In the whole debate over which is better Apple’s iPhone software (recently renamed iOS) or a handful of Google Android devices. One of the major talking points is that Apple’s App Store is a close ecosystem that Apple controls. Android fans like to paint Apple as being almost soviet in their control over what their users can do.

But here’s my thing: my phone has to work. Sure, in a perfect world, malware wouldn’t exist. Developers all over the place would code interesting applications and we’d be be able to download them from any source they might come and run them on our phones with no worries. But that isn’t the world we live in. Many developers are malicious in their intent and what they produce threatens your privacy, your data, or simply the reliability of your device.

As a business owner, my phone simply has to work. I have enough to worry about in losing it or breaking it. I don’t need to worry about it dying from the inside out and losing all my important information. The iPhone is safe from these problems and that makes it an excellent balance between reliability and versatility. Exactly what I want from a device that sits pretty central to all of by business and personal activities. Android devices simply cannot give me that piece of mind.

However, on the other hand, the openness of Android’s operating system makes it something that could offer more versatility in a tablet like Apple’s iPad.

See, for me, a tablet device is the kind of thing that I will likely use for all kinds of unconventional things. Developers who are able to think way outside the box of what the device can be used for can likely find a way to develop their software to do it. And, since a tablet device isn’t playing a central roll in business or personal affairs, the risks associated with trying new things with the device are minimal.

So for me, Android isn’t something I’d want running my phone. But it probably is something I’d want running my tablet.

How’s that for useless information?

I found this on TheOatmeal.com the other day and thought it was so right on I had to share it here. As a business person who interacts with a lot of customers and regularly has to collect email addresses for customer communication, I can say this is surprisingly accurate.

The original Oatmeal post is here.

Back in 1998 when Starcraft first came out a group of three or four friends and I played the game close to obsessively. Though none of of us got particularly good at it, we had a good time competing against each other. These were the days of AOL dialup internet. Multiplayer with people on the other side of the planet wasn’t common. Or, at least not for any one I knew.

As I got a bit older, I stopped playing video games much. I can’t say that I “grew out of it”, per say. Lots of adults continue to play video games. I think it was more of a time thing, or more likely a financial issue. Videogames are expensive, and keeping up the hardware to play them on the computer can be taxing. In fact, the last time I really gave videogames good amount of my time and money was during the days of Nintendo 64.

In the time I spent not playing, video games became increasingly more complex. The controllers began to have more buttons, more of which were used in regular game play. Computer games also, in addition to becoming more system intensive, began to use more keys in regular game play.

By the time the game Halo was released for the the XBOX in 2004, it was beyond my ability (given available time) to really get any good at it. The learning curve was simply too steep. Things only got worse as time went on. Consoles got more expensive, games became more complicated. And although I would enjoy spending an hour or two here or there relaxing with a good first-person-shooter, that became more and more of a fleeting possibility.

Then, in 2006, Nintendo released the Wii, which was aimed at reversing the trend. Simpler games. Simpler controls. Simpler price. Simpler everything. I bought one and played through one game (Zelda: Twilight Princess), then put it down. Sure, it was fun. But ultimately, more akin to playing a really impressive board game than a real honest-to-goodness video game.

I don’t want to play a board game, I want to play a video game. So, in my case, the Nintendo Wii didn’t live up to my hopes. I was back to no video games at all.

Alternative to the new Nintendo a slew of micro-game options also emerged. Games like Farmville on Facebook, or the thousands of games on the iPod Touch and iPhone seemed to be aimed at the people who wanted to play, but didn’t have the time to make it through the learning curve of the larger, beefier video games.

But therein lies the problem. I don’t want to play Farmville and there’s only so much Angry Birds I can handle—and that is somewhere around 15 minutes.

With Starcraft 2 set to release in the near future, I want to play. In fact, a friend picked up a key so that I can play the BETA version before it’s finally released. But even with all the games’ efforts to pair players with like-skilled opponents, the learning curve is simply too steep. The video games I enjoy playing are reserved for an exclusive group who have the time to develop their skills. And as we all know, it isn’t fun to play if you can’t win sometimes.

I, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who you ask), am not a part of that exclusive group. So, this is a message for all you video game developers out there:

Please begin thinking outside the box for ways to make the video games we all want to play accessible even to those of us without the time to meet the games’ normal learning curve demands. I promise, if you do, I’ll play. After all, no one really wants to play Farmville.

About a year ago I switched away from my original host Bluehost.com. They were terrible. Roughly 1 in 3 times in attempting to access one of my websites the site would be unavailable. I was forced to change hosts.

So, I moved to the once excellent HostRocket.com. I stayed with them for a year during which time things were slow. Gradually the reliability of the host tanked. Speaking to support they assured me things were being resolved. While the people were friendly, they simply didn’t make good on their promises. Not to mention waiting for 10-15 minutes on hold every time something went wrong, and hearing the most obnoxious hold-music I’ve ever heard in my life. After my business site was down for nearly 36 hours over two separate occasions within a couple months I once again had no choice but to jump ship to another host.

As a business owner this is very, very frustrating. It consumes time that I don’t have and makes my business look unprofessional when customers attempt to find our site and are denied for one reason or another.

So, this time doing what I should have done quite some time ago, I got onto a webhosting forum and asked about reliable hosts. The community seemed agreed on a few hosts that one should feel comfortable trusting and so I took their recommendation and moved over.

This post is the first on the new host. So, wish me luck… again.

I love this bit from Louis CK. I sometimes frustratedly grunt at my phone battery life, then snap out of it and realize how bizzarre it is that I have a cell phone at all, or even more so that it actually works.

In almost no time at all, we’ve grown entitled to things that didn’t even exist just a few decades ago. How crazy is that!

There has been a lot of posts about what will happen to print material over the next several years with the introduction of the iPad and other already existing devices like the Kindle and Nook. Although my mother clings dearly to them, I know for me, it’s probably been a good six or seven years since I last opened an actual dictionary to find a definition.

Encyclopedias? I don’t think I stayed in school long enough to really grow accustomed to using them. The internet seems to do the trick nicely.

Well, today, as I was browsing the net, I came across this image on thereifixedit.com. It seems to serve as what might be a pretty accurate omen to the future of most print material.

The Encyclopedia Britannica, conveniently modified into a broom to brush away debris on the floor.

Having little higher education, and not having read too much up until about four years ago, I personally have no attachment to the printed medium of literature. Well, other than the fact that I don’t really want to sit in front of my computer screen to read. But, with the advent of a versatile digital media device like the iPad, I can foresee a time when I don’t have a single book shelf in my home and all of my books are consolidated into one little digital media portal. Not unlike the way we’ve ditched shelves and shelves of DVD and CD cases.

I have friends who decry this attitude of mine. Clinging to the nostalgic feeling of several hundred pages bound together to tell a story or communicate an idea.

But a post of Craig Mod’s blog seems to sum things up pretty nicely. Well, for the immediate future, at least.

He argues that a huge amount of our familiarity with the written word will be challenged. Nothing is necessarily sacred. Just because we have lived for hundreds of years interacting with books on a page-by-page basis, doesn’t mean we will continue to. In fact, a digital medium will explode the formatting potential of our literature. Hopefully, in a good way.

As someone with no attachment to the analog methods we’ve used for centuries, I say bring it on!

If I may, I would like to take a moment to voice my frustration. Not with anything particularly important. But frustration nonetheless.

Usually, I’m a big fan of competition between business. It usually leads to lower prices and better products and I’m all about that. (Come on wireless providers, someone take the plunge into affordable wireless PC connections!). But sometimes, companies that compliment each other well and together offer something great, do something stupid. Like trying to deliver the whole package themselves.

See, like people, companies are often good at one thing, while being weaker at something else. Hence wonderfully symbiotic business relationships. But, when those companies decide they want to compete with each other, rather than work together, I, the customer, lose!

Who else could I be talking about besides Apple Computers and Google.

I’m a huge fan of both of these companies. Apple does the whole personal computers and handheld devices really, really well. And Google does pretty much everything internet really, really well. Maps, docs, calendars, wave, voice? Hello! It’s freakin’ amazing. Google’s integration on the iPhone couldn’t be any more convenient. Google is even Safari’s default search engine. Of course, because that’s the search engine we all use and love.

But now, Google has gone and done something stupid. They decided they wanted to make their own browser (Chrome, which is pretty great), and their own OS (also Chrome, which is kind of a joke), their own mobile OS (Android, which the jury is still out on) and now their own branded handset which goes head to head with the iPhone (the Nexus One). By the way, did you know that Google doesn’t have call centers ready to answer people’s questions about their products? Yeah, even the $500 Nexus One handset. And of course, now customer service satisfaction is at a dismal low. Probably because it doesn’t exist.

(Interestingly enough, you know who does have call centers and one of the highest customer service rankings anywhere? Apple Computers.)

Of course, Google couldn’t just stick with what it was actually good at. Instead, they had to move into this whole new realm of physical devices and thereby forcing Apple to make other plans. (Possibly even with Microsoft!)

Now, Apple has bought a maps related company. Presumably in anticipation of edging Google Maps off their devices in the future. And, there’s even talk of replacing Google as the default search with Bing. Bing! Are you freaking kidding me? I know, it sounds crazy, but that’s what the rumor sites are saying. That steaming pile of crap they call a search engine is not what I want to use. I want to use GOOGLE!

And seriously, Apple, are you going to send thousands of camera equipped vans all over the world to give us street views for your maps application? No! Of course not! You’re product isn’t widely adopted enough!

Ugh!

So, Apple—please don’t be afraid of Google. Continue to embrace what they do well and give us what we want. Integration with Google and it’s horde of amazing products.

Google—Your web stuff is awesome. But your whole cloud computing, netbook, ChromeOS thing isn’t going to work out unless you also plan to give everyone dedicated, 100% internet. I spend too much time away from a wifi hotspot. ChromOS, useless. Stick to what you do well and don’t run my mobile computing experience into the ground by making other great companies choose lesser solutions.

Microsoft—Just start over completely.

In Conclusion

Competition isn’t always good.

This rant has been brought to you by my frustrations with the unfolding situation between Apple and Google. Now that it’s out of my system, hopefully it won’t come up again any time soon.