Sorry about not updating in a while folks, had some real life crap take away the brain space I usually use for writing, but now things are looking totally up, so I’ll be back on a regular basis bringing my (hopefully interesting) opinions and such on geek stuff. Today I’m going to talk about why, in the face of design flaws, bitchy PR responses and more viable competition than in previous years, I’m sticking with the iPhone platform. I current have a iPhone 3G I got back in August, 2008, and I’ve been pretty happy with it. Sure, there are some things I wish it did better (like it’s awful, awful notification system for one), but it’s been two years, and the poor thing has started to get glitchy — like having to turn off the phone and back on to get a good GPS signal more and more often — so it’s time to upgrade, especially since my contract is up with AT&T next month.

So, of course, I’ve been doing a ton of research. Back when I got the 3G in 2008, there wasn’t anywhere near as much competition for the iPhone as there is today, especially from the Android platform. I’ve played with my friends’ Android phones, as well as played with them in the stores, as there are some things I do like on them more than the iPhone, such as widgets and a much, much better notification system. However, what I don’t like about the Android platform is the fragmentation. Different handsets from different carriers have different versions of the Android OS, and different capabilities, so this means apps that might work on one phone might not work on another. They also keep coming out with new phones, I think, way too fast. I could get a phone next month, and in a few weeks it’d be made obsolete by the next lineup of phones.

There are also the apps. I’ve purchased literally hundreds and hundreds of apps for my iPhone (I’m kind of an app whore), and am therefore kind of invested into the iOS platform at this point. I think it’d be like switching from the PC to the MAC and not being able to play all the classic PC games I have now (yeah yeah, I know that MAC’s can run Windows now, but they apparently have even more compatibility issues with the older games I love to play, like Freespace 2 and such, than PC’s running modern operating systems). I’d also have to purchase new accessories as well. I also like the standardization of the iPhone platform. Sure, they only release one phone a year, but the iPhone line is pretty much standardized so apps will run on a 3G, a 3GS or a 4 unless they have model-specific features.

The iPhone is also a simpler and easier to use platform. While I like the ability to tweak nearly everything on an Android phone, I think it’s a bit of overkill, especially when it comes to app usage and battery life. Apparently apps need to be constantly monitored and killed with a task manager app in order to preserve battery life. Now I don’t mind tweaking stuff like that on my PC, but on my phone, I want things to just work, and this is what the iPhone offers. The simplicity, elegance and power of the platform to do nearly everything I want without constant monitoring or tweaking is a big bonus, in my book.

So yes, even in the face of noted design flaws and a bitchy attitude from Apple, I’m going to be getting an iPhone 4 in the coming weeks. The combination of simplicity, elegance, application support and so on have pretty much sold me. Sure, it’ll still be on AT&T’s shitty network, but I can mostly live with that as long as the phone is awesome. I’m sure I’ll get flak from my Android friends about this article, but I say bring it.

What about you? Are you an iPhone user that’s going to stay, or are you moving on? Are you looking to switch to the iPhone from another platform? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading.