Why I fell in Love with Android

Many people ask me, why I prefer Android over the iPhone although I own, with the iPhone 3GS, one of the best, many people would say The best, smartphones ever.

And to answer this difficult question I've to go back a while:

In the last seven years I owned many mobiles - really many. Being responsible for mobile software development I had to test our applications against many platforms. So it happened that I changed my personal phone every two weeks, because we always had the latest and the best ones.

And the most annoying thing switching the phone was to bring the new phone to the status of the old one - meanwhile you can compare the initialization of a smartphone with the installation of a desktop PC.

And then came Android. Before Android I haven't been a Google mail or calendar user, but with Android I learnt, that I just have to put my new SIM card into the new Android mobile and everything is as it was before: Emails, calendar, contacts etc.

A huge step forward for somebody, who changes his mobiles as often as I do. I know it's a very special usecase, but one very typical for me.

Meanwhile I can switch from one Android phone to the other in seconds, and I did it already many times: From G1 to the Magic to the Hero to the Tattoo to the Droid and now to the Nexus. And the latest and next Android smartphones are already waiting for me...

So far so good. Concerning applications there's still space to improve the Android platform. I still have to re-install my applications on every handset again. But one great thing to say: Paid applications don't need to be bought again. The Android market knows already about your shopped applications and let you install them for free again.

And there's also an app in the market, that will help you to reconstruct you app system on a new device. It's called 'App Referrer'. This apps scans your current app installation basis and then sends you an email with all market links. Save this email and open this one on your new device. Just click the given links and you can re-install within one easy email.

Just try it. This app is great and it bypasses the weaknesses of the current Android market until they will offer something comparable. Something like an app cloud with your installed apps, that can be re-installed on every new device with one click...