Well, ok. I've been procrastinating work and other stuff all day so here we go :) Just a note that I was not trying to debate things here, most of my points are quite subjective and I realize that. I bet there are many thousands of people who absolutely love Swype, for example. There are probably also (fewer) thousands who love swapping out their SD card every year and are OK with moving apps to and from their SD card. They probably laugh at "suckers" who spend $100 for each bump in capacity on the iPhone and iPad. (If I were a mean person I'd say that they are laughing from the darkness of their mom's basement as they take a break from WoW ;-)

The N1 is one of hundreds of Android phones. Just because you don't like the Nexus One, doesn't mean it's representative of all Android cell phones.

Agreed, but being Google's flagship device it seems like it should be one of the best (well, should have been in its heyday).

Just trying to play devil's advocate here, so I want to point out that one has the option of using their own (expandable) storage. iOS devices do not even give the user the ability to even do this at all.

Most people don't understand memory and storage and don't care about upgrading it. A lot of folks wouldn't even know how to copy their stuff to a new SD card (sounds silly to geeks like us but it's true). I think this is a misfeature, sophistry perpetuated by manufactures that want to cut costs and make it seem like a good thing for users. The result is a terrible experience for users, even geeks like me who write software for these things. Most folks would just think "I have 8 gee-bees, how can I be out of memory? It must be broken."

The best part about this very subjective point (that I agree with btw, the stock keyboard is hard to learn and use), is that Android allows one to change the keyboard, and indeed make a keyboard that they would prefer to use. iOS does not allow for the minority of people like you who do not like it, and forces users to stick with the only option.

I agree, this is one of the advantages to using Android. Note that many people have to root their phones in order to install apps outside the market though. The Nexus One is a little bit special in this regard.

Can you install Swype on an iOS device and use it as the default keyboard? If the answer is no, then we can't very well use this as a disadvantage to Android, but rather as a poorly implemented additional feature that iOS doesn't have at all.

I only mentioned that because some people say "use Swype!" so I wanted to make it clear I have tried that popular alternative and was not satisfied with it either. It's definitely a plus for Android that you can change the keyboard at all, and good for the whole industry by encouraging innovation.

This isn't the case with all phones/Android OS versions. I can take screenshots on my Nexus One by holding down the Power button, just as iOS devices. Admittedly, this feature was defiantly missing from the get-go, and requires a few steps to setup... but it is possible and works very well.

If rooting/jailbreaking is an option then you can indeed change the iOS keyboard and other things as well. I'm not sure whether hacking a device to add functionality is a plus or minus. Either way many people don't want to do such geeky things and get scared when they hear about it thinking it will be difficult. Like telling a friend to re-install Windows when they have computer trouble, they usually respond with something like "I don't know how to do that!" and think they have to be a wizard to do such things. It's not true, but is reality nonetheless.

So if this is a valid argument in favour of Android then you have to concede that it's a valid argument for getting 3rd party keyboards and such on iOS as well, invalidating some of your previous arguments against iOS. How far down the rabbit hole do you go? You could, in theory, open the iPhone and upgrade its storage as well if you are into hacking and modding. Nobody does this of course, and similarly relatively few people percentage-wise root or jailbreak their devices.

Google doesn't make the devices, the phone manufacturers do. The Nexus One has a trackball on it, because HTC decided to put one there.

Google was heavily involved in designing the Nexus One, but regardless I wasn't really citing this as a negative point about Android or the Nexus series. It is just the only thing I can think of that I will actually miss, surprisingly. I never thought I'd use it at first.

Ultimately, I would rather have a device that lets me 'tear it apart' virtually, whereas you would rather have a device that has been tested and set for the optimal "average user." There's something good to be said about less choice: less thinking about what I want to use. Sometimes a paint store with hundreds of shades can be more tedious than a store that only has ten shades to choose from.

Nothing wrong with wanting either of these things. What people want and like are what people want and like, neither is right or wrong. Same goes for anything in between, like those who get iOS devices and jailbreak or get Android devices and never install 3rd party apps or new UIs or keyboards.