Is iPhone or Android the Better Cellphone?

Technology.  We love it, we depend on it, and more and more, we find that we simply cannot live without it.  Today we are living in the era of the smartphone.  Today’s phones make calls and send texts, but they also surf the web, offer video gaming, and even offer applications that let you store those little bar codes on the back of your grocery store discount card, forever freeing your wallet from store-card clutter. 

So which smartphone technology is really better?  Let’s compare the iPhone versus the Verizon Android.

It can be easy to say that the cell phone debate is more about personal taste than anything, and to some degree it is.  But for those who just want a technology comparison, there are certainly some real facts to consider.  When it comes to ease of use, for example, the iPhone is the hands-down winner in terms of how easy and intuitive it is to use.  With the Android, you often have to click on four or five icons to get to the feature you want, unless you manage to fit it into one of your limited bookmark slots, while the iPhone makes it easy to access anything at a single tap of a touch-screen button stored on your digital ‘desktop.’

Where the technology really differs is in the apps market.  The Apple Store has hundreds of thousands of apps, but they also have a reputation for censoring anything that anyone, anywhere might find objectionable.  Android, on the other hand, allows virtually any app to be downloaded and used on its phones, from the mildly amusing to the extremely offensive, presenting an open source style market.  This also means that users have to depend more heavily on the reviews of others to find a decent app for the task they wish to complete.

The last debate with the technology is reception.  At the end of the day, a phone needs to provide phone function.  This is where the iPhone takes the biggest hit.  Since day one, the iPhone has been plagued with reception problems, and despite numerous technology upgrades, the problem continues for many. 

Recently the iPhone has taken a big step by offering a second carrier – Verizon Wireless – to compete with the often slow and expensive AT and T.  What effect this will have on expanding the iPhone market to new users remains to be seen.