Android versus iPhone versus Windows Phone 7

People often ask me about which mobile phone they should get. Unfortunately my answer isn’t one they usually prefer to hear, especially if they’ve already bought a mobile phone.

The problem is each choice comes with a compromise. I find Google developed products tend to not quite finished off and I feel they’re only 80% there. One Android mobile phone we have, in my opinion has a shocking email client. You’d think given email is Google’s second biggest service they’d at least build a good email client. Little things like no ability to check how much data is being used also makes my life difficult. There are many little things that could be better. Apple on the other hand has a more polished product but the gotcha with them is they tend to design in restrictions for what appears to be their own benefit. For example they’ve disabled the ability to upload a file (even a photo) using the Safari browser, which I use so frequently I often have to use a computer where the mobile phone should have in my opinion been able to do what I want. Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 is a very polished operating system. The problem is the first generation and in my opinion was released and needed more work done. Copy and Paste was added later and it really should have been included from day one. The browser doesn’t display the pages I’m interested in correctly. As a developer I was surprised the browser doesn’t have location capability built into the browser and to me there were too many things the developer couldn’t access.

For me I really think all the mobile operating systems aren’t good enough and you have to decide what you’re happy to compromise on. Sometimes the biggest problem is even though we buy the mobile phones we are no longer the customer. Often the mobile phones are designed for the benefit of the business (such as Apple with their App Store) or for the benefit of the telcos. Microsoft released about nine mobile phones at launch but if you wanted a particular model you could only get it through a particular telco. That reduced the choice significantly usually from nine to three.

To be fair all of the mobiles are very good and it is amazing how far they’ve come in a matter of years. They’ll all tend to do a lot of what you want to do as a user, but it will only be when you start to push your requirements will you find the limitations and have to work within those limitations.

I look forward to the day when as the purchaser of the mobile phone I am again treated as the customer. When that happens we’ll get some great features built into the mobiles phones. For example App Stores will be largely a thing of the past once the browser technology allows the user to do everything they want independent of the mobile phone they choose to purchase. Will it happen? Not sure because at the moment the consumer isn’t the customer, but one day I hope they will be and then things will change.

So for those who want to know which mobile phone I suggest to customers, the answer is usually the one they want to buy. Most people usually have a preference already and that preference is hard to change. For me it is the mobile with the best browser. Others will have their preferences.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au