Why I prefer Google's Android on the smartphone and Apple's iOS on the tablet

Android Smooth Calendar widget by Carl Cedergren

Having come from a series of Symbian and Windows Mobile phones, there are some things I have gotten used to in a mobile device. The simple functionality of displaying your next appointment on a small window on the home screen is a small thing. But is is something you cannot do with Apple's iOS. 

In this regard, Symbian still does it best by allowing you to display the next two appointments (although you can do this with Android with third party calendar apps). The mobile phone is my personal data assistant having widgets display important information like a To-Do list, Calendar Agenda view or a message preview on the home screen or via a a quick screen swipe is a good thing I think. I could survive a bit longer on a Symbian S^3 phone, and very satisfied with my Android 2.2 phone, and a Windows Phone 7 unit could very well be in my future. With Apples iOS, I have a sea of icons which launch applications. Apple iOS is very user friendly and intuitive, but it is just not my favorite choice, which right now is Android. A mobile phone is a personal device. Apple should really allow for a little more user customization.

Android 3.0

On the tablet front, I prefer the "sea of icons". I use a tablet like I do a laptop. Launching applications on demand is sufficient, and I do not need it replicating the functions of my mobile phone. A  set of widgets on its interface giving feeding me information is something I like on my mobile phone, but not on a tablet. Looking at Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), it looks like  the Android Developers wanted to create something that looks like a car dashboard providing tons of information at a glance. I think Android 2.x, would have been fine for tablets. All that was needed was applications designed to run on larger screens. Our Samsung Galaxy Tab's is set-up to look like an iPad, each screen holding sets of related icons. But different people have different preferences, and the good thing about Android is that it lets you do things the way you want.