iPhone Bondage

For the last few years I have silently accepted the control of my dark overlords at Apple in their evil union with AT&T.  Their draconian rules, contracts, and crappy customer service and network was kind of worth it to have a state of the art phone, that made other phones turn green with envy.  But the latest generation of Android mobile phones have finally allowed me to escape the evil clutches of Apple once and for all, and I tell you, I ain't never going back in there.

I think the iPhone story in the US is an almost perfect example of what happens when two corporations get together in an environment where consumer protection laws are weak and hardly enforced.  Two year contracts, penalty fees, a lack of choice, price fixing, DRM and even complete control over the software you are allowed to buy or download onto your phone.  Being told I couldn't have insurance, being told if anything went wrong I had to drive out of my way to find an Apple store.  My list of grievances was growing longer by the week.  And then there is always the carrot Apple dangles as rumors spread of their next great innovation. 

Early this month I decided to make the change.  My iPhone 3GS was not retaining charge as long as it should, and I was getting sick of having such a crappy camera on the phone.  My first plan was to simply buy an iPhone 4, but according to the rules I was a few weeks too early so I was to be charged $250 penalty for the early upgrade, and that simply wasn't going to happen.  I thought about going to Verizon, but you're still shackled to all the Apple rules and policies, and don't have simultaneous voice and data.  I put in an application to AT&T customer service for special permission for an early upgrade, but after a few days of deliberation my application was rejected; and I was sentenced to a flogging in the village square for my impertinence.  Okay, so that last bit isn't true, but they did tell me to take a hike.

Now in fairness to AT&T, they did give me permission to early upgrade to any non-Apple product, and to sweeten the deal they reduced by bill by $10 a month, gave me unlimited free texting, on top of my unlimited data plan.  On that basis I started to research the Android phones they carry.

When I took a look at the latest offerings and was pretty impressed with the massive AMOLED screen on the Infuse 4G, and upon more research decided I could probably live with it fairly well given that pretty much every application I used on the iPhone is available on the Android where most apps seem cheaper or free.

Escaping Apple

Escaping the clutches of Apple isn't that easy, especially if you've been a good little minion and have been purchasing all your music from iTunes with that nasty DRM (copy protection) on the music, but thankfully I had long since stopped doing that, and all my recent music purchases have been from Amazon, who use a standard MP3 file format that is completely portable.

My iPhone had somehow confused itself with my contacts, and had taken to duplicating some or all of them when I synced it, and even the application I had purchased to fix the problem had not really cleaned up my contacts properly.  So when I purchased my Samsung Infuse 4G, the AT&T staff were not able to copy the data off my SIM card.  This proved to be a minor annoyance, but an hour getting my Gmail contact list back in line proved to be all that was necessary to ensure my contacts list was up to date and on my phone.

I have recently started using the excellent Amazon cloud to store my music so pretty much all my music off my computer and iPhone was already on the cloud.  There is an Android App that allows you to play your cloud music right off the phone, but so that you can still listen to the music on a plane the same app will sync the cloud to your phone in the background so the music exists locally as well as remotely.

As to the phone itself, I can see now why iPhone rose to greatness so quickly.  It is unspeakably simple to use, Apple realized that the key to success was not simply making a kick ass phone, they had to make it simple and intuitive, and in fairness, they achieved that.  But like anything you dumb down to the lowest common denominator, that simplicity also translated to a lack of choice and functionality.  Android gives you way more choice, and this does make things harder, but for for me ultimately more rewarding.

I spent many hours playing with the phone, configuring it just how I liked it and to my relief it can do just about anything my iPhone could do, but with many advantages that outweigh anything I might have lost.

What I Love

Clearly the screen on the Infuse is just spectacular.  At 4.5 inches and in AMOLED glory it is like watching a small HD TV.  I've watched TV shows and movies on this thing and actually don't feel like I am looking at an animated postage stamp.

Some of the graphics, animated wallpaper for example, are just incredible; truly beautiful.  This graphical prowess also extends to the camera that takes excellent pictures at 8MP and video at 720P.

Together with the graphical loveliness of the phone the CPU delivers smooth and fluid operation.  With only a few minor exceptions, the phone doesn't keep me waiting.

This phone is way faster in data speed than the old iPhone, and it seems to have a better signal than my iPhone in most places I have traveled to.

I love the easy connectivity to the Amazon cloud.  It's like the iCloud, except some bastard corporation isn't setting draconian copy protection rules and being shitty about where I can keep my data.

I love the customizable nature of the phone.  For example the device ships with three different keyboards for text entry, each working very differently from the others.  And in fact I purchased an even better one for $1.99, that has incredibly intuitive and AI predictive text.

I think the voice recognition is pretty good, still not good enough to completely replace typing, but good nontheless.

From what I've seen on the Android market place, apps are far more freely available on than at the Apple store where so much stuff costs 99c and up.  In fact I pretty much have every app I used to have on the iPhone, and I didn't have to spend a penny to achieve that.  Also with Android if you buy and app and hate it, you can uninstall it within 15 minutes and not be charged.

I think the phone is very good looking, shiny black on one side like big iPhone 4, and what they call caviar black on the back, with an interesting texture.

Of course because this phone is not made by Apple, I get to use websites with Flash if I want to.

What I Dislike

I do miss the size of my old phone, clearly though if I want a massive screen like that, common sense tells you it's going to be bigger than an iPhone, although it is only 8.9mm thick.  It's not hard to carry the phone in the pocket, but one does have to be a little bit careful when holding it to ensure it is not dropped.  Because there are four touch keys on the bottom of the device, you have to be careful where you put your grip too.

The speakerphone is not as good as the iPhone, but only marginally worse.  Having said that, the call quality is superior, so I can actually have a normal conversation without using the speakerphone.  I found the call quality of the iPhone so poor, I would use speakerphone all the time, and that simply isn't necessary any more.

Some of the Android applications are still not as good as the iPhone.  In fact it seems like some of the apps I've used are old versions of iPhone apps that have been ported.  But those are few and far between in fairness.  I am annoyed that at the time of writing Skype doesn't support video chat, and Netflix has not put out an app for the Android yet (at least not this Android).  Let's also not forget too how basic the Facebook app is.  Not cool, considering the power of the phone it should be way better.

I keep hearing about the 2.3 operating system, and I hope Samsung gives me an upgrade option down the road.  Time will tell on that.  I have not really researched what makes it so good, but I do like to have the latest OS as a general rule.

I miss the visual voicemail of the iPhone, and don't really understand why Android/AT&T are not offering that yet.  Seems like something they could charge some bullshit fee for, which I'd be (almost) happy to pay.

The phone ships with a cable to attach it to an HDMI cable.  Staying in a hotel that can be handy to watch movies or TV shows from services like HBO Go on a bigger screen.  Oddly though it wouldn't let me watch shows I had purchased from Samsung (with the gift card they gave me), on the big screen.  Unfortunately, the hotel I tried it in had poor WiFi and poor cell reception, so there was some buffering issues.  I'll have to assume it works better in other areas.

Conclusion

The Samsung Infuse 4G is awesome.  Plain and simple, it's a great phone with only a few minor flaws.  Whatever flaw you might pick on though is completely outweighed by what it brings to the table.  To me it is wonderful not to be tied to Apple any more.  No more DRM, no more syncing, no more being forced to download iTunes with that fucking horrific QuickTime they force you to install.  No more not being allowed to sync my phone to both my desktop and laptop PC.  No more draconian rules about upgrading, service (forced driving to an Apple store), not being able to have insurance against loss or damage.

I know that by the end of the year there will likely be an iPhone 5, and I'm sure it will be lovely.  But despite my former love of the iPhone (it was once arguably the best smartphone on the market), I just don't care what the iPhone 5 can do.  I am not willing to trade my soul for it.  The price of admission is too high, and my skepticism extends to products like the iCloud that only seek to further lock you in to their world.

In their joint corporate greed for money and control, AT&T and Apple took a great and revolutionary product and made it unpalatable for many people.  In the meantime a handful of major corporations began a race to kick Apples ass, and to me they have succeeded.  One can never predict the future, maybe one day the iPhone 8 will be so incredible nothing else will be able to touch it.  The truth though is that just like Mac vs PC, there are dozens of companies making PCs and similarly a lot of companies that make cell phones.  The Android operating system is a powerful weapon that unites the competition against Apple, and it seems hard to imagine that Apple has the power to continually fend off attacks in the long term while staying ahead of the curve.

My 30 day trial on the Samsung Infuse is coming to an end.  I am quite happy to hang on to this device for the next 20 months, then we'll see what's out there.