iPhone 5 to Samsung S4?

[Orlandoech]

Anyone gone from an iPhone 5 (or even 4(s)) to Samsung S4 or even S3?

If so, what are the things you love that you gained and the things you hate that you lost?

I had a jailbroken iPhone 5 and after a few months it became slower and had a lot of weird issues, so I restored it, WOW I never realized I hate iOS and the iPhone until now. I'm so limited in what I can do and what I want to do, it makes me sad.

 

[Dontazemebro]

Oh boy not another one of these.

 

[Peterg2]

Anyone gone from an iPhone 5 (or even 4(s)) to Samsung S4 or even S3?

If so, what are the things you love that you gained and the things you hate that you lost?

I had a jailbroken iPhone 5 and after a few months it became slower and had a lot of weird issues, so I restored it, WOW I never realized I hate iOS and the iPhone until now. I'm so limited in what I can do and what I want to do, it makes me sad.

How about here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1584726/

 

[Orlandoech]

How about here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1584726/

I saw that, doesn't really address my concerns tbh.

While I love the integration of iOS with Notes, reminders, calendar, etc, its NOT primary for me.

NFC and the Camera have VERY little appeal to me. I would like to personalize my phone more, but I dont even know what Droid is capable of tbh either.

Im a huge music listener, a widget would be nice like when my iPhone was JB. Same with weather widget, and if I could get RSS/News feeds for Sports on my home screen, I'd love that too.

 

[Chodite]

Went from iPhone 5 to S4. Going on 3 weeks now. LOVE it. Sure it took at least a week to get familiar with it all. It's my first ever Android experience. So little things like adding contacts, calendar appointments, etc. weren't as easy for me as they were on my iPhone 5. And I'm still learning and am sure it will take another few weeks to get to 100% comfort. But I really love the flexibility of the OS, the customization, the phone itself is spectacular! The screen, the camera, it's all so brilliant.

I've even got the look and feel of the phone just about where I want it. Although I love tinkering with it constantly. It's a joy to play with if you're a true gadget geek. Here's a recent pic of my home screen(s), that pretty much resemble the look and feel of how I was trying to get my jailbroken iPhone 5. Except with Android and Nova Launcher, it's 10x easier to accomplish. You can have the phone perform exactly as you want.

....

 

[Orlandoech]

Went from iPhone 5 to S4. Going on 3 weeks now. LOVE it. Sure it took at least a week to get familiar with it all. It's my first ever Android experience. So little things like adding contacts, calendar appointments, etc. weren't as easy for me as they were on my iPhone 5. And I'm still learning and am sure it will take another few weeks to get to 100% comfort. But I really love the flexibility of the OS, the customization, the phone itself is spectacular! The screen, the camera, it's all so brilliant.

I've even got the look and feel of the phone just about where I want it. Although I love tinkering with it constantly. It's a joy to play with if you're a true gadget geek. Here's a recent pic of my home screen(s), that pretty much resemble the look and feel of how I was trying to get my jailbroken iPhone 5. Except with Android and Nova Launcher, it's 10x easier to accomplish. You can have the phone perform exactly as you want.

Image....Image

Good to know. Anything else you can add?

I love music, weather and sports widgets. How is that stuff? I also have a MBP Retina and iPad Mini (which I rarely use, my daughter does) but I just want a phone to be personalization and not be so confined.

 

[Chodite]

Good to know. Anything else you can add?

I love music, weather and sports widgets. How is that stuff? I also have a MBP Retina and iPad Mini (which I rarely use, my daughter does) but I just want a phone to be personalization and not be so confined.

Customization is THE primary selling point here. Widgets, icons, home screens, etc. The possibilities are endless. Just one look at this site and you'll see exactly that:
http://mycolorscreen.com/

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

Can the OP handle the endless possibilities?

 

[MRU]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1584726/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1578704/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1551166/

There is plenty of discussion on those threads from users who went from 1 to th other. The topic has been talked quite in depth, its unlikely those folks will post the same info in yet another thread.

 

[Orlandoech]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1584726/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1578704/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1551166/

There is plenty of discussion on those threads from users who went from 1 to th other. The topic has been talked quite in depth, its unlikely those folks will post the same info in yet another thread.

Hey Thanks for the links!

I tend to stay in the MBP forums and this thread is like the "Should I buy or wait for Haswell" threads... makes you want to punch a kitten, so sorry for that lol.

 

[Dr McKay]

I went from an iPhone 5, to a Nexus 4, to a GS4 so I kind of did. Things I miss from iOS? The simplicity of restoring from backup, tapping the status bar to jump to the top.

 

[solidsnake32292]

One hell of a ride...

So I am actually your target market... I am a HARDCORE apple user... every iPhone since the 1st in 2007.... NEVER used an android in my life... went to an S4 a week and a half ago after i finished my finals as a little treat because my upgrade on AT&T was available... SO with that said, I jumped right in and it has been one hell of a ride so far...

Let me just quickly tell you this, It has been a WAY more difficult transition than I had hoped... BUT, after a week and a half in, I can safely say I have my S4 set up exactly how I want it and it's working out really well... well that is to say really well besides the major issues I cant seem to get around,

Major Issue Consist of:

1. I have a fully-loaded 2011 BMW 328i and my iPhone works just fine with iDrive and syncs all the music to the dash. through USB but the Galaxy just does not. No one at best buy, samsung, or AT&T knows why but i came to the conclusion that I will just keep my 64gb iPhone 5 in my car and leave it at that....

2. I could not and still have not figured out how to get my 1100+ iPhone notes onto S-Note on my Galaxy S4... i don't know if its even possible... so instead i put them into a separate dropbox folder and its been working out so far.. except dropbox organized ti by alphabetical which is really annoying and not by date i created the note... but its not a huge issue.. I have them so whatever I can live with it.

3. Battery... well although it's fixed now and works great... the first week of having the battery i was loosing 30%+ in a matter of 45 min of LIGHT browsing on macrumors forum when i wake up in the morning.. Just seemed bad, and I literally saw the battery fall quickly... yes i am a power user but i also know how to configure the phone so I shut off gps, bluetooth, wifi etc when not in use. I contacted samsung support and they VPN (Remote Connected) to my phone which was awesome by the way, and in front of me showed me how to correctly configure it and since then i deleted and got rid of some AT&T apps and stuff i didn't use and its been much better... in fact today i was using my phone a lot for texting, emails, call and watching the new xbox reveal and phone didn't die out till about 30 min ago... so i was really impressed... and because of my troubles... samsung is overnighting me a second battery FREE of charge and should be getting it tomorrow morning. SO all in all, having a second battery should be excellent. No complaints here anymore!

4. Learning Android.... well it's my first android EVER, so with that said it took really a lot of time to change over, the things i miss the most are iMessage, FaceTime, and iCloud.... google now takes care of alarms, reminders, appointments etc. and i absolutely love google now because it feels more baked into the OS which is great.

Dont go crazy with widgets and DEFINITELY disable Live Wallpapers... they are awesome to show off to friends at first but i promise u your battery will LOVE you if you just turn it off... I have a weather widget, google search and a few other small ones but dont go to crazy.
Be careful what apps u download, ALWAYS read the reviews first!
MANY apps you pay for on the iOS App Store you can find free which is great.


Don't Root if your new... I researched it a lot and honestly i just wanna enjoy the phone it is... I love the air view gestures and smart scroll and once u set it up and get it to your liking and disable some apps u wont use, its a nice (not super lag free but not lag crazy either) experience that is custom-tailered to you.

One other things i hate is not having a really good native back up. I downloaded Samsung Kies on my Retina macbook pro and it works.. but also sometimes it doesn't, i found my self trying a few times to get it to sync but once it does its fine i suppose for now.

My return window expires this thursday but all in all... it's not the end of the world.... my friends, family, co-workers and everyone i knew couldn't believe i got a samsung device.. and neither could i but once u give it a chance i love the screen and its hard to give it back! I'm keeping my iPhone and cannot wait for iOS7 but as my daily driver this summer, it seems the Galaxy S4 is gonna be it!



p.s. I really love the LED light sensor on the front, it's really helpful and never to annoying or in the way.. they just packed in many nice touches and features that although some may come off as gimmicky, can really be helpful in different situations. Hovering your hand quickly when screen is off shows a quick glimpse at any missed calls, notifications, time etc. and turning the phone upside down mutes it... Just things like that i really enjoy.

Hopefully this helped! If you have any questions feel free to ask!

 

[mib1800]

Dont go crazy with widgets and DEFINITELY disable Live Wallpapers... they are awesome to show off to friends at first but i promise u your battery will LOVE you if you just turn it off... I have a weather widget, google search and a few other small ones but dont go to crazy.

I found most Live wallpapers do not impact battery (maybe an extra 2-3%). The live wallpaper app is only active when the launcher is the foreground process (i.e. if you can see the live wallpaper then it is running. if you can't see it on the screen then it is suspended without consuming battery.)

I have many widgets (weather, stock, calendar, fb, tw etc) and they have very little impact on battery. The best way to check which apps cause battery drain just get the BetterBatteryStats app and look at "Partial Wakelock" category. Apps with high partial wakelock time are the culprit. So dont worry about widgets/live wallpaper/apps. Install anything you want and use that app to counter check.

 

[hovscorpion12]

Like solidsnake32292, I moved from the iPhone 5 to the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 instead of the Galaxy S4. I have been an avid Apple fanboy since 2000. I touted Samsung and Android as cheap knockoffs of iPhone and IOS. For the last 3 months, my Galaxy Note 2 is tremendous. I have not looked back to the iPhone 5. Beautiful 5.5' 1280x768 display, Multi-Window and more. I still use a MacBook Pro along side my 3rd Gen iPad, but surfing the web and checking Youtube using Muli-Window is mind blowing. It did take some time to get used to android, but Samsung's Touch Wiz is the best in my opinion compared to stock android or HTC One's Sense 5

 

[jeffe]

2. I could not and still have not figured out how to get my 1100+ iPhone notes onto S-Note on my Galaxy S4... i don't know if its even possible... so instead i put them into a separate dropbox folder and its been working out so far.. except dropbox organized ti by alphabetical which is really annoying and not by date i created the note... but its not a huge issue.. I have them so whatever I can live with it.

I'm not that familiar with s-note but you might want to look at using Google's note taking app Google Keep for future note taking. There is both an android app and web version you can access...and there is a possibility google will announce an IOS version in the future. You might have already done this but thought I'd throw it out there just in case.

 

[solidsnake32292]

I'm not that familiar with s-note but you might want to look at using Google's note taking app Google Keep for future note taking. There is both an android app and web version you can access...and there is a possibility google will announce an IOS version in the future. You might have already done this but thought I'd throw it out there just in case.

Actually I haven't heard of it but I will definitely check it out thanks! I just want to really find one app for note taking that just works well... I do a lot of it.. Not a big pen and paper type a guy lol

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I found most Live wallpapers do not impact battery (maybe an extra 2-3%). The live wallpaper app is only active when the launcher is the foreground process (i.e. if you can see the live wallpaper then it is running. if you can't see it on the screen then it is suspended without consuming battery.)

I have many widgets (weather, stock, calendar, fb, tw etc) and they have very little impact on battery. The best way to check which apps cause battery drain just get the BetterBatteryStats app and look at "Partial Wakelock" category. Apps with high partial wakelock time are the culprit. So dont worry about widgets/live wallpaper/apps. Install anything you want and use that app to counter check.

Maybe you got lucky not sure... But after talking to countless Samsung employees, customer service agents, Best Buy co-workers, and friends it all came down to that this was one of the biggest things causing my battery to drain and since turning it off from last week (maybe 4 days ago) I have noticed an extreme improvement so idk maybe your phone got lucky but on my S4 it was no bueno... but its ok! after showing it off for a week or so, a solid wallpaper like the balloon one's that come stock on the S4 show off the 1080P display wonderfully so i'm good with that haha

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Like solidsnake32292, I moved from the iPhone 5 to the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 instead of the Galaxy S4. I have been an avid Apple fanboy since 2000. I touted Samsung and Android as cheap knockoffs of iPhone and IOS. For the last 3 months, my Galaxy Note 2 is tremendous. I have not looked back to the iPhone 5. Beautiful 5.5' 1280x768 display, Multi-Window and more. I still use a MacBook Pro along side my 3rd Gen iPad, but surfing the web and checking Youtube using Muli-Window is mind blowing. It did take some time to get used to android, but Samsung's Touch Wiz is the best in my opinion compared to stock android or HTC One's Sense 5

That's awesome to hear! I have had a LOT of anxiety the past 2 weeks with this whole android fiasco of mine... and getting used to it... transferring all my stuff over... setting it up exactly how i need it... for me, caused anxiety... but once i got it going i felt better about it and i think I'm gonna go ahead and keep it for the summer or longer! and when 5S comes out, sell my 5 for quite a bit and just get it off-contract.

 

[jeffe]

Good to know. Anything else you can add?

I love music, weather and sports widgets. How is that stuff? I also have a MBP Retina and iPad Mini (which I rarely use, my daughter does) but I just want a phone to be personalization and not be so confined.

I use google now and it keeps me up to date with sports, weather and music. Current scores will automatically appear in the notification shade during games and there's also a widget you can use that dynamically changes depending on what's happening.

I use Google music for my music needs and I find the cloud locker service to be pretty awesome....Love how I can buy my music from different sites and still have a copy available on my phone without having to plug it in. There is a widget but I usually just use the app or notification shade controls.

 

[mib1800]

Maybe you got lucky not sure... But after talking to countless Samsung employees, customer service agents, Best Buy co-workers, and friends it all came down to that this was one of the biggest things causing my battery to drain and since turning it off from last week (maybe 4 days ago) I have noticed an extreme improvement so idk maybe your phone got lucky but on my S4 it was no bueno... but its ok! after showing it off for a week or so, a solid wallpaper like the balloon one's that come stock on the S4 show off the 1080P display wonderfully so i'm good with that haha

Some of these people have no idea what is causing battery drain. They just target the usual suspects. For live wallpaper, try to get the paid ones (without ad). Don't install those live wallppaer that requires "Internet" permission. Common sense says that those 3D type or lots of animation/movement live wallpaper gonna use more battery. Worse if you keep looking at it all day long.

I have used those aquarium or 3D Zen/beach/trees/scenery series lwp and I dont see much impact on battery (at most 5-6% more per charge) compared to static. Of course I dont spend a lot of time just looking at home screen admiring the lwp.

 

[ppeyton1143]

well the s series has got a bigger, BETTER screen. better battery, better camera with great new features, the awesome touchwiz, quad/octa core processors, expandable memory, NFC, TV remote, etc. the only thing i missed about my iphone was the imessage.

 

[Orlandoech]

I went and got an S4, its so overwhelming with settings, features, etc.

A lot of the new S4 features a pure CRAP to me... and the software seems very laggy in a lot of places.

Ill keep playing with it since I have 14 days.

Im a huge music advocate (MP3s, not streaming) and the iPhone music/iPod interface is way better than anything on the S4 I've seen so far. Anyone know of any good music player apps?

 

[The Game 161]

Went from iphone 5 to S4 and love it...love to screen and ability to watch stuff on

Great for Facebook and twitter too.

 

[solidsnake32292]

I went and got an S4, its so overwhelming with settings, features, etc.

A lot of the new S4 features a pure CRAP to me... and the software seems very laggy in a lot of places.

Ill keep playing with it since I have 14 days.

Im a huge music advocate (MP3s, not streaming) and the iPhone music/iPod interface is way better than anything on the S4 I've seen so far. Anyone know of any good music player apps?

I'm surprised you feel this way... you should give what I wrote a quick read, I was really frustrated at first but once you give it some time and customize it to your liking its a really amazing phone and it's nice to just have my iphone take a break for a few months while I enjoy this S4 this summer etc. I love the new features of it and at first the phone was laggy but you just need to disable some of the AT&T and Samsung apps in the Applications Manager window and you should see a big increase....

Also, enable Developer Settings and you can make the transition between opening apps and moving around quicker, which REALLY speeds up the phone, oh and also disable S-Voice where it let's you activate it with the Double Click... That ALSO speeds up the phone big time..

Good Luck!

 

[Orlandoech]

I'm surprised you feel this way... you should give what I wrote a quick read, I was really frustrated at first but once you give it some time and customize it to your liking its a really amazing phone and it's nice to just have my iphone take a break for a few months while I enjoy this S4 this summer etc. I love the new features of it and at first the phone was laggy but you just need to disable some of the AT&T and Samsung apps in the Applications Manager window and you should see a big increase....

Also, enable Developer Settings and you can make the transition between opening apps and moving around quicker, which REALLY speeds up the phone, oh and also disable S-Voice where it let's you activate it with the Double Click... That ALSO speeds up the phone big time..

Good Luck!

My initial impression for Day 1 is;

1. Too Many features that are useless
2. Laggy in a lot of places (I did enable dev settings and turned off animations)
3. Widgets are cool. I just want 3 specific widgets, Weather, Music and a Sports Feed (I have no clue how to go about this with the Sports one (Preferably NFL.com)
4. Love the screen size
5. Already miss iCloud
6. Physical design is hideous imo
7. Miss some simple gestures of the iPhone like swipe to delete text/email (can you do this on S4)?
8. Im overwhelmed with where to start to "customize" my phone

 

[The Game 161]

Try the CBS sports widget...

 

[solidsnake32292]

My initial impression for Day 1 is;

1. Too Many features that are useless
2. Laggy in a lot of places (I did enable dev settings and turned off animations)
3. Widgets are cool. I just want 3 specific widgets, Weather, Music and a Sports Feed (I have no clue how to go about this with the Sports one (Preferably NFL.com)
4. Love the screen size
5. Already miss iCloud
6. Physical design is hideous imo
7. Miss some simple gestures of the iPhone like swipe to delete text/email (can you do this on S4)?
8. Im overwhelmed with where to start to "customize" my phone

I know it's overwhelming at first, but just give it a chance. So I guess at first it's hard and yes I know I really miss Icloud but I'm keeping my iPhone so it's not like it's gone forever. I moved most of my contacts, email, calender, notes and music to google services so I'm pretty set there.

I love the screen size and camera as well as the design. It's thin, light and easy to use I love where the power button is on the side for me personally It's much easier to hit. But just play with it more and don't fill it with crap just bc u wanna customize it, just put things u know u want. Browse the play store and find a few things u may wanna download just don't go crazy haha