The real key operating system-related question is: "Are the applications you need available on your platform?" If they are, you're good. If they're not, who cares how great the underlying operating system is?
We don't care if we're in the United States, the United Kingdom, or the Ukraine, we want one phone that will work with any country's cellular infrastructure. If we have to do that by having two SIM card slots in our phones, we can deal with that. But what we'd rather have are phones with integrated Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) and Global System for Mobiles (GSM) built in.
So long as we're at it, we'd also like our 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) phones to use the same frequency bands. And, please, we don't even want to hear about 4G technologies other than LTE. WiMAX never really took off, and T-Mobile? We really don't want to hear anything more about Evolved High-Speed Packet Access aka HSPA+.
2) Unlocked phones
OK, we can tolerate being locked to a service if you've sold it to us at a great price with a contract. But if we pay full price, then we should be able to unlock it, or, better still, have it unlocked in the box. Are you listening, AT&T?
3) All we can eat bandwidth
Stop playing games with our bandwidth. We want unlimited bandwidth. If you have to charge us an arm and a leg for it, we're willing to pay. Sure, give us options for 2GBs a month, 5GBs a month, whatever, but some of us really do need all the bandwidth we can use and the carriers should at least give us the option.
And, so long as we're talking bandwidth, do us a favor and stop charging us for Wi-Fi tethering. Listen, we're already paying for bandwidth, so why should carriers be tacking on an extra fee just because we choose to share it with our other devices?
4) Dump the shovelware
As freelance writer Tom Geller comments, "My newish Android phone has literally DOZENS of apps that exist only to take up space and sell me crap. There's no obvious way to delete them." Amen brother!
OK, we get it. You want to squeeze a little more profit out of your phones so you put extra programs on it for a fee. Fine, but if you do that, could you at least make it easy for us to dump the stuff we don't want? Please!?
5) Give us high-security phones
As we move our online lives from PCs to smartphones, we need security — real security. Our companies, especially those who have bought into Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), also need us to have high levels of security. As Perlow recently reported, the security technologies to make this happen are out there, we just need to get them deployed — and the sooner, the better.