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Ok, I admit: this falls into the “luxury problem” category. But it is a problem nonetheless: in about a week I need to take a decision on renewing my current T-Mobile mobile phone subscription. This means I can choose a new phone as well. I am still torn between getting an iPhone 4 or another Android phone.

Which is it going to be? Well, I am leaning towards Android at the moment.

If you have been following my blog, you know I have been really interested in getting an Apple iPhone 4 ever since it got launched in June 2010. However, by the time it became available, there where loads of caveats surrounding this wonderful device. In fact: I wanted the white iPhone 4. And I kind of hoped for it to be available around November/December (as I can renew my subscription 4 months before it ends). But we all know that the albino iPhone still isn’t out there. Rumor has it that the new release date is March 2011, but who knows?

So in October 2010 I decided I wanted an Internet enable phone and set out to buy an Android phone. To be exact: a Samsung Galaxy S. I was able to get one  pretty cheap (Euro 350 for a brand new 16gb model) and I have been using it ever since and haven’t regretted it for a moment.

But I still am very much drawn to the iPhone 4. In terms of build quality, look and feel and design it still is top of the bill – to me. I have had multiple chances to play with it extensively (not just 5 minutes) and it feels just great to hold one in your hands. The retina display is superb (although my Super Amoled is not bad either) and iOS 4 is very nice and smooth.

Apple rocks when it comes down to their user experience (emphasis on “their”).

But there are things about the iPhone 4 I don’t like as well.

First of all – as with all Apple products – you pay a premium price for all the design:  a 16gb iPhone is still 30-35% more expensive than comparable non iPhones.

Second: I hate iTunes. I am both using Apple (MacBook Pro) and PC (Dell XPS 420 desktop) and on a PC iTunes just sucks balls. It is a huge memory hog and slow as s***.

Also the vendor lock in with Apple is annoying. Sure you can jailbreak it, but that is mostly useful for obtaining illegal Apps.

Another annoying thing: you can not expand the memory of an iPhone. Android does not have that problem: my Galaxy now has 32gb of storage: 16gb internal and 16gb on MicroSD. Most Android phones support MicroSD.

When I connect my Samsung to my PC (or Mac for  that matter) I can just mount the internal and external storage as USB storage. That way I can store anything on there I want. MP3’s can go on there without any problems. Divx video’s, you name it.

As far as web experience goes: I can watch anything online that uses flash without a problem – if I want: I can turn flash on or off: Apple just flat-out denies me that choice.

Android has given me a very good experience so far. I rooted my Galaxy S (the equivalent to jailbreak) and that opened up a new world to me.

One of the biggest pro’s of the Android platform to me is the amount of customization you can do as a user.

For instance: I am currently running a custom ROM that is geared towards performance. I.e. it has a completely overhauled kernel that benchmarks my Galaxy at twice the speed of a out-of-the-box Galaxy. To my knowledge you can’t do that with iOS. Or at least I haven’t seen anything like a custom ROM out there.

Where Apple tries to give everyone exactly the same experience on exactly the same hardware, Android pretty much leaves that up to the manufacturers and end-users. Choice = good.

Widgets, notifications, wallpapers and the kitchen sink

Something I have grown quite attached too, are the different “homescreens”  Android offers. You can fully customize these screens with widgets. These widgets are essentially apps that show their data without you having to start it up full screen – as you always need to do with iOS.

On iPhone your homescreen is basically just the application overview. If I want to see what is going on with your Twitter stream you need to start the app. Not very interactive.

The big downside to having all those widgets on Android is, off course: battery life. But the good thing is: you are in control on Android. You can set updates the way you want them and can choose how many widgets/homescreens you want to use.

This brings me to another hit on iOS: the notifications. On Android notifications are very nicely done and you can decide yourself how obtrusive they are. The current notification system on iOS 4 doesn’t just notify; it completely stops all other interaction and whatever train of thought you had; it’s rather in your face.

On Android you choose how you like to be notified. The top bar is perfect for that: you can pull it down and see what application needs you attention.

Apart from that you can fully customize the look and feel of Android. One manufacturer has his down to a ‘T’: HTC. With their Sense interface you can switch easily between a business look and feel  or a social look and feel or a pre-set “travel” theme. Not to mention you can get different themes/color schemes that go with that.

And then there are the interactive, “live”, wallpapers.

My wallpaper for instance can show the (live) weather conditions – all animated- based on my GPS location. On the iPhone you can only get that – sort off – if you jailbroken it. And they are (mostly) not really interactive at all: it just shows a looping video (big deal?).

Out of the box my Android powered Galaxy allows you to kill all apps with one push of a button: it comes with a build-in taskmanager. Out of the box on your iPhone you need to close all apps by hand: the build-in taskmanager is laughable! You don’t even see what services are running the background! Sure: Apple will say they leave that up to developers (or again: jailbreak your iPhone and get something like Multifl0w)

Also I feel that development for Android is going way faster than with iOS. Android Honeycomb looks like a really mature interface that is also very much geared towards Tablets. Most new Android phones now already support Near Field Communication (NFC) which gives your phone many new exiting possibilities.

Also: as off Android 2.2(.1) “Froyo” most Android phones support Over The Air (OTA) updates of the OS. With Apple you need to hook up with iTunes for that!

Freedom baby, yeah!

All in all I don’t think I am the average iPhone user Apple has in mind: I think I like my individuality too much and as such I like to be able to be more in control of my own user experience and not the one Apple forces onto me (and million others).

I always want to experience different things when it comes to IT. I use Windows 7, Apple OS X and have a Ubuntu Linux webserver and workstation.

There good things about Windows 7 and bad things. Same goes for OS X and Ubuntu. But in order to find out, you need to use all of them.

So the bottom-line is: maybe I need to get an iPhone 4 and just use it for a year to see if all the above things I don’t like, really matter to me in practice?

Hmmm. That is food for thought for me for the next week. Time to make up my mind.

Android event: Honeycomb