Disturbingly I’m dedicating a post to the review of an item I carry with my everyday. I came from an iPhone 4 and a couple months ago upgraded to an iPhone 5. When I first purchased the iPhone 4 years ago I told myself “this was the best phone I’ve ever had”. The iPhone 5 is no different. Below are additional views on the the mobile phone ecosystems.

iOS

Maybe I’m in the distortion field but the taller screen in concert with a brighter and “deeper” color spec makes this the best screen I’ve used. Data speeds on LTE are orders of magnitude faster than the 3G I was used to. Since I use the iTunes Match syncing music hasn’t been a part of my agenda for the past year. Now with LTE I can actually stream my entire library when not on WiFi. For full disclosure I did have to replace me phone after 2 months. There were particles stuck somewhere in the camera lens that an Apple Genius wasn’t able to remove by opening the camera lens cover.

I’ve been using Siri on my iPad since the iOS 6 betas. I thought would use Siri mostly for asking for sports scores/schedules, but by far I use Siri to create reminders and dictate text messages. I’ve had discussions with several friends about Siri. There is still some self-consciousness about speaking to my phone in public. The crazy thing is that a generation will soon grow up in a world were speaking to machines is the norm. Who are you to know if Siri is real or not?

Android

The last two months of 2012 I owned an off contract Samsung Galaxy SIII. I won the phone at a Samsung pop-up store raffle in San Francisco. This was my first time getting quality time with an Android device. The Galaxy had an abundance of features but they weren’t features that I value for the most part. My biggest issue with Android is the fact that an app like Angry Birds can request location data and you’re only option is not to install it. I’m sure advertisers and malware creators love that type of “openness”.

Moreover the home screen was simply overwhelming. The Galaxy included about a dozen apps that were Samsung branded. They even want you to create a “Samsung account”. Fuck that, seriously. This is the problem with Android: Google, the device maker, AND rogue apps want your data. For what? Certainly not to improve the experience.

Windows Phone

The Windows Phone 8 HTC 8X is a really nice phone that I could recommend to someone as an alternative to the iPhone. Unfortunately the app ecosystem and key features are still missing from WP8 for me. I’m not the biggest proponent of the Metro new Modern Windows design language, but hey it’s “different” and we need to give something back to you…the people!. Additionally the Win RT vs Win Phone 8 mess has me waiting for the dust to settle. Things can only go up but I’m interested to seem what Blackberry 10 can do.