I'm giving a phone to a friend who needs one.

I have a Nexus One and an iPhone 3G in the drawer, both ready to be adopted, or so I thought.

Their batteries were completely empty, so I charged both phones. When the iPhone came up, it offered to update its software. Foolishly, I said yes. That failed. It said I had to restore the phone, so I did. Failed. Now I have a $300 brick. Now that's my phone, why shouldn't I be able to give it to someone else? And when I give it to them, isn't it reasonable to want to remove all my accounts, passwords, apps, email, bookmarks, etc?

The Nexus One fared much better. It charged up, said it had no SIM, but it worked anyway. Email worked, maps worked, search, you name it. Everything but the phone. Then I did a search to find out how to wipe it. Went to Settings, then Privacy, and said I wanted to wipe the phone. It asked if I was sure, explaining that all my data would go away, and my apps, and I'd have to re-enter my google.com credentials. Perfect, that's exactly what I want.

A few seconds later the phone reboots, and I'm greeted with this screen.

I guess my friend is getting the Android phone. (It's a better fit anyway, she's kind of a hacker, experimenter, Williamsburger).

Over on Twitter, I linked to a story quoting Melinda Gates saying she will not let Apple products into her home, even though her children want them. Jeff Jarvis commented: "Funny thing is, it's easier to outlaw Apple products than MS products, isn't it?"

Next question: Where to get a SIM to pop into the Nexus (or for that matter the iPhone, should it start working again). Looking for something inexpensive, preferrably without a commitment.

Update: Based on feedback from readers, I tried restoring the iPhone again, and it failed. However the third attempt worked. So the iPhone is now ready to be provisioned as a new phone. That said, the Nexus still has a big advantage. It can be used as a wifi-only device. If the iPhone can (effectively turning it into an iPad Touch), it's not at all obvious how to do it. My only two choices are to activate it, or restore it from a backup of myPhone. And I'm really nervous about hooking my iPhone 4 up to this computer. Maybe it'll synch up with the July version of itself, which is what is now backed up on this computer's hard disk. I've gotten hosed by iPhones many times doing something like that.

Update #2: Arikia posted a follow-up after receiving the phone.

 10/24/2010; 1:44:57 PM.   .