Dreamer’s World May 3 2015 - Time to switch my phone

     Sunday morning is here. I slept in late, but will still be able to get Hal off to work on time today. After that, I am going to T-Mobile and see about upgrading to a new phone. After using Android for nearly 8 years, I might be making the switch back to Apple. My current phone is the LG G3 and I love it, or at least I did until the upgrade to Lollipop. I think that the rather fractured nature of Android development has reached a critical point due to the compromises that Android makes with the manufacturers of each phone, such as Samsung, HTC, Motorola,or in my case, LG. As Android grows more and more complex and usable it faces this problem of new versions not being 100% compatible with every device. It is understandable from a technical and an engineering point of view, but that doesn’t help me with my current dilemma of having a perfectly usable phone that is now less than perfectly usable after the update.

     The problem is that my LG G3 cannot use WiFi calling after the upgrade. My SIM is recognized as not valid, when it is. I also noticed that when I use the silent feature overnight, as I have for years, that the actual sound profile (not the volume setting) changes to silent and has to be reset the next morning or I the phone will not ring or vibrate to notify me of messages or calls. This is unacceptable.

     I understand the technical problems, and I do not blame T-Mobile for any of this. T-Mobile is an excellent choice for me as far as coverage and customer support. That is why I am not considering leaving T-Mobile for any reason.

     At any rate, I’m going to T-Mobile when they open today and go ahead and use my JUMP to upgrade this phone. What I upgrade to remains to be seen. Perhaps I will give Android another chance with a different phone manufacturer, or perhaps I will end up back with an iPhone after all these years.

     From everything that I am reading, Lollipop is a major problem across all models of Android phones. This is truly a shame because Android is such a great system. Perhaps this will force Google to set some standards that manufacturers will install stock Android without any of their own bloatware on top to provide some consistency and ease of updates in the future, but I doubt that this will happen because the manufacturers will resist this change. I fear that it will cost them in the long run.

     I often use my phone to start and edit these blog posts, but the main functionality is still to be a working phone. On this count, I am extremely disappointed right now. If I can find the stability with Apple that I am lacking after this Lollipop update, then my decision is that much easier to make. If I were in charge of marketing for Apple, I would rush out a series of commercials highlighting the troubles that users are having with Lollipop in order to convince them to go to Apple.

     I was an early convert to Android, and I have loved the experience. Android has pushed Apple to modernize its own iOS and forced it to add features. That early conversion will make switching a bit more difficult than I would have wished, but in the long term, I demand a phone that fulfills the primary function fist and foremost.

     I completed my JUMP upgrade order this afternoon. The new iPhone should be here by Thursday and I will be glad to see it, although I will miss Android for a lot of reasons.