Don’t get me wrong, I’ve used Android (I owned, and rooted a Nexus One way back when), but something just turns me off about it. All my friends at work have Android phones (or iPhones), and there isn’t a day where I hear one of them complaining that their phone app on the phone crashed and completely froze it. In the 5 years that I’ve owned an iPhone I can honestly say that I’ve never had this problem, at all. Why do people put up with this? Someone calls you, and the phone app crashes? That’s pretty terrible if you ask me. Say what you will about Apple’s walled garden, but I do know that I don’t have to worry about the phone app crashing while I’m trying to make or receive a call. I haven’t honestly come across an Android phone that just works, at all. I’ve gone into AT&T and Verizon to play with the various phones that are available, and not one of them can hold a candle to the iPhone in terms of complete user experience. If you have read any of my articles before, you can easily tell that I know way around a computer and tech in general; but there’s just something about having a device that just works exactly how it should without having to do anything at all to it. It’s not that I don’t know how, or anything like that, I just don’t want to. I’ve jailbroken my phone and it’s way too much of a hassle than I honestly want to deal with.

Don’t even get me started on fragmentation with Android. Ok, please, get me started on it. This essentially means that not every phone will get the latest version of Android. Essentially, if you bought an HTC Hero awhile back, you’re not going to be getting 2.3 Gingerbread. That is, unless you root your phone and install a custom ROM. That isn’t honestly the half of fragmentation, because even brand new phones don’t come with Gingerbread. Some phones are still stuck on 2.2 Froyo. Now Froyo isn’t that old (2010 I think?), but brand new phones are still coming out with this OS. That’s like Apple including iOS 4 on the 4S…it just wouldn’t happen. So why is Google allowing this? Well, Google doesn’t really have much of a say once it’s open sources it’s OS. Once it does that, manufacturers can honestly do what they want with it. They can release any version of the OS that they want, and they can choose to keep upgrading the OS or they can choose to keep at the same versions. Sure, you have the option to upgrade your phone by rooting it and installing a custom ROM, but should we really have to? Granted, iOS 5 isn’t going to be on the iPhone 3G, but that phone is insanely slow (412Mhz processor and 128MB of RAM…I mean come on), so I don’t honestly expect the latest OS to run on it. Another problem with fragmentation is that developers have to develop for all these hundreds of Android devices on the market. Since each and every Android device has different specs, the dev has to compensate for this and include support for every possible device that’s out there. This can not only take more dev time, but also more money.

I don’t honestly get why manufacturers don’t care more about quality, as they simply care about quantity. One thing that going to Apple has shown me, is that quality matters. Quality should be number one over everything else. Android simply just does not have quality written all over it, and that’s sad. The problem honestly lies with Google and them not taking control of the OS that they developed. I’d love to interview Andy Rubin and pick his brain about what he thinks about the lack of quality with Android. Honestly, being too open causes problems. Yes, I wish that Apple could implement certain features in iOS, but I’ll take ease of use and quality every day of the week, over being able to customize everything about my device, but have a lesser quality product. My wish would be that Android manufacturers take a look at what Apple has accomplished under Steve Jobs, and honestly see that quality does matter, and to put a bit more effort into their phones. There isn’t a day when I see a new post on Engadget about a new Android phone that’s in development. Seriously? Give it a break guys. You buy a new Android phone and two months later, it’s already outdated. Hell, I buy an iPhone and I get to keep that for a year and get a much better model next year, knowing that nothing will come out in between to obsolete this model. But this is what makes Apple Apple, and why I will always choose them over any other product. Quality means something, and it should mean more to everyone.

The 3GS looked exactly the same, but it offered a much better CPU, double the RAM (256MB), a better GPU, actual GPS, and a 3.2MP camera. With the 4, it offered a new design, a much, much better CPU, 512MB of RAM, a better GPU, 5MP camera, and an antenna that can cause problems if you hold it incorrectly. Given that the iPhone has been released every year since 2007, the time that has passed since the iPhone 4 has been about 16 months now, so people expected a much better phone given the time it’s taken to release it. Since this is the “speed” update, what’s inside? Let’s go over the differences, that we know about: A dual core A5-based CPU (same as the iPad 2), a dual core SGX 543MP2 GPU (again, same as the iPad 2), an 8MP camera with a 2.4/f aperture, 1080P video recording and video stabilization, a little better battery life, a better designed antenna, HPSA+ 14.4Mbps, Bluetooth 4.0, Siri the voice assistant, and it being a world phone (meaning the chipset supports GSM and CDMA together). So as an owner of an iPhone 4, you have to ask yourself, is it worth it? If you’ve used a 3G and upgraded to the 3GS, then yes it is worth it. The amount of upgrades included are pretty significant if you ask me. Being a current owner of the iPad 2, I can attest to the performance of it. Seeing as how the iPad 2 is a 9.7″ 1024×768 screen, both the CPU and GPU will simply scream on this device.

Probably one of the most exciting changes with the 4S is Siri (pronounced Sear-y), the voice assistant. With the 3GS, they introduced “Voice Control”, which allowed you to control certain aspects of the phone by holding the home button for three seconds and speaking a command. I honestly tried it a bit, but honestly never used it completely. Sure it’s good if you want to change a song or make a quick call, but overall it was extremely limited and didn’t really offer much. Well, in comes Siri. Siri is a technology created by Nuance, which Apple bought in 2010. They had an app on the AppStore (but has since been pulled and existing users have until the 13th to keep using it), and now it’s officially part of the 4S. What Siri offers is a vocal, digital assistant for you to use. So you can ask Siri to make an appointment for you, or remind you to buy a gift for someone, or hell, read back your text messages (and even respond to them!). The amount you can do with Siri is simply amazing. If you don’t believe me, watch the video below and see the amazing things you can do with it:

See what I mean? Being able to have an actual conversation with your phone, is pretty incredible. Not to say that this isn’t creepy at all, or that we should have conversations with our phone, but at least you can do way, way more than you could with Voice Control. Since Siri is only available on the 4S, some have said that it requires 1GB of RAM to work correctly. We don’t honestly know the actual speed of the CPU or how much RAM is actually available, but I believe that it’ll have 1GB of RAM, with the CPU clocked at 1Ghz, or 1.2Ghz. We won’t honestly know until iFixit gets ahold of it next Friday. Next Friday is when it’ll be available, with iOS 5 being available on the 13th. Once the 4S is out, I’ll be sure to put out a review and let you know how everything is. Until then, we’ll have to wait to speculate on how good it is! Oh, and pre-orders are available starting tomorrow at 12:01am PDT.

If you’ve never used WebOS before, and you enjoy pretty things, then you’re in for a treat. WebOS just oozes sex appeal. That’s not to say that iOS or Android don’t look good, but WebOS is just sexy plain and simple. Since this is the AT&T model, it comes with the 3G bands that AT&T support (850Mhz and 1900Mhz), and it also supports 14.4Mbps HSPA+. Everything else about the Pre3 is exactly the same. It sports a 1.4Ghz single-core CPU (would have loved a dual-core, but beggars can’t be choosers), 512MB of RAM (wished it would have a GB, but oh well), 3.6″ WVGA (800×400) screen, hardware keyboard which is pretty nice to use and a MicroUSB charger on the side. So the hardware seems to be pretty great, but how does the OS run? If you’ve ever used the Touchpad before, you may be turned off a little bit by the performance of the OS. I am very pleased to say that the performance of the OS is superb. Nothing ever lags, scrolling is perfect, and I can easily zip along between cards.

If I do have anything to complain about with WebOS, is the browser. Having used iOS since 2007, I’m used to the amazing Safari browser. The browser on WebOS just isn’t up to snuff, and that’s fine. It works just fine in pinches, but I honestly wouldn’t use it for extended web browsing. This is why I have a tablet if I want to do some web browsing. Speaking of the web browser, HP thought it was a good idea *not* to include an orientation lock in the OS. Why is this an issue? Well, how often have you been laying in bed, browsing on your phone? On the Pre3, if you do that, it’ll switch to landscape mode. Landscape more on a device with a hardware keyboard is not a good idea. Hopefully HP (or the homebrew developers) fix this in a patch or an update soon, as it’s next to impossible to browse in bed. Aside from that, are there any other things that annoy me? If you’re *really* big on apps, you’re going to be disappointed with the “App Catalog”. It simply just doesn’t have the apps available. Sure there’s Facebook and a few nice Twitter apps, but games or really big name apps just simply aren’t there. So if apps are your thing, and you don’t want to just use the web browser to access the web versions, WebOS simply just isn’t for you. Me? I’m not 100% big on apps, but there are a few that I wish were available, but I know they’ll never hit. Again, this is also why I have a tablet (iPad 2), so I’m not completely missing out. Are there any apps that I *must* use all the time? No. And during the time I’ve used the phone, I haven’t found myself missing very much.

Call quality on AT&T’s network has been outstanding (surprisingly enough). With the iPhone 4 that I have, it’s pretty good, but not great. With the Pre3, it’s actually really damn good. I had a few hour long conversations and never seemed to have any issues with the audio quality. Speaking of the network, since this phones supports 14.4Mbps HSPA+ (the iPhone 4 only supports 7.2Mbps), I was extremely excited to finally test this out. AT&T likes to call HSPA+ “4G”, even though we know it’s nowhere close to LTE 4G, so we’ll just call it “fauxG” instead. Using the iPhone 4, I can get an average of around 3.2Mbps, with a maximum of around 5.45Mbps. Using the Pre3 (and speedtest.net, since they don’t have a dedicated app), I got an average of 6.7Mbps, with a maximum of around 8.75Mbps. Far, far from LTE speeds, but a nice bump from the regular iPhone speeds. In real world, I’ll never honestly use these speeds (since downloading apps isn’t going to take that much time), and with a 2GB maximum for the month, who really needs these speeds. Ironically enough, since I was using my iPhone SIM in the phone, AT&T caught wind of me using a 3G SIM in a “fauxG” phone, and sent me a text saying I needed a “4G plan”. Because of this, I contacted them about it, and they said they weren’t going to change my plan, and it was simply a warning. They said I needed a 4G plan because I’d get faster speeds and “more coverage”. I don’t see how a 4G plan would give me better coverage, but oh well. Being on an unlimited plan, I wasn’t about to give that up, and just said I was using the phone to write up a review of the phone. Luckily, they let me keep the same plan and said I was fine.

For someone who hasn’t used iOS, or Android before, WebOS would be a fantastic OS to use. But if you’re someone who has used them, there’s a lot to be desired in it’s current state. Hopefully HP either sells WebOS to Amazon, or they actually decide to pick it up again, but as it is, I can’t justify using it over iOS or even Android. If you’ve read my posts before, you know how much I hate Windows Phone, so I can easily, easily recommend WebOS over Windows Phone every day of the week. Don’t get me wrong, WebOS is sexy and hell, the hardware is there, but with the lack of development happening on the main OS, there really isn’t much left life in these devices. Given that the Galaxy S II and the iPhone 5 (4S???) is just around the corner, it’s honestly too little too late for a phone that could have been amazing. Overall, I love it, but I just can’t recommend it to someone who’s never used WebOS before and want to use it as a main phone. Second phone? Sure.

Score:

8.2/10

Let’s say that you just bought an iOS device, like the iPhone and you wanted to sync everything that you previously bought but didn’t have access to your computer to sync. iCloud lets you redownload any and all of your purchased music or applications right to the device. So that means, you can instantly download that favorite song, or download that app you need to have while you’re out on the go. The idea here, is that you can access all of your previously purchased media, straight from the phone, you no longer need a computer. Another great feature of iCloud is that you can now wirelessly backup your phone directly to iCloud over WiFi. While this may not sound like the greatest feature around, it’s great if either you lose your phone or you swap it at the Apple store constantly (or you just buy a new device). You can restore from the iCloud backup, straight from the phone and get it to exactly the state you had it at when you lost it or swapped it out. Personally, I find this feature amazing, because I’ve swapped my phone out at the Apple store at least 4 times with the iPhone 4, and each time, I’ve had to wait until I got home to sync it and get it how I wanted. That’s no longer an issue.

What other amazing things does iCloud offer? Since iCloud is currently in beta (the first beta was released Monday), there’s still a lot that can be added before it’s fall release. However, it’s the potential of what could be that has me the most excited. Imagine that you’re listening to a podcast or a song on your computer and you have to leave. You want to take this podcast/song with you, but you want to pick up exactly where you left off. Right now, you can’t do that at all, without having to seek/scrub through the song or podcast. This detaches you from the experience you were having with the song or podcast, especially for podcasts since you can never scrub to the exact second you left off. What would be amazing is if iTunes can sync your location (either automatically or at request) when you pause the song or podcast, and you can instantly pick right up where you left off on your iPhone or WiFi enabled iPod Touch. This way you don’t have to find your location in a podcast, or start the 13 minute long Tool song you were listening to, all over again. One way that this sort of works, is when you purchase a song (doesn’t seem to be podcasts yet honestly) on your Mac or iPhone (I don’t own a PC so I haven’t tried), it instantly shows up on your other devices. I just bought the song from the Assassin’s Creed: Revelations E3 trailer on my Mac, and seconds later it was already on my iPhone. This I absolutely love, because that means I never have to sync with my computer just to get that song/app I downloaded.

As we mover further into the cloud (which I’m honestly loving if it continues like this) what other forms of syncing would be really great? How about syncing the current open tabs of your browser? Or syncing the exact location on the web page (instead of just starting at the top)? Or your saved games across all devices (Angry Birds or Plants vs Zombies for example)? Granted, Mozilla already did syncing of tabs with Firefox for Android, but that doesn’t mean that Apple can’t. I actually quite like the idea of syncing the location you are in a page, instead of always loading just the top. I say this, because there are certain sites I like to visit that are quite long to read, it’d be nice if I could sync where I am on the page with my iPhone or iPad and pick up exactly where I left off. I really like the idea of starting on your computer, and finishing what you’re doing while mobile, because let’s face it everyone has to go outside sometimes right? I hope one day that I can write some notes down in TextEdit on the Mac, and look at my phone or iPad and find the exact notes there waiting for me, where I can add more content, or edit what’s already there and find the changes at my Mac when I get back. How would you like your IM application to sync your conversation across all your devices? Say you’re talking to a friend on your computer and you have to go out, but you’re still talking to them via IM on your phone. Wouldn’t it be great to sync that conversation, so you can look back at it and not feel like you’ve missed anything? You’re not going to remember what you talked about 10 minutes ago, but if you synced the conversation you would be able to! The possibilities are endless.

There may be some concerns about privacy, but honestly if I post my credit card online (making purchases I mean), I’m comfortable enough to have my data synced with the cloud. Apple has said that iCloud will launch in the fall with iOS 5, meaning they have a good three months or so until it’s released to either add new features or perfect the current ones. I certainly hope they implement at least some of the features I’ve discussed here, because the more data I can sync across all devices automatically, the better. It doesn’t necessarily have to be Apple who accomplishes this, but it certainly will be the most elegant that’s for sure. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next, and I’m a proud supporter of iCloud.

As of writing this, the only color available for the iPhone 4 is black.  The white one has been delayed until the end of the year, as it supposedly harder to paint a phone white, as opposed to black.  So for the people that are waiting for the white iPhone, or just like reading real reviews, this review is for you.  The first thing that you notice about the iPhone is it’s new design.  It’s made with a glass front and back, with an aluminum frame.  The phone is not only thinner than the 3GS, but you’ll notice that it’s completely flat, as opposed to the 3GS’ roundish design.  This new design is a thing of beauty, and it truly shows once you have it in your hand.  It feels like you have a million dollar phone in your hand, and not some plastic thing like so many other phones are.  It just feels sturdy.  The front glass is using Corning Gorilla Glass that is impressively strong; however the back isn’t, and is quite fragile to drops.

So now we’ll get to the elephant in the room, the antenna.  Pretty much everyone has heard that if you touch a certain part of the phone, the bars drop to next to nothing.  Now people are crying fowl with this, because they can get it to drop to 0-1 bars.  While it’s true that you can get the bars to drop if you touch the black band on the bottom left of the phone, I personally have yet to get the call to drop because of it.  I live in a great service area, where I have 4-5 bars at all times, so honestly this doesn’t affect me at all.  My friend on the other hand, he has major problems where he live, drops calls all the time.  So to resolve this, Apple is giving everyone who ordered the phone a free case of their choice.  They can choose the regular iPhone bumper, or a selection of 5-6 different cases from different companies.  I chose the InCase one, since they made a really great case for the iPhone 3GS.  So the case fixes this issue, but is it truly an issue?  While I agree there is a problem if you live in a low signal area, I don’t see this as a HUGE issue.  If you’re personally having issues with the phone, take it back, plain and simple.  I don’t have any problems with mine, so I’m not taking it back.  Now that we’ve covered this, let’s talk about something more important.

While the design is going to be the first thing that people look at, it’s the screen that will get people to stay.  Once you turn on the screen you’ll instantly notice how amazingly gorgeous it is, especially when you compare it to the 3GS.  Text looks beautifully crisp, images look so nice, everything just looks better.  How did Apple do this?  Well they employed what they call the “Retina Display”.  Essentially what this is, is the same 3.5″ screen, but they upped the resolution to 960×640, AND increased the pixel density to 326 dots per inch.  If you see one in person, try looking at the screen, you’ll be pressed to find ANY pixels at all.  You’ll notice how amazing this screen is, by either viewing email or by using Safari.  This is one feature that I much have on my phone at all times.  If a phone doesn’t have this beautiful a screen, and a pixel density of 326 or greater, I won’t use it.  Just try looking at a 3GS once you’ve used the iPhone 4, you just can’t!  I’m even using it to browse the web more often than I am on the iPad (mainly because everything looks so much nicer).

There are other things in the new iPhone, like a gyroscope, a better GPS chip (which IS much better), a noise cancelling microphone on the top of the phone to block out noise, 802.11n WiFi (though no 5Ghz band), 720p video recording, a MUCH, MUCH better 5MP camera, and probably a slew of other things that I don’t quite have the room to talk about.  There’s no badmouthing a phone that can sell close to 2 million iPhones in the first weekend, including international.  This phone is without a doubt the best phone I’ve ever used.  The only gripe I honestly have with the phone is that because it’s made of glass, it can get slippery sometimes and is a little difficult to hold some times.  This of course is going to be fixed with a case, as the 3GS was very slippery for me too, but the case fixed that as well.  All in all, if you need a new smartphone, buy this phone.  AT&T is only as bad as your location, so if it’s bad, then obviously don’t buy it.  I’ve used an Android phone (I actually got a Nexus One), and quickly went back to the iPhone.  If you want the best mobile experience around, you’ll want an iPhone.  Sure it’s not the best “phone” out there, but I honestly don’t have any problems with it, and you won’t either (Unless you live in San Francisco).  I’ll do my best to add new posts that aren’t Apple related next time, I’ve just gotten so busy lately, I haven’t had time to write as much as I’d like to.  I actually have 3-4 topics in drafts right now, that I just need to get around to write, but I’ll get off my ass and write them.

Let’s start with the interface.  How in the heck is that a homescreen?  Or at least something you’d want to use?  A bunch of colored rectangles?  How is that nice to look at?  I saw where they were going with it, making it more Zune HD like, but seriously, they couldn’t have done something better than this?  What if I want my applications on the homescreen?  What if I really like “DoodleJump” and want it on my homescreen so I can play it any time I want?  Well, based on what I’ve seen so far, there’s none of that.  Outside of the homescreen, the interface is just as basic, with only text and some animations.  Is this really what I want in a phone?  Because I could easily go back to my Nokia 3360 from nine years ago if I just wanted text.  I’m not saying this thing has to be the prettiest at the ball, but come on, don’t step up to the plate thinking you’re a 10 when you’re a 3 at best.  Microsoft also said that they’re not allowing any sort of “themes”, so that really nice TouchFlo they made to make WM better, is nixed.  Based on this, I’m stuck with the same boring homescreen, and same boring everything.  It just goes to show that Microsoft really knows absolutely nothing about design and aesthetics.  We already have the iPhone, Android and WebOS that are all really nice on the UI end, and then we end up with *this* from Microsoft.  I’d rather use Symbian than this crap.

Microsoft did do one thing right, they made the hardware specs pretty damn high.  This means that the minimum screen res is 800×480, 8GB of storage and something about CPU speed, which I can’t recall right now.  See, that’s what we need, minimum specs so we can get rid of the crap QVGA, 320×480 resolutions we’re still seeing in phones.  I’d also be incredibly grateful when we start to make 1Ghz processors the standard in phones, as 500Mhz just isn’t enough anymore.  Being a hardware person myself, I welcome better specs, and praise MS for making these “minimum” specs!

Back to the fail.  One of the things that was really good about Windows Mobile, was that you could side-load applications.  Meaning, you didn’t need to use any special software or program to install software, and could download them from the manufacturer’s website, or elsewhere.  Well, with WP7S, the only way you can install applications are through it’s “App Store”.  So that means that any developer who wants to make an app, can only do so if it’s part of the App Store.  I know that this is how the iPhone is, but there are ways around that .  Who knows, maybe someone will figure out how to get around this.  Lastly, Microsoft has stated that they’re not going to include any form of copy and paste to WP7S.  Why not?  WM has always had copy and paste, hell even the iPhone has copy and paste.  Why omit this feature?  It’s incredibly useful, especially if you wanted to copy something someone sent in a text, to someone else.  Or copy the entire webpage, and paste that in an email…I mean, who wouldn’t want that?  Just stupid of Microsoft to not include this.  The other lacking things are no multitasking (man, people REALLY need to this worked on, because multitasking is KEY in a smartphone), no Flash, no upgrades from previous hardware…come one Microsoft.

If you take a step back and look at Windows Phone 7 Series as a whole, you can easily tell it’s lacking.  It does have some nice features, like nice menu animations, integrating Xbox Live (though I hate achievement whores); but when you compare it to the iPhone, Android, and even WebOS, it just doesn’t stand up at all.  Microsoft needs to hire some better UI designers as they just don’t have a clue.  I fully expect WP7S will be an utter failure until they can get something more usable; until then, I do not want these phones, period.

First off, the Symbian OS is far, far from user friendly.  It’s clunky, requires a lot of button presses just to get to certain parts of the OS, it doesn’t even give me a live call timer (for when I’m on a call), it doesn’t have a touch screen, and the screen is limited to 2.4″ and a resolution of 240×320 (which is QVGA).  What’s good about it is, that it’s very slim, it’s shiny, and it has a QWERTY keyboard for typing, which helps a lot with texts or IM.  While I do have an upgrade available on my at&t account, I could just get another iPhone 3GS; however, come June, there’s going to be a new iPhone, which is supposed to be much better than the 3GS.  But what really has me jonesin’ is Android.

Android is the Google mobile Operating System based on Linux.  While it took a little while for Android to get on it’s feet, there have been several Android handsets that have come out recently, that have really piqued my interest.  One major handset that I’d really love to have, is the Motorola Droid.  It boasts a 550Mhz processor, 3.7″ capacitive display, 854×400 resolution, etc…  The only problem here is, it’s only on Verizon.  While there is a GSM version called the Milestone, it doesn’t have the US 3G frequencies required by at&t, so I’d be stuck with EDGE.  The second handset, is the “Google Phone”, or otherwise known as the Nexus One.  This bad boy boasts a 3.7″ AMOLED screen, a 1Ghz Snapdragon processor, 800×480 resolution, 720×480 (or DVD resolution) video capture and 512MB of RAM.  Only problem here?  It’s only available on T-Mobile, meaning it’s 3G frequencies only work on T-Mobile, or in Europe.  So where are at&t’s Android handsets you ask?  There aren’t any.  Verizon has two, T-Mobile has three, Sprint has two, but where is at&t?  at&t have been extremely closed lip regarding Android handsets, however at CES, they’ve announced that Motorola, HTC and Dell are all bringing Android phones to at&t.  So far, Motorola has announced the “Backflip”, which if you can tell by this link, it’s ugly as sin, not to mention, horrible specs:

http://gizmodo.com/5428379/leaked-att-android-phone-looks-unexpectedly-like-a-crappier-motorola-cliq

If that doesn’t frighten you, I don’t know what will.  With Dell’s “Mini3″ phone, that doesn’t have a keyboard, or any exciting specs, that only leaves HTC to bring home the gold, and wow us with a desirable Android phone.  at&t also announced that it will bring two Palm webOS phones some time in 2010.  They don’t mention which phones they’re bringing, or anything else.  So it could be a rehash of the Palm Pre (which, imo, would be very nice), or of the Pixi, or it could be an entirely new device.  Some of you may have used an Android phone and hated it, and gone back to the iPhone; while that’s very tempting, I do like the ability to have open access to my phone whenever I want.  “Why don’t you just jailbreak the iPhone” you say?  I could, but jailbreaking it has the potential of being unstable and slow, especially in the iPhone 2G, and 3G.  The ability to multitask is another major thing with Android.  Say you’re in an IM conversation with a friend, and BAM, an SMS message pops up.  What do you do?  With iPhone OS, you only have two options, go to the message, or close the popup.  Say it’s an important message and you choose to go to the message.  What happens to your IM app?  Because of the lack of multitasking, that IM app is closed, and you’re logged out.  Now certain IM apps now feature push notifications, which is nice, but you still have to essentially log back in to your IM app when you go back into it.  With Android, you don’t get an annoying pop up, and if the message is important, you can go to the message without worrying about closing the IM app, it’s running in the background.  Very nice if you ask me.

Seeing as how it’s that time of year when Apple unveils it’s latest iPhone OS, there have been some rumors as to what iPhone OS 4.0 is going to bring.  Thanks to Gizmodo and The Boy Genius Report, the rumors that are spreading around, are the following:

• There will be multi-touch gestures OS-wide. (Would make sense for that as the rumored OS for the iTablet is close if not the same as the iPhone)
• “A few new ways” to run applications in the background – multitasking.
• Many graphical and UI changes to make navigating through the OS easier and more efficient. We haven’t had this broken down, but we can only hope for improved notifications, a refreshed homescreen, etc.
• The update will supposedly be available for only the iPhone 3G and 3GS, but will “put them ahead in the smartphone market because it will make them more like full-fledged computers” more than any other phone to date. Everyone is “really excited.”
• The last piece of information is the most vague, but apparently there will be some brand new syncing ability for the contacts and calendar applications.

This is copied verbatim from Gizmodo, so thanks!  Apple’s event is on the 27th, so I hope any of these things would make it into the new OS.  But that brings us to the possibility of what’s going to be included in the new iPhone.  Some people are saying an OLED screen, some are saying a 5MP camera (which doesn’t help if the senor in the phone is crap), better resolution, different casing.  Who knows?  Honestly, they do need to bump up the screen size, most definitely the resolution, (as the iPhone only has a resolution of 360×480), a better sensor in the camera, completely different case (i.e. go back to metal instead of plastic), and more RAM (as honestly, more RAM doesn’t hurt anything).  I honestly can’t think of anything else to go into the new iPhone, unless they want to copy HTC’s HD2 (4.3″ screen, 480×800 resolution, 488MB RAM, 1Ghz Snapdragon processor, 5MP camera), I wouldn’t argue that at all.

When it comes down to it, Nokia is no longer in the smartphone game, even with their N97 or 5800 Xpress Music.  Symbian OS just is not consumer friendly enough to be a major player here.  I mean, I’d rather use a Windows Mobile phone, than a Nokia. (yeah, I know, I’m using a Nokia now…)  Apple has to really step up it’s game if it wants to remain on top of the smartphone business, and not lose ground to Android.  Better hardware, better software, that’s all I want, and right now, Android has both!