Ryan McKeen and I were asked a few months ago to do an article for the ABA Journal on whether the iPhone or the Droid was the superior phone for attorneys. I happily obliged and was asked to take the ‘iPhone side’ of the argument given my overwhelming conclusions that the iPhone is superior to the Droid in many respects. The article is available in the April issue of the ABA Journal and is available now at the ABA Journal’s website. I thoroughly enjoyed the banter with Ryan though I must admit I — well, the iPhone, trounced him in the debate. Ryan put up a good fight though and I do admit, if I were on the Verizon network I would definitely buy a Droid.
However, the fact that you can’t use the Internet while you’re on the phone is the biggest drawback for the Droid and kills it in the debate from the beginning. Any attorney used to using a web-based case management program, accessing their Windows server across the Internet, or just accessing the Net for any other reason while on the phone would be seriously hindered by the Droid. Everyone seems to say the Droid can do so much more than the iPhone, but as I say in the article, “There are more than 70,000 apps the iPhone has that the Droid doesn’t. That amounts to 70,000 more ways you can use your iPhone.” [emphasis added].
This isn’t even getting into the usability issues with the Droid when compared to the iPhone. The strongest argument for the iPhone is because of Apple’s controls over the device – the user experience. Almost all apps on the iPhone behave the same, can be found in seconds and are intuitive. Compare this with the Droid where I literally took two minutes trying to find the calendar app. Nothing explains this as well as my point in the article:
…my 4-year-old nephew knows how to use my iPhone to pull up Thomas the Tank Engine movies on YouTube just by watching me search for them. When deciding on a phone—or anything a lawyer is going to be using throughout the day—the most important factor is how hard it is to use the device. The iPhone is the epitome of intuitiveness.
Case in point: I have a colleague who is, to be polite, less than technologically inclined. He has been a Verizon user for almost 10 years and didn’t want to switch, so he bought a Droid. At lunch a few weeks later, some number-crunching came up and I asked him to use his Droid’s calculator. After a few seconds he sheepishly told me he didn’t know where the calculator was. Turns out he didn’t know where the majority of his apps were; they were simply too difficult to find. I handed him my iPhone and within a few seconds he had my calculator open and was done. He was also able to immediately find and open any application I asked him to—something he was unable to do on his 2-month-old Droid.
This example is not an exaggeration and I would tell you the attorney’s name for verification if it weren’t for my not wanting to embarrass him, but he truly is the epitome of what is wrong with the Droid. If I can’t unlock it and get to what I want in a few seconds, it is worthless when compared to the iPhone.
Be sure to read the full article and if you see me at the ABA Techshow, feel free to hit me over the head with your Droid if you disagree with me.
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