at least have HD video capture, multitasking, a better screen, and a file system to organize documents. And really, get rid of AT&T.
Mike Sherwood