Perhaps...
I haven't written a blog article this year. This year... As in, almost five months. It's easy to blame long work hours and other life situations, but ultimately I'm responsible. What a slacker.
I find myself almost daily thinking of new ideas to write about. I want to make writing a priority again. So, let's start today.
So much has happened in the last five months on the technology front. Ice Cream Sandwich. iPad 3. iOS. Samsung Galaxy Nexus. New Motorola tablets released shortly after Google bought Motorola Mobility. Kindle Fire.
I find myself in a bit of a techno-conundrum. Last week I purchased a new iPod touch. My 80GB iPod classic is still working. It's 5 years old now and although I've had no problems with it, I'm not sure at what point the device will give out or begin having problems. I've generally had very good luck with Apple products, their hardware is generally very reliable. However, an iPod is a small device that gets thrown around a lot. I'm going on a 5 month work trip soon and won't have access to the iMac I have at home, so if the iPod were to lock up or fail, I'd have no music for up to 5 months. Given my music addiction, this is unacceptable. The iPod touch can also access the iTunes music store through wi-fi without being connected to a Mac, another plus. And finally, the iPod touch has Facetime. I plan on using Facetime to chat with my family on the iMac while I'm away. I upgraded my iMac to OS X Lion so we could set up Facetime and iCloud.
Now before purchasing my iPod touch, I had been listening to all of my music on my Droid Razr, Samsung Chromebook, or Kindle Fire using Google Music or Amazon MP3 player (the iPod classic is used mostly in the car). I've purchased music from both services and have uploaded most of my music collection to the Google cloud. The Razr headphone jack periodically won't work, but when it does I'd use it with my Etymotic Research HF3 headphones, which are very accurate. After getting my new iPod touch, I downloaded some previously purchased music in the iTunes Music store (thank you, iCloud!) and bought some new albums as well. I was astonished at how much better my music sounded on the iPod touch. I've done back to back comparisons, and there really is a difference.
When we tried out Facetime, my wife and I were very impressed and surprised at just how good it is. We had used Google video chat via Gmail before on my Chromebook, but the quality of the video on Facetime just seemed much better. This led to another discussion we had been having for the last several months. Last year I left Sprint for Verizon because my Sprint phone could never find a signal where I work in California. I opted for the Droid Razr, since I already knew Android and use Google services extensively. After trying out facetime, my wife agreed we should switch her over to Verizon. We got her the iPhone 4S.
Between learning iOS on my iPod touch and setting up her new iPhone, I've been surprised how much I like iOS. I shouldn't be surprised...I've loved my Macs and Mac OS X for years. But being the computer nerd I am, I think I bought in to a lot of the anti-Apple hype when I got my Android device. The big reason I never jumped on an iPhone in the early days was that I didn't want AT&T...ever. But the more I learned about how iCloud worked, when I saw how good the keyboard on the iPhone and iPod touch are, and when I saw how good the Facetime app worked...I just found myself thinking "Why didn't we do this sooner??" I even prefer the iOS version of the Google+ app to the Android version.
So, do I stay with Android (where's my ICS upgrade, Moto??) or do I come back to the Apple fold when the iPhone 5 comes out? Why do I feel like it has to be one or the other? Do any of you mix and match between Android and iOS devices?
