I'm so sick of hearing, "but the iPhone doesn't have a user-replaceable battery or SD card", "the iPhone is closed", yada yada. Look, I own a Samsung Captivate (Galaxy S) and it's mostly great, and I like it better than the iPhone 3G or 4 (which I get plenty of oppty to play with), mainly for it's customizability and tweakability. (And it's AMOLED goodness! Although the iPhone 4's higher res is really sweet too so roughly a draw for me.)
But I am not so delusional as to think:
1) That having a replaceable battery is a great feature. I [and most tech/gadget geeks] will buy a new phone before the battery life becomes an issue. Besides, it is a great myth that the iPhone battery cannot be replaced. It can, in-store. Or by the user [and your "warranty" {pfft} doesn't have to be invalidated]. Sure it would be nicer if it were easier to replace, but such a trivial issue as to be a non-issue.
2) That not having a user-accessible SD card is a deal-breaker. Sure, this one is much more of a personal preference kind of thing - e.g. if you like to fill up both internal and external SD memory with videos, music, and apps. However, even though I have several dozen apps installed, take lots of photos and video, have a full season of "Dora" episodes on for my kids, and have an extensive library of MP3s loaded...I am nowhere near filling just the built-in SD card's capacity. Even though I immediately installed my own 32gb SD card, I have since learned I don't actually remotely need it. One thing it is useful for though, is for easy data transfer to/from PC. But OBEX, or wifi FTP or SMB isn't that bad. But if speed is important, a USB cable works just as well as physically transferring the SD card [which is a royal pain on most phones anyway and some have even to remove the battery].
3) That the iPhone is "closed". Or more specifically [because it IS "closed"], that Android phones are NOT "closed". [They very much are!] Yes the Android OS itself is open-source software. But this point must be understood: Android *phones* ARE NO MORE "open" THAN THE iPhone. Just as with the iPhone, you have to jailbreak Android phones to gain root access. But even worse than the iPhone, mobile carriers bloat their Android offerings up with a ton of useless crap that cannot be uninstalled. Also, the iPhone 4 is trivially easy to jailbreak. Android phones are hit-and-miss, depending on the model...but almost all require advanced geek know-how. Besides, iOS is based on UNIX, just as Android is on Linux. In that respect, the two are very similar for jailbreakers and *nix geeks.
And look, I love FOSS. I've used Ubuntu exclusively on my last two macbooks (and most of my other computers), after all. I use free/libre applications almost exclusively as well. So the IDEA of Android being open-source is certainly quite compelling for me. But in terms of practical everyday utility, it doesn't affect me at all that Android is FOSS. After all, guess who the primary contributor and sole sponsor is? GOOGLE. It may as well be closed-source, as it would be no better or worse in terms of it's ability to run a phone efficiently, slickly, and usably.
I also do like that Android 2.2 is capable of running Flash. But since I'm still on 2.1, that is irrelevant to me now, and the only reason I'll upgrade to 2.2 is to fix the INCREDIBLY annoying bug of the screen locking while making a call, present in 2.1 (this bug alone has made me want to switch to iPhone...but I'll wait it out just for the cost [and consumer waste] issue).
Another whiny complaint that Android fanboys tout, is that Android doesn't have an app store with arbitrary, draconian control. I do have a problem with this, and in fact is the ONLY reason I chose android over iPhone. Well that, and the monopoly-like grip that Apple has been wielding lately. It was my little economic vote. (I will still pay heavy premiums for their notebooks though...and endure the pain of getting a Linux distro running quasi-properly on it, because for my needs, no one comes close to making better notebook hardware than Apple. But I'm not married to the idea. With each purchase, I still go through a lengthy evaluation period, considering everything available. The day will certainly come when someone makes a Windows notebook [or even a Linux distro preinstalled...but not likely] significantly better than a Mac notebook. When that day comes, that coincides with my need to buy a new one, I have absolutely no brand "loyalty" to Mac so I will switch. (BTW macbooks are the ONLY Apple products I've ever purchased. With the iPod for example, I very much do not like how tightly it is tied to iTunes. I just want to copy MP3s to a bulk storage device via USB [or bluetooth or wifi] and be done with it.)
And about multitasking: iOS4 has rendered this a moot point. Android's multitasking isn't anywhere NEAR true "multitasking" as most fanboys just assume. True multitasking would simply kill any phone's li-ion battery. It is very much closer to iOS4's limited multitasking. The two are at near parity in terms of practical multitasking usage. So please, fanboys, quit touting that as a superior edge. Yeah, Android had it long before iPhone. Big whoop: technology moves fast, phones even faster, and all that matters is what is out right NOW.
So please...can we dispense with the rediculous fanboy BS? It is so silly. It's like claiming that Fords are inherently superior to Chevy's. (With the "Calvin pissing on..." stickers.) It is just an example of our species strong desire to publicly proclaim an affiliation with something...even if that something is a BRAND. How primitive is that? Be open minded. Android and iPhone, in the big picture, are nearly identical and at feature parity (again in the big picture...which in this case you only have to broaden your view to a couple of years).
Peace
