Overnight I read a blog post from someone who ditched the iPhone for an Android OS smartphone, the HTC Desire, but concluded that one of the flagship products from the other side of the tracks doesn’t offer a superior alternative. Reading that article should provide a huge wake-up call, particularly for some tech pundits who strive to romanticize Apple’s competition and conveniently overlook the flaws.

Before I go on, understand that few will say that the iPhone OS or Apple’s mobile hardware is necessarily perfect. The blogosphere is flooded with reports about the flaws or missing features. Certainly Apple got dinged big time because of the lack of multitasking support for third-party apps. But you should look carefully at Apple’s proposed solution, compared to the decision by Google and others to just let it happen on their OSs.

The author, Shane Lord, comments:

Auto memory management is poor at best. The OS can start closing apps (like the actual Sense UI) that you need, whilst keeping apps (like Footprints) running. Adding a Task Management app (which any phone user really shouldn’t have to do, not to mention any iPhone converts) doesn’t make things much better. With so many processes running at any point in time it is impossible to work out what should or should not be open or closed.

Do you see what I’m getting at here? If not, here’s another related shortcoming:

The limitation of the OS not allowing you to install applications onto the microSD card means after the 5th or 6th app you have installed starts making the phone run more slowly and be more prone to crashing. Every app installed takes up the valuable system memory of the device. People used to having 10, 20, 30 or more apps on their iPhone will find this unbearable, and frankly it is just poor design from Google.

Now in fairness to Google, the OS was supposed to be updated to allow for installation of apps on an SD card, so you’re not saddled by the limits of the gadget’s built-in memory. It couldn’t come at a better time. I mean, Google can’t responsibly tout a wide selection of apps without giving you the opportunity to install a reasonable number of them on your Android smartphone.

Then again, what is the killer app for the Google OS beyond that infamous task killer? The point of a smartphone is convenience, the easy ability to handle phone calls, email, and Web access. If you can’t access those critical functions flexibly, with good performance, the device’s usefulness is severely reduced. Certainly, a flashy if unfinished operating system might have many of the key features you want but, as many of you have learned if you’re saddled with a Windows PC, if those features aren’t properly integrated to allow for easy, reliable access, they are useless except for power users.

Now this doesn’t mean all non-Apple products are necessarily bad. Certainly the hardware is revised more often, so many of Apple’s competitors are apt to be earlier to market with speedier processors, more memory, superior cameras and higher resolution displays. But having all these goodies means little if the underlying OS is poorly designed.

That’s the real hurdle with open source software, where any skilled programmer can submit changes, but overall integration may be lacking. That’s a reason why desktop versions of Linux haven’t taken off, although such an OS is quite useful for a server. You assume a server is managed by a power user with a reasonable set of admin skills. Since our Web server runs a flavor of Linux, I can tell you that it’s apt to do really flaky things from time to time, which require skills with the command line to sort out.

Now with RIM and the BlackBerry, these smartphones are noted for reliability and they do great for phone calls and email. Security is said to be first rate, with powerful management tools available for the enterprise. Even though the iPhone is gaining credibility in business, Apple is still working on adding the critical capabilities that many enterprise customers require.

The BlackBerry doesn’t do so well in the consumer marketplace because of a poorly-designed Web browser. Indeed, the version that’s becoming part of the next RIM OS is actually based on Apple’s WebKit. But that’s also true for Google’s Android OS. They sure know where to get the best browser engine.

Aside from the great design and marvelously integrated OS, the iPhone shines because of the App Store. Nobody comes close. Yes, there are said to be more than 20,000 apps for the Google smartphones, but how many of them fit that “killer” category? Where are the games, a category that makes up some 25% of the App Store inventory? Is an Android phone even suited for gaming? That’s a hard call, since there are lots of devices out there with different flavors of the operating system and different hardware configurations.

Yes, maybe some of you would prefer an Android-based phone so you’re not saddled with the restrictions imposed by Apple. But are you truly getting a better product. more suited to your needs? Even if you fall for one of those two-for-one deals from Verizon Wireless, don’t forget those exorbitant early termination fees if you keep it beyond the initial “satisfaction” period. Can you really say that sort of deal makes more sense?

With the announcement this week that the long-running TV series, “Law & Order,” would fade away and be replaced by a version focused on Los Angeles rather than New York City, you have to wonder whether that’s the right city for a weekly crime procedural. After all, it seems the biggest story of all is playing out in Apple’s backyard, and the nasty details may even be fodder for a TV movie at the very least.

Certainly that ongoing soap opera about a certain prototype iPhone and its infamous path has garnered an incredible amount of attention in both the tech and mainstream media. Let’s not forget that the motto of Law & Order was “ripped from the headlines,” and clearly there are plenty of those to be found about this unfortunate episode.

Now, with the disclosure of the search warrant document used as the justification to allow the authorities to seize computers and other gear from the home of Gizmomo editor Jason Chen, a clear picture has begun to emerge over what might have actually happened.

Understand that I have already gone on record as suggesting that the episode wasn’t the result of the accidental loss of a prototype iPhone, but was a sting operation designed to ensnare potential evildoers who dare seek out and disclose Apple’s trade secrets. Nothing in the affidavit would appear to confirm that viewpoint, but it’s not as if the possibly is disproven, since that information would likely not come out until an actual trial or evidentiary hearing is held.

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This may seem to be an odd comparison. The iPhone is what is commonly known as a smartphone, a mobile device that handles wireless phone calls, plus email, Web access and other functions. You might compare the iPad more to a netbook, essentially a shrunken portable PC or even a regular note-book in terms of its basic functionality.

But I’m not concerned so much whether I can toss my MacBook Pro overboard, or sell it off. I’m more interested in how the iPad compares to the iPhone for my specific purposes. That’s all!

It all goes back to shortly after the iPhone’s 2007 debut. I received a review sample from Apple and, on the day I was about to return the unit, decided to buy one for myself, without a moment’s hesitation.

That was then, this is now.

With the iPad, I find my impressions rather more mixed, on the day before I’m due to return the unit to Apple. I received the 64GB Wi-Fi version for review, but didn’t bother to consider the 3G model. If I need access outside of the range of a hotspot, the iPhone will do that job nicely.

Part of my difficulties with the iPad are due to the fact that it feels just plain awkward. With the iPhone, it fits comfortably at hand, even in my bed. But should I grab an iPad instead, I have to hold it in two hands, and, usually, prop myself up on my pillow to use it comfortably when I need to enter text. As a consumption device, particularly reading e-books and watching videos, it’s simply marvelous. But that virtual keyboard is positively awkward under those circumstances. Indeed, I never did become that comfortable with the setup. Should I actually acquire an iPad down the line, I would expect it to fulfill reading and watching functions, and email and other text-based chores won’t get priority.

I do agree with such commentators as Adam Engst, who regards the iPad as a blank slate. Depending on your needs, and the applications you plan to run, it feels reasonably adaptable. But it doesn’t serve as the device I prefer to grab late at night, when I need to check for an important email message. For that function, the iPhone takes first priority.

I’m also not enamored with the Mail for iPad setup. Putting account and mailbox info in a separate pop-up menu makes it more difficult to see a full hierarchy of waiting messages in the various accounts I regularly use when I click the Mail icon. Apple will be adding a global Inbox in the iPhone 4.0 update, which may address that limitation somewhat. Right now, I’m willing to sacrifice the larger screen size and snappier interface for the single-handed, single-screen convenience of the iPhone.

So does that mean I don’t plan to buy an iPad. Well, forgetting any financial considerations, I admire the way Apple figured out how to solve the tablet dilemma. For years, beginning with Microsoft’s initial demonstration, PC makers have struggled to make sense out of the concept. They best they’ve managed to deliver was a regular PC note-book with a movable screen that can be managed by both keyboard and stylus. These days, they are struggling to add touch-based interfaces, simply because of the unexpected success of Apple’s mobile platform. They’ve failed.

Indeed, two of the notable tablet prototypes demonstrated at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show ahead of Apple’s iPad launch may never see the light of day. One came from Microsoft, which has a nasty habit of demonstrating product concepts that seldom see the light of day, or end up late, crippled and overpriced. Another tablet contender came from HP, but that seems to have vanished as the tech media ponders the impact of the purchase of Palm.

Yes, Palm was once successful with handhelds and with the first smartphones, but they have no experience whatever scaling even their latest user interface, WebOS, to a larger screen. Even assuming HP can rescue a failing company, it remains to be seen if they can expand the platform.

There’s also a report that Google is working on a tablet employing the Chrome OS. But the company has absolutely no experience with such products. That highly-touted Nexus One smartphone was merely an HTC product utilizing Google’s Android OS, but it was also largely perceived as a big failure in the marketplace.

With Apple, they do have the tradition of the original Newton and the eMate 300, which I suspect you can consider a progenitor of the iPad. It can also be considered the original netbook, if you want to take it that far.

With the iPad, certainly sales are off the charts. But once the initial adopters have their fill, will it last? I honestly haven’t a clue, nor do I know, yet, whether I plan to buy one. Maybe I’ll miss it after the one I have is shipped back to Apple. We’ll see.

Yes, it appears to have happened again. There’s a report from the Mac rumor sites (and the  mainstream media) that yet another iPhone 4G prototype has appeared, this one supposedly acquired by a Vietnamese business person while visiting the U.S. So it appears that these prototypes are there for the taking, if you’re lucky, visit the right bars in the Silicon Valley, or have a sufficiently large bank account to acquire a sample. I’ll let the reader consider the possibilities.

Now the details of prototype number two aren’t terribly different from the original. You still have the squared-off rather than curved case, along with some minor refinements that appear to indicate this is a later revision. The photos and text descriptions make it seem real, but again how do you really know, even if the requisite Apple logos are included on some of the parts?

Ahead of the expected revelation of the actual next generation iPhone next month at Apple’s WWDC, I’d rather engage in some purely shoot-from-the-hip speculation here. Obviously I don’t know the actual facts surrounding the recovery of this device and that notorious prototype that was acquired by Gizmodo for $5,000, beyond what has already been published of course.

It’s a sure thing that Apple enforces a tight lid of security on its prototypes, but being a private corporation, you can’t expect them to be able to attain the level of success of, say, the CIA or NSA. And even those worthy agencies sometimes screw up, so you can’t expect Apple to be perfect, or even close.

Even so, you wonder whether the recovery of two iPhone prototypes came at an all too convenient time, because it keeps the forthcoming product in the news. Yes, I realize that the authorities in the Silicon Valley are busy investigating the circumstances under which Gawker Media, publishers of the Gizmodo blog, got ahold of one of those prototypes, and whether any laws were violated.

So let me begin my speculative exercise:

If you watch those TV procedurals such as Law and Order, you’ve no doubt seen how the cops will conduct a sting operation, hoping to snare a suspected criminal. As you know, the agency that initiated the investigation of the Gizmodo affair is a task force known as REACT, short for the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team, on the board of which sits Apple and other major tech companies.

Suppose Apple wanted to uncover the identities of the people who are disclosing the company’s trade secrets to the press, so they stage an incident involving the “accidental” loss of a prototype iPhone to see whether it would simply be returned, or be handed off or sold to the media. To make sure that the culprits are appropriately convinced of its authenticity, Apple uses an early revision of the next generation iPhone, containing a sufficient number of updated parts to survive a routine tear-down and emerge as the real thing.

I realize this comes across as a nasty accusation, and there’d be a potential claim by the defendants in any criminal action about entrapment. If true, it may well be that the second incident, in which the tear-down appeared at a Vietnamese site, involved a similar scheme.

But consider the fact that, although his name has been spread around the globe, there is no indication that the Apple engineer who “lost” his iPhone, Gray Powell, has suffered from the wrath or Steve Jobs or has otherwise had his job terminated. Contrast that to another Apple employee, who allowed Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak — who still works for Apple — to spend two minutes on a prerelease iPad 3G and was fired for his violation of the company’s nondisclosure contract.

While people do make mistakes, and to forgive is surely charity, it doesn’t make sense that an Apple engineer actually lost a significant prototype, which was, in turn, sold off and publicized in the media, yet his job appears intact. I cannot imagine for one minute that Steve Jobs would tolerate such a foolish mistake. There must be consequences.

Now it may well be that Powell has been fired, but, in exchange for a decent severance check, has agreed not to reveal his real employment status until the legal case is resolved. But wouldn’t Apple want to use him to make an example of the company’s deeply-rooted paranoia about the improper or premature disclosure of information about unreleased products?

Sure, it’s possible Apple didn’t want Powell to become a martyr, but they didn’t behaved similarly when it came to that poor fool who dared to allow Woz to briefly handle an unreleased iPad.

I may be all wrong about this. Perhaps the entire episode was the result of an unfortunate mistake. It happens, and maybe Steve Jobs was in a more forgiving mood that day, perhaps realizing that, in the end, Apple got millions and millions of dollars of free publicity and may sell even more iPhones after the next version hits the store shelves.