Shopping for a Droid in the Apple Store

I finally got my new phone. A Droid. You’ve probably seen the commercials and ads all over the place. I avoid most major media outlets, and even I’ve seen plenty of them. It’s a sweet phone, but the purchasing experience still sucked.

First: Apple. I’ll tell you what I dislike so much about Apple products: they’re made for amateurs. It’s not necessarily that I’m a snob or that I think that computer products shouldn’t be made simpler for general users. No, it’s the Mac snobbery that I can’t tolerate. I love my PC, but I don’t really get offended when people complain about their PC problems (even if the problem is usually PEBKAC). And I don’t get sanctimonious either. I don’t care.

But these damn Mac snobs, they never stop at a chance to shove their Apple gospel down your damn throat. It’s like they find a computer that’s easier for them to use, and suddenly they’re a damn expert on computers. Well, no actually, sorry to say, you are no more adept with computers than you were before. Does purchasing these products make you a savy shopper? Sure. But let me see you write some line commands and edit some startup files before you start telling me which computers are better than others.

So. There I am, right next to the Genius Bar, wading through Mac devotees. Why was I there? I had some misconceptions about the pricing plans for both the Droid and the iPhone. I had come from the Verizon store, deciding to go straight to the Apple store and find out for sure which has the cheaper plan. Droid or iPhone, I’m getting one or the other, and I want a cheaper monthly bill.

Well, the place was packed. Okay, the first thing I hate about the Apple store: it smells like a barn. You get so many people crammed in there and for so long, and it’s hot in there. It gets sweaty. But the people in there become so euphoric as they’re proselytized into Mac loving hippes that they don’t even care. So anyway, I was waiting, and finally I encountered an enthusiastic young lady with a list and got my name on it. “Ten minutes,” she told me. But it didn’t seem to be looking good. I could hear the questions that the people in front of me were asking the sales associates, and they were the dumbest fucking questions ever. Questions of people who don’t even know what a computer really does. Even when considering giving in to Apple, these Mac snobs-to-be were frustrating the hell out of me.

Twenty minutes later, I was sick of waiting, and I parked myself at one of their Macs to surf the web. Yes, they have full on internets in the Apple store. Come. Browse. Play with their pretty machines.

So there I was, standing in the Apple store right next to the iPhones with a bunch of Verizon Wireless sales pages open. Suck it, Apple!

It took a good twenty minutes of Googling and product page navigation before I finally got the answers I needed, and it turns out that both phones are pretty much priced the same on the monthly plan. Verizon has brought the competition directly to Apple/AT&T.

I’m glad I got my Droid. I love it. Being able to listen to Pandora and surf the web and take a call and do whatever else you want really is all it’s cracked up to be. I think I might have a clue why the iPhone’s multitasking is limited (and, by the way, this whole thing right here is conjecture, so if someone knows better, please educate me…): battery life. Apps on a smart phone don’t open and close quite the same as on a computer. This is how Windows Mobile is, this is how Android is, and I’m guessing that the iPhone’s OS is, well, sorta like that. The effect of all those apps opening and never closing is that the battery dies faster. When using a non-iphone you have to know to close all your apps out, and this requires clicking an extra button or two. I’m wondering right now if the iPhone is set up for limited multitasking so that these open applications don’t kill the battery. It sounds like a reasonable theory anyway.

As it turns out, there’s an app on the Droid called Task Killer that will close all your apps with one click. The thing is that you have to know to take this extra step. See, owning a PC takes more knowledge. The Mac user would look at that process and think that it’s stupid and inefficient. “You gotta push an extra button?” Yeah, well, guess what buddy we have an open platform that can multitask all we want and plus do all kinds of other stuff that you can’t. There’s just an extra bit of responsibility on the user’s part that comes with said freedom.

Anyway. Turning rant mode off. Get a Droid! I recommend it. They’re awesome.