Android wins big time in customizability and support for high-speed 4G/LTE mobile broadband. iPhone 4S doesn’t support these high-speed mobile broadband options. Android also wins in the removable battery and physical keyboard categories. iPhone 4S wins in the accessories category. Frankly, this is how Apples had made millions. They charge an exuberant amount of money for their accessories and because you are locked into Apple brand you can’t go to the competition and purchase them at a lower price. Now you may consider the fact that Apples offers tons of accessories a big advantage for Apple but for me this alone is a reason not to purchase an iPhone 4S. Their prices for accessories are ridiculously high. However, I must say that that Apple offers some great accessories and they should get credit for that.

Another category in which David rated iPhone 4S higher than Android is the camera. Well, I don’t know about that. You see, the reason why iPhone users are so impressed by the 8MP camera in iPhone 4S is because iPhone 4 only had a 5MP camera and that’s a big improvement. However, HTC EVO 4G already has an 8MP camera so I would consider this category a tie.

The bottom line is this. In David’s opinion iPhone 4S is a better choice than Androids in only two out of ten categories: Accessories and camera. In all other categories either the Android is a winner or it’s a tie. Being an HTC EVO 4G user myself, I agree with David for the most part, except that when it comes to camera I would give Android an upper hand but give Apple an advantage over Android when it comes to the quality and abundance of accessories but definitely not in price.

Believe it or not, I am a proud owner of a Mac and I think Apple makes great products. I also have great things to say about iPAD 2, except for the pathetic less than 1MP camera. However, I have never been too impressed with iPhones because I believe the phone and the accessories are way over-priced, the service has been unreliable, and the quality has not been that great. There is a reason why the Consumer Report said they can’t recommend iPhone 4 because they are flawed.

My opinion: I am an Android user so iPAD yes, iPhone No!

If you are interested in reading more about iPhones, check out some of my previous posts on iPhones.

• Is iPhone Apple’s Katrina
• Apple & AT&T Security Breaches…..Again!
• Apple Publicly Admits that iPhone Bars are Fake
• Is iPhone 4 a Lemon?
• iPhone Hacked
• Security managers: beware the iPhone

You might also be interested in Sharee English’s blog To iPhone or not to iPhone.

Because Google, the maker of Android, does not have a fix for this bug at this time, even though they have known about this bug for a long time, all you can do at this time to prevent from potential disaster is backup your text messages if they are important to you. Resetting, rebooting, and other similar solutions don’t seem to help. The tech support for cell phone providers don’t know what to do so they may just tell you to reset your phone. It’s like you complaining that you accidentally deleted a file and would like to recover it and the tech support telling you why don’t you format your hard drive. Hello? that will wipe out all your data and everything on your computer. All kidding aside, I do sympathize with the tech support because they are not responsible for fixing bugs in Google’s operating systems. They only hope that you won’t lose your text messages again in future after the reset but unfortunately people still have the same problem after resetting their phones.

According to my research, Google is aware of this issue since December 26, 2009 and has listed this bug as a high priority (no kidding). The case number is 5569: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=5669. As of today (October 1, 2011) Google does not have a fix for this bug in almost two years. If you have an Android phone and have not run into this issue, you are lucky like me (I have an HTC EVO 4G). If you have lost your text messages there is not really much you can do. If you haven’t, here’s my recommendation on what to do.

Download the FREE SMS Backup+ app from the Android Market which will allow you to backup all your text messages and your call logs. Although there are lots of other similar apps, I like this particular app. It connects you to your Gmail account and backs up all your text messages in a Gmail Label called SMS (you can choose a different label if you want). Obviously, you can print, forward, or do whatever you want once they are in Gmail. If you use Microsoft Outlook, you can add your Gmail account as a POP3 or IMAP account in Outlook and receive all your text messages from SMS Backup+ in your Outlook Inbox. If you want to automatically move them to a different folder, just set up an Outlook rule. Here are a couple of screenshots from the Android Market Web site.

You can configure SMS Backup+ to automatically back up your messages at a regular interval using the Auto Backup feature. At this time the apps let you  backup both SMS and MMS messages, however, you can only restore SMS messages. Another nice feature is that you can also backup your Contacts to Gmail, if you want, otherwise just backup text messages. I think this app is way better than relying on your cell phone provider (Sprint, Verizon, etc.) to restore your messages or contacts.

If you are not worried about getting your text messages disappearing then you may not be interested in this post. However, be aware that one issue reported on HTC Forums is that if you send a message and notice that suddenly all your text messages have disappeared, all the people who received your message may also have their messages completely disappear. It’s like your messages committing a team suicide of sorts. This behavior makes you wonder if it is related to some kind of virus. At this point we don’t know for sure. Talking about antivirus, you might want to install an antivirus app on your smartphone, if you haven’t already. For example, you can download and install the free AVG antivirus app from the Market.

When you backup the messages and contacts for the first time you will connect to your Gmail account and will be asked to allow SMS Backup+ access to your Google account. According to the developer, the app will not have access to your password or other personal information. Depending on the number of text messages and contacts it can take hours so it might not be a bad idea to first delete any unwanted text messages and contacts and then start the back.

Microsoft Exchange Online for Enterprises Service Description – Microsoft® Exchange Online is a hosted messaging solution that delivers the capabilities of Microsoft Exchange Server as a cloud-based service. It gives users rich and familiar access to email, calendar, contacts, and tasks across PCs, the Web, and mobile devices.

Microsoft SharePoint Online for Enterprises Service Description – Microsoft SharePoint Online is a Microsoft Office 365 service for businesses of all sizes. Instead of installing and deploying Microsoft SharePoint Server on-premises, any business can now simply subscribe to SharePoint Online to provide their employees with an enterprise grade solution for creating sites to share documents and information with colleagues and customers.

Microsoft Lync Online for Enterprises Service Description – Microsoft® Lync™ Online is a next-generation cloud communications service that connects people in new ways, anytime, from virtually anywhere. Lync Online provides intuitive communications capabilities across presence, instant messaging, audio/video calling and a rich online meeting experience including PC-audio, video and Web conferencing. Transform your interactions with colleagues, customers and partners from today’s hit-and-miss communication to a more collaborative, engaging, and effective experience.

Microsoft Office Professional Plus Service Description – With Office Professional Plus, users get the latest version of the Microsoft Office applications, seamlessly connected and delivered with cloud services, so they can access their documents, email, and calendars from virtually any device. Office Professional Plus includes the new Office Web Apps—online companions to Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel®, Microsoft PowerPoint®, and Microsoft OneNote®—which let users review and make minor edits to documents directly from a browser.

Microsoft Office 365 Apple Devices Service Description – The Microsoft Office 365 Apple Devices Service Description provides customers with an overview of Office 365 capabilities on the Mac and iOS (iPhone and iPad) devices.

Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving Service Description – Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving is a cloud-based archiving solution for organizations that have deployed Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 on-premises. Exchange Online Archiving is an enterprise-class service that assists these organizations with their archiving, compliance, regulatory, and e-discovery challenges while simplifying their on-premises infrastructure, thereby saving costs and easing the information technology (IT) burden.

Microsoft Office 365 for Enterprises Support Service Description – Microsoft® Office 365 for enterprises Support Service Description provides information to customers about the technical and nontechnical support included in their subscription fee to Microsoft Office 365 for enterprises.

Microsoft Online Services Migration Service Description – The purpose of this service description is to provide information about the email migration services that are available from Microsoft Premier Deployment (MPD) for Office 365.

Microsoft Office 365 Mobility Services Description – The Microsoft Office 365 Mobility Services Description provides customers with information on mobility solutions—access to services from phones and devices—that are available for two online services in this current release namely, Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft SharePoint® Online.

Microsoft Office Web Apps Service Description – Microsoft® Office Web Apps is the online companion to Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel®, Microsoft PowerPoint®, and Microsoft OneNote® applications that helps users access documents from almost anywhere. Users can view, share, and work on documents online with other users across personal computers, mobile devices, and the web.

Office 365 Security and Service Continuity Service Description – This service description describes the security, continuity, privacy, and compliance policies and controls for the Office 365 for enterprises service offerings. It is intended to provide Office 365 customers with an overview of how each of the Office 365 services is designed to provide a high degree of security, privacy, continuity, and compliance—service goals that are derived from the Microsoft Risk Management program.

Office 365 Identity Service Description – This document discusses the design, policies, and best practices related to Office 365 identity, including the creation of user accounts, password policy, co-existence, directory synchronization, and single sign-on ( identity federation). Users can gain access to Office 365 by authenticating to their Office 365 user accounts—either through a prompt to provide valid credentials or through a single sign-on process. Once authenticated, users’ identities refer to the user names associated with the Office 365 accounts.

Download Link: You can download all the enterprise service descriptions from Microsoft’s Web site here.

Each service includes a financially backed service level agreement (SLA) for a guaranteed 99.9-percent scheduled uptime. Microsoft deploys patches, security updates, and back-end upgrades, helping to eliminate the time and effort organizations spend managing their servers.

According to Microsoft, the following features are common to all of the Microsoft business-class cloud services.

Secure access: Each offering from Microsoft Office 365 is accessed through 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption. Anyone who intercepts a communication sees only encrypted text.

Intrusion monitoring: Microsoft continuously monitors the Office 365 systems for any unusual or suspicious activity. If Microsoft detects such activity, it investigates and responds appropriately. In the unlikely event that a significant incident occurs, the customer is notified.

Security audits: Microsoft regularly assesses the Office 365 infrastructure to ensure that the latest antivirus signatures and required security updates are installed, and that high-level configuration settings are in compliance with Microsoft security policies. For details, refer to the Security and Service Continuity for Enterprises Service Description.

High availability: Microsoft Office 365 services have a 99.9-percent scheduled uptime. If a customer’s service is affected, Office 365 offers financial remedies subject to the terms and conditions of the SLA. For details, refer to the Service Level Agreement for Microsoft Online Services.

Service continuity: Redundant network architecture is hosted at geographically dispersed Microsoft data centers to handle unscheduled service outages. Data centers act as backups for each other: If one fails, the affected customers are transferred to another data center with limited interruption of service.

Microsoft Online Services Portal: This easy-to-use website is the center for activities related to Microsoft Office 365. The portal provides services based on each organization’s specific needs. Prospective subscribers can use the portal to sign up for a free trial. End users accessing the portal can find online help, open Microsoft SharePoint site collections, and launch Microsoft Outlook^® Web App. Administrators can manage users, administer services, download tools, and learn about service administration from online help.

Directory Synchronization tool: For subscribers with Active Directory^® directory services deployed on-premises, this tool helps keep the on-premises Active Directory and the Microsoft Office 365 directory synchronized.

Remote administration: With Microsoft Windows PowerShell™, administrators can perform many tasks using a script or automated process. For example, tasks such as creating users, resetting passwords, assigning licenses, and obtaining service-use data can be fully automated.

Recently I ran across another software, developed by a fellow MVP by the name of Chris Pietschmann. Chris is a Windows Live Platform MVP and his free, virtual router software is available from Microsoft’s CodePlex community site, which is a distribution point for open source software. The Virtual Router software turns any Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 computer into a WiFi Hotspot using Windows 7′s Wireless Hosted Network (Virtual WiFi) technology. Virtual Router allows you to wirelessly share any Internet connection (LAN, WiFi, Cable Modem, Cellular, or even dial-up modem) with any WiFi device (Laptop, Smart Phone, iPod Touch, iPhone, Android Phone, Zune, Netbook, wireless printer, etc.).

The software, written entirely in C#, does not have the password limitations of Connectify. Another good thing about the Virtual Router is that it is completely free of ads. And the best thing about the Virtual Router is that it defaults to WPA2 for secure wireless connectivity. WPA2 is one of the most, if not the most, secure wireless encryption available today.

The software is currently in its beta version. You can download beta 0.9 here.

If you never had a need to use either the equal to “=” or the backslash “\” key then you must be wondering why would I need these keys in the first place. Well, I need the backslash key to logon to certain Web sites that require me to use the Domain\Username convention (yes, I know I can use the Universal Naming Convention, or UNC, to logon to a Windows domain but I won’t go into all the details and reasons in this post). I have to use the equal to key in some URLs when I try to access certain Web pages.

Depending on your phone, you may not have the same options as I do, even if your phone uses an Android operating system. Here’s how you get to some of the “not too easy to find” keys on your HTC EVO 4G.

1. While in the Edit mode, click on 12# key in the lower right hand corner. The 12# and the ABC keys can be used to toggle between entering text and entering numbers. While in the ABC mode (shown below) touch the 12# key.

   

2. When you touch the 12# key it is replaced by the ABC key. The new screen has numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 0 at the top and special characters on the next three rows.
3. On the left hand side just next to the keyboard icon you will notice a new key that is labeled 1/2. Apparently it means you are looking at page 1 of 2 pages. Touch that 1/2 key to switch to page 2/2 and you will find all kinds of cool characters, including the backslash and the equal to symbol.
4. The second page of the numbers screen includes the Euro, Yen, and Pound symbol. It also includes ~ = \ ^ [ ]< > { } | (this last one is the pipe symbol). In addition, it includes some other characters that don’t even exist on an average PC keyboard, such as inverted exclamation mark, inverted question mark, and a bunch of emoticons.

Again, just to remind you, this technique works on HTC EVO 4G mobile phones for sure but may not work on your model and make of Android phone.