Sorry iPhone, I Need Something New (Maybe You?)

I remember back in 2007 when iPhone was first launched.  I bought one the day after launch.  It was the “must-have” device that was unfortunately out of a lot of people’s price range.  This made it a luxury item.  For a few months, if you had an iPhone, you were the man.  Everyone wanted to see it, and everyone wanted to play with it.  ”Oooh, ahhh” they’d say as they swiped through photos.  Or “Whoa” as they felt the benefits of a multi-touch capacitive touch screen display.  Or “holy shi-” as they felt the industrial design of the phone.  An aluminium-like back, smooth curves, etc.  Now, it’s “Oh, you have an iPhone?  Me too!  Cool!  What’s your favorite app?”I’m so sick of hearing that damn question, that honestly, I always respond with the same response now of, “Personally, I like Poop the World because it gives me an excuse to use my phone while I’m pooping.”  Just to make the asker angry or sometimes amused, of course.  I say it with all cynicism intended, too.  The launch of the iPhone 3Gs was no more impressive.  Ooh, ahh, I have video and a compass.  Those should have been included in the original iPhone for goodness sakes!  My crappy Samsung phone from years ago, my Motorola phone before that, and even my very first Nokia phone could take pictures and video and send MMS messages.  I mean really, what the hell, Apple?

So, that brings me to my point.  I want something new.  I want something different.  I want people to ask to see my phone again.  I want people to go “Oooh, ahh” over my phone rather than, “My gym teacher has one of those.”  Wow, cool.  Thanks.

So what are my options?

1.) Switch to Verizon and get a Droid.  The Verizon network is far superior to AT&T, regardless of whatever scare-tactic lawsuit AT&T tries to throw at them.  The Droid also supports open development and runs Android.  This means that basically, they encourage you to do whatever you want to your phone.  You know, like the DMCA says you’re legally allowed to do?  Apple and AT&T seem to forget this often.

2.) Switch to Sprint and get a Palm Pre.  Regardless of what others say, I’ve personally used the Pre, and it’s fantastic.  The UI is gorgeous and incredibly functional, allowing one to be far more productive than on the iPhone.  The Pre unfortunately has gotten not so much a bad rap as no rap at all.  No one’s talking about the Pre.  I’m not sure why, because it’s great.  The Pre’s WebOS was also written from scratch.  The iPhone OS is incredibly bloated and slow.  It was a port from the desktop version of OSX, and it apparently even includes some line of code from the NeXT Step OS.  That’s ridiculous.  Now, that being said, the Sprint network is far from perfect, but in areas where it is decent, like here in Pittsburgh, the service is faster than AT&T.  The monthly bill would be less, too.

3.) Wait it out for either the GSM Pre or, the next iPhone.  Like Gruber said:

Right. You know who thinks the iPhone 3GS stinks? Steve Jobs. No one is working harder on an “iPhone 3GS killer” than Apple.

Right?  I think Apple knows people are expecting more from the next iPhone release as the 3GS’ was kind of a bummer, regardless of how clever the ads were.

So, what do you think?  Has the iPhone become a status quo device?  Is that OK?  What should I do about my dilemma?  Let me know in the comments!

*Thanks to digitalbear for the image