A friend asked me whether I could send him an MP3 file to his iPhone. I sent the file to his email address and now he can play the file from his inbox. Not in the native music application (“iPod”) on the iPhone, mind you.
The one and only option to get music stored on an iPhone, it seems, is to sync the whole device with iTunes.
On my Samsung Galaxy SII, I have the following options:
Now these are just the options I have when I have installed and configured the device with my PC. Apart from that, I also have the following options (this is all built in, no third party apps required):
So, what is this blog post?! Is this a rant about the iPhone being a locked-down platform with no choice and Android being much better?! If you think so, this is only half true. Of course I think there should be a way to transfer a single file to an iPhone. But seeing all these options I have on my Android phone, I might get overwhelmed by the choice: How should I do it? What is the right tool for job? I can understand a non-technical person already being tired when reading the list of options.
It is Apple’s philosophy for their devices not to do everything but whatever they do they do it really well. Apple has to support only a limited set of features, compared to other vendors who compete on the feature counter - but that often means some of those features may not work perfectly.
So, does this mean I personally prefer the Apple way?! Not at all. I would never exchange my Samsung Galaxy SII for an iPhone. But you have to consider I’m a person who loves playing with technology. I can understand anyone who prefers the iOS simplicity approach.
Great that we have various mobile ecosystems and everyone can find what’s right for them. Now that’s choice! Sorry fanboys for not taking part in your battle :-)
LukasRos' Blog