Why I Will Never Buy an Android Phone Again

I hate my phone. Everything seemed all dandy and sweet in the beginning, as I moved up into the world of smart phones. My first cue should have been the fact that, when I started out, I had an HTC Inspire. I had it for a week, and after numerous crashes and freezing, the final straw was when I had to take the entire phone apart and take out the memory card because the phone would not turn off or restart. Jarrod was not having any problems with his Samsung, so I switched and got the same as his, a Samsung Infuse.

I realize (or at least, sure as hell, hope) the issues I am about to complain about may have been resolved by more recent OS updates, but I don't have those... so I'm only writing what I know.

Here are the reasons I will never again buy an Android phone:

1. The lack of OS updates—I realize I have Samsung to blame for this one. See, when Google releases a new OS, it is then up to the phone makers to provide a kernel of that for their specific phones. Some phones may get it, others may not. The only people who don't have to worry about this issue are Nexus phones, they always get the updates (similar to Apple's way of doing things.) If your phone is over 6 months old, there's a good chance you won't get it. I am stuck forever on Android 2.2, aka Froyo. Android has a fun/cutesy naming system with sweet treats, in alphabetical order. Currently, the up-to-date Androids are on Ice Cream Sandwich, soon to become Jellybeans. F, G, H, I, J... I'm five versions back. And will always be that way because, like I said, Samsung has deemed my phone, the Infuse, unimportant or incompatible to upgrade the operating system. Yes, this is Samsung's fault, but that's the problem. With Apple, the OS is from Apple, and the phone is from Apple. At a point, your device will become obsolete, but that probably won't happen as quickly as Android. Is this outlook a bit walled? Yes, but it makes for a fluidity that Android doesn't have for probably 90+ percent of it's devices.
2. Delay or Lack of Apps—Something I've started to notice, because everyone I work with has an iPhone, is the enormous lack of apps on Android. There have been more times than I can count where I've been reading about this great new app, only to get to the end of the article where it says it's for iOS only. Furthermore, updates seem to come to the land of Apple sooner, too. It took AP over two months before they updated their app, versus when their iPhone app updated. And I'm still waiting on Twitter to update theirs with their new logo/icon. It's ridiculous. Wanna do Pinterest? You'll need an iPhone for that. Want to manage a Facebook Page with Facebook's new Page app? You'll need an iPhone for that too.
3. The unpleasant-ness of the App store—Or "Google Play" as it is known these days. The process for approval, to get your app to market, is much more loose on Android than with Apple. I think I heard once that there are 2 stages, where with Apple there are 6? Anyways, the lack of development shows. Furthermore, the abundance of, how do I say, "adult" apps is appalling. No joke, in almost any category you browse through, you are bound to find an app relating to pictures of girls, sex position 'dictionaries', or something like that. It's been a while since I've perused the Apple App Store for my iPod Touch, but I never, EVER came across one of those in there. I guess that goes back to the stricter approval process.
4. Stupid bug issues—Again, I hope these have been resolved since my OS version. But there are so many little issues, like how the phone operates, how the screen goes off randomly when trying to hang up a call, to how I can't see what I've written in a comment on something because the text box won't expand more than two lines. And the list goes on and on.
5. Gmail sucks—Come on Google! This is your baby here! Wouldn't you make your native mail client work better? Gmail on mobile is pretty much useless when you have a forwarded message. I asked a coworker one time how iPhones display forwarded messages, and it shows the history of a message in a neat, nice menu format. Not Gmail. Gmail tabs over each previously responded message, but doesn't expand the text field so if you have more than 4 replies in the conversation, the message shows up one letter on top of another.

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like that. It's impossible!

Android, I expected better of you. I don't care if I have to sign my life away to Apple and only buy everything Apple for my next phone, because my daily experience will be worth it. Androids are selling like hot cakes these days, but I just don't believe they'll be able to retain their audience. I realize every phone will have problems, including an iPhone, but I can't imagine things will be more clumsy than the stupid Android phone I have right now.