So I’ve splashed out the 600euro and got me a SIM free Samsung Galaxy S4 Android phone.

Why?

Well I find myself doing more and more JAVA these days (as if I wasn’t busy enough keeping up to speed on .NET and iOS too) and I’ll admit it’s starting to win a place in my heart, not the language as such as it’s IMO inferior to C#, but the framework has lots little gems, there are some pretty nice external frameworks e.g. Drools, JBPM etc, and the application servers are interesting (I'm focusing mainly on JBoss AS7 these days); what I’m trying to say is that I’m starting to feel that Android may be a home away from home.

Flirtations

Well I’ve previously two timed my iPhone with a Windows Phone 7, this lasted for about 10 months before I moved back to iPhone, I guess one of the biggest reasons for doing this was I’d invested in a few iOS apps like the very expensive TomTom Worldwide and I kept finding a need for it (I travel with work and don’t always have roaming data). Also the lack of apps was disappointing, even though I contributed to the ecosystem with a WP7 app for Grass Management. I know the app situation is improving especially with Microsoft buying them up but I see too many complaints on social feeds to make me think they are a little shaky (is it the fault of the developers? … maybe!). When I moved back from WP7 to iPhone I complained for a few days over little nuisances, but I stayed there. Until now….

Android a week on

I’ll admit I was a little apprehensive at first thinking I’d like only the big screen and the  ability to write and deploy some droid apps on a real device (i don’t include the Samsung Galaxy Y that’s lying about the office as a real device :-) )

The good

But I’ve been very surprised, the Android apps appear to be better, the experience appears to be better, notifications are better. Why do i think this is? well maybe because the API allows the developers to do more, iOS does really lock things down which has it merits (we’ve all heard about the apps that silently call premium numbers).

• The screen is large and beautiful
• Camera is fantastic
• Have all the apps I had on iPhone (not yet paid for TomTom again but will)

The bad

• I don’t have the ability to have widgets on the lock screen when I have a PIN active.
• The screen is too large! Contradiction I know, but I’ve hands like shovels and I need two of them for this device, apple has a great argument but it won’t win out.

Am I going back

Well never say never, but apple needs to up it’s game with a bigger screen, I always thought it was fine until I look back on my iPhone now and think it’s tiny