Care of SFGate.com.

It’s fair to say that one of the most effective ways to respond to a threatened patent assertion is to be able to assert patents of your own.

- Tim Porter, Google Patent Council

So then the plan is to:

1. Like what the iPhone is doing
2. Do a half-ass implementation of that thing you liked
3. Shit-talk the patent system when the thing you stole gets noticed by who you stole it from
4. Get your hardware partners sued from now to the end of time

At least they don’t have a corner on anything important, like information storage, indexing, searching and presentation.

Shit.

Shhhhh…  Don’t tell my F.O.S.S. friends, but I have switched to the “dark side”.  After spending a tick over two weeks with my iOS partner I have some odd thoughts on the matter.  Odd because they are not the things I had anticipated, but probably should have.

First, iOS lacks a lot of features that are on some Android devices.  For example, I haven’t had to reboot my iPhone once.  It stays functional, and it stays working.

I’ve never had the dock go MIA on me.  I turn the screen on, and go to work.  Icons are where they should be.  Moving between screens happens without massive redraw showing it’s face.  I liked watching the screen refresh.  I felt like I understood the nature of my machine.  iOS?  I have no clue what it going on in there.  It is just magic, and that scares me a little.

No lag.  None.  My old Android had TONNES of lag.  I kind of miss it.  Without all the wait time I am forced to get things done.  Did I just intend on making a call?  BOOM.  Call happens and I am now required actually conversate with the other party.

Yeah, that was a bit of sarcasm.  I apologize for that.  It started out with good intentions but quickly went sideways.  My very initial thought did concern a lack of features.  Android just packs features in everywhere possible.  Lots and lots of features.

If Android was Windows, all you Stallman fanatics would call that BLOAT.  Since this is Linux based though, we will forgive you your hypocrisy.  Much like Ubuntu, Android is just an over-bloated whale.  Loved by all, useful to nobody.

After two solid weeks though I realized that my iPhone friend packs in a lot of features.  It limits itself to the features that are actually useful though.  Do I want the ability to install additional browsers?  Hell Yes.  Did I EVER use those browsers on any of my old phones?  Nope.  The long story short is this:

What is popular isn’t right.  What is right is INCREDIBLY popular.

I also need to highlight the GET IT DONE attitude my Cupertino companion has.  Everything just moves fast and smooth.  It is so responsive to touch that I feel like it actually reacts to my touch BEFORE I have physically come in contact with the glass.  I never really felt like my last Android device was slow or laggy.  But that was ignorances bliss and not reality.

I guess to summarize, two features jump out and stick with me.  Every single feature on the phone is polished to a beautiful shine.  They work exactly the right way.  And they work FAST.