Security

Phone security is one of the first things a person should look into before deciding whether or not to buy the phone. On almost a weekly basis I am hearing in some news story or headline about a company whose servers where hacked and thousands of peoples personal information such as social security numbers and credit card numbers were stolen. The same concept goes for your cell phone, hackers have the ability to steal information off of it, monitor your calls, as well as much more.

Since all three phones I have been examining run on different operating systems, they therefore all must have different types of security measures behind them. For this blog I will be looking at what operating system on each of the phones provides the user with the most security. However, since both the Windows phone and Android phone that I am using run old versions of their operating systems and the Apple phone uses the newest version of its operating system, I will just be comparing the newest versions of all of them, to provide a better comparison (I would upgrade the Windows and Android devices to the latest systems but I can't risk compromising any data on them, since they are my fathers work phones). The three systems are iOS9, 8.1 for Windows, and KitKat for Android (although KitKat is not the latest version it is used by the largest percentage of Android users according to Wikipedia, so I have decided to compare it to that).

To start, I will be looking at each systems ability to download applications. In this regard the iOS and Windows are most similar. This is because they only allow the users to download applications that come through their respective application stores. This allows the companies to monitor what kinds of apps are going onto their devices, which in turn provides more security to the user since it is harder for hackers to get their malicious applications into those stores. The KitKat however allows users to download applications from anywhere, whether it be through their application store or a third party. This is not good because many of the apps found on the internet contain malicious data that could harm your phone, or even yourself, depending on what the hackers intents are. (Citation - Softonic)

Next, we will be comparing how secure your phone would be if it ever got into the wrong hands, such as by either losing it or theft. All three systems allow for a user to locate their device and erase all data from a remote location. This is good to do incase you have very important or private information on it that you do not want anyone to access once you no longer have your phone. However, only Windows allows a user to send the phone commands from a remote location using SMS, Wifi, and cellular data. This is more beneficial because on the other two devices the lost phone must be on a Wifi or cellular data network to work. Lastly, only the iOS system allows all the data to be fully encrypted on the phone, making it much harder for a hacker to retrieve the information. (Citation - Softonic)

Finally, we will compare the different ways a user can unlock each of the phones. To start, the iOS phone uses fingerprint technology to read the owners fingerprint and then unlock the screen. It also offers the use of a 4-digit PIN, or a normal password to unlock the screen. The Windows phone offers the least amount of options in this regard because it only has a PIN or password. The KitKat offers the most because it has an option for a PIN, password, pattern, and facial recognition through the use of the cameras front facing lens. (Citation - Softonic)

Overall each phone offers many similar security features as well as some unique ones that make each device different. Normally I would pick which one I thought had the best security overall but in this case I think i'm going to leave it as a tie since there are many ups and downs to each one.

Customization - What phone can you change the most?

This week I will be investigating what types of customizations you can do to each of the three phones, that is, what physical hardware components of the phone can be changed as well as its screen layouts and functionality. Each company that created the three phones that I have been testing allow for users to change their phones in a variety of different ways.

To begin, we will start with analyzing storage space. Of the three phones the iPhone offers the least amount of customization to take place in this category. Firstly, you have no way to change the amount of storage space on the iPhone. This is because Apple does not allow for removable SD cards to be implemented into the phone. What this means is that whatever iPhone you decide to buy, the amount of storage that is comes with will be all that you can ever have in it. However, the Samsung phone and Windows phone offer customers the ability to put any storage-sized microSD card into the phone, granting them the ability to upgrade to more space if they are running low. This is something I defiantly look for before purchasing a phone, because nothing is worse than running out of storage space long before your next phone upgrade.

Next, I will be looking at the device home screens and pages in order to see how the operate and flow. Once again the iPhone offers the least amount of customization to take place in this category. Users are only able to choose four apps that will stay at the bottom of every page on the home screen, offering quicker shortcuts to the top four apps you use the most. Above the four apps at the bottom of the screen are the rest of the apps that fluctuate depending on what page you are on. These apps are arranged in a 4x6 grid, and users can only change the location of each app in that grid pattern, allowing the users almost no real customization in home screen appearance. 

Next, the HTC phone displays its home screen in a much different way. The home screen on this one has many of the devices built in apps, such as messaging and calling, arranged side by side at the bottom of the screen extending in both directions, allowing users to scroll between them. As they scroll through the apps, the appearance changes on the rest of the screen to features that pertain to that app. For example if I were to scroll to the calling app the rest of the screen changes to a keypad, allowing the user to start the process of making a phone call. One of the apps in the scroll list however, pertains to the true home screen of the device. Here is where users can install widgets, which are basically live feed apps that take up more than one slot in the "grid" of the screen. Widgets are cool because you can have a variety of different ones that do different things. Currently the widget installed on the home screen is a large clock that shows the weather for the day, complete with graphical representation of the weather too. 

Lastly, the Samsung Charge offers a mix of both. To start, it has the same main layout as the iPhone, offering four main apps that stay the same at the bottom of all the screens, and then a grid of 4x4 above it for the rest of the apps. Unlike the iPhone however, it offers the ability to use widgets, exactly like the ones seen on the HTC. These widgets can be placed on any of the screens home pages, which you can actually pick the number of. The Samsung phone basically just takes the positives of each and combines them into one.

Another interesting thing I noticed will conducting this research is that with both the Samsung and HTC phones not all the apps need to be directly displayed on the home screen, instead many of the are located in another "app" of sorts (I call it an app but its really just a shortcut to view all the apps on the phone). The iPhone forces all the apps to be on one of the many home screens. However, one could argue that the ability to place multiple apps inside a folder on the home screen of the iPhone is the same things as the "app" shortcut of the other two phones.

In my personal opinion all three phones offer pretty similar features but also have some major different ones. Based on the findings of my research I have personally decided that the Samsung Droid Charge offers the user the most amount of ability to customize the phone. If you are one that does not care how the apps look on the screen then any of the choices are good, but if you are one that wants the ability to alter the device's storage space as well as to have the ability to customize more, then the Samsung is your best option.