iPhone 4 For Me, Or, Goodbye Samsung Captivate

This is actually a little overdue. Okay, it’s a lot overdue. By a matter of weeks, even. But just the same, I couldn’t hang with the Samsung Captivate, better known the world wide as the Samsung Galaxy S. It’s not that it’s a bad phone, because it isn’t (though I did have reception issues), and it’s not that it’s not pretty enough (sure, it’s no work of art, but it’s nice enough), and it’s not that it’s made by Samsung because they make all sorts of quality products (including the Samsung N120 netbook I’ve spoken highly about (and I may have even pre-ordered — I don’t remember now)). No, it’s really no fault on Samsung’s part, in so much as we’re discussing hardware. The fault belongs to Google. Yeah, Android is the problem.

I can already see that if I’m not riding the line on turning this into a “Apple rules; Google drools!” snark fest that it’s going to be dangerously close to it, but that’s not my intention. No, instead, I’m hoping to provide a few solid, worthwhile reasons to explain why I decided to go with an iPhone 4. I know that there are still folks out there who are trying to decide which phone to go with, and I’m also quite aware that I’m not the first to write about this (not by a long shot, but I also won’t be the last), but having actually owned and used both for quite some time (and spent hard-earned money for them, mind you), I feel like I have a little something to add. Just a little something.

So what was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back and made me return my Samsung Captivate? The battery life.

We expect a lot out of our mobile devices, and though I’ve long thought of iPAQs, Zaurses (Zaurii?) and iPhones as small computers, I think we’re really at the point now where everyone is starting to think that. I used to do things on my iPAQs that were traditionally reserved for computers, and you can say the exact same thing now, only to a much greater degree, of smartphones. Quite simply, a modern, high-end Android-based phone or an iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 are ridiculously powerful devices. Heck, have you seen what Epic just demonstrated the other day with the Unreal engine running on the iPhone 4? It almost looks like an Xbox 360 game, and that’s being run on a phone.

So, keeping in mind that these devices really are small computers and that we torture the poor things, poor battery life comes with the territory. Put simply, playing video, games, surfing the web, and of course actually talking on a smartphone will drain the battery. However, having used an iPhone 3G for two years, and a first gen iPhone before that, I’ve come to expect certain battery life. Now, if you know those devices, you know they don’t get the best battery life and that current phones (the iPhone 4, for instance) get better battery life.

Well, my Samsung Captivate got worse life than my iPhone 3G with its two-year old battery. In fairness, this has something to do with AT&T as I live in an area with coverage ranging from “barely there” to “just fine” depending upon the whim of, well, AT&T. How is this AT&T’s fault? Well, when you’re in an area with poor reception, the cellular radio has to work over time to keep in contact with the tower. The radio, as you can tell by my inference, is not easy on the battery. Thus, poor reception = poor battery life.

A google search for poor battery life will net a number of results both Android and the iPhone 4, but when you’re talking about why I, the person typing this, returned the Samsung and went with an iPhone 4, I can tell you that google search results don’t matter. Put simply, my experience, my empirical evidence if you want to call it that, was that Android had poor battery life.

I’m not using my iPhone 4 in any way, shape, or form less than I was using my Samsung (in fact, I use it more thanks to the apps I’ve long been invested it), but I get better battery life. Significantly more. I can’t put an exact number to it, but in situations of high usage, I’d say it’s an extra 1-2 hours, and in situations of standby, several hours. Just letting it sit overnight results in a 2-3% battery loss whereas to achieve that with the Samsung required putting it in airplane mode, i.e. turning everything off.

While the battery life was really the last issue, the heart of it is Android. Again, it’s not that Samsung didn’t put out a good product, in fact I’m interested in the Samsung Tab as I think Android might be better on a tablet than on a phone, it’s just that Android is nowhere near as polished as iOS (which has a far, far worse name).

To say that Apple has the best UI design of anyone and everyone might be going a little far, but when you’re talking about consumer electronics, I’m pretty sure Apple is the company to beat. The way we use touch interfaces now is based upon what Apple did. That’s not to say that others didn’t come before Apple because we all know they didn’t invent multi-touch or the idea of gestures, but the salient point is that Apple took existing technology, added a little of their own touches here and there, and really, really tweaked things to the point that anyone, from two years old to one hundred, luddite or geek, could use their product. That is no small achievement.

Because of that, and because Google is not historically good at UI design, means that Apple has the advantage here. Apple has been developing iOS for years now whereas Google hasn’t reached two years with Android yet (it will next month). Furthermore, Google is in some ways emulating what Apple has already done, and quite simply, the original is the better piece of work.

Does that mean iOS is superior in every way? Oh please, not a chance.

Here’s the deal: I couldn’t hang with the battery issues and the UI issues that I had with the Samsung Captivate. If you haven’t read my Android Survival Guide For iPhone Users yet, then read it now to see a much more in-depth discussion on what issues I ran into. Frankly, there were others that I never got around to mentioning here, but I gave up on trying to address them because why should I have to correct every little to be happy with a device when I can simply buy another that addresses 90% of those by its very design? However, for those who don’t care to read or haven’t, here’s a short list: media players, email clients, SMS client, battery life, screen (the Samsung Captivate’s screen is nice, very nice, but the iPhone 4′s higher res screen is better), and general UI niggles. In fairness, all minor quibbles that might not bother anyone else but were just the exact little things that drove me crazy.

So am I happy with my iPhone 4? Yes. Is it perfect? No. In fact, Apple could do well to learn from Google and swipe a couple of ideas. As I said in my Samsung Captivate Android Smartphone Impressions article, Google found a way to handle something that’s insanely difficult to manage on a smartphone: they developed an intelligent, unobtrusive way to handle notifications.

Notifications on the iPhone are obtrusive, obnoxious, and downright archaic. Are they simple? Yes. Do they constantly get in the way? Yes. Is there an easy way to know what’s waiting for you without going to the home screen? No. Apple could do worse than to copy Google’s work here, patents and such aside.

Additionally, widgets on Android are sorely missing from the iPhone and I just don’t see Apple ever implementing them. For as good as Apple is at making a UI, and they’re awesome, they don’t want anything to interfere with their work, so don’t go thinking you’ll be able to add anything to your home page that in any way draws attention from the static, pretty UI they’ve made. And a widget on the lock screen? Ha!

So yes, Apple is no longer sitting atop Mount Olympus by themselves, but just the same, they’re still sitting on top, at least in terms of a design aesthetic. The iPhone 4 is beautiful, functional, and has the most polished mobile OS even if it is locked down.

And because I value aesthetics and finished, polished devices, I have a bunch of Apple products and will continue to use their phone on a day-to-day basis. And you know what? I’m yet to find something that better works for me, but if you’ve looked at this site in the past, you know I try damn near anything and everything I can get my hands on.

Still, I know that I don’t speak for everyone, especially not my Android-toting friends (and the non-Android toting friends who make fun of all of my Apple products), but that’s the luxury of living in a first world and being able to afford these stupid toys: the dilemma of choice.

As for me, I’m happy with my iPhone 4. I bought it out-right, so no contract here, no thank you. And I’m happy with my iPad. And I love my MacBook Pro (I’m typing on it now). And whenever I get around to ordering it, I’m pretty sure I’ll love my Mac Pro.

Oh, I didn’t mention my struggles to turn an existing, cheap, reasonably powerful consumer desktop into a Mac Pro? That’s an article for another time.