I’ll consider an iPhone when the iTunes “application” for PCs no longer exists.

As for the iPhone vs. Android debate, I have both iPhone and Android phones (one for me – one for work). From my own experience (48 year old geek of computer science here – not a youngster by any means), both interfaces have areas where they shine, and areas I find painful. Some examples:

IOS process management and task switching on the iPhone/iPad is effortless and easy – quickly accessible by double-clicking the home key. Android in comparison separates the two – task switching is done through the ‘history’ menu (the right most menu in stock Jelly Bean – or through the settings menu in other versions), and process management is done through the settings menu (luckily there is a widget that allows you to create an icon to go straight to that menu in stock Jelly Bean). Because of the unique way Android applications define resources – supporting services can be launched without you knowing it – simply because an application was compiled with that service defined as a resource – and if those services are too active they can cause things like battery drain, or seemingly slowing down your other active applications as they run. This detail is hidden on the iPhone – and further more tightly controlled via built-in services that are better behaved (because they have to be since they are also servicing the OS). If there isn’t a control for a given feature – you aren’t going to be able to turn it off through the interface – but for that sacrifice you do get a very stable platform.

On the other hand, I like the development environment and control that even stock android (not jail-breaked) provides. You can not only build and deploy your own native Android apps for free wherever you like to as many people as you like – you can also do development on the device itself via ‘AIDE’. A bluetooth keyboard and a Android table – and you don’t need a laptop anymore. IOS, on the other hand, makes development of native apps a very strict affair – although I have seen a few sand-boxed languages that look interesting (python, basic), but am wondering to what extent you can access the underlying file system and other system resources with these? Need more research into this, but I’m leaning towards Android as a better native development platform; the key here to avoiding quirkiness is in the hands of the application developers – and all developers are not alike.

On a related note – I see more free apps for Android that are more than robust enough for my own use; I can’t say the same for IOS (basically I had to pay for more apps on IOS than I did on Android to get equivalent functionality). On the flip side, applications for pay on the Apple App Store seem of better quality than commercial applications on Google Play. For me – this one is a draw.

Finally – ease of accessing files: Android is more like a personal computer in that your have access to your own files to move, copy, and transfer as desired. This is more complicated under IOS – iTunes is required to go between a PC and your device, and I have found over the years this mediated access is clunky. Android, on the other hand, looks like a USB drive – and you can easily move files around the file system as needed in a way that is consistent with interaction methods that have been around for many years.

I would personally like to see the best parts of both Android and IOS put together to form the perfect mobile operating system. But it won’t happen. While it won’t make me ecstatic with joy – there are benefits to Apple’s design philosophy: it just works and for the most part doesn’t do something unexpected. Android, for it’s part, is a playground for developers and techno-geeks – and the interface and systems are catching up quickly with Apple; the right selection of applications with consistent ‘safe’ and/or ‘minimalistic’ service calls and great interface functionality could make it a contender even against Apple. Ultimately, I think there will be room for both in the marketplace as a result of these different design approaches.

Cave.

Current hearsay is the lightning to USB cable has been difficult to duplicate, because there’s an interface IC integrated into the cable. There’s also a fair number of units on the new hand-designed ARM processor that are so-far unidentifiable. An Ars article today stated that the cable itself is setup to dynamically assigns pins.

Does this mean there might be a USB3 enabled cable possible? Probably, even though there’s little reason as on-board flash isnt likely to saturate even the USB2 interface. But knowing apple: displayport is probable, HDMI is possible, and limited capability displayport+data over thunderbolt isn’t unreasonable.

http://nto.github.com/AirPlay.html

[...]Thunderbolt, on an iPhone 5? ~ I, Cringely[...]…

For example, the 30-pin supports two data protocols in addition to the deprecated firewire – USB and serial. Both are used in the most expensive iPhone accessories – cars like Mercedes and BMW. The Lightening approach makes it possible to swap the connector cable, and stay compatible with the head unit.

With another module, you can directly support VGA and HDMI. You cannot do that with the USB 2 protocol.