Android Isn't the Anti-iPhone Anymore

And of course nowadays a Windows computer really belongs to Microsoft, and an Apple computer belongs to Apple. At least my Linux box is mine. Well, mine and Lennart’s.

Losing functionality is not bad in and of itself, if I stand to gain something in excess of what I lost, but that hasn't happened. Consider when I made the switch from a Treo 650 to an HTC Sensation (yes, I had that Treo a _long_ time): I sacrificed the hard keyboard and exceptionally easy-to-use operating system for Wi-Fi, a decent quality camera, fast-at-the-time 3.5G network connectivity, and the entire Android ecosystem.

Then I broke the screen, and got an HTC M9. I gained a bigger screen that I didn't want, an IR blaster that I never used, faster CPU, more memory, more flash... for a device that I didn't do much with. Worse, I lost the replaceable battery - I actually had multiple batteries before that.

Then I broke the screen on _that_, and got an HTC 10. I again gained a bigger screen that I didn't want, I lost the IR blaster that I never used, and again got a faster CPU, more memory, and more flash for a device that I didn't do much with.

Then the battery went flat, and I got an Asus Zenfone 8, which gained me basically nothing over the HTC 10 except 128GB of storage that I don't use. In this trade, I lost having a good camera in my pocket - the Zenfone 8's camera is atrocious, and even my HTC Sensation took better photos than it does. It has a headphone jack, but it's died and I haven't fixed it... which is a shame, because I have an 80s car with the cassette deck adapter, so effectively that feature's as good as gone as well.

My next phone will probably be a headphone jack-less, swappable battery-less, SD-card-less, possibly even SIM-card-less monster of a 6-inch-plus phone. At least I'll hopefully end up with a better camera in that trade.