R.I.P iPhone, Hello Android

Totally usable, but still a bummer.

I knew I was tempting fate, but I just couldn’t help myself. I left my iPhone naked and unprotected. Using it all the time without a case or care in the world. It’s not that I didn’t have a case handy. I actually had several. But I threw caution to the wind and went without. It’s so pretty after all, it was a shame to cover all that glass and aluminum. But then yesterday, the inevitable happened. I dropped it. I didn’t just drop it; I was running and it fell out of my pocket, slid across the floor, and into the metal leg of the bar stool. When I picked it up, I saw the crack across the screen. I knew this was a risk I was taking.

It isn’t as tragic as a story as it could be though. I was already planning on switching to a Samsung Galaxy Nexus. I just have to go with a broken screen until I’m ready now. But why am I switching to a Galaxy Nexus when it’s only $100 (without Applecare) to get a new refurbished phone?

Before I had my iPhone I had an OG Droid. It was the first time I was an early adopter to anything. I even remember when they announced the phone, and that it would be coming to Verizon. It was my honeymoon, and I had the TV on watching the news. I ran and told my now husband that we were finally going to be able to get a Google phone! With a keyboard! On Verizon! (I do wonder if it finally dawned on him at this point what he had gotten himself into marrying me.)

It was love at first power-on. But it was short lived. See, I bought entirely too early. The little 550 MHz processor was quickly (within months) surpassed by the plethora of 1 GHz phones being put out by every major manufacturer. The phone was getting slow and clunky. So, I rooted it and installed custom ROM after custom ROM. I believe this made the phone better, but it was still clunky.

Then came trying to keep up with the rumors. The Bionic was coming soon! Dual core! 4G! New phones every few months! As I got closer and closer to the end of my contract I was tired. They had just announced the Nexus for Verizon but after the Bionic debacle I didn’t trust that “soon” actually meant anything. Enough was enough. I was buying an iPhone for the simplicity.

And simple it was (after I worked to make everything back up to Google instead of iCloud). True to it’s word, it just worked. I got frustrated at things it couldn’t do (set my ringer to turn on and off at certain times for example). But it was snappy. And it worked. Which was boring. I wanted something I could tinker with (even if I had no intention to, I just like having the option). Also, in the back of my head the saying “if you can’t open it you don’t own it” kept bouncing around. You can’t open this thing physically and there’s no way (without jailbreaking) to get “unapproved” apps on it. Not to mention the horrible way Apple screws over developers.

So I started wanting my old flame, Android, back. My husband was missing Android too. Since I talked him into the iPhone I told him to buy himself a Galaxy Nexus. I’m a purist and that’s the phone I would buy myself. He wasn’t thrilled with the battery though. So he wanted to upgrade to the Galaxy S3. We decided he’d sell his iPhone and buy a Galaxy S3 and I’d take the Nexus (my precious).

And yes, I’ll be buying a case.