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As already stated, I’ve ditched the iPhone for a Droid Incredible and now that I’ve had it for a week though I’d try to summarise my thoughts. Let’s get the big question out of the way: how does it compare to the One True Phone?

My first impression was that the Incredible feels every bit as nice to hold as the iPhone, though it’s probably a bit lighter and thinner. Turn them both on though and you’ll be blown away by the sharpness and clarity of the Incredible. It’s like one is 1080p and the other is watching a black and white TV set that’s using rabbit ears to watch a channel 100 miles away.

A lot of people seem to hate the Sense UI, preferring the native Android UI (which is a lot more like the iPhone) but I find it really engaging. Things swirl onto screen, widgets come alive when something alerts them, it’s an experience rather than just scrolling through pages of rows of look-alike buttons. Maybe it will become annoying over time, maybe not.

I hadn’t realised what a big difference multitasking makes and, if it works the same way, iPhone 4.0 users are in for a treat. Friday driving home I was using Google’s turn by turn nav program while listening to Pandora over my MINI’s stereo. At one point I got a new gmail alert, clicked on it and while reading the email (with eyes firmly on the road, of course officer!) Pandora was automatically muted so that the nav app could tell me I needed to take a right turn in half a mile. I deleted the email, clicked on the satnav task button and my map was back on the screen. More about this on my MINI blog later; the google nav app is a big winner.

People are complaining about the keyboard on the Incredible. I’m finding the keyboard easier to use than on the iPhone but I’m not as fast on it, I seem to not be able to use more than one thumb. I love the haptic feedback, feels very good on the tips. And it’s easier to type cuss words than on the iPhone 🙂

Some things I definitely miss: it’s impossible to turn the Incredible on one-handed. I’m used to using the thumb on the centre button to wake up the phone, you can’t do that on the Incredible and the placement of the switch at the top left makes it impossible for me so far to do it one handed. The Android Marketplace simply does not compare to the App Store and a few of the apps I used a lot on the iPhone are cut down versions on Android or just not available. This is a disappointment but also (as a developer) an opportunity. I don’t see the Incredible becoming my Electronic Flight Bag like I had with the iPhone, but perhaps there will be an iPad in my future for that.

I am having some battery life issues which I cannot decide if it’s just the phone (lots of apps means lots of drain) or a faulty battery. A co-worker who bought his the same time as me is getting twice the life that I am getting, though I suspect his usage is much less. But right now I’m finding I have to charge it every day and this is without making any calls, just data. I’m trying different schemes to turn off syncing, wifi etc and that is helping but ultimately I think I will buy an extended life battery so it will last longer. I’m used to having to charge my iPhone every two days so this isn’t that much of an issue, especially given that the Incredible is doing a lot more, but is far from great.

The big win, however, is with the device’s core purpose: telephony. No matter where I was with the iPhone, I could barely hear any call made on it. I think this is partly the device and partly AT&T’s dismal call quality in 90% of the land (yes, Luke Wilson I am calling you a liar). Calls on the Incredible have so far been crystal clear and so loud that I have to turn the volume down rather than up.

Verizon has 3G coverage where I live, AT&T only has Edge so my smart device can be smart almost everywhere I go. It’s embarrassing to whip out the iPhone to do a search for someone and then make them wait 5 minutes to download and render the result. Verizon 3G is fast, I am surprised by just how fast it is. Although I think this is also the phone, the CPU runs at twice the speed of my iPhone 3G and web page rendering is so much faster than on the iPhone 3G.

So am I happy? You betcha. I’ve managed to free myself from Steve Jobs’ tyranny and not had to compromise my experience to do so. I did not expect that, I really thought that I’d suffer through owning a different phone but so far I’m lovin’ it. I know most people who already have an iPhone can’t look at anything else but if you’re not completely wed to the Apple device I definitely recommend taking a look at the Incredible.

So with the third incarnation of the iPhone I think we are about to see the start of premium applications that do much more than wrap an internet service in a cool u/i, or play a dozen different fart sounds. Most importantly they aren’t going to cost $1.99, no sirreee.

The most touted premium app is most definitely turn by turn navigation and, in particular, Tom Tom for the iPhone. But already there have been a couple of navigation apps that have beaten Tom Tom to the punch. The interesting thing about these apps is the price: Gokivo may only be $1 to buy but if you want turn-by-turn that’s going to cost you $9.99 a month. Yes, a month, or $120 a year! I’ve been a big fan of the Navigon GPS units and they too have an app for the iPhone, only in Europe right now. Navigon’s Mobile Navigator costs the equivalent of $104 to buy.

Are we ready to spend this much on an iPhone app, no matter how good or useful? The argument I read is that the GPS companies have to make up for the fact they aren’t getting and hardware revenue. But I’d make the argument that I’ve already paid for hardware, why should I be paying “again”? And is $10 a month worthwhile for an app that I generally might only find truly useful 2-3x a year – most of the time I know how to get home.

I suspect most iPhone owners will be horrified when they realise how much these things are going to cost but, like any Apple product, they’ll pay up in the end. Me? I’m not so sure.

I’m struggling to come up with a good plan for my music listening during the day at work. Right now:
I listen to a lot of music on the PC using iTunes which contains all the free CDs I get from Sony; MP3s I have bought from Amazon; free music from Starbucks (tied to my iTunes account). Listening off the PC is quite convenient and isn’t using up charge off any portable device.

All of my music, however, is on my iPod, significantly more than is on the PC and contains all of the above, every CD I own, and a lot of music that I have purchased from iTunes. Over the last few months I’ve found I listen almost exclusively to the PC rather than the iPod and when I think of something I want to hear on the iPod I find that it’s often uncharged.

And now I have the iPhone which currently has no music on it. It seems silly to me to have two music playing devices taking up space and weight in my bag but 26GB of music into an 8GB iPhone obviously does not go. And yet clearly I’m only listening to the same few MBs of music so it should be possible to come up with a good set for the iPhone and leave the iPod at home.

Making this more difficult is that the iPod syncs with the Mac Mini at home, and has all the music on it. The iPhone syncs with my Macbook Pro in the apartment which has no music on it at all. So to get things working is going to require a lot of copying, syncing, authorising which just seems like a lot of work.

Nothing is ever simple.

Regular readers of these ramblings will remember all the to and fro-ing over the last few months, will I get an iPhone, no I won’t, yes I will, Apple sucks, I want to give them a kidney.

Most of the reason for not getting one so far has been the effort required, getting in line early in the morning – not much worth doing that for. But today I read on one of the Apple sites that AT&T was now offering the iPhone for sale for business orders. I checked out the website and it invited me to enter my business email address to see if I was entitled to any discounts. I did – I was!

Turns out my employer has an employee discount scheme with AT&T and that was enough to get me in! From there I could add the iPhone to my shopping basket and, better still, the plans were discounted by about 15% so I ended up with the second cheapest plan for the same rate as the cheapest one.

The order went through and I was told 7-10 days. So imagine my surprise when tonight I got an email saying it had shipped already! Will arrive Monday or Tuesday, I guess.

Since I am a little late getting to the party I shall try to resist all the iPhone posts that have come before me.

The recent $500 models of the iPhone and iPod Touch have left me feeling a little colder towards the iPhone. My current contract expires in a week so the timing is perfect for a new phone. But, as I’ve said before, it’s crazy to buy an iPhone right now with the 3G models most assuredly coming out in a few months: Apple’s buyer remorse is guaranteed with that plan.

The new models made me realise that any new 3G iPhone is going to be in the same ballpark as these models, almost $500. As mega-fantastic as the iPhone is, my parents didn’t raise me to spend that kind of dough on a phone that requires a two-year contract. It’s insane, insane I tell you. So… I think I am going to get a Blackberry or other internet-friendly phone for free (thanks Wirefly!) and then perhaps in the summer spend some of the annual bonus on the Touch.

Yeah, it’s a little sucky but there are plenty of things in life I’d really really like but just can’t justify buying. Got to make the tough choices, I suppose.

Were it not for the fact that my current Verizon contract doesn’t end until Feb ’08, it’s a fair bet to say that I would have an iPhone now. So until recently I’ve been pretty sure that come mid-Feb I’d be in the Apple store like a salivating dog but now I’m not so sure. The biggest problem is timing: the iPhone 2.0 is unlikely, I would guess, until the spring/summer of next year. So I’d be in the familiar Apple trap of buying something I’d come to regret in a few months – no GPS and no 3G makes Paul an unhappy consumer.

Now there’s no guarantee that I’d be able to even afford the new iPhone, of course, and to be fair Brawley isn’t exactly awash in 3G coverage, which then flip flops me back to the idea that perhaps iPhone 1.0 is adequate after all? Or maybe the idea is to get an iTouch and a new phone with the Google Maps with My Location feature on it, and call it good?

I hate Apple Buyer’s Remorse.

I decided yesterday that I was going to buy an iPhone on the way home. This was in part due to a feeling that I needed some major retail therapy, and by watching a lady use various aspects of her iPhone while waiting at the DMV yesterday. That thing is cool!

Fortunately for my bank balance a co-worker (and iPhone owner himself) talked me out of it. Mostly he reason was that I would be a hypocrite to buy one after all the things I said to him when he bought his, and he said to wait until a 3G version comes out. So, for now, Apple owns a little less of me.

In other news, I have now upgraded all my blog sites to 2.3. All went smoothly except for this site. Importing the tags from Ultimate Tag Warrior doesn’t seem to have worked very well and so for now the tags on here are hit and miss. I’ll look at that if and when I can be bothered. Oh, might also switch themes soon.