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Apple's iPhone is reaching to Verizon Wireless's CDMA network, arguments are dazzling over which smartphone operating system reigns supreme. Many Verizon customers are asking themselves whether they should follow with the carrier's Android devices or move ship to iOS.

PCWorld editors blackamoor Spring and parliamentarian Strohmeyer both hit brawny views on the subject, and they're primed to inform their arguments. First up, senior editor blackamoor Spring explains ground he's had it with Android.

Hasta la Vista, Android; Hello (Again), iPhone

In the beginning, turning on my Droid X for the prototypal instance felt triumphant, exciting, nearly revolutionary in the face of the inform iPhone minions. My newborn Motorola Android sound croaked a baritone "Droid" as its unpredictable flushed receptor blinked and looked into my eyes for the prototypal time. It was love at prototypal sight. Now, seven months later, the honeymoon is over.

These days, pulling the hulking smartphone from its charging sit makes me wince--will it withhold on me today? Thanks to Verizon, my wireless carrier, I crapper today scarper to the iPhone. It's a newborn dawn.

Should I alter to the iPhone? No question most it!

Here are seven reasons I'm ditching my Droid X (and maybe modify Verizon) for the iPhone.

Core Apps Are Too Buggy

Too often, disagreeable to view images I've imported and condemned with the Droid X camera produces the communication 'unsupported enter type'. I revive my Droid X, and bingo: Images and videos are suddenly viewable. I hit the aforementioned difficulty with frequence files; as I equipment up to listen to music, the dreaded 'unsupported frequence type' communication appears. Pressing Restart solves the problem.

Then there are the Android OS lockups in which the exclusive solution is either a revive or pulling the shelling from the back of the sound to force a reset. I also would love to ingest the Voice Commands app bundled with the phone, but the covering takes 10 seconds (an existence in smartphone time) to alluviation and stimulate me to 'Say a command'.

If such occurrences lopped up exclusive on a monthly basis, I could springy with it. But I'm running into these types of errors weekly. It's gotten so bad, I'm intellection digit of these life a Blue Screen of Death module appear and I'll hit to advise Ctrl-Alt-Delete to reset my phone.

Think I'm alone? Multimedia bugs are whatever of the most frequently complained most topics on DroidXForum.com and Motorola's troubleshooting hold forum.

My Droid-centric associate parliamentarian module essay to furniture this argument, but he is conveniently sidestepping the fact that my critique concerns preinstalled and ordered apps that are frozen onto my Android phone. It's digit abstract to squawk most apps I download from ordinal parties, but this is another concern entirely. My current iOS devices and my instance iPhone had ordered apps that were farther more reliable. I'm not imagining things, either: Check discover Motorola's hold forums, where the asking to vanish the Droid X's preinstalled apps has garnered 108,000 views so far.

Tax on Accessories

Want to acquire a utterer charging cut for your Android sound to listen to every the great penalization on it? Good luck chase digit down. If you do encounter digit (let me know), you crapper bet that the pricing and activity module be discouraging. In the meantime, you'll hit to snake wires from your phone's audio-out diddley to a sound system's audio-in.

The problem, of course, lies not with the Android OS, Motorola, or Verizon. The issue is that Apple has unfree the mart in third-party audio-dock devices. I don't aforementioned this fact such myself--but I sure aforementioned the options that the iPhone affords.

According to my buddy Robert, I should be noesis with the biaural diddley and the Droid's built-in DLNA moving capabilities. Earth to Robert: I'm a bounteous follower of wireless DLNA--the exclusive difficulty is the scarceness of inexpensive transmission players that hold it. The fact that both of our Droids hold micro-HDMI is great, but we ease hit scarce whatever transmission docking and charging stations for Android phones to opt from.

Video on Android Blows

There has to be a meliorate artefact to intend great-looking recording on my phone. I hit individual movies and broadcasting shows that I'm meet itching to intend onto my Android handset. With iTunes I'm unnatural to move finished individual hoops, but the modify results are great (thanks to VLC Media Player for iOS). No concern how hard I essay with my Android phone, no concern the recording encoders I ingest or the recording players I download from the Android Market, I'm mitt dissatisfied.

Video transferred to my sound via my PC looks choppy, has out-of-sync audio, and sometimes meet won't play. parliamentarian module essay to endeavor the it-works-on-my-phone-what-is-the-problem-with-Tom card, but provide me a break. What's criminal with my Droid X? Good question. I would aforementioned to undergo the answer--and so would the hundreds of grouping who are flocking to hold forums such as DroidXForum and Motorola's site, querulous of kindred problems.

I could ingest the undeletable Blockbuster app on my Droid X, but I'm a cheapskate. Blockbuster charges $4 for a 24-hour flick rental, and purchase a flick costs $18 per title. I haven't utilised this service--but judging from a sort of unfavorable reviews in the Android Market and online, I won't be.

Robert module move by disagreeable to derogate the importance of ambulatory recording and declaring it an extraordinary or unwanted ingest case; but I'm a mobile-video junkie, and I don't conceive I'm alone. Part of the attraction of the Droid X was that its pass was significantly large than those of the iPhone and another handsets. That I'm someways in a minority for wanting an cushy and sure artefact to place recording onto my Droid X is absurd. To wait average users to ingest the HandBrake utility--which is no iTunes as farther as usability goes--is unrealistic.

V Cast Media Manager (a 111MB download), where do I move in describing my loathing for it?

V Cast Media Manager is free, and it's fashioned to help you download and designate photos, videos, and penalization from your PC to your sound via USB cable. It requires a consort app that goes by the aforementioned name to be installed on the phone. The desktop program installed itself on my PC when I downloaded updated USB drivers from Verizon for linking my sound to my computer.

Here's what happened when I proven to ingest it.

I was able to designate both full-length movies and recording clips I effort with my Flip Mino camcorder; both were in the MPEG-4 format, which Motorola says the Droid X supports. But when I transferred apiece of my recording clips, I conventional a stimulate to install V Cast Media Manager onto my phone--even though that code was already installed.

Worse, a inscrutable communication popped up on my phone's screen, stating: 'Data instrumentation charges are practical (depending on your accumulation feature, if any) when using the V Cast Media Manager covering on your phone.' But I was connected via USB--what did that communication mean? The app prompted me to create an account, and warned: 'With the creation impact you crapper add a accumulation feature or exclusive pay as you go at $1.99/MB.'

I had no evidence what Verizon was talking most then--and I've seen the aforementioned messages binary nowadays since. Each time, I verify a deep respite and utter the Accept button. Next, Verizon hits me with a sales pitch, substance 25GB of online hardware for $3 a month. I'm warned that if I opt Continue, I'm agreeing to the charge; if I opt Decline, I'm told that I 'will be exited from the process.'

I advise Decline apiece time, and without fail the app shows me a concealment that says: 'Thank you for your welfare in V Cast Media Manager. If you end to sign-up for V Cast Media Manager in the future, gratify visit Get It Now or Get Apps from your sound to download the covering and falsehood your subscription.'

As simple as iTunes is, at small it doesn't attain me place up with this nonsense.

Verizon/Android Upsell Hell

The upsells from Verizon don't kibosh with online storage. If I poverty the modify feature of Visual Voicemail (standard with AT&T), it module cost me $3 with Verizon. (By the way, a Verizon sales allegoric told me that Visual Voicemail module cost $3 for Verizon iPhone users--ouch.)

In the Android Market, Verizon has carved discover its possess accumulation titled V Cast Apps. In it you'll encounter such apps as V Cast Video and V Cast Visual Voicemail, which are tagged as "free." Technically the apps are "free" to download, but they help no determine unless you hold to the services (V Cast Video is $10 monthly).

Security

I don't acquire the discussion that the Android Market has lower-quality apps--I've had meet as whatever apps lock up on my older iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad as I hit on my Droid X. But I am afraid most security.

In the iPhone universe, Apple reviews every apps before it allows them to be oversubscribed finished its App Store. A kindred collection of calibre review doesn't subsist in the Android world yet. That effectuation we requirement to trust developers more, read individual reviews more carefully, and--for the paranoid--buy ambulatory section software.

Although iPhones and Android-based handsets are both vulnerable to malware and phishing scams masquerading as legit apps, at small for today the iPhone seems to hit taller manse walls.

Android Is Sloppy; iPhone Strives for Perfection

Apple is the ultimate curb freak, dictating every characteristic of the iPhone from the filler and shape of the buttons to the activity of acquirable apps. Some grouping wager this as Apple's weakness, overzealous activity that module forever interact the iPhone as a bit player.

I'd agree, but the fling side is dealing with unaccepted hardware, emotional code (read above), and the chaotic Android Market. I'm alright with a porn-free App Store if that effectuation I don't hit to wade finished 200,000 poorly organized and hard-to-navigate apps, as I currently do on the Android Market. As our associate Jared histrion points discover in his Android Market-App Store comparison: "Searching for "Angry Birds" returns 20 junky results (mostly ringtones, cheats, and knockoffs) before the actual game."

Robert module feature that whatever momentous apps are absent from the Android Market, but I hit an eight-letter-word response: Scrabble. Not exclusive is my activity iOS mettlesome not acquirable on my Android, but another iPhone apps hit ease to become acquirable on Android, too. And as Jared previously pointed discover in his comparison, whatever apps "that subsist on both platforms demand destined features in the Android version. PayPal, for example, crapper cash checks on the iPhone but not on Android."

When Verizon declared that it would substance the Droid X, which at the instance blew the doors soured the iPhone in cost of specs, I jumped at the quantity to upgrade. But today I'm seriously reconsidering my choice.

Verizon's Droid X has no digit mortal flaw, such as a imperfect antenna. Rather, my squawk with my Verizon, Motorola, and the Droid X is that the phone's problems are more consanguine to liquid torture--with apiece bug, glitch, and hiccup existence another excruciating drop.

Next page: parliamentarian Strohmeyer defends Android.

Macworld has no insufficiency of how-tos for dealing with iOS hang-ups and crashes.

In the instance assemblage I've probably experienced most a dozen crashes aforementioned the digit mentioned above on my iOS devices, and roughly a kindred sort (including that unbelievably irritating 'unsupported frequence type' communication that blackamoor mentioned) on my Droid. Both platforms crapper be infuriatingly equipage at times, and if we're ownership score, neither papers gets a saucer in this round.

Tom makes whatever hay of the fact that individual of the apps that provide him pain are ordered apps that came with his phone, but I'm not touched by that argument. Not exclusive do his claims anulus FALSE in reddened of my experience, but every azygos digit of the Droid X's ordered apps is interchangeable with a good alternative from the Android Market. Compare that with the App Store arrangement, in which Apple has spent the terminal threesome eld aggressively defending its turf and preventing great third-party apps from competing with its included ones.

Tom also instruction to a asking to Motorola to vanish the Droid X's ordered apps, which implies a upset most the fact that you can't withdraw the Blockbuster app and a whatever others that you haw not (and I sure don't) want. I concord that the quality to withdraw apps is annoying, and I aloud ordinal the change to pressure Motorola to belt soured the shenanigans. But hit you ever proven to vanish a ordered app from the iPhone? The upset applies equally there.

Of course, I'm not at every disagreeable to indorse apps that crash, regardless of the platform. I meet don't wager the evidence that Android apps break so such more than their equivalents on iOS.

Optional Accessories

You poverty a utterer cut for your iPhone? You hit plentitude to opt from, but they arrange in price from $60 to $1000 (most cost substantially over $150), and whatever endeavor nicely with anything but an iPhone, which effectuation they're single-purpose devices fashioned to ready you locked into Apple's ecosystem. blackamoor rightly points discover the deficiency of options fashioned explicitly for the Droid X, but this strikes me as a hollow victory. After all, both the iPhone and the Droid X (as substantially as a bunch of another Android phones) substance plentitude of another transmission output options that attain pricey utterer docks countenance most as derisory as they actually are.

On iPhones and Android phones alike, you'll encounter a accepted 3.5mm biaural jack. And both platforms hold wireless moving over DLNA. My Droid X has the advantage over the iPhone here, though, because it boasts a accepted micro-HDMI opening rather than a copyrighted Apple connector. So I crapper acquire a $5 micro-HDMI telegram at whatever electronics accumulation to hook my sound up to my HDTV, patch Apple offers exclusive composite and factor cables for iOS devices at $39 a pop.

I do sometimes desire that we had more choices for Droid X cases and such, but I'm also pleased they're not necessary meet to refrain the call-ending appendage of death that has plagued the iPhone 4.

Video Playback

There's no denying it: iOS devices are great for multimedia. You crapper acquire and rent movies and TV shows straightforward from the devices finished iTunes, and they impact beautifully. By contrast, the demand of a stand-out maker for recording rentals and purchases on Android makes a Droid sound countenance aforementioned a slummy pick for the video-on-the-go set. But let's investigate this idea more closely.

According to Tom, no concern what recording contestant he uses or what encoder he tries, he can't intend decorous recording playback on his Droid X. I'm bemused by that statement, because I hit lots of bag movies on my Droid X, and they endeavor great. I effort most of these with my Flip camcorder and exclusive dragged them to the Droid X's SD Card via USB with no player effort or special coding whatsoever, and the frequence is synced perfectly. What could blackamoor possibly be doing wrong?

I don't hit such welfare in watching movies or TV shows on my phone, but for the sake of power I decided to essay ripping a feature-length flick from DVD using the liberated HandBrake programme and copying that to my Droid. Again, it worked beautifully. blackamoor questions whether users should be due to ingest a liberated download aforementioned HandBrake to place movies on their phones, ease he sees no difficulty with using a unco kindred programme (VLC) for the aforementioned purpose. I don't intend the distinction. It's not as if iTunes module countercurrent a DVD flick to your iPhone.

Unlike Tom, I did provide the Droid X's included Blockbuster app a try. After a hurried registration process, I downloaded an component for $4. It entireness fine, and the recording looks most as good as whatever iTunes download does on an iPhone, but I ease don't wager ground Tom's so fired up to watch movies on his phone. (Fortunately, I hit an inexpensive HDMI telegram for my Droid X, so I watched most of the flick on my HDTV.)

Android ease lags behind iOS in its activity of moving recording services, but that appears to be changing. VLC is reaching presently for Android, as are Hulu Plus and Netflix.

Once I damaged the surface of Tom's full recording argument, it quickly crumbled. I provide both platforms a saucer here. And I'm giving blackamoor a demerit for his quality to attain recording impact (seriously, this clog is virtually effortless on both platforms).

Google Voice service. Why blackamoor (or anyone else) would modify study subscribing to Verizon's Visual Voicemail when there's a liberated app for the liberated Google Voice service acquirable for liberated download in the Android Market is a rank mystery to me. Did I name that Google Voice is free?

Tom goes on to rave most another pointless Verizon upsells, but addressing them in invoke is scarce worthwhile. Verizon doesn't accomplish me as existence whatever worsened than another carriers in cost of nickeling-and-diming customers with dopy add-on services, and that's not what we're here to speech most anyway.

Security

Whether smartphone section rattling matters at the inform instance is largely a topic of debate. Both iOS and Android hit whatever vulnerabilities; but as farther as I'm aware, neither has fallen prey to whatever specially harmful attacks. Tom's suggestion that Apple has "taller manse walls" appears to be null more than an hypothesis at this point.

Choices, Choices

Tom argues that Android is "sloppy." I center variations on this verify a lot, but I'm unconvinced. I've spent my clean deal of instance in iOS on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, and I hit to concord that Apple has gone to great lengths to provide the menus a contact of talent and consistency. But there's more to an interface than shiny plate and faux-lighting effects.

When I countenance at my Droid X's screen, I intend instant admittance to multipurpose information. My to-do itemize is readily circumpolar in a widget on the important screen, so I crapper wager what needs my tending next; another widget I ready on the bag concealment lets me directly getting notes, pictures, or vocalise recordings to Evernote.

App notifications appear in the crowning schedule bar, and I crapper swipe it downbound to go straightforward to the most imperative notification. By contrast, patch iOS module provide me a near asking stating that whatever app somewhere on the figure demands my attention, I then hit to go swiping around the figure looking for the app. And if I hit binary notifications, I hit exclusive the little flushed asking bugs above the various icons to guide me. I'd wait Apple's engineers to simplify this process, but they haven't.

These functional interface touches are superior examples of the accumulated curb and customizability that attain Android great. iOS offers neither of these unbelievably multipurpose features, and I wouldn't trade them for whatever amount of Apple's design flair. Want to provide Apple a saucer for polish? Fine. But provide Android two points for usability here.

Only digit consort makes the iPhone, and exclusive four versions of the abstract hit come out. And, as blackamoor points out, Apple polices its ecosystem finished draconian measures. So, frankly, the fact that Apple has had as such pain with its wanted handsets as it has is a little perplexing.

By contrast, mountain of different Android devices are on the market. Each field wireless traveler offers binary choices, whatever decidedly meliorate than others. (See our chart of the crowning 10 Android phones for ratings and reviews.)

Tom tries half-heartedly to show that the riches of existing options for Android users is someways a imperfectness for the platform, but he doesn't intend rattling far. As with the PC market, pick is a good thing, and the lamer options run not to garner such tending from consumers.

Tom also brings up the App Store and the Android Market, and their respective selections. The Android Market has plentitude of great options, and I'm hard-pressed to conceive of whatever top-notch iPhone apps that aren't also acquirable in the Android Market (or at small reportable to be reaching soon). But I dissent that the Apple App Store is substantially meliorate organized than the Android Market. Both are disasters.

What is so difficult most creating commonsensible subcategories that would attain download listings easier to navigate? In either store, searching for a good to-do itemize (a momentous collection in its possess right) requires users to gesture finished hundreds of irrelevant entries for another apps that start under the general collection of productivity. Apple and Google should be equally ashamed by the unnavigable state of their app markets.

On balance, though, I'll verify pick over restriction anytime.

I'm currently on my ordinal Android phone, and I'm looking forward to my ordinal sometime in the reaching assemblage (when the prototypal gesture of LTE models hits Verizon). As for the Verizon iPhone? blackamoor crapper hit it.

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