Dark side, here I come

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The Android platform allows for total user customization.

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The iPhone 5 with its, um, amazingly cool new "lightning connector." Yawn, says our David Bell.

I have to admit it -- I've been an Apple fanboy ever since I bought my first Apple laptop when I was 12 years old. I remember saving my money for a year to buy a black 13-inch MacBook. After buying the MacBook, I purchased an iPod Touch. I loved both products. The cohesion between the MacBook and the iPod Touch was seamless. After the iPod Touch, I got sucked into iCloud. This allowed me to have an Apple email account and have everything sync from my devices to the cloud wirelessly. It was awesome. Fast forward three years, and I'm still using Apple products every single day.

I'm currently using the iPhone 4 as my everyday smartphone. I absolutely love it. The only thing I hate about it is it seems my cheek messes with the screen while I'm making a call, and I tend to hang up on people accidentally. Besides that con, I'm a big fan of the phone.

On Sept. 12, when Apple held the keynote to announce the iPhone 5, I was eager to see what they were going to release. I was hoping for a drastic design change, and a lot of new features. I wanted cool enough features to justify buying out my Rogers contract to upgrade. After seeing the tweets about the new iPhone 5, I was extremely disappointed.

The biggest new feature is the phone is now a tad longer. Apple also discontinued the 30-pin dock connector and replaced it with a port called the "lightning connector." Big whoop. The phone also got much thinner, therefore making the device lighter.

Faster, lighter, and bigger -- that's it Apple? I could've done that. I'm missing the crazy new features that were rumoured that got me super excited to purchase the new version. Making a phone bigger, thinner, and changing up a dock connector cable isn't "revolutionary" or "magical."

I'm starting to wonder if Apple's success is all because of Steve Jobs. I'm starting to think Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, doesn't have that creative instinct that Steve possessed. The iPhone 5 sucks!

A few weeks ago, I wrote if the new iPhone 5 didn't blow my socks off, I'd switch to the dark side: Android. Android is emerging rapidly in the United States, and is starting to pick up some steam here in Canada. Android, unlike iOS, allows for complete and total customization. You can fiddle around with the software, and make the device yours. Another thing I'm starting to like about the Android platform is there are several devices you can choose from. Android's marketplace for apps is growing rapidly as well; there are a lot of cool applications being released daily.

I feel like Apple is losing concentration. It realizes it has the whole world sucked into its products, and that it can take a seat, relax, and not produce quality like it used too. When I ask people about what they think about the iPhone 5, they always respond, "I love it so much, I'm totally going to buy it." In my opinion, they don't really realize it's not that innovative. They are just slaves to Apple's product and culture. A feature I really would've liked to see in the iPhone 5 was a fingerprint scanner on the home button. It would've been totally cool just to place a finger on the home button, have it scan your print, then take you to the home screen. The technology isn't new; it's actually been around for quite a while. Why didn't Apple do it?

So ladies and gentlemen, I'm switching to Android. I'm still going to use my MacBook Pro, which I love to death, I'm just finally saying adios to the iPhone, and move on to bigger and better things. I want to be with the company who is constantly trying to be innovative and trying to prove that they are better than other smartphones. I'm going to go to Rogers next week, buy out my contract, and pick up a Samsung Galaxy SIII. I like that device in particular because it has a large screen, is extremely fast, and is the top rated Android device.

I'd really like to hear your thoughts on the iPhone 5. Are you happy with the new features? Or are you thinking of joining Team Android? Tweet me your thoughts: @thedavidbell.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 16, 2012 A15