Today is a sad day. I have to say goodbye to two old friends. One, pictured below, is my old Motorola Milestone. It can rest in peace, interred at a mausoleum, knowing that it did its job well while it could, but it ultimately succumbed to old age.

The second, my Motorola Atrix, can burn in the fires of hell for killing itself after I tried to change it.

Maybe that was a little harsh.

Metaphors aside, Friday was the day I officially retired as an Android user. I had used the operating system faithfully for two years, and enjoyed the experience fully. Hell, I even made a living writing about it for a little while, posting at Droid Life and Android Police.

And in my heart, I still like it a lot. For a tech-head like me who likes to customize, customize, customize, it's a paradise. The community is aces, and the potential for creative growth is immense.

But something got in the way. Namely, a third party.

Named Canada. 

To be a hardcore Android fan in Canada is to be a glutton for punishment. Carriers up here love to put out "international" versions of phones released in the United States, mostly due to hardware differences (antennas that can pick up Canadian cell signals) and partly due to branding. Being able to say that they have an "exclusive" phone is very powerful in advertising.

But as a result, Canadian phones are incompatible with the updates that come out for American phones, and unfortunately, that means they get them a lot later. It is not uncommon for a Canadian Atrix user to see minor updates that improve battery life and other "small" features go completely ignored by the carriers, as well.

Instead, Telus, Bell and Rogers tend to spring for "big" upgrades, like 2.2 to 2.3, etc. This keeps costs down, as they don't have to pay the manufacturers of these phones to put their logos and bloatware for every small update. You can read about this more fully at I Want My One Point Six, a campaign for Rogers to give their G1 owners an upgrade from 1.5 to 1.6.

I'll save you some reading: Rogers gave every G1 user a new phone, rather than pay for an upgrade.

Even ROMs like Cyanogen, which are touted with resurrecting the usefulness of many old phones, are usually incompatible due to the "international" hardware. The porting of these ROMs fall to third-party teams, which, while valiant, are bug-prone and lack the manpower of the real thing.

This, unfortunately, leads to shoddy and dangerous products; it was an update to the beta of the CyanogenMod Atrix ROM that gave my phone two dead zones the width of my finger. I could not type a "c" on my keyboard because it fell within a dead zone in horizontal and vertical orientation.

And while it technically was my risk to take, I feel like being Canadian is a bit of a hobble in this situation. My friend Matt, who enjoys Android as well, has a Nexus One, which is a largely stock experience and is region-neutral; the reason many developers and users love it is because there isn't as much crap to deal with as other models.

So when I had to replace my Atrix, I made a tough decision.

I went to the dark side.

I went to Apple.

Alright, alright, alright. Those who know me know I have legions of bad things to say about Apple, and it totally makes me a hypocrite for buying an iPhone 4S. I'm willing to accept that. However, I'm not about to turn into a frothing-at-the-mouth fanboy.

I think I've grown past such deep-seeded brand loyalties and have actually come to accept that Apple has made a great product, and one I can come to enjoy. I wrote about my purchase of an iPad back in the summer, and I think that clicked a switch in my head that allowed me to forgive myself for actually wanting a device that wasn't going to cause me stress.

And so far, I like it. A lot. I like having cross-platform solutions between my phone, tablet and computer. I like having a user interface which is snappy as hell despite having an underclocked processor. I like having a camera that is better than most point and shoot models.

Hell, I even like Siri.

I'm thinking about a year ago, and how that Matt would have hated me. But then again, I feel like I've lessened that hold on my identity that devices once had. I'm no longer looking to sip any kool-aid; I'm not looking to the cult for acceptance. In the end, a device is just a device, and it should be one that I'm happy with.

And well, this is it.
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Matt Demers is a columnist that works for a number of web sites around the Internet. He's written for NGP since 2008. You can find his work on his personal site, or follow him on Twitter.