Dear Android, Its About Time We Had This Talk

My official Android gripe of the day is autocorrect. I am not sure why, after five years of development and feedback from hundreds of millions of users, Android still does not automatically correct “Its” to “It’s.”  I’d wager that 70% of “its” usage is in contraction, not object-possession, form. And yet, somehow, the error persists.  With that in mind, a few brief thoughts about the state of Android.

I’ve been a ‘droid user for nearly two years, with a largely positive experience. I started when it was a rickety, inexpensive OS which allowed me to download music or display a lock screen in whatever fashion I liked, albeit at the cost of battery life, interface and overall usability. But my opinion changed after I left Samsung’s terrible, miserable clutches and moved over to HTC, whose hardware and software design were thoughtful and intuitive, where Samsung was thoughtless, hurtful and sometimes predatory. To this end, I’ve often compared Samsung to the girl you dumped in high school. She’s beautiful and seemingly simple, but after spending a long time with her, you realize she’s actually unstable, inconsistent, and prone to lawsuits from Apple.

Which brings me to my second point about Android. After two years and three iterations of dessert-flavored OS upgrades, it still fails the “minimum-clicks” yardstick.  In iOS, it takes two clicks and one swipe to adjust the brightness. In Android, it’s about seventeen clicks, three swipes, and promises of a Peppermint Latte.  So please, Google, fix it; I’m running out of Starbucks credit.  Although Apple doesn’t offer the same degree of customizability or usefulness in its dropdown menu or widgets, something as frequently used as screen brightness or wifi controls should be easily accessible to all flavors of Jelly Bean. But who knows, maybe we’ll have better luck in Android 3.2, Klondike Bar.