Just over a year ago, I decided to forego my traditional phone (I used to buy almost exclusively SIM-free Motorola's) for one of those Apple iPhones. It wasn't an iPhone 4 (they weren't out at the time) but the 3GS model. I got talked into getting one by a colleague at work that had the 3G model (the preceding model) and let me have a look and a play with it. I have to say that at the time, I was impressed. So I then embarked on my first contract phone for a very long time. Not only that, as my phone network supplier that I'd used for years wasn't offering the iPhone at the time, I also had to change network supplier too. Oh what a big mistake *that* was!!

As this post is meant to be about Apple, I'll just concentrate on that and not the phone network supplier. (That's another story. And what a sad tale of lies, deceit and sheer incompetence that is. But that's for another time.)

Let's just say that eventually the iPhone turned up and I could use it. Eight months later, I got rid of it and switched to an Android phone. Why? Because for me - and I stress the phrase "for me" - the iPhone just wasn't suited. We did not, in any way shape or form, get on.

Here's why.

I want to do two things at once, or at least be able to minimise (or send to background) another program. At the time I had the iPhone, you could only run one program (app) at a time, so I couldn't have my Twitter client open in the background whilst browsing etc. (I am fully aware that this is no longer a problem!).

I couldn't play any other music file other than the proprietary Apple .mp4, .m4r (or whatever it is!) type. And those, you had to convert using the abhorrent and ultimately unusable iTunes. The same with videos - you either have to convert them with the ghastly iTunes into proprietary Apple format, or not play them at all. And forget flash videos - they won't work full stop.

Ringtones - I like to have my Doctor Who ringtone. The process I had to go through to convert it with iTunes was long, difficult and at the end of it all, you're restricted on the length of ringtone you can play.

iTunes itself deserves a paragraph of its own!! Most of the phones I've had have had some sort of software utility with them that will allow you to synchronise things like email contacts, or make a backup of your phone. With the iPhone, however, you have no choice but to use it if you want to transfer *anything* to or from it. Including contacts, of course. There's no plugging it in with a USB cable and dragging and dropping. Oh no. Of course, that would when iTunes actually *let* me connect the iPhone to the PC, which more often than not, it didn't. One of the reasons that I eventually got rid of the iPhone was because I upgraded my PC to Windows 7 64 bit O\S and iTunes just froze like a rabbit caught in headlights any time I waved the iPhone near it.

Enough of the ranting. I did mention earlier that me and the iPhone didn't get on (for mainly those reasons), however that doesn't mean to say that the product is rubbish. Au contraire, mon ami, Apple sell some of the best products on the market, have the slickest support - and are amongst the most expensive (which may, or may not, mean exclusive!).

You have to give Apple extreme amounts of Kudos for design alone. Apple devices - not some of them - *all* of them are sure purty. Clearly, there has been a lot of thought (and more than likely expensive resource) gone in to making then aesthetically pleasing and it works. You really can't knock the design of iPhones, iPads etc and all of the peripheries that surround them. They look good and they interact with each other (but nothing much else!) perfectly too. The design of the operating systems has clearly been thought out well too. The buttons (big), the applications the layouts etc are all pleasing to the eye and pretty much intuitive.

iTunes aside, the application store (for purchasing\downloading apps) is also quite a thing of beauty. It's eminently searchable, has a huge inventory of almost any app for any occasion (at any price!), such is the popularity of devices such as iPhones. The only downside of it is that because it's so popular (and easy to use) it's become a cash cow for people (including Apple) to sell anything and everything - including television programmes that are ostensibly (not including television licence) free.

Speaking of cash cows, almost every Apple device is quite expensive! By quite expensive, I mean very expensive! However, balanced against the design and the quality of the devices, it's probably about right. I recently paid £58 for a Bluetooth keyboard - given the design, the materials and the reliability of it (so far), I think it was money well spent. Most people that I know who own an Apple device, whether it's a laptop, desktop or mobile device, swear by the reliability of them.

So really speaking, me and the iPhone didn't get on. It suits a lot of people (millions, in fact) but it just didn't suit me. I'm not knocking it, it's a brilliant bit of kit, but it just didn't do what I wanted it to do. And so, I ended up selling the iPhone after eight months and buying an Android device. Now that does everything I want it to and it'll happily play all sorts of music and video formats. There's no huge bit of bloatware to clog up the PC and it suits me very well.

A second bite.

I have, however, recently purchased an iPad2. It's basically a big iPhone, but without the capability of making a phone calls (I don't have the SIM version, just the Wi-Fi). Everything is the same as the iPhone, in terms of apps, button, incompatibility of most things - all the things listed above, in fact.

So why have I bought one?, I hear you ask. I bought it almost solely for the purpose of checking websites on it! Because the Apple products are so inflexible in terms of video and sound etc (and, as it transpires, website designs) and I have written (and maintain) several websites, I thought that it was worth the investment, purely to make *absolutely* sure that all of my websites work properly and correctly with it. There is nothing more annoying (see previous blog post) than visiting a site that doesn't display properly, so the only way to make sure it does is to purchase one of the devices that will be used to display it.

I maintain that it has been a very useful (although possibly not cost-effective) exercise. I've had to do several somewhat major tweaks on my websites that have resulted in a proper display on iPads (and therefore iPhones). I think it was worth the money, just for that.

Fortunately, iTunes has now decided to work (in a fashion) on my Windows 7 x64 PC. At least enough to make the iPad work on it anyway. But that's as far as it goes for me. Apples are not part of my five-a-day.