I've been using smartphones for years. First Windows Mobile, then Android and now IOS. In the PDA world it was PalmOS then Windows CE.

I love Android! I could tweak and mod to my heart's content and it is deeply in bed with the Google services I use. I love that I'm not limited to curated apps from one source. The fact that I could write an app and load it on my phone without getting someone's permission (and paying $99 a year to be part of a developer network) was great.

My biggest complaint about Android was the instability. My Android phone is the HTC EVO 4G. With only 412MB of storage and only ~300MB usable (because when it drops below 100MB of free space, the phone starts reloading the UI when I exit an app) it became almost unusable. I resorted to trying other ROMs with other UIs and the problem continued. Ice Cream Sandwich looks like it fixes that problem. But of course it isn't available for MY Android phone. I'd have to buy a new Android phone, and granted, they are sweet and very drool-worthy.

Last year I needed a second phone line for business use. And since I wasn't pleased with the way Sprint was running their business, I chose to get it from Verizon and yes, I got an iPhone 4. Now, I need to point out that even though I run Windows and Linux desktops and servers, MY main machine is my 17" MacBook Pro. The only justification I'll give for it is that I LIKE OS X as besides being UNIX with a lovely interface I like the integration between apps, the cloud, etc. Thanks to virtualization, I can and do still run Windows and Linux on it at the same time, just as I could do with a Linux or Windows notebook.

While the iPhone isn't as tightly integrated into Google services as my Android phone, they aren't exactly battling each other. Instead of being married, it's more like friends with benefits. More important is the tight integration with the OS X apps I run on the notebook which actually renders many of the Google services moot.

My phone doesn't crash. The apps don't conflict and I get the benefits of ICS. Doing a restore after jail breaking the other night, I found that I have 277 apps installed. The apps and my data are using 15.4GB of the 28GB available for me to use.

Now that I've jail broken the phone, I was able to buy iBlacklist which performs the same functions as Mr. Number on Android, i.e. I can make a blacklist of numbers so that when they call, my phone doesn't even light up to tell me that they're calling. I also installed Dreamboard, so now I have a UI more like Android to where I don't see a minefield of icons on the phone.

So when my Sprint contract expired this month, I chose to cancel the line for my Android phone. With the Verizon number, Line 2 and Google Voice installed on the iPhone, I actually have three phone numbers (My friends, family and coworkers were always given only my GV number so this is all transparent to them) and no longer needed to pay an extra phone.

Since all that works on both IOS and Android, I could have gone either way. Since I still have a year left on the iPhone contract and the service is $10 a month cheaper than Sprint, I chose to switch to IOS.

I won't or can't say that Android is better than IOS, nor will I say that IOS is better than Android. Just like the *nix, Windows, OS X operating systems, each has their advantages and disadvantages. Competition is good for everyone and I've chosen what works best for me.

Electronic Frontier Foundation.

No cheating necessary. I've been a supporter of them since they were founded back when BBS systems were king.

Yes, I meant that removing the apps don't free up user partition space meaning you gain no storage benefits by removing them.

On IOS, things are different... if you have an 8GB iPod Touch, all System/Apple apps take up some of that space. If you jailbreak the phone and remove some of the bundled stuff (say the stock market app), the space freed up is now available for your apps, music, pictures, whatever.

On the EVO, there is 1GB of internal storage. Less than half of it is available for our user installed apps, documents, pictures, music, etc. It is my understanding that those Shovelware apps (I love that term) are installed to that 512MB partition for the system to use. That's why you can't uninstall it on an unrooted phone.

On the plus side, the apps don't take up room allocated to us, on the downside, when removed, they don't give us any more room. We're still limited to a bit over 400MB out of that 1GB storage device.

There is nothing to fear. I downloaded unrevoked3 on my Mac and had my EVO rooted in maybe 5 minutes with a couple of mouse clicks. I used the tutorial at http://preview.tinyurl.com/49bozuc (GoodandEVO.net), the tutorial is for doing it under Windows (a little more involved) but it went a long way to comfort my before attacking my $400 phone to get ownership and control.

I removed all the unwanted system apps and am now able to backup my entire phone to the SD card (which I then archive to my computer.)

Yes, an OS SHOULD allow that. However, neither Android nor IOS allow end users to uninstall "system" applications.

However, if you root or jailbreak (respectively), then the end user IS able to remove those apps. On IOS devices, this also saves you room. On Android it doesn't since those unwanted apps are stored in the firmware. On the plus side, they don't take up valuable user app storage space on Android.

I've removed the unwanted apps on my HTC EVO, not to free up room, but because I didn't care to see them in my list of apps. For instance, it came with QuickOffice. That was nice of them. But I bought QuickOffice Pro and after installation had two QuickOffice icons leading to the two different versions. So the vendor installed version went away.

I doubt that any "reasonable" person would consider anything that I do on my rooted EVO to be illegal. I removed unwanted vendor supplied apps and can now back up my ENTIRE phone including all user settings and data. I don't run pirated software and don't care to try out any custom kernals or even user interfaces from newer phones.

You must be talking about Las Vegas, NV where the mafia weren't run out of town, they just put on uniforms and suits.

Now THAT is funny!

I went through a similar thing here in Las Vegas about ten years ago when I was working a paper route. I was driving a '92 Buick, sitting in the left turn lane of a major intersection at about 4AM. I sat through three complete cycles of the traffic lights without ever getting a left turn green light.

I had four choices:
1. Wait until the intersection was clear and safe and then carefully make my left turn.
2. Go straight on the green light for straight, but doing so from the wrong lane.
3. Back up to where I could get in the proper lane, but breaking the laws regarding reversing more than 150 feet on a public roadway or breaking the law regarding changing lanes within 150 feet of an intersection.
4. Abandon my vehicle and find a pay phone to call 311 (non-emergency police number) for advice and to report the malfunctioning signal.

I chose option one. Cross traffic was stopped as my direction had a green light for straight ahead.

Of course, there was a police office sitting in traffic to my right, who promptly hit the lights and sirens as I turned and pulled me over.

"I can't believe that you did that in front of me!" he yelled.
I explained what happened, he handed me a ticket for making an illegal turn and failing to obey a traffic control device, telling me to "Tell it to the judge."

It took me three appearances at the courthouse before I could see a judge just for the arraignment AND I had to pay bail BEFORE the arraignment because I was pleading not guilty.

When I gave the judge my plea, he called me to the bench and offered to convert it to a no point parking ticket. I refused and told him "I'm not guilty your honor, taking the deal would be admitting guilt."

He sighed and said "Ok, I'm not supposed to hear testimony at an arraignment but tell me your story".
I did.
He then said "And you want me to make a ruling regarding which was the proper choice? You're not getting from me. CASE DISMISSED!"

He then told me quietly, "I'd have done the same thing in your situation."

Yes, it cost me more in time off than the fine would have been, but it was the principle of the thing. Plus I really wanted a judge to rule on the situation.

Yes, Amazon charges me Nevada sales tax when I order from them. They have a large warehouse/shipping depot here. Just another case where a summary (and perhaps fine article) on /. is inaccurate.