Decision made!

After watching the Apple Keynote this week I have to confess that it all had my mouth watering! After a year away from the iPhone and finding out that the roses in the garden of Android smells a little bit farty I decided the time has come to return to the world of Apple!

Despite the problems O2 had with their website I've preordered the 64Gb iPhone 6 to collect next Friday and cannot wait!

Now that the deed is done I've been thinking about what it is about the Note 3 and the Android experience it has provided!

Firstly the wireless chip in the Note 3 is awful, I regularly lose wireless connection in both our kitchen and bathroom even though our router is in the next room! Other handsets have no problem at all so it can't be the signal strength from the router.

I get the impression that Samsung are spending too much time trying to cram as many flashy features and wizardry into their phone and OS and in doing that they've neglected the basics! Apps shouldn't regularly crash, the signal strength should allow calls to be made in more places than not - I could go on!

The concept of the s-pen is great however to me its not something I like using. The apps which use it aren't the greatest so I spend more time typing or dictating rather than write it out then watch while it tries to translate my scrawled handwriting because it's quicker!

I think I've mentioned it in another blog but I think taking stock Android, then adding Touch whiz then adding apps, widgets, themes, launchers, icon packs is all very lovely but it really make it feel like a very fragmented experience and takes away the togetherness and seamless experience I imagine you get from stock Android on a Nexus phone for example! Yes Android rolls out features first and yes Apple adopt them later but for me that helps Apple get them right!

So no doubt there are a loaf more things and reasons but I've made my decision and am very pleased I have! Next Friday can't come soon enough!

Back to what I know

Over the last year when it's come to technology and general home gadgets I decided to leave a couple of providers who looking back I had no issues with other than I think I was getting bored with and wanted to see what it was like 'on the other side' away from them. When I make a decision like this then I spend quite some time reading, watching and generally researching everything that the other provider can give me. The first instance was with our home broadband, phone and TV provider, where I live the internet was always something in the 3mb download speed range and when along came BT waving their fancy Infinity in my direction I had to move over. BT were the first provider to offer fibre internet and so I moved everything over to them. Now hindsight is a wonderful thing and I think in real life I should have waited a month or so until Sky hooked up their equipment. I'm now in the position where I still have BT for my phone and internet but I have gone back to Sky for my TV - there's only so many signal issues, box freezes I could put up with, not to mention the slow speed of the box and the distinct lack of decent channels.

I think I can put my move from iOS over to Android in with this kind of decision too. I'd definitely got bored with iOS and from the research I had done I was well and truly sold that Android was the future and was the mobile OS for me. It is clear for all to see that a lot of the 'new features' Apple add to the iPhone etc have already been around on Android for one, maybe two years before. It was this and the promise of endless customisation which I think make me move over. Now I have tried life on both sides I think my argument may be that yes Android do implement idea before Apple however that doesn't mean to say they are as seamless and polished as they should be. I have yet to find a keyboard for Android I really like - I'm currently using the Android L one but I am fed up of accidentally adding a comma every time I press space. Given that I'm using a massive screened Note 3 you'd expect that even my sausage fingers could glide beautifully round the keyboard and not accidentally hit the same key every time. The customisation available with Android is great and any element of the experience you want to change you pretty much can. After getting used to the phone through Touchwhiz I tried every Launcher and as I've said before I settled with Nova and GEL but what I've noticed is that although there are umpteen themes out there I could use I seem to have set my home screen up just like I would have on an iPhone - no widgets, fancy clocks or scrolling bars - just apps and folders. Now I have never made the decision to do this and I hadn't realised until about 10 mins ago that I'd done it. I've tried the widgets etc but they annoy me and get in the way. 

I think what I'm trying to say is really that my holiday in Androidland has been a good one, and I have learned a great deal about other phones, OS and how they work - however I have to admit that no matter what Android changes, adds or removes I'll always be an iPhone kind of guy. iPhone 6 here I come!