Within the last few months, several family members have wanted to make the jump to a modern smartphone, each for different reasons, different carriers and different levels of experience. One had a dumbphone, one a Palm Pre, another a BlackBerry. With two of them, I felt the iPhone was the best choice; the third, the iPhone came third to the Galaxy Nexus and Droid 3.
You might wonder how I could give such a recommendation when I have an Android phone that I love and have sworn to never go back to iOS. I don't like to call myself an Android fanboy, but I admit it: when I see a stranger fiddling around with his iPhone, I smile patronizingly as he plays with his Fisher Price phone.
The truth is, I know the iPhone is still a great smartphone. In fact, if you're not sure what you want in a smartphone, then the iPhone is my top recommendation. Sure, Android is great, but it still has aways to go before it becomes a phone for the common man or woman. It's great for power users and thrifty users, but for everyone else, there's the iPhone. I'll tell you why the iPhone works for most people: it has the qualities they want (aesthetics, ease of use, stability, apps, and battery life) and most people don't care about the features it's missing (4G, customizability, no closed ecosystem, a file system, size)
Windows Phone 7 phones are an alternative that share most of these qualities, but I feel like it's an iPhone for people who don't want an actual iPhone.
Qualities You Want:
Aesthetics
The iPhone 4 and 4S are beautiful devices. Even though many gadget fans raged over the lack of a new design for the 4S, I can understand why Apple didn't want to make any changes: you don't mess with a good thing. Aside from the Motorola Droid RAZR and the Sony Ericsson Xperia series (which I have yet to see in real life), I have trouble thinking of any truly beautiful Android phones.
Ease of Use
Explaining this quality is a no-brainer. Apple has a history of making simple, easy-to-use products. Their user interfaces are the best in the industry. This is partially due to their limited functionality, which we'll talk about later. But iPhones are the simplest phones to pick up and begin using. Their icons are well-designed, their stock apps look like the functionality they emulate (Notes looks like a notepad, Voice Recorder looks like a microphone, etc.). All apps are plainly displayed on the home screen. Siri has taken user-friendliness to a new level with fairly good natural language processing.
Stability
iOS crashes less than Android. Aside from various bugs with setting alarms in iOS, I feel like there are no known issues with the software. There have been antenna issues, battery life issues, and exploding issues, but these are all relatively rare or have easy workarounds (stop holding it wrong).
Apps
I still miss TowerMadness and consider it a good reason to own an iPhone. The number of apps on Android is increasing and, inevitably, the number of Android apps will surpass or at least match the number of iOS apps. But Android can't match the quality of many iPhone apps that aren't yet available for Android, especially games. Where Android Market shines is utility apps (tethering, rooting, settings, etc.).
Battery Life
The battery lives of most Android phones suck. Sure, most of them have removable batteries, so you can swap when your battery is low (unlike iPhones), but this is a necessary feature for Android phones. The lack of a removable battery is more of a minor annoyance for iPhone users.
Support
Because Apple controls the hardware and software of the phone, you can go to Apple for good technical support. Whereas Android phones have Google software and hardware from some other company (HTC, Samsung, etc.) and you are more likely to have to go to your carrier for support. Carriers, who have no hand in the making of your phone, don't know how to diagnose issues as well Apple can for their phones.
Especially if you pay for services such as Applecare and One to One, you can get excellent service for your phone and one-on-one lessons on how to use the phone. They're expensive, but if you need help, there's no comparison for any other phones out there.
Qualities You Don't Care About:
Size
I love my EVO 3D's glorious 4.3" screen. Video looks so much better and webpages are so much easier to read, yet the phone still fits nicely in my pocket.
But many people think their iPhones are the perfect size. Dustin Curtis pointed out that the iPhone's 3.5" screen is perfect for one-handed use, since he can press anywhere on an iPhone screen but he can't reach to the other side of a Galaxy S II screen. This may well be true for people with tiny little hands. But even users with larger hands may just prefer a smaller phone that fits in tight pockets.
4G Data
My favorite line from the new Samsung Galaxy S II commercials is when the girl with a Galaxy S II asks a group of people waiting to see if the new iPhone has 4G, "Why don't you just get a 4G phone?" Android has so many 4G phones, it's ridiculous. I don't think they even release 3G-only Android phones anymore. 4G data makes browsing the web, downloading photos and downloading videos so much faster, who wouldn't want it?
This is where I have to own up and admit that the iPhone kinda is a 4G phone. At least on AT&T.
You see, "4G" is a very loose term and means different things on different carriers. On Verizon, 4G means blazing fast ~20 Mbps data (depending on some factors). On T-Mobile, 4G means blazing fast 21 Mbps data. On Sprint, however, 4G means 3-4 Mbps data (for me at least). While that's noticeably faster than Sprint's 3G network, that's pretty slow. In fact, Sprint's 4G can be slower than AT&T's HSPA+ network, which the iPhone supports and some people maxed out at 13 Mbps during one Gizmodo study. Using their iPhones. Although the average speed for an iPhone 4S was 2.3 Mbps for that study, it's hard not to call the iPhone a 4G phone when it's getting speeds that are similar to Sprint's "real 4G" network.
So if iPhone users really want decently fast data, they can get it on AT&T. If they want blazing fast 4G speeds or just want a different carrier, they have to just put up with what they got and console themselves with the fact that LTE and WiMAX are huge battery killers.
Also Interesting: The iPhone 4S, HSPA+, and When HSPA+ is Real 4G
Customizability
Android has many ways to customize the user interface, from using the manufacturer's skins (TouchWiz, Sense, etc.) to using 3rd party apps like LauncherPro. You don't even need to hack your phones to do this. Not only can you change the way the phone looks, you can change how it works by using 3rd party apps that have the same functionality as stock apps. For example, Android has plenty of free music players and web browsers. The web browsers and music players available in the App Store are pretty weak and usually still cost money.
However, as I said earlier, Apple does good work designing their UI and apps. The iOS user interface is simple and easy, if lackluster, and the stock apps (Safari for browsing, iPod for playing music, etc.) are decent. Many people might even prefer Apple's stock apps to Android's best stock or 3rd party apps.
No Apple-Only Ecosystem
Owning an iPhone means having an iPhone-only compatible charger and using iTunes to manage your phone. Want to output video to a TV? You'll need a special iPhone cable or the Apple TV device. Whereas Blackberries, Android phones, and WP7 phones all charge with the same micro USB charger and I haven't opened the incorrigible iTunes program in weeks. Most Android phones have HDMI out.
However, since a lot of people still have iPhones this incompatibility with other devices is not a problem for everyone yet. If you need to charge your phone, your friend is just as likely to have an iPhone charger as he is to have a Android/BlackBerry/WP7 charger. He might have the video cables, too. And now that the iPhone can be activated without iTunes, you can forgo installing iTunes on your computer if you want.
The File System
Say a band is giving away a free song at their website. Using my Android phone, I can download that song, add it to my music collection, play it with whatever music player I want, and then add it to my music collection on my computer later. If you want to download a song with an iPhone and keep it, you need to use iTunes, where the song may or may not exist, and if it does, it's probably not free.
Similarly, say I want to download any file from the Internet and save it for later. Be it a Word document, PowerPoint slideshow, .AVI movie, text file, or even a Windows-only executable, I can download it using my Android phone. Even if I can't use the file on my phone, I can save it and transfer it to my computer later. iPhones can only do this with pictures.
There are lots of workarounds for iPhones, like emailing files to yourself, but I suspect most people just don't care about this functionality.
Cost
Charging cables and A/V cables that work only with the iPhone cost money. Buying ringtones through iTunes costs money (instead of just using your mp3s as ringtones). And, unless you get the 2-year-old iPhone 3GS, an iPhone will cost you at least $100 on contract, whereas you can get great Android phones like the HTC Thunderbolt for less than a dollar on contract if you know where to buy (Amazon). Going iPhone means paying more money, plain and simple. In my opinion, Android even has a better selection of free apps.
The expense of owning an iPhone seems not to bother people. The iPhone is still the most popular brand of smartphones and UBS predicted 11.7 million iPhones were sold in the US this quarter. It sorta makes sense when you look at the cost of owning any smartphone. A data plan will run you about $20 -$30 on the major four carriers and the contract runs for 24 months. That means you're paying at least $480 more when you upgrade to any smartphone. Spending a few bucks more for one may consider as the best smartphone available doesn't seem unwise.
Other Functionality/Qualities
In addition to the features listed, only Android phones have glasses-free 3D, or NFC. No iPhones have physical keyboards, removable storage or removable batteries. The iPhone's Retina Display screen can't match the HTC Rezound's pixel density or the Samsung Galaxy S II's rich, colorful SAMOLED+ screen. My EVO 3D's front camera at only 1.3 megapixels still blows away the iPhone 4S VGA front camera. There are innumerable Android phone features and tech specs that are worse or non-existent in the latest iPhone.
They don't matter in the long run because Apple will catch up. In the last couple of years, iPhones got copy/paste, wireless sync, a decent notification system, multitasking, and many more features that Android had first. It's only a matter of time before they get other Android features as well, either through operating system updates, or new hardware.
In Summation
I still recommend the iPhone for many people--perhaps most people--because while I'm extolling the virtues of 4G data and DLNA to others, their eyes gloss over and I realize that iPhones are sufficient. People coming from dumbphones and old BlackBerrys don't care about tech specs, open source, or cool power-user features.
If you don't realize why Android phones are better than iPhones, they probably aren't (for you).
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