Never understood the dropping thing as an argument. I did not buy a Panasonic TV because it can fall ten stories without breaking a sweat...
I mean, yes we have it at hand everyday, but it is obvious that ANY decent smartphone will not appreciate the fall. Sturdy will be a focus point when choosing a case, accordingly to the user's habit and needs. I let my barely 4 year old daughter play with my iPhone's camera on numerous occasions, and even she doesn't drop the thing. And she's not so the caring type!
GSIII is not a bad smartphone. I go against it a lot by pure principle.
But what I still think it is missing is that polish Apple's got. Oh fine, the native layout might get boring to some, and yet fit perfectly for another. If not there's always jailbreaking. I don't see why it is such a burden that iPhone don't come feature loaded right ouf of the box, when it takes about 10 minutes JBing it. In my sense, their ways allow Apple to focus on integration, and it is as close to perfection as it can get. I think Apple is counting on that equilibrium jailbreak provides. I mean, they do make things hard for unlocking with their baseband protections and signing protocols, and I can understand where that pressure comes from... Nasty carriers wanting dominion over our bank accounts, a philosophy indeed close to Apple's ways. But jailbreaking always comes swiftly after a release is made, should it be new hardware/firmware or just firmware.
So I'm talking about Android devices needing to display their massively alive OS with the same kind of perfect integration and smooth looks, to really get my attention. Which they don't, I'm sorry. I don't doubt they can be customized to look better, though I saw a couple tweaked SII that did not grab me at all neither. There's something missing there, some subtle clumsiness. But if Android keeps on the same track, Apple may start to lose ground big time in a near-future market, and never regain it. Introducing a slightly bigger screen, and allow for at least some basic customization of looks and use, is due right now. I don't believe in enormous screens, but 4 inch is a very decent and proportionate screen for a phone, and at such size could stay a long time unchanged; could be achieved by adding some 5 mm width, and 10mm height, and go pretty much unnoticed. As to customization, it would be great if iPhone users could do a little more than "define" use and accept looks when setting up their devices.
Integration is the same reason why Android features are often called gimmicks, in my sense. There's something fidgety there. Like the "Smart stay" thing. In the ads, it looks so swift, so integrated, so human. In reality, the front camera scan your face every once in a while, which "while" you can set up. Thing is, it just will not dim instantly as you fall asleep like that guy with his daughter... and if you set up a shorter scan interval to get more response, because you so want to be like the ads show, well it may very well catch you all the more easily looking at that roaring sports car passing by at the wrong moment, and dim anyway. In all, it is smart, but a little gimmicky, and obvioulsy better in mediatic focus than actual user benefit. Without that so great feature, just setting up the dimmer at two minutes will do the trick, IMO. Humans largely fail to concentrate longer than that in most situations, and even less so when reading something off internet, so chances are you'll have changed app, received a text, started talking with someone, or staring dumbly in the air, in a 2 minutes delay, if not simply scrolled the screen to continue reading. And two minutes won't kill the battery if you do fall asleep. And really, with all those laptops and those tablets selling, who is using his phone to watch cute videos with his daughter at night? S'not a bad thing, Smart Stay, not something to prevent you buying the SIII, and it's got a cool innovative edge, but certainly it is mainly creating a need, not filling one - at least, not one that could not be filled with a banal dimmer set up. That said, Apple do also have certain gimmicks.
In short... I'm not considering going with Samsung, and I'm waiting for the next iPhone.
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