The iPhone 5 Has Arrived

iphone

So, are you going to get one? My contract is up and I plan on switching to Verizon sometime in the next month. I’ve been on US Cellular for over 15 years, but have decided to jump over to Verizon because of better coverage when traveling and better 4G coverage. Jennifer has already switched and has an iPhone 4S and loves it.  I’m trying to decide between the Samsung Galaxy S, the Motorola Razr M, and the iPhone 5. All three are great phones, but I’m leaning toward the iPhone simply because of the great camera. I also have an iPad and Macbook Air, so the iPhone would be a great complement.

I’m also getting frustrated by the slow updates to Android phones. Unless you root your android, you end up waiting 6 months to a year after an update comes out before the carrier makes it available. The stability and poor memory usage has also led me to frustration. iOS 6 looks pretty sweet as well. I’ll let you know what I end up with. Jump in and share your thoughts.

Mike

I am a former design engineer who now pastors Cornerstone Community Church in Galax, Virginia. I'm passionate about following Jesus and I love technology. I've been married to Jennifer for 28 years, and we have three adult children.

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10 Responses

  1. jason says:

    Always interesting to hear opinions from longtime Android users. I’m in opposite corner; I’ve been an iPhone user since the 3GS but have actually considered switching to Android next year when my 4S contract is up. The incremental updates to the hardware and iOS are good but seem to lag behind what Google and Samsung/HTC are doing. Honestly, though, I’ll probably stick with Apple for a few reasons: (1) better security than Android, (2) better selection and quality of apps, and (3) the ability to sync with iTunes on my PC to sync my music and back up my phone. Android seems like a great platform, but iOS seems a lot more cohesive.

    • Mike says:

      The hardware on Android is faster, but I’m starting to see some problems that just seem unresolved. Memory management has been an ongoing problem. The android os simply allows too many programs to run in the background and eat up the ram. The more programs you install, the slower the phone gets, and the battery life suffers. To me, that’s a huge problem.

      I really like the widgets and the customization that Android offers, and in some ways Google has surpassed Apple. But I’m thinking that stability is more important. The apps are pretty equal across both platforms, at least the quality apps, so that’s not a huge issue for me.

      As for syncing music, it’s not an issue either way for me. I buy all my music on Amazon mp3. I also have iTunes match, so that it makes everything I buy on Amazon available on my iOS devices.

      So in summary, I definitely agree that iOS seems more cohesive. I like android, and I wouldn’t have thought about switching a year ago, but I’m definitely feeling the pull towards Apple.

      • Kevin Knepshield says:

        Mike, I’m not sure the memory issues you are seeing are as much a specific Android issue as much as bad programming on an application or something specific to your hardware model. Only services on Android should truly run in the background, all other programs save their state and pretty much do nothing until you re-open them. An android developer has to take specific actions for a program to run after it is closed. If you have lots of programs install that check for network actions in the background (Skype, ooVoo, etc) then the battery could drain quite quickly. Also, if you have a phone with a larger screen, that comes with a price on battery usage, it obviously takes more power to drive a larger screen.
        Also, there are tons of complaints placed against Apple due to the iPhone’s battery usage, so I would really be careful when evaluating on that criteria. I think Apple has done a pretty good job of fixing most of the issues, and my son gets a reasonable amount of usage from his between charges. I personally have a HTZ Rezound with a stock battery and I don’t charge it near as much as my son has to charge his iPhone 4S, even with what appears to be similar usage. In addition, the Rezound has an option for a larger batter that gives heavy users days of usage, something an iPhone won’t be able to ever come close to with it’s current design philosophy. In addition, I can pop my case and put in another battery is about 30 seconds, again, something you will never get from an iPhone.
        Just as another data point, if you join their developer program (free), HTC has an area on their website where they will give you the unlock code for the phone’s bootloader. This allows custom ROM’s without the need to root your phone, and the ability to install very useful recovery managers. The downside is you would need to download and use the Android SDK. As a developer, this is a huge feature for me, but probably useless to anyone who just wants a phone.
        I am not able to compare the integration features. I am a heavy Google user, so after I sign into the OS on an Android device, my mail, calendar and Google Drive are all synced, which is the main integration I was looking for.

        • Mike says:

          Great comments Kevin. I use my iPad all the time, so it’s not too much of a problem getting to my Google data using Google sync. I have the Motorola Electrify from USCellular and its less than a year old, but still no Ice Cream Sandwich, and probably no hope of Jelly Bean. That’s a huge problem with USCC, they simply don’t care about updating their phones and they don’t have enough pull to make it happen.

          I was hoping the iPhone 5 would have a bigger battery, so that is definitely a drawback. The Razr M and Razr Maxx both have bigger batteries.

          On my android I see it start slowing down throughout the day until it’s almost unusable at night. I can go in using a task manager and end all the running processes and it speeds right back up, but it’s a hassle to constantly have to clear out memory. It’s got 16gig internal with a 8 gig sd card, so I shouldn’t have to worry about memory usage. It reminds me of the old DOS days trying to keep everything crammed into low memory. I agree that it’s poorly written apps, but the OS should help with that. I downloaded a college football app last week from ESPN and it’s always running with no settings to keep it from auto-loading.

          I’m still on the fence because I was hoping for NFC and a better battery on the iPhone 5. Plus it looks like it won’t support simultaneous voice and data on Verizon LTE, which is a huge drawback. If you had to choose an android right now, what would you go with? S3, Razr, something else? Just wondering. Thanks Kevin

  2. Sele says:

    I’ve tried them all and there is nothing like the iPhone 5,especially since you are already a Mac user. I have a hands on review of my new 5 on my site, you might want to check it out. (Actually coming up tomorrow)

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