Then the iPhone 4 was announced, and I was…underwhelmed. Sure it was pretty and had a front-facing camera, but it didn’t seem that much different than the previous iPhones before it. Sure, software updates brought things like folders and multitasking, but Android already had those features. The more I researched, the more I realized I wanna tweak my hardware and software to work the way I like it…and the iPhone doesn’t let one do that. I was also turned off by the forced obsolescence of my iPhone 3G once I upgraded to iOS 4.0, which basically made my phone unusable. I was also getting really bored with the iOS, honestly.

Then, “antennagate” happened. This issue (which hasn’t occurred with my new EVO no matter how I hold it, by the way) got me concerned about the iPhone 4′s performance, which was bad enough, but when die-hard, kool-aid drinking Apple apologists dismissed my concerns by telling me just to buy a case and so on. So wait, I’d say to myself, these folks are telling me to spend money to fix a design flaw on something I just spent money on? How does that logic work?

Finally, I was fed up with AT&T. I was tired of calls dropping every few minutes, getting no reception in a lot of places — especially my apartment — and paying through the nose for what essentially is half-assed service. With all of this in mind, I decided I was done with Apple, AT&T and the iPhone, and knew it was time to move onto something different.

So, after doing mountains of research and talking to friends who are on all of the other carriers, I decided to give Sprint a try, and go with one of the most advanced Android handsets on the market today, HTC’s EVO 4G. So after two weeks, how do I feel about my purchase?

Let me say that I think the EVO is the best phone I’ve ever had, based on a combination of the flexibility of the Android OS and the sturdiness of HTC’s hardware. The Android OS is amazing. You can do so much with it and change so much it’s ridiculous. Don’t like the built-in text messaging program? Download a new one. Want a new dialer? Fine! Don’t like the email program? There are several to try on the Android Market. This is why I call the iPhone limited, now that I’ve tried something else? Don’t like the messaging program on the iPhone? Too bad. Want to use another email program? Oh well.

Android also does a ton of little things I love that the iPhone didn’t or wouldn’t. For example, putting an address into your calendar entry was next to useless on the iPhone, as this didn’t actually DO anything. It didn’t even link to Google Maps, for chrissakes. However, in Android, clicking an address in a calendar entry gives you a choice of which navigation program you would like to use, either Google Maps (of which their built in turn-by-turn directions, Google Navigation, is AMAZING) or Sprint Navigation. This feature ALONE helps propel Android over iOS, in my mind.

Sure, Android isn’t as pretty or as streamlined as iOS, but I don’t think it’s meant to be. This is an OS, it seems, for people who want as much control over their software and hardware as they can handle. However, as a PC user…I like to tweak. Forgive the blatant generalization, but from what I’ve noticed about Apple users…they just want their stuff to be shiny and work well, to hell with tweaking anything to make it better. PC users, on the other hand, like to tweak, like to build their own PC’s. These differences are the crux of what separates iOS and Android. The first is a walled garden wherein you have to play things by Apple’s rules; the second is a lot more open and free.

Now sure, there are downsides to Android. As Android uses full-on multitasking, the battery life can be drained rather quickly compared to Apple’s more controlled approach to multitasking. It can also be less secure since it’s a more open system, but there are easy ways to protect yourself from this. The battery life on the phone isn’t the greatest either, since the screen is so big, bright and pretty.

Also, I have to say I’m thrilled with Sprint’s service. I’ve not had one dropped call in two weeks, as opposed to tons of dropped calls with AT&T. I also get reception EVERYWHERE in my apartment. This is something neither AT&T nor Verizon could accomplish. My phone bill will also be $40 cheaper a month with Sprint, so thus far, I’m a very happy camper with my service as well as my phone.

Overall, though, I am damned happy I switched. The iOS was becoming too limiting for me and the culture surrounding Apple plus other factors pushed me away, and I’m in a much happier place now. This phone does everything I could want and more, and if I don’t like how it does something, I can change it.

So what about you? I’d love to hear your thoughts on your current or future smartphone. Are you an iPhone devotee who’s sticking with the platform no matter what? Have you switched to something new recently? Tell me your thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading.

In my own case, all of my calendar, email and contacts are through Google, so I can access them anywhere, and I really like that. I don’t really have a trust issue with Google for some reason — I think I’m way too small a fish for them to care about what info I have stores there as long as I click on their ads — but I can see where folks might.

So, let me ask y’all. When it comes to your data, whether it’s your calendar, your contacts or whatever else, would you trust it to the cloud or not, and why? I’m looking forward to discussing this with you. Thanks for reading!

Other new exemptions apply to DVD’s and ebooks. Now you can legally use portions of a film on DVD if it’s being used for documentary or non-commercial purposes, so maybe we’ll see all those “Downfall” parodies come back to YouTube. Ebooks can now also be hacked to be allowed to be read with a voice synthesizer, where before many complained this would eat into their ebook sales (which is very doubtful).

There are other little tidbits, but those above are the most notable. How long will these exemptions last? That’s something we don’t know, but for now, people should enjoy their new exemptions as much as possible.

Why? Well first, there are the privacy concerns (which they have addressed to a point, but it’s still bothersome). According to sources I’ve read, Google Buzz can make your email address, the people you follow, their email address and so on entirely public…unless you uncheck some checkboxes in your Google Profile, both of which are neither easy to find nor intuitive to use. Makes one think it was purposely made to be difficult. Anyway, I’ve also read instances wherein the mobile version Buzz will show/upload people’s pictures without asking, which I also don’t like. These kind of things were enough to have me turn it off. But oh, there’s more.

Google Buzz is also buggy, slow and not very intuitive to use. I’ve used Buzz in three browsers, Opera, Google’s own Chrome and Firefox. In each one, Buzz took a long time to load items, reply to comments and so on. I also don’t like how it doesn’t show your stream in the order in which things arrived, but in some sort of arbitrary order of popularity.

Next, why do I NEED Google Buzz? The people I most want to connect with — girlfriend, close friends, etc — are already on Facebook and Twitter, or hell, are a freaking phone call or text away. Do I REALLY need another, separate social sphere to interact with people? Google Buzz is its own self-contained little world, and why that is I have no idea. Sure, it can take posts from your Twitter, but you can’t post TO Twitter. If you see someone else’s Tweet on Buzz, commenting on there puts the comment on Buzz, not Twitter, which again makes no sense.

Sure, both Twitter and Facebook have their own issues with privacy, usability (I swear, if Facebook changes their layout one more god damned time…) and so on, but they are far, far more ahead of the game than Google. Sure, you could say that’s because Buzz is a brand-new product, but I don’t buy it. The folks at Google aren’t dumb. They can see what works on these services and what doesn’t, take the best bits and make a viable competitor to the social networking titans.

However, what Google has chosen to do is nearly force you to use their separated, self-contained, confused, buggy and problematic service that doesn’t seem to offer much more than the big boys. Google is kind of surprising me. First, they confuse me with Wave (which I’ve not touched in a month), then they tick me off with Buzz. I’m glad they’re trying to do something to expand their product offerings, but Buzz is neither new enough, different enough or special enough to warrant my usage.

I turned Buzz off this morning, and set most of my Google Profile to private (since Buzz reminded me I had one, which I guess could be a positive). Overall, in my opinion Google needs to rethink what they want to do with Buzz, and try to revamp it into something different, fresh and viable. Either that or let it become one more forgettable Google “beta” that people will joke about for years to come.

Oh, yes, I suppose I could opt out of Buzz — which I did when it was introduced, though that apparently has no effect on whether or not I am now using Buzz — but as soon as I did that, all sorts of new people were following me on my Reader! People I couldn’t block, because I am not on Buzz!

Kinda freakuy, huh? Head over to the blog entry to read the whole thing, it’s pretty damning.

What’s Google Buzz? Apparently it integrates social networking into your currently existing Gmail account (if you have one). According to the web-page, it allows you to track the people most important to you, share stuff and so on. It hasn’t been rolled out to everyone (including me), so I can’t give much more info on it, but it’s an interesting idea nonetheless.