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Before anyone thinks I need your permission or approval to buy a new phone, I just want to clarify: I don’t. I’m only taking the time to type this up because I’m already getting endless crap from tech evangelists and I want to make my point once and only once.

The arguments against the iPhone:

1. Non user replaceable battery - This does not affect me. I have no interest at all in carrying multiple batteries for my phone. When the built in battery dies, I will be out of warranty anyway so I will replace the battery myself.
2. Non expandable memory - My Droid had 16Gb of flash, just like my new iPhone does. I at most used 9Gb of it. I do not forsee needing significantly more on an iPhone.
3. No physical keyboard - This one at least has some merit. I imagine there may be a rare instance where I miss having the keyboard. That being said, the longer I had the Droid, the less I used it’s physical keyboard. I got very used to using the virtual keyboard to the point that my accuracy and speed were lower on the physical keyboard. And Apple’s virtual keyboard is noticeably more usable.
4. Closed platform under Apple’s control - Sorry folks, I just don’t need 100 different applications for every possible use. The apps that Apple DOES have are of distinctly greater quality and performance as well. When I get right down to it, there are maybe a half dozen apps I use on a daily basis, and they’re all of equal or greater quality on the iPhone vs Android.
5. Apple will be releasing a new iPhone soon - Don’t you worry about me. I’ve got that covered too.
6. No multitasking – This is one that I’ve really nagged people on in the past.  And honestly, what iPhone has now is good enough for a mobile device.  You can’t really, truly use more than one application at a time anyway on your mobile device, why pretend otherwise?  Android’s way of allowing multiple fully-running applications simultaneously is horribly detrimental to battery life.
7. Fewer free apps - True.  But the ones I really want/need are free anyway.

My issues with Android:

1. Application quality - I cannot think of a single case where an iPhone application is noticeably lower quality than its android counterpart. I cannot say the opposite is true. While having an open market such as the android app store may foster a competitive development atmosphere, what it’s done so far is to foster an environment of sloppy developers pushing out poor quality applications.  Or perhaps the Android SDK is really just that bad, in which case I apologize to the developers and point my finger squarely at Google to step up to the plate.  I cannot say which for certain, as I have not tried my hand at Android app development (nor do I especially want to, which brings me to #2.
2. Java - Java by any other name is still Java.  I am yet to see a Java application that runs as lean, stable and performant as its non-Java counterpart.  Until I have this experience, I cannot forgive, forget or endorse the use of Java in any form on Android, which means that I cannot fathom wanting to develop android applications, nor do I feel right continuing to use the platform while it is based on this technology.
3. Always behind the curve - Android has, from day one, been playing catch-up to Apple’s iPhone.  Just recently are we starting to see significant features hit Android devices first.  Additionally, application developers have a much more difficult target to hit with Android, being the more open and unrestricted platform that it is, so the iPhone version of nearly any application always comes out first, followed at some undetermined date by the Android version.  I’m sick of being the apologist or feeling like I need to play catch-up.  I want what THEY (and now I) have already.
4. Too unrestricted – This one’s kind of like the deregulation of the banking industry… go too far, and you’ll have a disaster.  As I was mentioning in #3, there is too little standardization on the hardware.  It’s made for a fractured community, running a multitude of software versions, on dozens of different hardware configurations.  It’s difficult to write anything more than the simplest applications and have them work consistently across all of these devices since there’s no standards for any of the configurations.  Think there’s no merit to this?  Go search for the reason why there’s no Android version of Plants vs. Zombies.
5. Email Support - So long as you’re using Gmail and only Gmail on your Android phone, email works fine.  But what if you want to use Gmail as well as some IMAP or Exchange accounts?  As soon as you add those other accounts, they take over your phone, and you’ll no longer be able to use your Gmail accounts from the “Share” menu.  This is a horrible design, and I suspect it could be easily corrected.
6. Unpredictable upgrades - Some might argue that this is a flaw with iPhone as well, but really, it’s not.  Apple has established a pattern and once they do that, they tend to follow it (your iPhone will get the next two major software upgrades after it’s released, then you’re cut off). Android, however, is a crap shoot.  You have to speculate regarding if and when you’ll get that software upgrade.  If ever.  Some vendors just stop supporting their old hardware and push people towards the new.  Great support policy there… the pattern that the Android community has established is that the only version of Android you can count on having is the one that’s on your phone when you buy it.
7. Rough around the edges – This one is a matter of personal taste, but I’ve always felt like most every Linux-based GUI has been rough around the edges and lacks the polish of its closed-source counterparts.  Android is no exception to this.  This isn’t just prettiness, it’s also a matter of usability, and in some cases (I’ll try to think of specific examples later and edit this as appropriate),  it just feels clunky. (As compared to sluggish,  which would be more attributed to my older Droid’s hardware).
8. Battery life - This one is one that I had to draw attention to my iPhone desires to test, by purchasing a used iPhone 3G.  That iPhone 3G, with questionable battery health, soundly outlasted my droid’s brand new battery.   Bear in mind as well that the iPhone 3G was notorious for having the worst battery life of all of the iPhone series.  And in case anyone’s wondering, I can now re-sell that iPhone 3G for as much, if not more than I paid for it.

Some people are probably still not convinced that this was a well thought out purchase on my part, or just flat out disagree with any/all of my points.  That’s fine, you’re free to have your opinions.  But ultimately, this was my choice to spend my money and it in no way affects you.

Love it or hate it, I don’t care.  Just leave it alone.

So Verizon has finally released the new 5.0 OS for the BlackBerry Storm and I’d just like to say WOW. This is 99% better and is really how the phone should have been all along.

They’ve added new glow effects to the UI, giving it an all-new shiny. There’s also the elastic scrolling effects I think Storm users have been hoping for since day one. Threaded SMS has been added as well, which will definitely please anyone who does a lot of texting. Speaking of text…the new predictive text entry system is a nice addition as well, and seems to be quite effective at correcting most of my typos as I write this blog entry on my BlackBerry. On top of all of this, the phone exhibits greatly improved performance, on par with what one would expect given that its hardware is really no slouch.

Kudos to RIM on getting a software update out there that makes the Storm behave like a whole new device. I was still a bit disappointed that there’s no sign of a mixer for audio, so incoming texts will still interrupt any music you have playing. Aside from that…its a shame it took them nearly a year after the Storm was launched to get this update out there!