When the iPhone first appeared on the market, it was a revolution in the mobile device area. Android took a while longer to materialize, but now that it is out there, some consumers are re-evaluating their “love affair” with iPhone. Learning from iPhone’s mistakes, Android was able to capitalize on many iPhones features that users find frustrating. In fact there are plenty of good reasons to dump your iPhone for an Android device.

iPhone’s Hideous Sync Options
Unlike the iPhone, the Android does not sync with the computer it is plugged into. One of the iPhone’s pet peeves is its insistence on syncing with the computer it is plugged into. Innocently plug your iPhone into someone else’s laptop, hit “sync” and watch all your content disappear.

Google Apps
While iPhone does provide a Gmail interface, this is where the buck stops, when it comes to Google apps. Not surprisingly, Android goes much further than iPhone in its integration with the Google suite. One example is the address book. Out-of-the-box, Android syncs its contacts with a Gmail account. This ensures that your contact records reside in a central location that can be accessed from any location and using various devices. Some Google applications host their data on the Google cloud instead of iTunes. This makes dumping the iPhone for Android especially attractive to those using Linux, and unable to run iTunes.

Multitasking
Multitasking has been one of the iPhone’s worst enemies. Switching between apps requires pushing the dreaded “Home” button, which closes one app and opens another. This gets extremely annoying when reading an email, for example. Clicking on a link within an email message effectively closes the email client and opens a browser window. As simple a task as returning back to the email requires hitting the “Home” button once more and re-opening the email app.

The Android solves this by providing multitasking capabilities out-of-the-box. You can run multiple applications simultaneously without having to close any of them. A drop-down window notifies you of any changes in an application you are running in the background. Although switching between apps is yet to reach its performance optimum – there is an lag time when switching between apps – it is a prominent feature that iPhone lacks.

Web Browser
One of the best reasons to dump your iPhone for Android is the web browsing experience. The Android’s built-in browser is fast, capable, and feature-rich. Unlike iPhone’s Safari, it supports Flash, allowing you to view many more sites than on the iPhone and watch videos directly in your mobile browser window.

Unified Notifications
Another reason to dump your iPhone for Android is the Android’s unified notification infrastructure. Android provides a single notification system available to Android app developers. This means that the Android can be configured to receive Facebook updates, weather alerts, tweets, Reddit submissions and other time-based events. The notification system allows you to stay on top of the things you care about without making the process overly cumbersome.

Open-Source Framework
Finally, Android is built on top of an open-source platform. While this may not matter to some, it may be crucial to others. Open-source software allows developers and device makers to have a much finer control over the phone hardware and the operating system that powers it. The iPhone’s lack of support for Flash is the best illustration of the impact of open-source software. If Flash support were missing on Android, developers would be able to add it quickly without waiting for Google to develop one.

There are a number of compelling reasons to dump your iPhone for an Android phone. Android allows multitasking, integrates well with Google online suite, provides a central notification system, and a terrific web browsing experience. Finally, as an open-source platform, Android allows developers to customize it in limitless ways. Check out Android today and you will quickly find yourself wishing you had not gone to the Apple store.