Android G1 to iPhone 3GS

I know there are going to be a couple laughs and a few fingers pointed, but I can take it, so here it goes… I’ve migrated to an iPhone 3Gs on AT&T from my G1 Android on T-Mobile. Yup – that just happened.

Watch the video for details.

I don’t want to explain exactly what the video covers but in general the Android and HTC G1 combo are growing too slowly and I think have some road blocks coming along the road. This isn’t to say the iPhone OS is perfect – far from it but it’s had much more time to grow up and I realized I can’t wait for Android to grow up. Regardless of my switch I’ll watch the maturing Android OS and see how it goes and you never know what will happen – but for now I’ve taken the contract break from T-Mobile and moved over to AT&T.

Comments are where you should ask your questions and I’ll reply to them here so everybody can contribute. This isn’t something that should turn into a flame war but if you must. There are good things about both platforms and there are a couple things I’m leaving behind to make the switch so neither is perfect. Talk to you soon, cheers!

Full Sized HD on YouTube.
Also on Vimeo & Viddler for further commenting.

UPDATE: I’ve added some more insight in a second post after using the iPhone for a couple days: Android to iPhone Part 2
Jan 2010 UPDATE: I waned to mention a great post on TechCrunch titled “An iPhone Lover’s Take On The Nexus One” that’s worth a read.

Posted 8 July 2009 in Web Life, written by:
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  • http://paulsutton.us Paul Sutton

    Have been pondering this transition myself, my biggest concern is regarding closing out the contract with T-Mobile, as far as the price and ease, and also the cost of the iPhone 3GS with the 2 year required contract. Other than that, nice, detailed illustration of your BOLD move.

  • http://www.TerenceChang.com Terence Chang

    Ha. Nice!

    I almost wanted to wait for the MyTouch phone for T-Mobile. I am so glad that I pick iPhone 3GS instead.

    I am extremely happy with what iPhone 3GS brought to me. I don’t use lost minutes, but I do a lot of 3G data stuff.

    Besides the short battery life, I have no complaints to the stuff I can do on iPhone 3GS.

  • http://askohdoctah.com Ohdoctah

    Welcome to the club sir!

  • http://benatkin.com/ Ben Atkin

    I’ve debated whether to switch from the G1 to the iPhone myself. On the one hand, there’s a lot of really neat and useful stuff for the iPhone. On the other hand, the iPhone would cost $15 more per month for my light use, and there’s my distaste for the closed nature and the shenanigans of the App Store. I’m sticking with the G1 for now, but your video got me thinking about the lack of commitment from Google and T-mobile, as exemplified by their slow rollout of Cupcake. I can see now why there’s been quite a bit of talk about the Palm Pre on twitter.

    • Chucky

      I wanted to get an iPhone at first but didn't like AT&T service. When I heard about Android I decided to wait. When you wrote the above 23 weeks ago, the Android platform was moving a snail pace. It was only in the last 2 months, mainly October and November of 2009 thing started to change at a phenomenal rate. I'm glad I waited. I don't want to be redundant (as I posted this before), but this site gives a pretty good time-line of what is happening with Android: http://androidcompare.com/time-l.html

  • http://rynoweb.com Chuck Reynolds

    @Paul – I did ponder it for a while – definitely wasn’t a quick decision. I’m basically taking a $200 contract-cancellation hit from T-Mobile but after all my issues and daily annoyances… It became worth it.

    @Ben – The additional cost of AT&T was leveled a bit by the fact I could do a joint account with my girlfriend which brings our bill to about $160/mo and divided in half, that’s what I was paying for Tmo anyways. I would have had to think longer if I had to pay the $130 ish on my own so I understand you there.
    The closed nature of iPhone is an arguement but talk to Derek Neighbors about it – he had some great insight which basically made me see why developers love and build only for iPhone.
    The Pre… we’ll see – it’s very much in its infancy and to tell you the truth… Sprint sucks so… lol

    Thanks all for the comments!

  • http://paulsutton.us Paul Sutton

    Kind of what I thought, still curious how much the iPhone was with AT&T contract, that is a huge selling point for me if I am going to spend the $200 to cancel with T-Mobile, if you don’t mind me asking?

    • http://chuckreynolds.us Chuck Reynolds

      @Paul – iPhone 3GS black 16gb was $199 and I think activation was $26 and took about 10min. Like I said to Ben, monthly is about $160 for the both of us so half is what I was paying Tmo anyways.

  • http://benatkin.com/ Ben Atkin

    Chuck, I’ve heard people complain about the Centro and that’s why I didn’t pay much attention to the Pre. I can see that people’s interest isn’t about the Pre so much as the flaws of the other two platforms.

    As for my iPhone App Store gripes, it’s not specific to the iPhone App Store. Over the years I’ve grown to love the freedom of being able to install a binary from any source, and being able to work directly with users and not some intermediary. There’s a lot of other expectations I have of computing that are being tossed aside. I need to think about how my personal qualms are going to effect my career going forward.

  • http://www.rxgx.com Ryan Gasparini

    AT&T has really gotten their act together so I think waiting as long as you have is smart. GSM whether it is T-Mobile or AT&T is not going to be as good as a carrier technology as CDMA but there’s no one I know that says anything good about T-Mobile’s service.

  • Pingback: Android to Iphone Part 2 | rYnoweb by Chuck Reynolds

  • http://desertstandard.com Roger

    Welcome to the club chuck, it was just a question of time my friend.

    Good video bud! You are gonna have to start doing more!

  • http://livejamie.com Jamie Martin

    I think a lot of your problems stem from an old/maybe defective phone.

    With all the applications that I have on my G1, like Locale, Enkin, Compare Everywhere (all reasons in themselves to get an Android phone) – I couldn’t see myself changing phones.

    Most of these applications wouldn’t be possible on the iPhone due, not for technical reasons but because of the restrictions Apple places in their SDK.

    And that’s the biggest problem that I have with the iPhone. eBook readers have been banned because “questionable content could be read.” – They rejected the South Park application because it was objectionable, etc.

    There are plenty of applications and hacks to make your G1 look like whatever you want and to do whatever you want, and it’s backed by a company that supports you doing so.

  • Seth

    Another rejected apple app store application Google voice. Man is it nice.

    Also as a developer I much prefer Google’s (all though modified) implementation of java to objective C. Programming in Netbeans or Eclipse (Where I am already comfortable) is a major plus as well. Using java based IDEs means I can dev on windows/Linux/OSX/BSD/Solaris.. etc etc etc… The java stack is just so mature at this point, its really nice to be able to use junit for my unit tests and Hudson for my CI. An open source programming language on an open source OS backed by the company that defined web 2.0 apps. Nuff said as far as I’m concerned.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/chuckreynolds Chuck Reynolds

      I can't argue with you regarding Apple's behavior lately with app approval… There's more to that than meets the eye and hopefully one day we'll find out and they'll get over their pissing match. As far as I've heard it's due to AT&T but we may never REALLY know.
      As far as code… to each his own man – I haven't touched any type of mobile dev – just hang out with many that do so…

  • brad

    ok, I got a magic(32A) with the stock standard ROm installed, i think you know what that means, anyhow, then along came the Hero with its sensUI. I of course got UI envy, and decided to flash the ROM am currently running a faster better looking UI(even than iPhone) on top of my true MULTITASKING(got rub it in :) Android device. Now that Android 2.0 is released that itchy feeling to upgrade is right back and as soon as theres a ROM for that available im gonna flash it. The point is this, As long as i'm running android, i've got options. And as long as you are running the iPhone, you dont.

    The droid may not be faster than the iPhone, but it beats the pants off it in terms of functionality. Steve, you probably pretty bothered right now, cause all you hanging onto is the app store right now, the Android market will grow, in fact all the big apps are already there :)

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/chuckreynolds Chuck Reynolds

      I'd agree with you totally… The biggest thing for me as an early adopter is I put too much faith in thinking that developers were going to hit the open source thing hard and put out the apps that I wanted that all my iPhone web devs had. The fact of the matter is that it didn't happen. It's been a year and finally some of the bigger apps are coming out for it. Again apps are subjective… you may like/use apps I don't. Whether or not an iPhone or an Android phone is for somebody depends on the person – for me the iPhone is where I need to be right now. That may change next year or not… idk – but I'm where I'm happy right now and at the point that Android, the apps and the hardware can out trump my current setup – I'll switch.

  • http://www.jndwebdesign.co.uk SEO Manchester

    Does anyone have the definitive list of apps for the iPhone for useful for web dev's, designers, seo?

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/chuckreynolds Chuck Reynolds

      and http://www.authoritydomains.com/blogs/seo/4-must-…
      I have those but they're not anything that'd make you do seo via mobile verse doing on your laptop lol… but hopefully they build em up more

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/chuckreynolds Chuck Reynolds

    I haven't really looked but http://www.google.com/search?q=iphone+apps+for+we… turns up some good ones… though I really don't use all of those.

    As far as SEO… there's a few apps but nothing that's really good… I do use the whois one often however

  • Chucky

    The G1 is the first generation Android phone that was introduced in 2008. Only this past October 2009 things started to take off for Android. Many much more powerful phones are coming out in January of 2010 (http://androidcompare.com/time-l.html). Noticed a good Android vs. iPhone comparison on the same site as well:
    http://androidcompare.com/iphone.html

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