En attendant Android

I’ve been meaning to post this on my blog, even prepared a post in German, but then realized that 50% of the post is a rant on Nokia and decided to rewrite/repost it in English.

So, the following is a list of iPhone Apps which are running on my iPhone 2G (reassembled from scrap), and which should also be available on Android 2.x (and which may already be available). Thought about documenting this private list offline, but then: why shouldn’t I share it with you?

• Twitter (ex Tweetie, very nice Twitter client)
• Read It Later
• ShopShop (shopping list)
• Alarm :-)
• AroundMe (shops within the area, location based)
• Barcooo (Barcodereader)
• DB Navigator (Deutsche Bahn timetable)
• DHL (calculator for postal charges & parcel tracking via DHL)
• Dropbox (sync files between devices)
• eBay (follow auctions from the phone)
• Evernote (sync notes between devices)
• HootSuite (another Twitter client)
• Instapaper (similar to ReadItLater)
• iPostbank (online banking, search for nearest atm)
• Last.FM (streaming music client)
• MeinProspekt / KaufDA (advertising brochures as PDF, really cool)
• VNC (virtual network computing)
• Morse-it (awesome morse code trainer and my initial reason why I switched to the iPhone in the first place)
• OpenMaps (OpenStreetMap client)
• OperaMini (alternative browser)
• Payback (…)
• PlugPlayer (or any other NAS player)
• Qype Radar
• Sipgate (Sipgate (VoIP) client)
• Skype
• SPB TV (live TV streams)
• Stanza (eBook Reader)
• TeamViewer (remote login tool)

There are about 140 apps currently installed on my iPhone 2G – some really good ones, other just very average – but the ones from the list above are the ones I use on a regular basis.

JKE’s home screen on the iPhone in May 2010

I also don’t do games (except for Labyrinth2, BiA or NSFU) because most of the time when I am bored and pull out the phone, I rather use Twitter, Facebook or ReadItLater to check out news.

So why Android?

I think my next phone will be an HTC device, running an instance of the Android OS. I also like the iPhone and will keep it for the moment until the functionality of all apps mentioned above is also available on Android. I’ve even accepted iTunes running on my Windows machine, which used to be a no-go for a very long time.

I am thinking about an HTC device because I miss the good camera from my Nokia N95 (& E72) on the iPhone. A flash would also be nice – and since Apple obviously won’t deliver, it’ll be an HTC device next up.

Nokia? Maybe when they’ve returned from the current chaos.

Being a hardware guy, I think it’s interesting to see how I’ve switched my preferences to some extent from good hardware (Nokia) to the availability of various software products (Apple).

This (software > hardware) is so eminent in 2010, isn’t it?

Author: jke

Hi, I am an engineer who freelances in water & sanitation-related IT projects at Saniblog.org. You'll also find me on Twitter @jke and Instagram. View all posts by jke