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Ex iPhone Users - Why Did You Switch To Android?
- Thread starter Konvictz
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You make some excellent points. If you jump ship, the water is pretty good!
I agree the cost of Apple products is on my mind especially during this time. Part of me enjoys upgrading and the other part enjoys collecting older Apple hardware and staying status quo. Gets harder when family is full on in the ecosystem and then I see other brands with great features that I would appreciate. Lately I see Apple making annual small updates that I like but may lose functionality I’m used to. Owning a couple of Faceid phones in recent years with no headphone jack, has been a bad experience. Reason I keep my Note 9 around. Go back and forth too. I think I need to make a checklist of what is important to me in a phone and stop automatically upgrading iPhones. It does get harder even on Android when features continue to be removed.
The phone becomes a store to which we attach a payment card and buy services. In addition, other elements of equipment that make our lives easier - be online all the time, receive notifications on the watch, listen to music in every room, split the screen and watch a movie and chat at the same time ...
But are you sure I need it all? Isn't it nicer to sit down with a drink on a Saturday night with good stereo music? Do I have to be so up to date that I don't have time to think? Does my watch have to tell me to move? Is it impossible to run without headphones? Did we actually have less time to ourselves in the age of letters, dial phones and paper books? Does electronics make our lives easier? Do we have more free time?
But are you sure I need it all? Isn't it nicer to sit down with a drink on a Saturday night with good stereo music? Do I have to be so up to date that I don't have time to think? Does my watch have to tell me to move? Is it impossible to run without headphones? Did we actually have less time to ourselves in the age of letters, dial phones and paper books? Does electronics make our lives easier? Do we have more free time?
The other day I went for a walk with the AirPod Pros. Bought these thinking it would fit in my ears better than AirPods. Tried all sizes of ear tips and still they slowly want to pop out. I came home frustrated at myself because I spent this money for wireless buds that are still only good when I sit at my work desk. Again.
Yesterday while working from home, pulled out the Note 9 and plugged in my over the head headphones and enjoyed some music and podcasts. It’s all silly in the grand scheme of things, but if my eyes were better I would use my SE daily. Headphone jack and touchid worked so well.
Yesterday while working from home, pulled out the Note 9 and plugged in my over the head headphones and enjoyed some music and podcasts. It’s all silly in the grand scheme of things, but if my eyes were better I would use my SE daily. Headphone jack and touchid worked so well.
I went Android because for me the two most important factors in a smartphone are good camera performance paired with a reasonable price. Good design (no notches for me) clean software and comfortable dimensions are also important.
Last time I shopped for a new phone in 2017 Apple had one for me - iPhone SE ticked all the boxes. It had at the time one of the best cameras on the market, certainly in the top 5, and costed under $400. The design was great and classy too.
This year however Apple had nothing competitive to offer. I was hoping to upgrade to the SE 2, but it turned out to be a letdown in the camera department- unlike the OG SE a far cry from the current standards of image quality. The design is also outdated and uninspired. While the first SE truly felt like a “special edition” with barely any compromises compare to a flagship, the new SE is more of a “grandma edition”.
Google’s Pixel a line offers the best bang for your buck these days. So that’s what I switched to. Not only the camera is on par with what Apple is only willing to offer for twice the price, but the rest of the phone is very good too. Great screen, size, software and battery life. All for $350 - sorry Apple, not sorry.
Last time I shopped for a new phone in 2017 Apple had one for me - iPhone SE ticked all the boxes. It had at the time one of the best cameras on the market, certainly in the top 5, and costed under $400. The design was great and classy too.
This year however Apple had nothing competitive to offer. I was hoping to upgrade to the SE 2, but it turned out to be a letdown in the camera department- unlike the OG SE a far cry from the current standards of image quality. The design is also outdated and uninspired. While the first SE truly felt like a “special edition” with barely any compromises compare to a flagship, the new SE is more of a “grandma edition”.
Google’s Pixel a line offers the best bang for your buck these days. So that’s what I switched to. Not only the camera is on par with what Apple is only willing to offer for twice the price, but the rest of the phone is very good too. Great screen, size, software and battery life. All for $350 - sorry Apple, not sorry.
Coming back to civilization after my reflective speech yesterday
- waiting for my Xperia, I will receive it on Monday. I am going to test it and I know that I will be happy with the mini-jack and the simple handling of music files. I will probably get better integration with my Linux computer as well. Although I also decided not to create an Apple-like ecosystem - a phone is a phone, a computer is a computer. I will get basic email and calendar integration, transfer my notes to Evernote, use Firefox on both devices and that's it.
I also count on cameras, although the reviews are not very kind. Nevertheless, for a long time I have not taken my old Canon EOS to the mountains, but completely on the bike. I rely entirely on the iPhone 8, although photos from it lose a lot when viewed on a computer - especially landscapes.
This year, during a vacation at the seaside, my wife and I left our smartphones in the hotel and took a regular phone and a small, old Nikon digital camera with us and it turned out to be quite good for our needs, and landscape photos were much sharper than those taken with my wife's IP 8 and SE 2020. We also took a break from OCD
I am more afraid of what the work on Android will look like, the consistency of the system and applications, but most of the support period. I would like to use the phone for 3-4 years and I don't know if it will be possible (due to critical applications such as banking). On the other hand, Apple's lengthy updates are sometimes like euthanasia for older phones. Or completely unsuccessful, like iOS 11.
As for Pixel, unfortunately it is not officially distributed in my country, and I would like to have comprehensive after-sales service. Apple provides this and it looks like Sony does (24 months warranty, stationary company store).
- waiting for my Xperia, I will receive it on Monday. I am going to test it and I know that I will be happy with the mini-jack and the simple handling of music files. I will probably get better integration with my Linux computer as well. Although I also decided not to create an Apple-like ecosystem - a phone is a phone, a computer is a computer. I will get basic email and calendar integration, transfer my notes to Evernote, use Firefox on both devices and that's it.
I also count on cameras, although the reviews are not very kind. Nevertheless, for a long time I have not taken my old Canon EOS to the mountains, but completely on the bike. I rely entirely on the iPhone 8, although photos from it lose a lot when viewed on a computer - especially landscapes.
This year, during a vacation at the seaside, my wife and I left our smartphones in the hotel and took a regular phone and a small, old Nikon digital camera with us and it turned out to be quite good for our needs, and landscape photos were much sharper than those taken with my wife's IP 8 and SE 2020. We also took a break from OCD
I am more afraid of what the work on Android will look like, the consistency of the system and applications, but most of the support period. I would like to use the phone for 3-4 years and I don't know if it will be possible (due to critical applications such as banking). On the other hand, Apple's lengthy updates are sometimes like euthanasia for older phones. Or completely unsuccessful, like iOS 11.
As for Pixel, unfortunately it is not officially distributed in my country, and I would like to have comprehensive after-sales service. Apple provides this and it looks like Sony does (24 months warranty, stationary company store).
I used both platforms for the longest. I can live with both one or the other as my main device, but prefer Android as my main device.
For me it's a bunch of small grievances about the iPhone that adds up ...............
My third party cloud apps (like Onedrive, Dropbox, and Synology) won't auto upload unless it's open in the background. I barely open those apps on my phone, and when they are open they eventually close on it's own. This is annoying, when later on, I look for files on my PC, Mac, or network drive and the file isn't there cause it didn't auto upload from the iPhone. Apple's own iCloud is the only cloud service that auto uploads without a second thought on the iPhone, but iCloud sucks outside the Apple ecosystem in comparison to others.
Every Android device I've had over the last 5 years, has better signal strength and call quality over the iPhone. Maybe the iPhone 12 will change that.
When using the iPhone naked, the silent switch is a PITA!!! I literally have a thin back case on my Pro Max just for that reason. Otherwise, I'll use it naked all the time. Can't count how many times it was accidently switched to silent.
Hotspot from the iPhone can be finicky when trying to connect a non-Apple product. Trying to connect anything non-Apple, sometimes you can see the SSID and sometimes you can't. Also, it cuts out too often. When connecting an Apple product to an iPhone hotspot, it's as stable as can be.
iOS has much more limited zoom on photos vs Android which allows you to really zoom in. This is not just with default gallery apps. This goes for cloud and social media apps as well.
Forced to lower volume or toggle to silent just to snap a photo without a loud shutter sound.
Every now and then, I'm annoyed with the slow scrolling. It's nice that iOS has the tap to top feature. But there's plenty of times I'm not trying to get to the top, more like the middle or bottom. And if you tap to top by mistake, then you have to slowly scroll back to where you was at. Also, you have to scroll very aggressive to get scrolling to it's top speed.
The mini popup when you long press a toggle is annoying with Wifi and Bluetooth. Sometimes it takes too long to for the list to populate, it never shows what your looking for, or while you scroll the list you accidently select the wrong thing. I just click Wifi/Bluetooth settings button at the bottom and don't deal with the popup. But that's still an extra step vs Android just taking you straight to the actual Wifi/Blutooth settings. I know Apple designed that for convivence, but it doesn't work well for me.
Lack of Bluetooth file transfer. Often enough, I send files like small text, excel, or small photos to my desktop or another device. Which takes several seconds via BT transfer. But with the iPhone, since Airdrop isn't on non-Apple devices. I have to share it via cloud or email myself.
Default and 3rd party keyboards. iPhone's default keyboard is not bad at all, but I'm spoiled by Samsung's default keyboard cause they have a number row at the top. Sometimes it's a pain to keep toggling the numbers key. Trying to fix this with a 3rd party keyboard is a joke. They either require full access to what you type to work and/or the design is just plain bad.
I've yet to figure out notification center. Why does the "x" to clear notifications appear underneath other notifications. My first guess was because the notifications on top are new. But if I pull down the notifications again 20 minutes later, even with newer notifications, the "x" is still in the same place. Sometimes when I tap it to clear notifications, it only clears notifications below it, and sometimes it clears all notifications below and above, and even ones that pretty much just arrived like 2 min ago. Sometimes I'll have three notifications grouped from the same app, and sometimes I'll have five notifications from the same app not grouped. There's just no consistency with notification center.
Siri wakes up too frequently on it's own. Doesn't matter if my iPhone is in my pocket, on the wireless charger, car holder, and etc. Siri just has much more frequent false wake ups vs Google, Bixby, and even Alexa.
My 11 Pro Max display is too big not to have split screen multitasking. I've got so use to using split screen multitasking on Android when I need it, that I see it as a con for the lack of it on the iPhone.
For me it's a bunch of small grievances about the iPhone that adds up ...............
My third party cloud apps (like Onedrive, Dropbox, and Synology) won't auto upload unless it's open in the background. I barely open those apps on my phone, and when they are open they eventually close on it's own. This is annoying, when later on, I look for files on my PC, Mac, or network drive and the file isn't there cause it didn't auto upload from the iPhone. Apple's own iCloud is the only cloud service that auto uploads without a second thought on the iPhone, but iCloud sucks outside the Apple ecosystem in comparison to others.
Every Android device I've had over the last 5 years, has better signal strength and call quality over the iPhone. Maybe the iPhone 12 will change that.
When using the iPhone naked, the silent switch is a PITA!!! I literally have a thin back case on my Pro Max just for that reason. Otherwise, I'll use it naked all the time. Can't count how many times it was accidently switched to silent.
Hotspot from the iPhone can be finicky when trying to connect a non-Apple product. Trying to connect anything non-Apple, sometimes you can see the SSID and sometimes you can't. Also, it cuts out too often. When connecting an Apple product to an iPhone hotspot, it's as stable as can be.
iOS has much more limited zoom on photos vs Android which allows you to really zoom in. This is not just with default gallery apps. This goes for cloud and social media apps as well.
Forced to lower volume or toggle to silent just to snap a photo without a loud shutter sound.
Every now and then, I'm annoyed with the slow scrolling. It's nice that iOS has the tap to top feature. But there's plenty of times I'm not trying to get to the top, more like the middle or bottom. And if you tap to top by mistake, then you have to slowly scroll back to where you was at. Also, you have to scroll very aggressive to get scrolling to it's top speed.
The mini popup when you long press a toggle is annoying with Wifi and Bluetooth. Sometimes it takes too long to for the list to populate, it never shows what your looking for, or while you scroll the list you accidently select the wrong thing. I just click Wifi/Bluetooth settings button at the bottom and don't deal with the popup. But that's still an extra step vs Android just taking you straight to the actual Wifi/Blutooth settings. I know Apple designed that for convivence, but it doesn't work well for me.
Lack of Bluetooth file transfer. Often enough, I send files like small text, excel, or small photos to my desktop or another device. Which takes several seconds via BT transfer. But with the iPhone, since Airdrop isn't on non-Apple devices. I have to share it via cloud or email myself.
Default and 3rd party keyboards. iPhone's default keyboard is not bad at all, but I'm spoiled by Samsung's default keyboard cause they have a number row at the top. Sometimes it's a pain to keep toggling the numbers key. Trying to fix this with a 3rd party keyboard is a joke. They either require full access to what you type to work and/or the design is just plain bad.
I've yet to figure out notification center. Why does the "x" to clear notifications appear underneath other notifications. My first guess was because the notifications on top are new. But if I pull down the notifications again 20 minutes later, even with newer notifications, the "x" is still in the same place. Sometimes when I tap it to clear notifications, it only clears notifications below it, and sometimes it clears all notifications below and above, and even ones that pretty much just arrived like 2 min ago. Sometimes I'll have three notifications grouped from the same app, and sometimes I'll have five notifications from the same app not grouped. There's just no consistency with notification center.
Siri wakes up too frequently on it's own. Doesn't matter if my iPhone is in my pocket, on the wireless charger, car holder, and etc. Siri just has much more frequent false wake ups vs Google, Bixby, and even Alexa.
My 11 Pro Max display is too big not to have split screen multitasking. I've got so use to using split screen multitasking on Android when I need it, that I see it as a con for the lack of it on the iPhone.
I can confirm that the lack of number keys is annoying. Just like accidentally pulling out the settings panel. In addition, it is not possible to turn off wifi / BT in the settings panel - nonsense.
Force the use of wifi even when your cellular data pool is secure.
Personally, I still think that the keyboard is poor, I have a bad typing on it, I often choose the adjacent key and the autocorrect in my language raises the level of frustration.
Force the use of wifi even when your cellular data pool is secure.
Personally, I still think that the keyboard is poor, I have a bad typing on it, I often choose the adjacent key and the autocorrect in my language raises the level of frustration.
Unlike iOS, apps on Androids are updated separately from the operating system updates, so if your phone will receive say Android 12, but not 13 - there isn’t much to worry about as all the apps will continue receiving updates for years to come via Play Store.
Completely agree on iOS updates, while iOS 12 and 13 had been good on performance for older phones, the battery life took a nose dive. Now iOS 14 in addition to usual battery decrease also brings lag for iPhone 6s-7 generations as per many reports. Who needs 5 years of updates if only the first couple of them don’t make user experience worse?
Yes and no.
Yes with many apps get updated separately from the OS, including basic apps like the browser, email client, and even the SMS app. I agree this is why I love Android as well.
No in regards of the monthly security updates, which is lower level into the system, and imo is more important. Although Google has made it easy, many OEMs are still failing to deliver them on time. Some even just faked their about page without actually fully applying the patch. It was said that it’s just a text that OEMs can change, it seems. There were a tech site doing a test showing how some OEMs simply don’t have / only partially the patches they indicated they did. It’s frustrating that Google just don’t seem to care much about this.
I guess you’re right, but personally I refuse to be paranoid about these security patches. I simply haven’t heard about any exploits regarding relgular folk due to them not having latest security patch or OS update. I don’t think it’s how the exploits usually happen. So, for example when I read so many people saying Android 11 causes performance and battery issues I keep my Pixel on 10 and hold off updating until I hear it’s been mostly fixed.
Not sure about Synology. But 3rd party cloud apps like OneDrive, Dropbox and GoogleDrive... I have attached to to my Files App on my iPad. I can simple load any type of file/photo through the share sheet for the Files App and it uploads. I normally use Google Drive via the Files App to transfer files from my iPP to Galaxy.
I really wish Android and iOS can find away to bridge together to find a cohesive way to transfer... Nearby Share or Quick Share should be something that iOS users should be able to experience as well, but so far.. GoogleDrive has been the best way for me. I'm really hoping Google incorporates Chrome Browser to Nearby Share, that would be perfect!
I got fed up with iOS's "new & improved" features that seemed more like unwieldy bloat.
iTunes/Music/whatever they will call it next has driven me insane for a long time.
Android apps (and probably the OS too) are more well behaved than a few years ago.
The UI's on cross-platform apps are close enough to the functionality on the iOS platform that I don't feel like throwing the phone against the wall anymore. I tried Android phones twice before and gave up within a week or less.
The iPhone keyboard has been pissing me off for a while. I swear it got stupider over time.
Around IOS 12.1, Apple hosed up the ability to backup only critical phone data within the 5 GB limit. Now they make a complete image of your phone along with the data you backup to iCloud. That extra special invasion of privacy counts against your cloud storage too!
Google finally has phones with decent security/monthly updates/three major OS revision support and very reasonable prices (I got the Pixel 4a). They have a built in Titan U2F FIDO security key too and along with Google Advanced Protection Program, it is a nice setup to keep your data relatively secure.
Rich Communication Services (RCS) messaging is finally ready for primetime (so you can run messages.google.com in a browser on any other device and text away).
I switched from an 8 Plus to Pixel 4a and the performance is very similar (typing is actually faster on the 4a). The camera is different for sure though does a very good job even with more limited capabilities.
Battery life is the same if not better.
iTunes/Music/whatever they will call it next has driven me insane for a long time.
Android apps (and probably the OS too) are more well behaved than a few years ago.
The UI's on cross-platform apps are close enough to the functionality on the iOS platform that I don't feel like throwing the phone against the wall anymore. I tried Android phones twice before and gave up within a week or less.
The iPhone keyboard has been pissing me off for a while. I swear it got stupider over time.
Around IOS 12.1, Apple hosed up the ability to backup only critical phone data within the 5 GB limit. Now they make a complete image of your phone along with the data you backup to iCloud. That extra special invasion of privacy counts against your cloud storage too!
Google finally has phones with decent security/monthly updates/three major OS revision support and very reasonable prices (I got the Pixel 4a). They have a built in Titan U2F FIDO security key too and along with Google Advanced Protection Program, it is a nice setup to keep your data relatively secure.
Rich Communication Services (RCS) messaging is finally ready for primetime (so you can run messages.google.com in a browser on any other device and text away).
I switched from an 8 Plus to Pixel 4a and the performance is very similar (typing is actually faster on the 4a). The camera is different for sure though does a very good job even with more limited capabilities.
Battery life is the same if not better.
This thread has gotten me pumped. Haha.
Yes RCS sounds like it is a big improvement over the old SMS/MMS technology. I've read that being in groups with other iPhone users, texts go to the group and not individually any longer. Also images and video are original and not overly compressed. Going to give this a try on my Note 9 with other iPhone users to confirm. I believe it works with Google Messages and Samsung Messages only at the moment.
Moving to Linux was the push I needed to make the decision to carry two phones. I'm moving back to the SE to make it easy to carry to stay in contact with family and friends and the ecosystem in the house. Wife needed a new phone so she'll get my 11 Pro Max. But my Note 9 is going to be my primary to easily sync with my PC and bring back all the functionality I love. I just got a prepaid sim last night and am very happy to be back. Best of both worlds for now and the SE doesn't make me feel like I'm carrying two big phones around.
Let's see how long this lasts. Haha.
Yes RCS sounds like it is a big improvement over the old SMS/MMS technology. I've read that being in groups with other iPhone users, texts go to the group and not individually any longer. Also images and video are original and not overly compressed. Going to give this a try on my Note 9 with other iPhone users to confirm. I believe it works with Google Messages and Samsung Messages only at the moment.
Moving to Linux was the push I needed to make the decision to carry two phones. I'm moving back to the SE to make it easy to carry to stay in contact with family and friends and the ecosystem in the house. Wife needed a new phone so she'll get my 11 Pro Max. But my Note 9 is going to be my primary to easily sync with my PC and bring back all the functionality I love. I just got a prepaid sim last night and am very happy to be back. Best of both worlds for now and the SE doesn't make me feel like I'm carrying two big phones around.
Let's see how long this lasts. Haha.
Just a FYI TCS is frustratingly not widely implemented yet.
I have harassed most people I know to switch over to google messages, and enable chat, but on balance probably 99% of Android users don't have RCS enabled yet.
I have harassed most people I know to switch over to google messages, and enable chat, but on balance probably 99% of Android users don't have RCS enabled yet.
For good reason. There's no clear instruction from the carriers themselves, and it depends on the device that you and the receiver have, if both have Google Messages as the default SMS client (most don't), and if both carriers support it. Too many variables.
Meanwhile, with Whatsapp, people can just download the app and it does what they want without having to worry about all the above.
One Drive is ok but Dropbox sucks. It rarely updates photos for me.
I just use Google Photos and Amazon Photos. Updates/syncs everytime.
Yes- I was surprised how lame Messages was in general prior to the RCS roll out. That would have been a show stopper for me.
RCS is beginning to roll out internationally now as well so hopefully it will pickup steam elsewhere.
I use Google Messages and Signal primarily.