Me and My Mac

Whats with the Huge Paws?

Well, it’s been some days since the last post.

I paused for a few days more because i went back to my iPhone to see if I missed anything from the Desire. The unfortunate truth is - I did.

I wanted to be definative, and honestly, up until last week, I was resolute that the iPhone was still the way to go - the question is, has that changed?

There are so many positives and negatives, I’ve broken down the obvious parts already, but how do they sum up as a whole?  Ok.  First, lets look at…

The Tie Breakers

In my mind, these are the tie breakers (in no particular order), where the Desire proves itself as a legitimate iPhone killer. These things I wish my iPhone did.

1. Flash Support. Sorry Jobs, sorry fanboys, but i’m with adobe. The HTML5 tests i’ve personally done on the device show that flash outperforms HTML by orders of some magnitude.
2. A far, far better camera than the iPhone’s. I always knew the iPhone camera was bad, but perhaps i didn’t want to acknowledge how bad it was.
3. Customisation.  Apps, widgets, homescreens, scenes, all these on Sense UI is wonderful.
4. Multitasking.  I know its coming in OS4, but its not here yet, so how it will work in practise, remains to be seen.
5. Aggregated contact info. Linking email accounts to phone numbers, contacts to facebook and flickr accounts is wonderful.  
6. Emailing.  If you want to email more than one photo, you can.  (Try this on your iPhone, write email, attach photo. It doesn’t work. Try sending two photos on one email, it doesn’t work either).
7. Ability to use phone as hard disk.  A minor, but im carrying 8gig of storage. It being accessible on the other end of a USB lead, is great. No proprietary apple nonsense here.
8. Speed. Its faster. Loads faster. Not even in the same league type faster.

Thats a fairly big list… leading me to my conclusion, and my decision.

It’s all about buying a HTC desire instead of an iPhone, obviously!

Amazingly, no.

Look, here’s something that only people who have lived with an iPhone will understand.  It just works.  Its elegant in function. Everything it does do, it does with more flair and polish than any competing device.  Yes, it has feature holes, yes, its a flawed device at times, but 90% of the time, you don’t care, because you’re loving playing with it too much.

The Desire doesn’t give you the same experience. It relieves you from the annoyances, and gives you a great alternative, but even with the ropey will-it-work-or-wont-it-work bluetooth that they have in the 3GS, its STILL the nicer device to use.

Even with the auto-rotate when you’re replying to a message in bed (the MOST infruriating thing on the iPhone)

iPhone achieves such a nice experience the other 90% of the time, that you are willing to put up with the 10% of annoyance.

My Mum is getting a new phone soon, and she doesn’t know what to get.  Me, I know that the iPhone will do everything she wants, without her having to read a manual.  She’ll try and do something, and it’ll do what she wants right out of the box. My suggestion, even after all the Desire reviewing, is that she needs an iPhone.

Apple’s strength, lies in user experience.  Apple’s logo has a bite missing out of it.  I figure that bite represents the bits they haven’t bothered to put in (fairly ubiquitous statement this, the more I think about it).  However, the rest of the fruit is the sweetest most satisfying fruit you will ever eat.

Once you’ve lived with an iPhone, you want at least the same experience, and you don’t get it with the Desire.

I’m sure for people who care less about how nice a phone is to use, and care more about functions (at any cost), will always side with the Desire, but me, i use my phone a lot. I use it for a lot, and expect a lot of it.

I couldn’t in clear conscience tell everyone reading this that they should buy a HTC Desire because its an out-and-out iPhone killer. The truth is, it isn’t.

For someone like me, it just has to be iPhone.