Hustleman - there are many people who dislike Android BECAUSE they've used it on one or more devices and found there have been performance issues on EVERY Android device they've owned. As a personal example, I've owned three Android devices (check the image in my signature), two smartphones and one tablet. BOTH of the smartphones were considered high-end devices at the time they were released, and two of my three devices (one of the smartphones and the tablet) were either pure Android or near-pure Android. Despite all of these factors, ALL THREE of these devices has had some sort of performance issue that has significantly distracted from my enjoyment of the device. Actually, I bought the pure Android device (Samsung Galaxy Nexus) BECAUSE of the issues I had with my first Android smartphone (Motorola Droid 2). Did using a pure Android device fully solve the problems? Nope. Considering Google can't seem to solve the performance issues with Android, I've decided to follow the "three strikes and you're out" rule and say "Hasta la vista, baby" to Android. (I should note my aggravation with Android is not a Google issue; I have a chromebook, and I think THAT device is great. Actually, I can't wait until Google replaces Android with Chrome OS on smartphones...which is probably fairly likely once mobile devices can support true desktop browsers or at least desktop browser performance. Ironically, that's probably the Android fanboys greatest fear - an attack from inside the Google tent - but I digress.)
I should note that my first smartphone (the aforementioned Droid 2) was an Android. At the time I bought it (December 2010), I thought I'd never want to buy an Apple device just because Apple is Apple, had read that most people thought Android was superior to Blackberry OS, and also thought I wouldn't want to ever buy a smartphone without a physical keyboard. (I was also barely aware of Windows Phone at the time; Microsoft had just released WP7, but didn't have any devices on Verizon yet.) I WANTED to be a strong Android advocate. But after using the Droid 2 for a number of months, its performance issues became a real headache, and I became a lot more interested in the other mobile operating systems out there. I also didn't want to become a true ****** and bash other operating systems without having ever used them. Because I have a decent amount of discretionary income and money saved up (and also have a ridiculous smartphone fetish :smile
, I could test out the other mobile operating systems by buying different smartphones (and tablets). I bought a Windows Phone. I bought an iPhone. I bought a Blackberry Playbook (good move) and the a high-end Bold (bad move). Heck, I even bought a couple webOS devices (RIP webOS). And you know what? I found out that other mobile OS functioned a lot better and fit what I wanted better than Android, even if many of those smartphones didn't have physical keyboards (which I'd still prefer to have, but it's no longer a must). Windows Phone is much smoother than Android. Apple's iOS, which part of me didn't want to like, is much smoother than Android. (I'm still trying to determine which mobile OS is smoother IMO, WP7/8 or iOS.) Blackberry Tablet OS and webOS, while not as smooth (especially the latter) as WP or iOS, had more appealing user interfaces than Android. Quite frankly, I found that Android was my second-least favorite mobile OS of all the operating systems I used, ahead of only Blackberry 7, which was seemingly invented when dinosaurs ruled the Earth and smartphone technical capabilities were lower.
The bottom line is I was able and willing to use various mobile OS, and because of that I have a more informed opinion than most people about mobile OS. And IMO, Android is a piece of crap, no matter what the phone looks like, no matter what apps are installed (and some of those apps, like Google Maps, are very good). Like I said above, I've given Android three tries and they haven't succeeded with any of them, so I see no point in giving any future tries unless I'm absolutely forced to. I will steer smartphone novices away from Android and toward WP8 or iOS (and possibly BB10 in the future once I buy and get a chance to use BB10). And I do that not because I'm some sort of ****** or have Android hate, but because I've used Android and think most people who use it will eventually get frustrated with it, like I did.