People frequently ask me about which type of phone is better for them to buy. I like looking at this question the same way I would look at which tool a student would need to be successful in school. I would start with Joy Zabala's SETT Framework, http://www.joyzabala.com/ . Here we would look at the student, their environment then the tasks they would need to complete with the tool. After looking at these items, we would look at the tools.
When trying to find out about the person, the first question I ask, "Who is your technical support?" Do you have children, grandchildren, family members or friends who will be able to answer your questions about your phone? Then you will want to get the same operating system that they use on a regular basis. If they use iPhones, you want to buy an iPhone. If they use an Android phone, you will want to buy the same type of Android phone if possible. Android phones don't all work with the same operating system which means that different phones might have features in different areas.
The next questions I ask, "Do you need any type of accessibility features?" Do you need larger text, text to speech supports, or do you wear hearing aids? You will want to investigate the availability of these features on the different devices. My personal preference is that the assessability features on the iPhones are easier to access and use in the various apps.
Now we need to look at what tasks do you wish to be able to use with your phone. Today, there are more apps in the Google Store, (Android Devices) than in the Apple Store. I am not sure if this is significant or not. I would be more interested in looking at the types of apps one would want to use and then see if they are available.
I will talk more about favorite apps in future blogs.
