Quit The iPhone

As you probably all know, here at IT Bloke – London,  we are huge fans of Google Apps as a whole and especially the Google Android operating system, and by far much prefer the system and devices over apples iPhone and are more than eagerly awaiting the Launch of Google Wave next week and deeply hope that Google Voice will hit the UK shores fairly soon as well, {separate article on Google Voice to follow,}

So imagine our shock and  delight when we found that IT Blokes favourite Serial Entreponeur and Editor in Chief of TechCrunch Michael Arrington, had just publicly quit the iPhone in favour of  Google Android, because of Apples closed source, closed door policy,  perhaps he should have listened to the IT Blokes in the first place, we where predicting this over a year ago, anyway we thought you would like to here his thoughts on the matter, so below is a copy of the original TechCruch Article published on July 31 of this year, {Thank you TechCrunch}. Regards, Ashe….. IT Bloke – London.

Why I quit the iPhone?

I was there in January 2007 when it was announced and I bought the first iPhone as soon as it was available. I happily bought the iPhone 3G a year later. I’ve proudly yelled “I Am A Member Of The Cult Of iPhone.” I’ve been an unabashed cheerleader for the device to all who’ll listen. And I’ve scoffed at developers who said they’d abandon the platform.

But I’m not going to upgrade to the iPhone 3GS. Instead, I’m abandoning the iPhone and AT&T. I will grudgingly pay the $175 AT&T termination fee and then I will move on to another device.

What finally put me over the edge? It wasn’t the routinely dropped calls, something you can only truly understand once you have owned an iPhone (and which drove my friend Om Malik to bail). I’ve lived with that for two years. It’s not the lack of AT&T coverage at home. I’ve lived with that for two years, too. It certainly isn’t the lack of a physical keyboard, that has never bothered me. No, what finally put me over the edge is the Google Voice debacle.

Most of you won’t know what I’m talking about, so I’ll explain.

Google Voice is a call management service that lets you determine what calls get through to you based on who’s calling and what time of day it is, among other factors. It has amazing features, like automatically transcribing all your voicemails. And you can forward calls to any other phone easily and automatically. Here’s an overview of the service if you aren’t familiar with it.

I’ve always wanted to use Google Voice but there’s a big switching cost – changing your phone number. Too many people have that phone number and use it to call in great stories. There’s no way I’m giving that up. And there’s another problem with Google Voice. When you make outbound calls from a phone, it (obviously) doesn’t use your Google Voice phone number, so recipients don’t know it’s you calling. Those were two hurdles I wasn’t willing to jump over.

But now Google is planning on rolling out number portability, so I can move my mobile phone number to Google. None of my friends, family or contacts have to store a new number.

That still leaves the problem of outbound calls, though. I can move my mobile number to Google and then get a new iPhone account, but outbound calls won’t be identified because they are on the new number. Google has a solution for that too, though. They are releasing apps for a variety of handsets that effectively take over the native dialer, address book and call log. Problem solved. I can use any phone I like, or a bunch of phones, and just choose the one that makes sense at any time. I never have to be tied to a carrier and their restrictive contracts again.

Or so I thought. Apple and AT&T are now blocking the iPhone version of the Google Voice app. Why? Because they absolutely don’t want people doing exactly what I’m doing – moving their phone number to Google and using the carrier as a dumb pipe.

So I have to choose between the iPhone and Google Voice. It’s not an easy decision.  Google isn’t forcing the decision on me, Apple and AT&T are. So I choose to work with the company that isn’t forcing me to do things their way. And in this case, it’s Google who will get my business in the long term.

So what phone will I use next? Well, that is a no brainer I’m going to use the new Android based HTC Magic along with the Google Voice App.  It is great now because as soon as a better Android device come out I can now simply switch and keep the same phone number no problem.  No more  long term contracts for me.

And Apple, if you ever decide to put the hammer down on AT&T and do the right thing for your loyal users,  you will probably get our respect back but now I have swapped I don’t think I’ll consider switching back.  You really need to consider brand loyality when you make decision like that….   Michael Arrington, Editor in Chief ~ TechCrunch.

Tags: michael arrington