One app I had been missing was something more like Ulysses or Apple Notes.
Then I came across Bundled Notes which is slick as, exclusive to Android and well worth your note taking time.
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Phones Google Pixel 8/8 Pro
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Then I came across Bundled Notes which is slick as, exclusive to Android and well worth your note taking time.
Great points. But Apple is absolutely falling behind in a real way, hence the billions being spent on AI. Apple doesn't need to announce any splashy new feature, in my opinion. But they do need to get with the times in terms of basic quality of life functions. When it comes to iPhone:
1. No home screen rotation.
2. Face unlock *still* doesn't give an option to go straight to home screen.
3. There is no excuse to not have fingerprint unlock, either under the screen or with the power or action buttons.
4. Siri is an absolute joke compared to Google Assistant.
5. No call screening as is done on the Pixel.
These five points are not innovations despite what Apple will eventually pitch them as. They are basic tasks that a $1100+ "Pro" phone in 2023 / 2024 should do.
I'm sitting here with my 15PM and love it for other / same reasons everyone else does. But the competition has caught up and surpassed, in my opinion.
I'm about halfway through reading this thread but in the meantime have any of you compared data and cellular on the 8 Pro versus the Pixel Fold? My Fold is turning out to be less than adequate for phone calls so I am probably going to have to return it.
I've been muddling along with Keep Notes. Checking out Bundled Notes... looks slick for sure.
Could be another killer app on Android for me along with Boost (and TapaTalk to a lesser extent now that sites are moving away from it). I thought Apollo on iOS was awesome until stumbling upon Boost on Android. The latter has a far superior UI (and still available!).
I am generally platform agnostic on mobile, tablet and laptop/desktop/server OSes. Have to admit that I am just sick and tired of iOS.
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I am too. I thought the purple iPhone would convince me to stay within Apple’s ecosystem, but now I’m bored with it and have come to realize I’m not that deep in the “walled garden” anyway. I don’t have a Mac, iPad, or any MacBooks. I use a Windows PC and everything in my house runs Linux (ok, most of it). I don’t see a reason to stick with something I don’t like anymore just because of the “sunk cost fallacy.” As soon as this phone is paid off, I’m back on android.
The problem as I see it is as long as you don't have a Windows environment to use your s24u then you are always going to be back in the same spot.
In Apple ecosystem everything revolves around the iPhone. Once you take the iPhone away the whole thing loses a ton of connectivity and usefulness.
This means anyone who switches to Android and has a Mac and iPad or Apple watch now lose texting ability, you lose FaceTime, Airdrop and iMessage all at once. You have to deregister your Apple ID from your phone number and it is a big hassle with long term consequences that most people don't think about.
Alternatively if you have a Windows PC and a Galaxy tablet and or Samsung Galaxy watch or Pixel watch then you gain most of those features back.
If you have an iPhone and a Windows PC and Galaxy tablet you would find yourself in the same situation as the iPhone user switching to Android.
Now if both sides were equally at fault for this situation then I would blame both equally but it isn't. Apple has purposely gone out of their way to make everything that runs on MacOS, iPadOS or iOS to be as incompatible as possible with any other platform. You can't use Pages on a PC for example. Why can't we use Pages on a PC? Wouldn't it make it be adopted by more people which would make it a more standardized format across industry like Word is?
Apple purposely makes their products work well only in their universe by design. It is sort of a sneaky way to force you to do something. It is also a way to separate people by what they use which a lot of Apple users have loved to do for years.
This more than anything else has made me question my loyalty to Apple. I love their products but I don't like to be forced to use them against my will because of convenience. It would be so much better if everything on Apple was cross platform friendly and would allow me to freely choose the best devices to match my use case. I prefer a Mac but enjoy an Android phone. I shouldn't have to use an entirety different platform just to get the same level of features when they exist in both platforms and devices.
This is why for now I am all in on Android and as much as I don't love Windows or Linux I can get by just fine on any platform. If the EU forces Apple to open up it's software it may be the best thing that ever happened to Apple despite Apple.
I don't know but I just don't think it is a good business practice to sell lockdown and bait it as convenience and interconnectivity when you only get that with their products. So if you start using their products you are also agreeing to only use their products if you want everything to "just work". I don't think people realize that at first.
It starts with an iPhone then maybe a MacBook then an iPad and before you know it you are deep locked into the Apple ecosystem. Have friends and family who have iPhones too- now you are double locked down. Then you decide to try a watch. It is only been a couple years but now even if you wanted to try an Android phone or tablet or that cheap gaming laptop you can't because what would you do with it outside of the ecosystem? Sound familiar? I hear it a million times on here.
People just don't seem to get it. Yup. You tried to go outside the Apple walls and got burnt.
The only option now is to be a multi platform user and have a Windows laptop and a Mac and use whatever phone you like based on what hardware and software you like best this year. Or you stay in one side or the other.
I will say that if I was forced to choose only one platform I don't know what I would do. I really like MacOS over Windows but I also love my Pixel and have no desire for a Titanium iPhone right now. Since I live in the US most of my friends and family and even teachers have iPhones so communication with them is better when I have an iPhone.
I don't think with my curiosity that I could ever give up a Mac completely but I could give up the iPhone and iPad and use Android, Windows and a Galaxy tablet and be perfectly fine.
I here this kind of arrogant response about Apple all the time and it really bothers me. Sure there may have been a time when Jobs was still around or shortly after where Apple as a company wouldn't release a gimmick feature and would only add a feature if they thought it would help the customer experience. Those days have long gone. Now Apple uses or withholds features arbitrarily just to push people up the ladder into iPhone Pro territory.
Basic things on a phone that actually improve my life is the call screening feature on my Pixel not Titanium on the iPhone?
90hz display are on the cheapest Android phone but Apple will still give you a 60hz display on a brand new iPhone. The difference between 60hz and 90hz on a phone or iPad is pretty significant in day to day use.
I could go on and on.
What I think people consider innovation is something that is completely new in the mobile industry that then leads the industry. We haven't seen this from Apple in a long time. Android phones have foldable phones which would be a completely new concept in the mobile industry that has been an innovative leader.
You can debate the usefulness of a foldable phone all you want but you can't deny it is a very innovative thing.
All of the AI features in a Pixel phone like call screening, call waiting, menu navigation and much, much more are all innovative features that are leading the industry.
Apple is great at making a premium phone but making a innovative product or feature has been missing for a long time now. It seems Apple just brings over an Android feature and calls it new. App library, active widgets, and much more.
So please spare me with the Apple only adds innovation when it actually enhances a user experience. Part of figuring out what makes a good user experience is developing and creating some innovative projects that might fail. But if you always play it safe then you become a follower and boring.
When Apple takes risks they pay off. Look at the a series processors, m series. Big risks of failure but huge benefits when they succeeded. When Apple innovates they have lines around the block to get their products. It is simply a matter of Apple taking more risks on research and development instead of just playing it safe. MacBook pro line was another big risk by redesigning the Macs from the ground up and using Apple silicon and it has been a huge success.
It is not like Apple can't be innovative. But let's not pretend what they are doing now is innovative. Call Apple on their laziness because if they wait too long it will eventually hurt their bottom line and that is when Apple tends to get competitive which is when they feel threatened.
How do you know I don't have a Windows environment? I think sometimes people on internet forums take liberties and assume things that are not evident or even discussed. I have MBA 15 and an AWU, ATV, iPhone and IPP and also have HP Envy 2 in 1 high end windows laptop with touchscreen and a CyberPower gaming PC with a 34 inch curved Samsung monitor. I work in a Windows environment as well. I work in cybersecurity and all the tools I use are all Windows based.
I can do without Facetime and iMessage and even my iPhone.Its not the devices...its the user experience and ease of use. I am pretty platform agnostic and have been for years. I switch back and forth between IOS and the latest Android smartphone continuously. My history here on MR proves that sooo don't make assumptions.
I just bought a Garmin Fenix 7 Pro Solar to replace my AWU.
And frankly, I don't see Apple adding them, not so much much because Apple has stopped innovating, but because they go against the idea of how Apple envisions their users interacting with their devices.
For instance, there may well be no option to go straight to your home screen because Apple views your lock screen as a home screen of sorts. They have put in a lot of work into allowing users to interact with their lockscreen, from the always-on display, to the ability to view live widgets and even launch apps and actions from the lock screen. Readily bypassing all that with a glance of your phone defeats the whole point.
And before people say "but I used to be able to do that with Touch ID", again, that's precisely the point. I think where Apple was going with facial recognition is to take care of all the security stuff behind the scenes so people don't have to. It removes having to think about authenticating your device to access something because Face ID has already detected that for you. What you are left with is a phone that is as easy to access as one without a passcode. It then makes sense to rethink how one might interact with their lock screen in this context, given a paradigm where you have a device that one can assume is always unlocked when the owner is looking at it, and isn't when it's anybody else.
It then makes no sense for a phone to have both Face ID and Touch ID. It's not about "having more options, regardless of whether you need them or not". That's not how Apple rolls. They focus on the end experience, decided that Face ID better allows them to deliver this experience, and therefore made a conscious decision to not include Touch ID. And from a security perspective, it makes sense to double down on 1 extremely secure means of unlocking your phone, than a myriad of different methods that individually don't work very well (which was the case with Samsung phones for a while back; I remember being able to unlock my colleague's phone with a photo of her and am not sure ff their face unlock functionality has gotten any better since).
It's all interconnected.
The TL;DR here is that this is how Apple works, and why the company is so polarising. They often aim for product experience at the expense of user choice. And if their idea of what you want in a product matches yours, then it's full of secret magic and delight (which is what happened for me. I switched over to the 27" iMac in 2011 after finally having had enough with my windows PC, and haven't looked back since).
And if not, then it can be full of frustration, like jogging through quicksand, which I imagine is why all of you here are Android users. You all want what Apple can't and won't give, and it's not because of a lack of innovation on Apple's part.
That's all I am trying to say here.
You are right. I don't know what you have and it was an assumption based on my experience with other people who generally only own Apple products and want to venture out.
Obviously that doesn't apply to you.
I wasn't trying to make anything personal. My apologies if my post rubbed you the wrong way.
I hope the s24u is the Android phone for you.
Dimensity 9300 in vivo X100 Pro throttles after 15 minutes in stress test
As expected from a chip with four performance cores. As the new vivo X100 Pro gets into the hands of keen testers, we can finally get an idea of the...
Mediatek has recently released the Dimensity 9300 and I think it is the first chip with x4 cores? I could be wrong but it doesn't just have two it has four and four more a715 performance cores. It is a beast. It takes the approach of fast in fast out and has a special scheduler just for this processor. Basically the idea is instead of low power cores slowly sipping along doing low priority tasks slowly the fast in fast out assigns tasks to be done as fast as possible and complete.
In some early tests it seems the chip overheats and throttles huge. But they were running a huge number of threads trying to push the chip. In real world use for most use cases it might actually be faster. But if you really push the chip past it's thermal envelope it throttles pretty bad.
It is the complete opposite strategy that Google has used for their chips. But the use of two older x1 cores is kind of along a similar thinking of fast in and fast out but instead of pushing the cores to high frequency it scaled them back. Now we have a nona core and the x3 is still very conservative clock. So Google has prioritized stable performance over fast burst performance. I think both approaches are interesting and have merit but ultimately as much as people bitch and moan about benchmarks the most important metric is how well does the chip do under load for a sustained period of time. Whatever the peak is while it is throttling is what people should be comparing not just peak burst speeds. Both are important but if you only have one or the other you generally lose out on something. Which is why as much as I love putting the peddle to the metal I think Google's strategy with Tensor will pay off in the end.
The Dimensity 9300 looks like an interesting chip. I wish Mediatek would have just really gone for it and made a Decacore processor like they did in the past but use 2 efficiency cores or four to help even out heat and loads.
However I like that Mediatek takes risks. They do unusual designs and push performance as much as possible in their chips and chip designs. They need a more cutting edge density node but at the top they are competitive. I wish we in the US could buy more Mediatek powered devices, specially the high end chips.
If I could have a choice in a Samsung Galaxy s24 of Exynos, Snapdragon or Mediatek and they all have a different price point. So if you are in Europe or US you can choose a processor and pay more or less for it just like ram and storage. Why is it with a high end brand we only get one processor choice on a Android phone in 2023?
If say I could buy a S24 ultra for $1200 base model for Snapdragon and say $100 less for Mediatek and say $150/$200 less for Exynos and then you can configure ram and storage. Then I could decide what is more important to me, a faster Snapdragon or maybe a newer Exynos 2400 with 80-90% of the performance for $150 less?
I think the biggest problem people have with Exynos is that they know it saves Samsung money by using their own chips but then Samsung charges the same as using a Snapdragon which cost them more. I think if they gave a small discount for Exynos phones in pricing over Snapdragon would make people a lot happier.
I imagine Qualcomm has a ton of contracts to prevent the above from happening.
Your kidding right?
This screams an awful lot like, for example ......I don't need call screening. There is no use for me to have this.
1 year later.......Apple gets call screening......it's the best thing since sliced bread. They are geniuses. I dont know how i lived without it.
I see people complaining on social media about iOS 17 update. The air drop thing, or name drop? Idk, I don't have an iPhone. They have it turned on by default and people are sharing contact info with others without knowing it.lol....yes they have it all worked out better.
We are talking about a company that took 3 years to give you copy and paste because THEY didn't think you needed it.
I'm not bashing Apple but some act like Apple can do no wrong and that it is false.
They don't do everything better. They are behind and make YOU think it's better when they finally give it to you, IF they do.
If they did do everything better, Siri wouldn't suck and be a better experience, right? Google asst is so much better. So is maps.
And I read that from you guys, not my experience,
Android has all the major apps Apple does and they work just fine.
And again, don't get me wrong. I had a iPhone 13 pro in my cart from Amazon twice last week and cyber monday but just couldn't pull the trigger. Deal would of been around $375. Not sure if that's a good deal or not for a 2 year old iphone.
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My complete switch to the Pixel is nearly done. I've gone through three sets of screen protectors and have a 4th on the way because it's a real pain with this phone 😂. I also use a Torras magnetic guardian case that has MagSafe, works perfectly and is a transparent black color, looks really nice.
Beeper has been working great, nearly all of my friends and family have been using my Apple ID so I'm not missing out on iMessage at all. They have no idea I'm not using an iPhone. My one friend who uses Android got excited that RCS all of a sudden worked for him when texting me 😂.
I used call screen once today and "hold for me" with live captions four times, really nice to have. I've not received any spam calls for over a week since using the Pixel.
YT music premium is also interesting. I had no idea how many playlists people create and share, never used this service regularly until now and am enjoying it.
My Sony earbuds connect automatically and work with Google assistant out of the box. Almost as intuitive as APP with my iPhone, again, impressed. I don't know why my VOIP office app doesn't work over BT when listening to voicemail and HD audio / LDAC is enabled. I need to manually toggle to "off" when I start work which is merely annoying. Not sure if it is an Android thing or Pixel thing, or my office app.
The only remaining problem is iCloud photos and videos. Royal pain. I use Copytrans Cloudly and it worked perfectly, aside from making two copies of every photo and video and taking up double space when uploaded to Google photos 😂. I deleted everything from Google photos and will start fresh tomorrow after work and try uploading directly from my iPhone in original quality.
Still in the honeymoon phase, but I've never switched cold turkey like this before, it's the best way to do it I think to really feel the difference. Assuming all is well I plan to sell the iPhone and AirPods Pro next week.
*Edit- thanks for reading my wall of text, I enjoy discussing and reading about all of this stuff 👍.
Beeper has been working great, nearly all of my friends and family have been using my Apple ID so I'm not missing out on iMessage at all. They have no idea I'm not using an iPhone. My one friend who uses Android got excited that RCS all of a sudden worked for him when texting me 😂.
I used call screen once today and "hold for me" with live captions four times, really nice to have. I've not received any spam calls for over a week since using the Pixel.
YT music premium is also interesting. I had no idea how many playlists people create and share, never used this service regularly until now and am enjoying it.
My Sony earbuds connect automatically and work with Google assistant out of the box. Almost as intuitive as APP with my iPhone, again, impressed. I don't know why my VOIP office app doesn't work over BT when listening to voicemail and HD audio / LDAC is enabled. I need to manually toggle to "off" when I start work which is merely annoying. Not sure if it is an Android thing or Pixel thing, or my office app.
The only remaining problem is iCloud photos and videos. Royal pain. I use Copytrans Cloudly and it worked perfectly, aside from making two copies of every photo and video and taking up double space when uploaded to Google photos 😂. I deleted everything from Google photos and will start fresh tomorrow after work and try uploading directly from my iPhone in original quality.
Still in the honeymoon phase, but I've never switched cold turkey like this before, it's the best way to do it I think to really feel the difference. Assuming all is well I plan to sell the iPhone and AirPods Pro next week.
*Edit- thanks for reading my wall of text, I enjoy discussing and reading about all of this stuff 👍.
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I've no idea how to get a code for a Beeper. Just says I'm on a waiting list. Was supposed to get a code for signing up but that must be old or something.
Doesn't seem it is going to be working anytime soon.
Doesn't seem it is going to be working anytime soon.
I completely agree going all in is the best way to immerse yourself in a new system. It helps you learn new habits instead of going back to an old device and doing what you know.
It is a process and with Apple lock in the harder it can be the longer you have been using a Mac, etc. That being said it is not impossible and can be fun to see how to different OS accomplish the same thing.
A word of advice. If you can wait a couple months at least to sell your Apple products just in case things don't work out. You can box everything up and get it ready to sell. Get all your pictures ready. Then just store it away some place secure like a safe.
Then after you have gone through some ups and downs and really been able to see for yourself that you can function without your iPhone. The thing is that if you have a Mac and iPad the iPhone is kind of the central hub of all of it and how they work together. So it can be a shock to your work flow. Not saying it can't be done. There are just some compromises but there are work arounds like you have found.
Once you are 100 percent sure and gone through all the different things you might need to go through to have an Android phone in an Apple environment then sell. You might be ready now. I am not second guessing you. I have just seen a lot of people switch from one device to another (doesn't even have to be another platform) and sell what they had, only to realize that they liked what they had better or liked iOS better. I just don't want you to end up in a similar situation. It is easy to get excited at first and then the newness wears off and the day to day is all that is left and in those times some people revert back to what they know best.
I am excited for you. The Pixel 8 Pro is the best phone Google has ever made. Not the highest bar in the world but it is a real tipping point for them. They have really been doubling down on Android and making Pixel a success. So far I think it is working. I do think the Pixel 8 Pro is a real pain still for screen protectors but way better than last year!
After you use a Pixel it is like a drug. You just get hooked. There is a lot in the details of the software and hardware that is really thoughtfully done. Ever since I used a Nexus I have been hooked! It is just finally we are getting some hardware to match the software which is really exciting.
None of the apps that say they work without your own Mac running all the time as a dedicated server are suspect at best. I would love if they would work. Look what happened to sunbird and the privacy issues related to using it. All of us were excited when it came out but like you I was in a wait-list forever. Probably a good thing as it turns out.
The good news is at least Apple is adopting some RCS functionality so these apps will be redundant soon anyway.
I didn't know what sunbird was til I googled it. Another message app.
First thing it says , "blue bubbles on your Android" lol
Ok so seriously, this is all about having blue bubbles like iMessage?
Why is this such a thing? Lol, seems silly. Like you aren't one of the cool kids if you don't give or get blue bubbles lol.
Isn't the point to GET the message? 🤷♂️
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Thanks for the detailed reply. Good point about hanging onto the iPhone for a bit just in case. It's already in the drawer, hah.
I've enabled weather and news to start in the morning upon turning off my wake alarm. Adaptive charging started taking over a couple days ago once it learned my routine and lets the phone be until close to wake up time and makes sure it's full by the time my alarm goes off. Lastly while in bed I just noticed and added the extra dim screen setting to my shortcut menu. Again, really cool and functional daily life tools. Extra dim is a fantastic feature for bedtime use, I'll use it often.
It must be an American thing, im in the UK and use WhatsApp, i hardly ever use iMessage. In the past iMessage was my go too but all of my friends and even work colleagues are now on WhatsApp.
I think it’s more teenagers, “if you haven’t got an iPhone you’re not cool” type of mentality.
The thing is I don’t personally think iPhones are the best looking anymore, they use to be but not anymore. The Pixel 8 looks more unique and the S23 Ultra looks great too.
So been back on the 8 Pro as my main for a few weeks after selling it then buying another from FB market place.
Still having this stupid camera issue with washed out photo colours.
I’ve noticed, if I go into edit a photo and add a filter (say, Dynamic) it knocks off Ultra HDR. And voila, no more stupid colourless photo.
So this Ultra HDR is clearly causing the issue.
I'm really not pleased with the photo output so far unless I go into every single photo and edit it which is frankly painful. Thankfully, everything else about the phone I love, but this definitely needs addressing. It isn't all photos that look bad, but certainly lower light ones suffer IMO.
Still having this stupid camera issue with washed out photo colours.
I’ve noticed, if I go into edit a photo and add a filter (say, Dynamic) it knocks off Ultra HDR. And voila, no more stupid colourless photo.
So this Ultra HDR is clearly causing the issue.
I'm really not pleased with the photo output so far unless I go into every single photo and edit it which is frankly painful. Thankfully, everything else about the phone I love, but this definitely needs addressing. It isn't all photos that look bad, but certainly lower light ones suffer IMO.
Yup, gotta agree with the corporate monolithic shills. It's almost like a religion that can do no wrong and some go as far as defending these behemoth corporations as if someone insulted their mother and they have to defend her honor.
It's not until a person owns or have used opposing platforms where they can qualify to give a more balanced take on each platform. We have many here, including myself. I own Apple products, own several Macs, hell i'm typing this message on it. I also own several iPad's and have owned pretty much every iPad since the iPad 2. I now own an iPhone because I was intrigued by Live Voicemail in iOS 17.
Apple introduced Siri but let her get old and stagnate. Google ran with the idea and Google Assistant wipes the floor with Siri. Because I do own both platforms, I can at least give Apple props for introducing to the world a digital assistant. Google now does it much better by several generations. A corporate shill won't acknowledge that someone else came up with the idea first.
This is why I am platform agnostic and it's why even in my hobby of videogames since the late 90's I purchased every console made and still do to this day, so I don't miss out on what the other companies are offering. I am primarily an XBOX guy, but it all started with the original PlayStation and I acknowledge that there are many things Sony does better than Microsoft and Nintendo. When I view it from Nintendo's world, I see that they do many things better than Microsoft and Sony. When I view it from Microsoft's world, I see how they do things better than Sony and Nintendo.
That's the way it should be as you can offer a balanced opinion to what you like and don't like about a certain platform. We have many on this forum like that. We also have some that wish the only company that should exist and be selling smartphones, tablets and computers, is Apple. Those are the people with an unbalanced approach to life.
Consider this then: FaceID works whether you want it to or not because you have to actually look at a display for it to be useful. This makes you more likely to then go explore your device because a barrier has been removed.
With a fingerprint scanner you have full control over whether or not your phone is unlocked. If you just pop the screen on to check the time you then just power it off again and put it back down.
This is a very, very minor behavioural nudge and yet it subtley makes you use your phone more.
I remember having a pixel 2 XL back when it released, and using it for a good year or so. I enjoyed the phone, but switched to an iPhone and have been using one ever since. I tried moving back to Android back when the Galaxy Note 9 was released, but was too immersed in the Apple ecosystem (iMessage, iCloud, etc) so the Note got sent back within 2 weeks.
Since the pixel 8 was released, my interest has peaked, but there are things holding me back from thinking about trying it out. The biggest one being that I have yet to find an Android equivalent to the Apple Watch. I know my Airpods are replaceable with other headphones, but the Apple Watch, not so much from what I've seen. My Airpods, Apple Watch, and iPhone are about as far as Apple products goes for me, so I'm not terribly invested in the ecosystem products wise.
Since the pixel 8 was released, my interest has peaked, but there are things holding me back from thinking about trying it out. The biggest one being that I have yet to find an Android equivalent to the Apple Watch. I know my Airpods are replaceable with other headphones, but the Apple Watch, not so much from what I've seen. My Airpods, Apple Watch, and iPhone are about as far as Apple products goes for me, so I'm not terribly invested in the ecosystem products wise.
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I've heard some good reviews with the Samsung Watch 6.. I'm one that definitely needs my AWU... Luckily I could carry an iPhone daily... I guess I would get used to it if I had to move over but I would definitely miss it... Right now the iPhone has more customization than ever which is making it fun creating different widgets and screens... I think the camera and video is top notch from my non -expert point of view lol... And although some people think it's boring I don't find it that way at all tbh... I think that this pixel phone is excellent and the best one to release ... Some people will have issues with any phone release so I like to find out for myself ..