Why I Love Android: The Back Button

Yes I know, this discussion has been done to death. I not here to do some iPhone bashing (although I must admit that I may indulge from time to time). I actually do love the iPhone and everything it has to offer. However for me, I’m fully Android and will never go back.

My top reasons include:

1. Notifications
2. Customization
3. Back button

I wanted to talk about the merits of the back button but I can’t possibly go on without giving honourable mention to the Android notifications (alerts). Here is a good post on the merits of the notifications; without them I’m lost.

Next up, is customization. It’s important to know I classify myself as a geek. One of the first things I did when I got my Android phone was to get a terminal emulator app. It allows me to browse the file system using Linux commands. What use does it have? Not a damn thing, but boy it’s cool! This really sums me up when it comes to my geek factor. Therefore customization is another part of Android that I just love. I need to customize things, and Android fits that bill and then some. Whether you want to use one of the 800 login options (slight exaggeration) or customize the look and feel of pretty much anything, Android has you covered.

But back (pun intended) to what I’m here to talk about, the Android back button. I used to have an iPhone. I loved the phone and really never had a problem with it. It was so easy to use, picked it up quickly and it just worked. It wasn’t until the other day when my wife asked me to check something on her iPhone that I suddenly realized the power of the Android back button. I literally got stuck and didn’t know how to get back. I know you can switch between apps fairly easily on iOS but what about within the app? There’s no consistent approach here that I’ve seen yet.

With Android you get a so called hard button so you can go back to the very last thing you did. This not only applies to browsing, anything really. Navigating between apps, different settings, etc. The point is that with a quick click I can change a setting to see how that works in the app and with the back button make more adjustments if needed. This button makes me more productive and I can’t imagine a phone without it.

Don’t get me wrong the back button is not without issues, but for me I simply can’t live without it. I’d like to hear from any Android users that switched back to iPhone, what didn’t you like? Let us know in the comments below.