By Burton Craig

My first post on this blog was Farewell to my iPhone. I started off with an HTC EVO 4G and then to to Motorola Photon. A number of folks I talked to said I did the right thing making the move to Android. I would enjoy the freedom to customize my phone and make it do more than my iPhone ever did. Boy did I customize it. Different home screens, different text messaging app, a variety of dialers, no name it I tried it. I enjoyed the ability to purchase apps from the Android Market, Amazon or even the vendor directly. With voice command I could see that using phones in the future was going to get easier.

So then why am I back to using an iPhone 5? Well in a word, the camera. I also lamented the fact that I couldn’t find an Android phone with a camera that would take as good a picture as my iPhone. I even tried a number of other Android phones before I went back to the 5s. None of them took as good a picture as my iPhone. Add to the fact that the integration with iPhoto on my MacBook made transferring and organizing photos very easy I was beginning to like my decision to switch back.

The next reason was 75% of my kids have an iPhone (I think one of my daughters just wants to be different). They like the iPhone and I like the fact that purchases made on iTunes can be shared with all their devices easily. As they have gotten older and venture further away from home I really like that I can easily locate them with the Find iPhone app. Especially my youngest daughter who constantly misplaces her iPod Touch.

The last major reason was because I didn’t really leave Apple’s walled garden. I still had a apps that I paid (more than the $1.99) for that I missed and I was glad to get them back. I still like iTunes for managing music and playlists on my Mac (MediaMonkey on my PC) and easily moving music between my phone and computers. DoubleTwist is nice but not quite there. And last I like that when Apple update iOS, it’s available for all phones and will be for at least a couple of years. I gave up waiting for the update for the Photon.

So we’ll see how it goes. I already miss T9 dialing capabilities. The Galaxy S II looks cool and HTC and LG look they are coming out with some nice phones. The best part is there are two very good phone ecosystems out there and there is something for all of us.