Why I would buy an iPhone 4S (Or any Apple products)

As a gadget lover, I started using smartphone since the days of Windows Mobile with a Sony Ericcson XPERIA X1. It was certainly a very capable smartphone and it is largely usable (well, of course it does). Needless to say, I was utterly blown away when I first gave Android a try. The fact that you can do away with desktop sync, the way you can do away with worrying about needing to copy your old contacts information from old phone to new phone manually is simply magnificent. At that time, I thought no other phones came close, not even the mighty iPhone.


However, one might ask, why is Android the way it is? People who follows the history of iPhone and Android will tell you that they are both introduced on the same year (2007). Well, to be precise, iPhone is first introduced on January 2007, while Android is announced on the same year somewhere in November. If you wanted to know how Android look at that time (2007), this link would shed some light. Now, you would say it doesn't look much like anything like the Android we are used to nowadays. But that was how Android look at that time.


Naturally, the question of whether Android copied iOS or the reverse is debatable. The reality is that both copies stuff from one another. An example of iPhone (as in iOS) copies Android would be the notification center in iOS 5 (the favorite example by Android loyalist). However somewhere in the year 2008/9, Android makes a radical change, abandoning most of the UI before that and fully embrace touch screen, well, just like iOS. By now, I guess it is fair to say that Android borrows quite a lot of concept from iOS. Without iOS, Android *might* have looked different from what it is today.


That is not to say that Android is just like iOS. In fact, Android quite differ from iOS in many ways. For one, the Android provides more flexibility (thus, more fragmented), which many argued that iOS is basically a walled garden system (for better or worse). Apple did this to control the quality of the apps and prevent vendor/telcos from fragmenting the platform by implementing their own UI spin (think HTC Sense UI, etc). Without going into the whole Android vs iOS debate, I guess most readers would recognize their differences and came to the conclusion that comparing them is like comparing Apples and Oranges (Even though both of them are basically fruits and they are very good for you).


However, I have a confession to made. I have respect for people who chooses Android. After all, I did it myself by going with Samsung Galaxy S. The problem is that there is a faction of die-hard Android loyalist that chooses Android because it made them look geekier/nerdier or the fact that it might make them appear smarter than the rest of iPhone-rs (which is most of the people you saw on the streets). While it might be true that they are sort of smarter (or financially poorer, depending on how you look), I believe there is a faction of people who chooses Apple because they appreciate it for what it is. It may be that they are a designer themselves and therefore have better taste, or they knows how to appreciate good UI/UX, or it may be that they just wanted a really good phone. This is something Android loyalist just can't understand. They think that it only attributes to Steve Jobs's reality distortion field or the fact that he's a really good sales man (Even though, that is undoubtedly true).


Personally, as a designer/coder, I have always thought that I had some good design sense. I can appreciate good UI/UX (User eXperience) when I see one. And I strive to design good UI/UX as much as I can. From my experience with using Android and iOS, iOS has slightly better overall UX than Android. Even though both are better than Windows Mobile (I reserved my judgement on Windows Phone 7 until I have used it myself). As such, I certainly can envision myself using both iPhone and Android - most people nowadays carry 2 phones anyway.


In conclusion, there will always be people buying an Apple products just because they wanted to look cool or they simply wanted to brag about it (read: people on Facebook who tells everyone about his cool new phone). However, I have no more respect for people who wanted an Android to look smarter. In the end, the smartest people buys and use whichever phones/gadgets that does what they wanted. There is no need to compare whose balls are bigger - they are all balls.


TL/DR: It's just a fucking phone. Get over it.