I recently gave my iPhone to my wife and went out and bought the new HTC Desire Andriod phone.  Telstra finally came up with some fair phone deals and data plans.  Seeing that Android phones outsold iPhones last quarter in the US, I thought I’d see what the fuss is about.

What’s an Android phone?  Android is an operating system that Google created that is installed into smart phones.  Unlike Apple’s iPhone operating system, Android is an open source  system which means ANY developer can go in, pull it apart, add stuff, create stuff and change things.  This means flexibility, speed of advancement and I believe it fires creativity – which is always tremendous.

So what phone companies like HTC are doing is building phones that will make the most of the operating system and it’s features.  I grabbed the HTC Desire and I have to say that I’m very impressed.  I’ll explain why.

I had the iPhone before the days of ‘copy and paste’ so I did what a lot of people did and Jailbroke it (hacked it) – opening it’s possibilities e.g. video, copy and paste, backgrounds etc.  Having the Android feels very much like a Jailbroken iPhone, but super fast and built to be personalised.  I’m a massive Google fan (gmail, calendars etc) so I love the interactivity and super fast online search.

Do I hate the iPhone? No way, in fact I often grab Nat’s because it has some apps which I miss like the Amazon Kindle App (which is coming to Android soon).  I’m looking forward to seeing what the new iPhone will do to.

I must also give credit where credit is due and add that the staff at the Telstra shop in Kawana Shopping World were so incredibly helpful and nice to deal with.  I was about to take my business elsewhere and they won me over. Finally, great phone reception, decent data packages and local customer service.