Why the iPhone is better than the Symbian and the Android

The Fall of Symbian Software

The Nokia philosophy is about size and crap: How much crap can you stuff in something small. As far back as 5 years ago their phones were the fastest and most feature packed, but how many apps were developed for it and how many of them were used? Samsung, LG and all the other phone companies followed the Nokia wave. The sophisticated users would download the occasional app (or 'software' as it was called back then) use it and then get rid of it. The most common apps, sorry, softwares used were 'Consolidated IMs' where you could use a single platform to login to your several IM accounts.

Now while this practice was common amongst the software engineering types (and the wannabe-techie types who wanted to showcase their latest cellphones), no one else really cared to use their phones for anything more than calling and texting. Five years ago, the average cellphone was already sophisticated enough to support most (if not all) the applications currently selling right now. But back then, no one wanted to use them, much less pay for them. Why?

To reiterate and emphasize my point (and disgust towards the symbian devices): while there were millions of applications available for symbian devices, how many of the common users actually used it in their everyday lives? How many people even thought of using an phone software to search for a restaurant? Even if one were to say ZERO, the answer would still be well within the margin of error.

Now hold that thought.

Enter the iPod

When Apple launched the iPod, the market was FLOODED with mp3 players. I remember flipping through the 2001 (or was it 2002?) edition of the Guiness book of world records and noted that Rio Diamond was the largest selling mp3 player at the time. Then came the iPod and the world did everything but smash their old mp3 players and adopted this new and amazing device. What was so different about the iPod? What new technology did Steve Jobs concoct in his secret Apple labs? What did he do to put all mp3 players (and phone that already had mp3 playing capabilities) to rest?

How did the iPod icon become the defacto symbol for portable music?

The answer is simple: no device that works in isolation can be a success and no device that incorporates the consumers daily lives will be a failure. It's all about usability. Without it, your mp3 player is nothing more than just a fancy tape recorder and your cellphone is nothing more than cordless phone with a HUGE range.

Consider this: What if Apple launched iPod, but didn't release iTunes. Imagine using an iPod without iTunes? Imagine having to manually copy your music to your device memory or using some clutchy Nokia-type application to copy and update your playlists. Now lets see what Apple did. With iTunes, Apple gave you something that you could listen to music at home. To those who were used to using WinAmp (remember that?) iTunes seemed a bit strange and lacked the control over file storage that they were used to. Loading and syncing files became a new and strange experience. Even playlists didn't make much sense. Then you connect it to your iPod and BOOM! your world changes and suddenly you can take the music that you listen to at home (on your computer) out with you (on your iPod). The integration became seamless.

No new technology. No new features. Just an simplified user experience. My music is my music: at home and on the go.

So the reason why Nokia and the rest screwed up (even though they were all in the market far longer than Apple with far more sophisticated gadgetry) was because they never thought of making the user experience simple. Nokia, I'm sure, never even thought the iPod and iTunes would ever be threat.

Now go back to that thought I asked you to hold on to.

The iPhone vs Symbian

When apple launched the iPhone, the phone rushed to embrace it. I'm sure most were just iPod users buying the latest coolest iPod that had a phone in it. But what also happened was that there was a FLOOD of iPhone app developers. The common average guy was now talking about his/her favorite app. Today, 3 years later, people regularly use their iPhone app (yep, it's not called software anymore) to find where they want to eat, what movies are on, listen to music and even watch videos. In fact, people have set up entire businesses around developing iPhone apps and make good money selling them. Bear in mind: these users aren't in the least bit sophisticated; these are your average man-on-the-street users.

So why did the average user so comfortable with apps when he didn't with software? Symbian OS had apps coming out of the woodwork half a decade before the iPhone came out and their phones have a far deeper penetration than iPhones have. While common sense would dictate it to be the other way around -more devices, more apps- but the people of the world don't see it that way and the reason is once again a simplified user experience: downloading and using an app vs downloading, installing and using software.

When you pay for a symbian device, you are just buying a fancy phone, but when you buy an Apple product, you are paying for the system of iTunes and the online app store...you're just think you are paying for the device.

The Grandmother Test

I always like to test things and my Apple products are no exception. It has been my experience that with an Apple product, 15 minutes out of the box the user (who may have never used a handheld device before) knows exactly where everything is and how everything will work. This brings me to my Grandmother Test.

Imagine Alan Smith recently went away on a trip where he had taken some photos. Alan does the whole Facebook and Flickr sharing for his social network connections and he does the whole email-large-zip files to his not-connected-but-email-using connections. But the question remained: how does he show his photos to his 80 year old grandmother -the one who still likes to "hold" pictures in her hand. So Alan loads them into an iTouch and navigates to the photo albums and places the device in her hand. 15 minutes later she can navigate the photos can also browse photos in other albums. The next day she sees videos of her great-grand kids in the park and the day after Alan takes a picture of her and sends it to someone. She may not understand email and she may not understand smart devices, but she sure as hell can use a iTouch.

Could Alan give her the same experience with any device? Probably not.

Why Android Devices are Unimpressive

When Alan went to buy a camera, his friends told him to get one with 8Megapixels....no 10 Megapixels...no 12...and so on. Alan was not planning to shoot pictures for billboards, nor was he planning to photograph the President for the cover of Time magazine. He just wanted to take pictures of his family and his kids' birthdays. How would a 12 Megapixel camera help?

What would help is if his camera would make it easier to transfer photos to his computer. What would help even more is if there was a software on his computer that would integrate with his camera and allow him to touch up his pictures (just a little bit) and send them out to his friends, family and social networks. Thats all he needs to do. Nowhere does he need a 5MB file that is too large to send.

With this in mind, listen to the argument I get from Android aficionado: "It has a

a GigaHertz processor." What on earth would I need to do on my handheld that would require a GigaHertz processor? Not very long ago my desktop machine was that fast, can I use my handheld to perform all the tasks I did back then? If the answer is no, then I am paying for something that I will clearly not need or use.

The only fascination I had that kept me waiting for the Android was I wanted to see Google do something new. And that is where it fell flat. The iPhone has impeccable usability and is arguably the most user friendly handheld device ever and the Android looks and acts like an imitation. I can't think of one reason why I would trade in an iPhone for an Android because there isn't one. The Nexus One should be renamed to iPhone-wannabe. The Android is not a bad device, but it certainly is NOT a good one. A few problems that I discovered in the first ten minutes were as follows:

• The Touch Buzz: They have added this 'buzz' which vibrates the phone on performing certain actions. This idea is as dumb as the Blackberry's touch phone. In the BBerry you have to 'touch' the icon on your screen and then 'press' the screen. Both features -the buzz and the press- are tacky uses of technology.
• Removing Email Accounts: Single handedly the worst implementation of adding and removing email accounts. If you are using the native email client, then you need to go to Setting->Privacy and (get this!) place your finger on the account and hold it there and then you will get the option to delete the account. Did they hire the Mario Bros. game designing team to come up with their functionality? There is no way I would have figured that out unless I read their manual or Googled it online.
• Menu bar: The phone has four touch-buttons at the bottom. One has an arrow that takes you back, one for menu options, one is home and the last one is for search. Now the Search button always does the same thing and the home button always does the same thing. The other two may or may not work depending on where you are and what you are doing. If you are going to put buttons I can see all the time, then at least make sure i can use them all the time.
• Login/Logout: If you use their software called "Google Mail" and log in to your account, there is no way to log out. The only way that I could find was to restore the phone to it's factory settings.

I have used a tons of handheld apps and I think it's safe to say that HTC products are amongst the worst of the lot...except for WinMobile of course. Android has done to software on a device what Nokia did with their products: jam as much crap as you possibly can into one small space. Perhaps they are new, perhaps it is just the start, but it's a pretty crappy start.

For now, in the handheld wars, I think the iPhone has the best bang for buck.