Thanks to friend and mobile mentor, Yomi Adegboye, also known in the space as Mister Mobility, as well as all the great geeks on the Mobility Blog, I embraced mobile in 2010 and purchased my first smartphone…the Nokia E63. That singular act opened up new vistas that I had never imagined before then, and in the space of two years, I went from local tech champion in an obscure university to budding tech pundit on Techloy.
Mobile has been good to me, and I owe a a huge chunk of my personal improvement to the use of my trusty old E63. I did and learnt everything on that phone…typed up presentations, made payments, built websites and ran my freelance design consultancy…practically everything.
Symbian
As far as learning the ropes of mobile are concerned, Symbian has served me well, and might have continued to serve, had it managed to stay relevant in the ever-evolving ecosystem. It’s time has come and gone however, and so must I. Symbian will be fondly remembered, but the greener grass of currently relevant mobile platforms beckon, irresistibly.
Like many before me, I’ve officially jumped off the burning platform.
Android
First, I need to say this. I’m completely platform agnostic, I have no bias whatsoever. I my assessment of devices and platforms are based on four broad broad criteria, which are -
- Functionality
- User Experience
- Developer Ecosystem
- Local Support
What I do have bias for however are platforms/devices that are accessible to the budget/low-income demographic, those’ll get me ranting like your average iSheep or Android drone anyday. I apologise for those in advance.
After severing ties with Symbian, I was left with platform options to choose from, iOS, Android and Windows Phone (I have put Blackberry in abbeyance till further notice). Many factors influenced my choice, but in the end, I have turned to the mobile platform that offers a great deal of functionality and a relatively low bar to entry – Android. First with the Samsung Galaxy Y, which I had for a week. My current device is the Samsung Galaxy Pro (a lot of folk around me keep mistaking it for a Blackberry). I chose to begin my Android experience with budget devices because -
- Well, they are easy on the budget
- I’m actually interested in high powered budget devices and how their proliferation can bring a whole new world of possibilities that were hitherto inaccessible to the huge low-income demographic, especially the youth.
- I want to experience the platform’s capabilities across the gamut of available hardware, moving up from the low-end to high-powered devices and advanced accessories.
After the Galaxy Pro, I’m thinking an HTC would be a good next move.
“Carrying Last”
So I came late to the Android party. Bite me. It took me a whole 5 minutes to figure out the UI, 30 minutes for device settings, a few hours to populate my phone with dozens of apps, and barely a week to outgrow the meagre resources that the Galaxy Pro has to offer. In another week, I’ll be rooting and installing custom ROMs like the best of the XDA forum guys. And I’ll be talking about all of it, right here, assuming you care, that is.
Join Me
By this time, I already have a lot of stories to share about my Android experience, and I promise that they will be delivered from an objective point of view – on battery life, performance, data requirements, hardware, usability, apps…the works. If you’re already an Android veteran, there might not be much for you to learn here…but then again, the space is vast, and you might find a thing or two that’s new…or you could just smile and humour this chap. If you happen to be new to the platform however, I can tell you that it promises to be an exciting undertaking, exploring what is possible with Android. Whatever category you happen to belong to, I’m positive that this will be fun.
It has begun, my Android journey. I welcome you to join me.
[image: via Flickr/Jen & Tony Bot]
