[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he idea of getting an Android phone has come to mind a lot lately. With the release of the new LG Nexus 4, things on the platform are beginning to become more unified. It's a good thing to see and the ecosystem as a whole has the potential to get much better in the years to come. However, if I, or any other user of iOS (for instance), want to switch sometime in the future, things really aren't as easy as they could be.
It's like moving from Windows to OS X. When you have a lot of great software that you paid for on one platform, transitioning to a completely different one only hurts your productivity, not to mention your wallet. The competition may offer some great software of its own and many of the apps may be better than what you currently have at your disposal, but when you think about how much more money you'll end up spending just to experience something different or "more open", it doesn't seem worth your time.
Like many people, I enjoy the idea of Android. The developers are not robots as many seem to think, and it's becoming hard to say that the platform simply "has potential". It's grown into something better than it was a year ago, and it will hopefully keep doing so. The problem is that people can't just make the jump to something completely different if they are already set up on one platform. A leap of faith is a good move at times, but with mobile operating systems, having to repurchase every app that you use daily is both expensive and tedious.
Sadly, things can't just get simpler.
Apple controls the iOS ecosystem and Google regulates the Android one. There will not come a day when both are one and the same thing because eliminating competition in any market is foolish. In the end, people don't switch to Android from iOS, or vice versa, because they don't want to go to the trouble of redoing everything for a new platform. Google's many services are great and all, but making a new email and everything just for calendar synchronisation is not preferred. The same goes for email, contacts, and relearning the way the operating system works. Google and Apple could make things easier for people who are switching; it's just not what they want to focus on.
Android's problem is no longer the lack of good apps, but rather the lack of users who want to betray their home ecosystem — a library — which they have built for so long.
People like me may one day purchase an Android device just to have a taste of what the competition is like. I may even own one and use it daily. However, in the end all people resort to what is comfortable. IOS is and everyone who has used it up to this point will remain loyal to Apple, regardless of the issues, even if they're major. It's a shame, the way things work.