In early December I will use my Verizon upgrade to get an iPhone 4S. I’ve been using the original Motorola Droid for the past two years or so. When I upgraded to the Droid, I was very excited and that excitement lasted a long time. Before the Droid I was using a BlackBerry Curve, but I was never satisfied with it. With Android on the rise and the iPhone dominating the world of smartphones, I just felt like I was on the sidelines.

I wanted a mobile computer in my pocket. The natural choice would have been the iPhone because I am a happy user of a MacBook. However, I wasn’t about to change my wireless carrier (I like Verizon) so I was left with the new Moto Droid. I was excited, too, because I wanted an Android phone. I am a heavy Google user (Gmail, Calendar, Docs, etc.) and I wanted the tightly integrated Google OS.

As time has passed I’ve realized a couple things:

* The security of iPhone is better than Android
* Android fragmentation is real and it’s horrible
* Android devices often have terrible battery life
* Android’s overall polish is not as good
* Android is not very open
* The Android Market is the wild west

If I had to pick on one thing about Android that is making me switch to iPhone, it’s the issue of out of date software. I have always been an “update freak”. Unless there is some glaring reason not to update to the latest and greatest – I’m on it. I always keep my operating systems and software packages up to date. So it started driving me crazy that Android’s AOSP was iterating, yet Motorola was endlessly lagging behind in getting the updates to my phone.

I started to remedy the situation by rooting my phone and installing custom ROMs. I started with a ROM called Sapphire, and moved on to Peter Alfonso’s ROMs because he basically just takes the AOSP code from Google, mods it for the Droid, and releases it to the world. So because of Alfonso I’ve had Gingerbread (Android 2.3) for quite a while. The problem is that it’s buggy and makes my phone slow and crashy. This slow and crashy ROM, while current, is a big reason why I’m moving on.

Another problem is watching friends and family members getting junky Android devices. I’ve watched people get a cheap Android phone, usually from Samsung or LG, and witness their quick realization that it’s a piece of junk. These cheap Android phones never get OS updates, and the hardware is crap so the phone never works and they end up very unhappy. I directly blame Google for this because they are not executing enough control over how their product (Android) is used and perceived in the hands of users. They’re like Microsoft. They make a software product and rely on a bunch of manufacturers to figure out how to install it on their hardware and ship it out to users. The hardware manufacturers do a terrible, lazy, crappy job and many phones are junk as a result.

I completely understand and sympathize with people who warn about the dangers of Apple’s ecosystem. The “walled garden”, the “Nazi” App Store, the tight control over the devices and the sometimes outlandish rules. Apple rules the iPhone and iOS with an iron fist and there are pros and cons to how they do things. But the pros outweigh the cons for me. I want a polished, beautifully engineered smartphone. I want the security from the App Store, and I want access to OS updates directly from the maker. I can get all of that with the iPhone.

I realize that the App Store ecosystem is not perfect when it comes to security. But I read a lot more about security breaches in the Android Market. I realize that iPhones aren’t perfect. I’ve read through the Apple Discussion website. Nothing is perfect, but I think that the iPhone 4S is the best smartphone for my needs right now.

Android and Motorola – it’s been real.