Sometimes we are seeing posts like 10 Reasons why an Android Smartphone is Better than [whatever]. Nothing wrong with this. In some details they are certainly right.
Probably the latest Android hardware from Samsung is superior to the latest iPhones, at least concerning benchmarks (and assuming those are not faked).
But, there’s a tiny problem, at least for me. Google lives from data sale. “Google” means ‘data gathering and selling’. I’m not saying that Microsoft or Apple aren’t gathering data. But they don’t live from selling this data. They are – to some extent even Microsoft – creative, they are creating something. Google is copying, is laborious, and often improving. And data selling. But rarely creating.
In order to not feed the machine more than necessary I already avoid Google search whenever possible. I entirely avoid Google Maps. I try to avoid any other Google services. This site isn’t using Google Analytics, for example (it uses a self-hosted Piwik). The only Google app on my Mac is Chrome, and this only for testing this website. No way that I would use Chrome for every-day web browsing.
When we’re talking about Android we’re talking about an operating system. An operating system is something crucial, essential, almoste intimate. The mere idea to use a Google operating system is absolutely mindblowing, crazy and out of this world. Even more as we’re talking of a phone OS!