Dear Android, I Think It’s Time We Break Up

It’s not me, it’s you.

We’ve been together half a decade, and since then, you’ve changed your outfit quite a few times.

You came to be, nervous but full of potential, first from Motorola in 2011, then HTC, and in recent years, as the jewel in Samsung’s eye. A flagship you may be, but your “S” still doesn’t stand for super.

The very best Android phones, like this year’s Galaxy S7, have become the Pepsi to Apple’s Coke.

Let me explain.

Best Test Taker Ever

New Coke was a terrible, however well intentioned, disaster formulated from a position of fear within Coca-Cola, an unnecessary response to the great “Pepsi threat”. Pepsi was flaunting its in-person taste tests, conducted as a double blind, where participants would each taste Coke and Pepsi in random order. Coke even recreated the tests and the results were the same; Pepsi was killing it Golden State style. The great publicity, however, never translated in to significant market share.

Pepsi was great for a sip, but in take-home tests, where participants would receive weeks’ worth of product, the newer soda company fell flat. When drinking Pepsi, participants were left with strong after tastes, feelings of bloat, and could barely stand the abundance of sweetness in Pepsi. Coke wasn’t in as much, if any, danger as it had previously thought. Soon, Classic Coke returned, and New Coke went extinct, as it should have.

Reviewers spend about a week, if that, with new devices… they’re not marrying the damn thing

New Coke Sucked, So What?

Reviewers spend about a week, if that, with new devices, using them “regularly”, but it’s just not the same as having the device for months or even a year. They aren’t conducting a true take-home test; they’re not marrying the damn thing. At that point, you’ve installed and uninstalled so many apps, your memory capacity is near full, and who the hell knows what hasn’t been garbage collected or what random files are laying around where.

I don’t know about you, actually I bet you’ve had the same experiences, but once my device is screaming at me to delete unused apps and backup and delete pictures to make room for a software update, the damn thing has begun to make me angry pretty regularly. My Galaxy S6, the phone I’ve just broken up with, started to stick on high-data and location-based apps like Snapchat and Tinder. I could lock the phone, sometimes use the fingerprint scanner, but couldn’t actually do anything else; the current animation just sat there, spinner spinning, ghost dancing, taunting me like a wacky, arm-waving, inflatable tube-man.

I just can’t put up with the Windows Vista-worthy lag every Android device I’ve ever had eventually falls into

Fuck It, I’m Going With Good Ol’ Coke

Being a programmer and relying on Apple for basically my entire livelihood only slightly less than I do Javascript itself, it’s surprising I’ve waited this long, but the time has come. No, it’s not the cluster-fuck free-for-all app store or the shitty just-chill-and-be-vulnerable-while-you-wait-for-Android-<insert any Android version ever>-update-from-your-carrier that has finally pushed me over the edge. I just can’t put up with the Windows Vista-worthy lag every Android device I’ve ever had eventually falls into any longer. I did it, I put a ring on it, but now I want to pawn it.

Am I naive enough to think my iPhone will never lag? Or that it’s infallible when it comes to severe reductions in memory? Nah, but at least Apple, with its don’t-fuck-with-me, need-to-be-the-belle-of-the-ball attitude will more than likely a) fix whatever bug or random code giving me problems or b) make some tool available that helps archive bullshit and shoot up my device with some cyber HGH. This grass is greener.

Stop letting anything with giant source code into your bed

You’ll Find Someone, Eventually

I think you have potential, and you’re well-intentioned, but maybe, just maybe, stop letting anything with giant source code into your bed. You desperately want to liberate the classrooms and poor and grandparents of the world, I get it, but I’m afraid you can’t get the job done as long middle-men pimp you out with bloated crap-ware, control your updates, and classify you as the good-enough alternative to the “other one”.

This may be the end, but I hope we can be friends.