The Galaxy Tempts Me

Today, Google and Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Nexus. The newest in the Android world, and possibly just enough to tip me away from Apple. Remotely possibly. 720p Super AMOLED display (no sign of it being Super AMOLED Plus though - which means it'll probably be PenTile Matrix unless someone can correct that?). Ice Cream Sandwich. HSPA+. Totally open source.

It's tempting, it's a fantastic piece of hardware (even if it is PenTile, that resolution is killer). The problem is that the best hardware in the world, and even the stellar - galactic - improvements to Android that Ice Cream Sandwich seems to be bringing - doesn't make up for the lack of real-world device support and usability. Things we take for granted on iPhone often just don't exist - or don't work as well - on Android. So no matter how beautiful the hardware and OS are, the dev support has to be there before I could consider switching. And devs won't switch to a minority platform. Thus, the catch - though Android is rapidly gaining popularity among average folks so it may not be a minority platform in the eyes of developers for long - I'm pretty sure it's already outselling the iPhone actually - but remember, when you develop for iOS, you're also developing for the iPod Touch. Which outsells any smartphone...