From Android to iPhone: The First 24 Hours

After four years of using Android smartphones every day, I decided to make the switch to iOS. I’ve experienced many ups and downs with Android, but couldn’t help but wonder what things could be like on the other side. Now that T-Mobile carries the iPhone, my transition is complete. A lot of impressions are formed after getting a new device, so I decided to recall my first full day of iPhone ownership.

I’ve been around the iPhone for a long time, but I’ve never spent an extended amount of time with one. My first impressions after taking it out of the box was how light and solid the phone feels. I understood why people love phones that aren’t mostly constructed out of plastic. It just feels good to hold. I loved the whole design of the phone until I got around to the nano SIM tray. I hate the nano SIM tray. I didn’t get a dedicated tool to open it, so I had to use a paper clip. The last thing I wanted to do with my shiny new iPhone 5 was risk scratching it with a paper clip. But since I needed the SIM card number for activation, I had no choice.

I took to the smaller 4-inch screen better than I thought I would. I made some typing errors due to the decreased screen size, but it’s nothing I won’t get used to. I will say it’s nice to be able to operate my phone with one hand again. Fiddling around with a 4.5-inch screen and dropping it on my face in bed was starting to get irritating.

As for the iOS UI design – well, it’s kind of boring. I know a lot of people have been saying iOS has become stale and I have to agree. I’m not asking for a bunch of widgets everywhere, I just think Apple should do something different with iOS. If it were to create an equivalent of widgets, I’d be happy if they were applied in a way similar to Action Launcher for Android. A simple swipe on an app’s icon automatically brings up its widget. It saves space and provides access to a decent amount of information. I think the overall design of iOS is far surpassed by Android at this point.

Regardless of all the bells and whistles, no phone would be worth any money if its performance is bad. That said, I’m loving the performance. Chrome works better on iOS compared to Android, and all the apps I tried were smooth. It’s nice knowing everything I download will be compatible with my phone. I’m sure some apps will crash on occasion  but I like not having to worry about if a certain app supports my phone.

The answer depends on how you define 'nearly': do you adhere to the Oxford English definition of 'very close to, almost', or the popular newspaper definition of 'somebody said they knew somebody who thought it might happen'? If it's the former, alas we can only tell you that no, Colonel Gaddafi did not nearly buy Crystal Palace once. If it's the latter, then ding-ding-ding, you're a winner! Yes, Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi did indeed nearly buy Crystal Palace!

The story broke in July 2004. The club's chairman Simon Jordan was making no secret of the fact that he wanted to sell the club and do one – "I don't enjoy football anymore" – and told reporters he'd heard that Colonel Gaddafi and his son Al-Saadi were interested. "If they did [make an offer]," he said, "I would consider it." Having invested a fortune that could otherwise have been spent on self-tanning products, Jordan would probably have considered selling to anyone with the readies, but fans were less than enthused by the thought of the Libyan leader taking over the club's affairs. His nickname – Mad Dog – may have suggested wicked bantz but most were troubled by the provenance of the money involved. "There's giving someone a second chance," a club shop assistant called Lucy Kirby told the Telegraph, "but that's going too far."

"Gaddafi is not a name which necessarily inspires enthusiasm from the British public," said Jordan, who also conceded that any deal would carry "a degree of stigma". But the deal might have been the one to secure Palace's hard-won Premier League status. "At the end of the day," said Jordan, "many people might see Roman Abramovich's involvement at Chelsea as less than palatable, but he is moving the club forward. If Gaddafi's money was able to progress Palace and allow them to compete at the top of the tree and be a successful football club, then one would have to take that into consideration."

Gaddafi already owned a 5% stake in Juventus after purchasing shares using the state-owned Libya Arab Foreign Investment Company, and had previously been linked with buying a similar sized stake in Liverpool, so the story was not completely outlandish (although we're not sure how much credibility Al-Saadi's oft-mentioned spell at Perugia really lent things, having lasted only 15 minutes). In fact, the BBC set a business reporter to work on what the deal might mean for Palace: "Libya is sitting on almost $1.5 trillion (￡801bn) worth of oil. Enough to buy rather a lot of David Beckhams and Wayne Rooneys."

It was only a matter of days before hopes of a team full of Beckhams and Rooneys (imagine the card count! They haven't thought this through) were killed stone dead, however, when a spokesman for the Libyans said: "Mr Gaddafi had been informed about the rumours that bounded him to a possible interest to buy Crystal Palace, but he knew nothing and he isn't involved in this situation."