From BlackBerry 10 to Android or iOS?

I’ve been a BlackBerry user since 2007…nearly a decade.  Transitioned from the original BlackBerry OS which required reboots weekly to BlackBerry 10 which just worked.  My current phone is a Z10 and I’ve loved it.  Smooth interactions, easy to navigate between applications, has the ability to make great phone calls, has the Hub, and doesn’t sell all of my data to advertisers.  I was hoping to pick up a Passport but apparently AT&T owns the phone and it will never come over Verizon.  So now I’m left with picking up either an iOS or Android device.  I’d consider a Windows phone but Verizon doesn’t have a great selection of those phones and picking one feels like picking another dieing OS.

iPhone has one big advantage, most of my family uses them.  I could do Facetime with the family and have a selection of top quality applications.  The OS hasn’t been seeing the best quality since version 9 came out, ZDNet even wrote about it last year, which is a bit disappointing since they spend so much time make the phone look beautiful.  It honestly seems like the company is pushing their software division to deliver an unfinished product knowing the diehards will deal with the bugs.  They have promised to focus on delivering a better quality OS as was mentioned here on 9TO5Mac, but we’ll have to wait for the release later this year to see if that promise comes true.

And then there is Android.  The OS has been receiving some good updates to improve battery life, security enhancements, and provide developers with a way to make professional looking applications.  Basically, it has been slowly getting up to par with iOS.  There is still a proliferation of low quality/questionable apps on the Play Store but that doesn’t mean they are all bad.  The fact that BlackBerry now makes the PRIV which takes the best of Android and BlackBerry 10 and melds them together is a big plus.  BlackBerry does message handling better than any other device I’ve used and the virtual keyboard with the swipe feature is an efficient beast.

Hmm, unless BlackBerry ports over their Hub app to iOS I think I’ll plan on picking up the PRIV.  Great camera, beautiful screen, BlackBerry Hub and DTEK, should have the latest Android OS by the time Verizon releases it in March, and the fact that it has expandable storage is a huge plus.  Fine, I admit, I’m still a BlackBerry addict.