Do you like your Android phone and iPad/Mac?

[Mikhailov]

I tried switching to the GS3 over the summer, but hated S-Voice and a few other quirks of ICS. I ended up returning that phone, but now I'm looking at the Galaxy Note 2. I've been an Apple person for years and have an iPad mini (4th iPad since release) and a rMBP. Due to financial reasons, I have to sell my iPhone 5 to try the Note 2, and even then "break even." I have a friend who is as Apple crazy as I am, and did this. He is happy as a clam about his Note 2. I played with it, and Google Now/Jelly Bean address a lot of issues I had with the S3 (and the pen is pretty cool too). I'm still worried about having a non-Apple device in my Apple ecosystem. I love my iPhone 5, but I only text, web browse, use Tweetbot, tether, and take pictures with it. I think an Android will do this and more (minus the Tweetbot).

Have any of you liked having an Android phone, but Apple everything else? Does your Android phone get along with your Apple products?

 

[hyteckit]

What made you return the GS3 besides S-Voice and a few other quirks of ICS?

What makes you want to switch to a Note 2 from an iPhone 5?

I'm betting it's mainly the screen size and s-pen right? The Note 2 does seem like the most fun, interesting, fully feature Android phone out there.


Maybe consider returning the iPad Mini and getting a Note 2 instead of getting rid of the iPhone 5?

I have an iPhone 4S and have been using a Note 2 as my main phone for about 2 weeks. However, I found it too big to use as my main phone. I going to switch back to my iPhone 4S as my main phone. I'm still keeping the Note 2 because it's replacing my 7" Android tablet.

Not sure how much you rely on Siri or Reminders. Or facetime or airplay. I miss Siri and Reminders the most when I'm using my Note 2.

S-voice and Google Now can be a replacement for Siri. S-voice is very similar to Siri, but feels like a poor copy. Google Now has some advantages over Siri, but missing a number of features that Siri has.

Google Now is much faster than Siri. Siri voice synthesis sounds robotic compared to Google's natural sounding voice. S-voice sounds freaky to me.

Google Now doesn't do some basic stuff that Siri does. I can't just create a simple reminder with Google Now like "remind me to get an oil change tomorrow at 3PM".

Also Google Now and s-voice doesn't play nicely with bluetooth in the car. When I have the radio on in my car, siri voice prompts will play through the car audio system through bluetooth when activated similar to answering a phone call. Google Now and s-voice does not. With Google Now and s-voice, the radio continues to play through the car speakers while Google Now and s-voice voice prompts comes out of the Android device making it almost pratically useless in that situation. I use Siri a lot when I'm in the call. To get directions, to make phone calls, to play my music, and to create reminders.

As for the apple ecosystem, I never really seemlessly integrate an Android device into it. It's because I have many apps on my mac and iOS device that rely on iCloud. For my Android device, I just mostly rely on Google services. My Android device always felt like a stepchild that doesn't really fit into the family. I do try to use a third party service like Dropbox. I use 1password on my Mac, iOS device, and Android device and all my data is sync using dropbox.


I understand sometimes a bigger screen can be a big draw. Just make sure the 5.5" isn't too big to be practical for your lifestyle.

 

[mattopotamus]

I tried the switch and ultimately went back to my iphone from the nexus 4. I loved the nexus 4 as a stand alone device, but today...at least for me....it is all about integration across devices. Ipad and iphones are heavily tied together and now MountainLion on OSX is deeply rooted. Maybe a year ago it was easier to replace the phone in the apple eco-system, but the way things are currently for people with ipads and macs....having an iphone is very very important. Removing the phone you lose imessage, icloud, reminders, notes, photostream, etc.....you will still have them on your mac and ipad, but you really want them on your phone

 

[Mikhailov]

What made you return the GS3 besides S-Voice and a few other quirks of ICS?
-I didn't like the screen glare, and I think my specific model was defective because it gave me all kinds of frustration and the battery was terrible. There was a lot I liked about it though when it did work. S-Voice was terrible and I missed Siri, especially in the car.

What makes you want to switch to a Note 2 from an iPhone 5?
-I want to have an Android device. I have two iOS devices, a Mac with Windows, a 3DS, a Vita, and all 3 console systems. I like to play around with all of the tech options out there, and Android is the only one I have not kept for an extended period of time. I also want to play around with customizing and flashing custom roms/rooting.

I'm betting it's mainly the screen size and s-pen right? The Note 2 does seem like the most fun, interesting, fully feature Android phone out there.
-The screen is nice.

Not sure how much you rely on Siri or Reminders. Or facetime or airplay. I miss Siri and Reminders the most when I'm using my Note 2.
-I FaceTime once in awhile with a friend from out of state, I use reminders rarely, but I do use Airplay a lot for movies. The iPad mini covers this ground at home most of the time.

Also Google Now and s-voice doesn't play nicely with bluetooth in the car.
-I use Siri only to make calls and send an occasional text. It has also bailed me out when my gas light has come on in the middle of nowhere. I need to be able to at least make calls in the car so if this is a problem with the Note it might be a deal breaker for me.

Thanks for the input. I'm still undecided, and will keep my iPhone until I figure things out.

 

[paulsalter]

No problem here with my Android phone getting along with my Apple devices

If I was still a user of iCloud features I might have a problem, but I dumped that shortly after it was released

 

[MadeTheSwitch]

Have any of you liked having an Android phone, but Apple everything else? Does your Android phone get along with your Apple products?

I have an Android phone and Apple for everything else (Mac, iPad) and for me the combination has worked out just fine. I like having one foot in each camp, but I love technology so my needs may be different then others. I enjoy the flexibility of Android which I seem to require in a phone but do not in a tablet. So the iPad works out fine for me, whereas an iPhone just doesn't. Part of that is due to screen size, but not all of it.

But like I said, my needs might be a little different. I don't much care if everything is linked up in the cloud. Further, there are new services coming online to link devices across all platforms so as time goes on, I think this will be a non-issue more and more. I prefer that because I prefer to be platform agnostic whenever possible and don't like being locked into one carrier or one eco-system whenever possible. Just the way I roll.

When it comes to things like music, I just pop out the card in my phone and drag a bunch of songs right out of iTunes onto the card. So here again, I don't find the need to have things across all devices. That being said, I do have some of my music collection on both Amazon and Google so I have access to my collection from any device. But frankly NONE of the cloud music services meet my needs totally. I think there needs to be more maturity in the software and services before I will be happy. Right now I find them all irritating and all subject to various whims of the provider and the record companies. I suspect Microsoft will be rolling out cloud music soon as well, so it will be interesting to see if that appeals to me at all.

About the only real negative I have with the Android platform is that it is too much of an effort to backup everything. Yeah your contacts are on your gmail account, but unless you root and use a backup program your app data gets lost. I find that a rather big oversight and something Google should address immediately. Backups and app data transfers to new devices should be rather seamless in this day and age. Apple definitely has the right idea here.

 

[jojoba]

Like a previous poster, I have an android phone and apple everything else. It's working well for me. The two main reasons that I've chosen a Samsung nexus over iPhone is screen size and third party keyboard options (more specifically, SwiftKey). Syncing photos and music isn't as smooth as if I'd had an iPhone. I have an iPod so therefore the music isn't really an issue, and my photos are synced to my android via Dropbox and Picasa. Calendars are synced with google. I'd love to have everything within one ecosystem, but at the moment, this is the best solution for me.

 

[Mikhailov]

I played with that friend's Note 2, and I'm getting more hooked every time he shows it to me. Still not sure if I'm willing to switch yet though. Every time I come close I stop (because if I don't like it, I can't go back).

Also why does it bother me having a phone that doesn't have Apple branding on it? Is it because everyone I know thinks I'm an Apple geek and I feel I need to live up to that reputation?

 

[nick_elt]

I love my note 2. Had an iphone for almost 5 years but not looking back. Still love my macs im going to pick up 2more this week. But ever since ive had my note I use my ipad alot less as I can do so much more on my note. Osx I think is best, not so much ios anymore. I was worried about the size jump from 3.5 right up to 5.55inch but its not an issue its not too big but when I oick up and iphone now I literally squint to see the screen.