A long-winded talk about my experience switching from iOS to Android
I have used almost every iPhone since the 4 (I think I skipped 11, but I upgrade almost every year). Most recently I downgraded from an iPhone 14 Pro to go back to my iPhone 13 mini because I like small phones. The iPhone 13 mini was mostly perfect for me, but the battery wasn’t lasting all day and the camera wasn’t very good. And Android is always playing with new sizes and form factors, so why not try something new? So I played with the Zenfone 9 for a couple months, debated trying an Xperia 5, and eventually settled on an S23 (the base 6.1” model).
I have dabbled in Android before, but the longest I have ever used one Android phone has been about 9 months. I even worked at Verizon Wireless for three years and was constantly being given free phones, but I always kept going back to an iPhone. Before my going full-time into iPhone, my favorite phones were a Droid 2, Droid X, and Galaxy Nexus. Then a lot of time in the iPhone world passed and I eventually got a Galaxy S8. Liked that phone a lot too. Then a lot more time passed and I got a Pixel 5a, but it was just a summer fling and I got the next iPhone that fall. Played with some other Android phones that belonged to friends, had a couple hand-me-downs, and bought a few just to play with before the return window closed. I always came back to iPhone and I still might, but I am enjoying my S23 so much right now that I needed to share my thoughts.
Outside of my phone, I use Windows at work and Windows at home for gaming. I have a 12.9" iPad Pro M1 for tinkering in front of the TV and an older iPad Air upstairs for reading comics and listening to podcasts in bed. I have used MacOS off and on for years, but it never clicked for me. For apps, I try to pick products from developers that are cross-platform and services that are web-based and platform independent. I don't have a lot of loyalty to Apple. On my iPhone, I did not use Apple's Mail, Calendar, Calculator, Weather, etc. apps. Almost every app on my phone was a 3rd party, making switching to Android pretty easy. This might not be the case for you, so don't take this as advice on how great the bright green grass is over here. I like it, but you might not.
So here’s my thoughts on the S23 vs iPhone 13 mini and Android 13 vs iOS 16. This is all just my opinion about two phones. You might not agree with me, but I am not asking you to prove me wrong. I am open to feedback though. If you see something important I missed on Android or iOS, let me know and I will try to weigh in with some more thoughts.
Hardware
The iPhone mini is one of the narrowest phones you can get. If you primarily use you phone with one hand and need to reach everything on the screen, this is the perfect form factor. Unfortunately, it’s also a dead end since Apple has no plans on making mini phones anymore. There is still hope that the next SE will keep a small form factor, but rumors don’t agree and last I heard it was going to be XR size, so not very small. We will have to wait and see. A naked mini is just 5 oz, and it doesn’t really need a case since you will always have a good grip on it unlike a big phablet.
The S23 is a bit wider, being about the same size and weight as an iPhone 13/14. It’s also one ounce heavier than the mini. Not a big difference, but it is manageable with one hand. This is getting in the range of where I might want a case, so that is another ounce or so for that. The S23+ and Ultra are definitely two-handed phones and I would not use one without a case.
Battery life on the S23 is incredible. I was worried at first because it is the smaller one and people complained a lot about the S22 battery, but there are no issues with the S23. I get 7 to 8 hours of screen time a day in a mix of cellular and wifi using a mix of GPS navigation, bluetooth audio streaming, internet browsing, and YouTube. I don't play games and I don't load up all my streaming services on my phone, so I am a lightish user. Still, the iPhone 13 mini averaged 3-4 hours screen time, so this is a big improvement. I did make a few changes to maximize the battery that I would recommend to anyone with battery anxiety: turn off RAM Plus, turn off Smart Lock, turn off Always On Display, turn off 5G, set performance mode to light (it's still plenty fast), and turn motion smoothness to standard (60 hz). I already had 5G off on my mini and it only has a 60 hz screen, so it wasn't even a change for me.
I am not going to do a full camera review, as I don’t use my camera for much. I manage a retail store, so most of my camera shots are UPCs for missing price tags or things I need to reorder. A few shots of damaged things that I should get fixed or replaced. Nothing that important. It’s just a way for me to take notes. The one thing I will mention is that the iPhone 13 mini does a horrible job on getting UPC codes in focus unless you back the phone way up and then you need to pinch and zoom to be able to read it, but the S23 does a great job at the close-up photos. The S23 takes good photos in other situations too, but I just don’t use it enough to compare the two.
Security
Now let’s talk about biometrics. My iPhone will unlock successfully most of the time with FaceID. It doesn’t matter if I am wearing sunglasses or a hat. It doesn’t care if I have grown my beard out or just shaved. The only time I have issues is when I am holding the phone too far from my face. I have great vision and just have a habit of holding the phone too far away. My fault, not Apple’s.
The gripe I have with FaceID is the animation. It’s a solid second and it adds up fast. (I feel it was even slower on the dynamic island animation, but I have not timed it.) Tons of apps use FaceID and lots of websites need FaceID to let me use Bitwarden, my password manager. The little FaceID animation is something I see at least 30 times a day. It is always accurate, but it starts to get annoying and make the phone feel slower when you are seeing that animation ALL THE TIME.
However, on my S23, the fingerprint unlock has its own issues. Ultrasonic fingerprint is supposed to be faster than in-display, and the unlock is fast when it happens. It just doesn’t always happen when I expect it to. The screen is supposed to wake when I lift up the phone, but that is not consistent. So I put my finger where the fingerprint is supposed to go instead of double-tap to wake and then seek the sensor sweet spot. This usually works, but sometimes my finger is off center. I could use always-on display so I know where the fingerprint sensor is, but there is a battery impact. Muscle memory has improved this over the past couple weeks, so only getting occasional failures.
There is also face unlock on my S23, but don’t confuse this with the IR-magic that is FaceID because it only works when I am at work with bright white LED lighting everywhere. At home, a dim warm corner lamp just causes my S23 to fail constantly. Just not enough light in most of my rooms. This feature is practically useless for me and I just turn it off.
But if you don’t like biometric unlocks, don’t forget the S23 has Smart Lock too. You can put in an address or two and make sure your phone is always unlocked at those locations. This does mean a battery impact for some constant GPS activity, I’m sure, so I have only played with it briefly. It’s nice to have the option, but might not be for me.
So Android has a lot more options. None of them are an Apple-level of JUST WORKS, but you are more likely to find something that fits your needs if you play around with all the choices.
Biometrics in apps on Android is a bit of a mixed bag. Chase on Android has a fingerprint button next to the password box. Tap that and it prompts for a fingerprint on the sensor area, making you lift and place slightly lower and to the left of where you just were. Wells Fargo, however, just prompts for my fingerprint when I open the app. What you experience just depends on developer implementation, so your experience might differ from mine.
Now here’s something you will notice when you flip-flop between these OSes. Due to developer restrictions, I gather, 1Password, Enpass, Bitwarden, etc. operate differently on iOS that their counterparts on other operating systems. On Android, I can set Bitwarden to never lock. Those options just aren’t there on password managers for iOS and I assume that is an Apple restriction. Password managers on iOS will always trigger a FaceID check. I already complained about the constant FaceID animations on my iPhone, but that problem doesn’t happen on an unlocked Android phone. If I am already unlocking my phone, then I do not want Bitwarden to authenticate me ever again. And it works. No more animations or PIN requests. No more asking questions. Furthermore, Firefox on Android allows add-ons and the Bitwarden add-on supports autofill. This means as soon as you visit a website that requires a login, the form is filled and just waiting for you to submit it.
Notifications
Okta is an app I need daily to check my work email, approve timecards, access things off our intranet, etc. I go to the site I want (e.g. outlook.office.com) and sign in with my work account. Then Okta gives me a notification asking me to confirm it was me, so I tap on the notification to go to the Okta app, confirm the activity, and then swipe back to Safari. On Android, the notification is interactive. It asks if it was me, I click yes from the notification, and I never leave my web browser. This feature alone is a game-changer for my day.
Internet
Safari with a decent ad-blocker is a great internet experience. Most sites work. AdGuard can make some pages render incorrectly, but can be turned off with a refresh. Some infinitely scrolling pages just die on Safari, but not a frequent problem. Overall, I am very happy with my internet browsing experience on iOS.
On Android, there’s a lot of choice. I am used to a bottom navigation bar like Safari switched to in iOS 15, so my main choices on Android are Vivaldi, Firefox, and Samsung Internet. For a Bitwarden user, Samsung Internet and Vivaldi will both show login info in the keyboard (Gboard) and I can tap to fill. The issue is that it frequently says my vault is locked when I have already told Bitwarden to never lock. Not sure I this is an issue with other password managers or just mine. But, as I mentioned in my Biometrics section, Firefox works best with Bitwarden due to its add-on support. And uBlock origin on Firefox is better than any other adblocker. That said, Firefox has issues. It is constantly opening new tabs instead of just going to the link in the current window. You can set them to auto-close, but my neat freak brain makes me want to close them all the time. You can put shortcuts on your browser homepage like Safari, but there is no way to rearrange them, so I ended up having to delete and re-add several to get it to look the way I liked. Also, you can change Firefox’s wallpaper just like Safari, but you can’t choose your own, so I can’t get an AMOLED black the way I like, just the blue gray dark one Firefox provides. So it’s a good browser with a lot of power, but a few caveats.
Calendar and Mail
Weird that Google Calendar and Gmail apps on iOS are better than Android, but it’s true. Google recently revamped settings on Gmail for iOS and it is clean and easy to find things. Android still has the pre-2022 Gmail settings. Not bad, but it is behind. Google Calendar is the big disappointment on Android for me. Ever since Material You started with Android 12, dark mode on Google Calendar is an eyesore. The pastel events with the black text changed to bright neon colors with white text. You can play with the colors and find a few that do black text still (e.g. wisteria and banana), but most are painful to read. The Google Calendar web experience allows you to specify classic colors, giving me the same black text that iOS does, but the Android app does not respect that preference. After trying a few 3rd party calendar apps, I settled on Digical. It offers a high contrast option that makes it far more legible.
RSS
For RSS, I am an Inoreader user. On iOS, I like Reeder because I can get the full text view without the extra swipe that Inoreader’s own app needs. On Android, I tried Pluma first since it was a pay once for lifetime access. But Pluma had a weird behavior with starring articles, where if I removed the star on Inoreader web, it stayed starred in Pluma. I would also get errors when I tried to refresh my feeds while it was already doing a background refresh. It would recover but you had to wait and refresh again. So I switched to FocusReader, which is very nice but is an annual subscription instead of a pay once app. It’s not a lot of money, so I don’t mind, but might check out other services in a year to see what has changed. Android has a TON of abandoned RSS apps and there are always new ones popping up. Neither of the two apps I have used are as pretty as Reeder, but they both work for my needs.
Podcasts
For podcasts, I never liked Overcast’s layout and was already a lifetime pro Pocket Casts user, so I just stayed with Pocket Casts on Android. It looks the same, syncs with my iPad and the web, and gives me zero headaches. 538 days of listening since July 2016 according to my stats page.
Weather
I miss Dark Sky on iOS. The iOS weather app is great, but it is too colorful and I just want a simple look. Today Weather on Android is awesome. All the data and I can turn off the pictures and radar and just get white text on a black background. It’s a basic look I love but with a ton of info. Great app.
Launcher
Springboard on iOS is old and kind of ugly. Some people complain that you can’t leave blank spaces or put apps where you like them, but my arguments are more about function than the cosmetics of the launcher. Since iOS 14’s first beta, I have been submitting feedback tickets on each and every beta through 16.3 to let them know that App Library is the worst layout ever. (Of course, the feedback is ignored, but I persevere.) App Library is just not organized well and it does not let you pick categories or move apps to the correct category when they are sorted poorly. In fact, they can change their folders sometimes on their own when you add or remove apps, as I once didn’t have an Entertainment folder, but once I hit a certain threshold of apps, they moved from Other into a new folder. I have so many Bluetooth accessories with their own apps, but some are under Utilities, some under Entertainment, and some under Health & Fitness. App Library can confuse further by putting an app in multiple places (e.g. Suggestions or Recently Added, in addition to their regular folder). It’s a real mess. So with the functionality of this feature being almost useless, I just swipe down for an alphabetical list every single time. So why is alpha-sort not the default view or a setting to toggle to make it my default?
Another issue with Springboard is you can’t rename apps or hide apps. I have a Soundcore Wakey alarm clock. I use the app twice a year to sync up daylight savings adjustments. I could uninstall the app until the next time I need it, but I would just prefer to hide it so I can only see it when I search for it by name. I also have Reeder on iOS, but hate the name Reeder. Why can’t it say RSS or Feeds? Let me nickname the apps.
Android has a ton of options and each launcher can be customized a lot. I have not used OneUI much, but Good Lock provides a lot of options to make it look the way you want and it fixes both of my complaints with Springboard. However, my love of small phones steered me towards a launcher that would be easy to use one-handed, so Niagra is my Android launcher of choice. It’s lean but clean. Pin a few favorites to the home screen and you can drag your thumb across the edge to get an alpha-sort of everything or swipe up from the bottom to search. It’s very minimal, so might not recommend it for people with tons of apps, but I can find everything quickly and easily.
Niagra’s homepage supports a few widgets. It can show time, weather, next calendar appointment, and a Now Playing screen. Just like notifications, these widgets are far more interactive than iOS widgets. For instance, you can tap on your calendar to see your entire agenda without launching a calendar app.
Niagra also allows you to rename apps and hide apps. Digical suggests you keep Google Calendar installed to fix potential sync issues and I also have Samsung Calendar that I can’t uninstall without a package disabler that might break something. But I can hide them both and the only calendar is Digical. And if I don’t like that name, I can rename it Calendar. Renamed Gmail to Mail, Pocket Casts to Podcasts, and Firefox to Internet. I make my phone bend to my will, not the other way around. That’s the beauty of Android launchers.
Automotive Experience
My car supports CarPlay and Android Auto wirelessly, so I have had a lot of experience with both.
CarPlay is pretty basic, but works well. App layout is forced alphabetical and no option to remove apps, so the screen is crowded with some apps I would never use.
Android Auto is wonderful though. It provides split-screen navigation with media playback and your most recent text all on the same screen. It switches between apps smoothly, allows you to customize the order of apps on the homescreen or remove some entirely, and is quite a bit snappier than CarPlay.
Interestingly, Siri is faster than Google. This probably has to do with more of the data being processed on device. My daily drive is through residential neighborhoods with tall trees and my signal strength can be a bit weak when moving, but always fine at red lights. Siri can just do more with an intermittent internet connection than Google. Google is a far better assistant however, so your mileage may vary (pun intended).
I have used almost every iPhone since the 4 (I think I skipped 11, but I upgrade almost every year). Most recently I downgraded from an iPhone 14 Pro to go back to my iPhone 13 mini because I like small phones. The iPhone 13 mini was mostly perfect for me, but the battery wasn’t lasting all day and the camera wasn’t very good. And Android is always playing with new sizes and form factors, so why not try something new? So I played with the Zenfone 9 for a couple months, debated trying an Xperia 5, and eventually settled on an S23 (the base 6.1” model).
I have dabbled in Android before, but the longest I have ever used one Android phone has been about 9 months. I even worked at Verizon Wireless for three years and was constantly being given free phones, but I always kept going back to an iPhone. Before my going full-time into iPhone, my favorite phones were a Droid 2, Droid X, and Galaxy Nexus. Then a lot of time in the iPhone world passed and I eventually got a Galaxy S8. Liked that phone a lot too. Then a lot more time passed and I got a Pixel 5a, but it was just a summer fling and I got the next iPhone that fall. Played with some other Android phones that belonged to friends, had a couple hand-me-downs, and bought a few just to play with before the return window closed. I always came back to iPhone and I still might, but I am enjoying my S23 so much right now that I needed to share my thoughts.
Outside of my phone, I use Windows at work and Windows at home for gaming. I have a 12.9" iPad Pro M1 for tinkering in front of the TV and an older iPad Air upstairs for reading comics and listening to podcasts in bed. I have used MacOS off and on for years, but it never clicked for me. For apps, I try to pick products from developers that are cross-platform and services that are web-based and platform independent. I don't have a lot of loyalty to Apple. On my iPhone, I did not use Apple's Mail, Calendar, Calculator, Weather, etc. apps. Almost every app on my phone was a 3rd party, making switching to Android pretty easy. This might not be the case for you, so don't take this as advice on how great the bright green grass is over here. I like it, but you might not.
So here’s my thoughts on the S23 vs iPhone 13 mini and Android 13 vs iOS 16. This is all just my opinion about two phones. You might not agree with me, but I am not asking you to prove me wrong. I am open to feedback though. If you see something important I missed on Android or iOS, let me know and I will try to weigh in with some more thoughts.
Hardware
The iPhone mini is one of the narrowest phones you can get. If you primarily use you phone with one hand and need to reach everything on the screen, this is the perfect form factor. Unfortunately, it’s also a dead end since Apple has no plans on making mini phones anymore. There is still hope that the next SE will keep a small form factor, but rumors don’t agree and last I heard it was going to be XR size, so not very small. We will have to wait and see. A naked mini is just 5 oz, and it doesn’t really need a case since you will always have a good grip on it unlike a big phablet.
The S23 is a bit wider, being about the same size and weight as an iPhone 13/14. It’s also one ounce heavier than the mini. Not a big difference, but it is manageable with one hand. This is getting in the range of where I might want a case, so that is another ounce or so for that. The S23+ and Ultra are definitely two-handed phones and I would not use one without a case.
Battery life on the S23 is incredible. I was worried at first because it is the smaller one and people complained a lot about the S22 battery, but there are no issues with the S23. I get 7 to 8 hours of screen time a day in a mix of cellular and wifi using a mix of GPS navigation, bluetooth audio streaming, internet browsing, and YouTube. I don't play games and I don't load up all my streaming services on my phone, so I am a lightish user. Still, the iPhone 13 mini averaged 3-4 hours screen time, so this is a big improvement. I did make a few changes to maximize the battery that I would recommend to anyone with battery anxiety: turn off RAM Plus, turn off Smart Lock, turn off Always On Display, turn off 5G, set performance mode to light (it's still plenty fast), and turn motion smoothness to standard (60 hz). I already had 5G off on my mini and it only has a 60 hz screen, so it wasn't even a change for me.
I am not going to do a full camera review, as I don’t use my camera for much. I manage a retail store, so most of my camera shots are UPCs for missing price tags or things I need to reorder. A few shots of damaged things that I should get fixed or replaced. Nothing that important. It’s just a way for me to take notes. The one thing I will mention is that the iPhone 13 mini does a horrible job on getting UPC codes in focus unless you back the phone way up and then you need to pinch and zoom to be able to read it, but the S23 does a great job at the close-up photos. The S23 takes good photos in other situations too, but I just don’t use it enough to compare the two.
Security
Now let’s talk about biometrics. My iPhone will unlock successfully most of the time with FaceID. It doesn’t matter if I am wearing sunglasses or a hat. It doesn’t care if I have grown my beard out or just shaved. The only time I have issues is when I am holding the phone too far from my face. I have great vision and just have a habit of holding the phone too far away. My fault, not Apple’s.
The gripe I have with FaceID is the animation. It’s a solid second and it adds up fast. (I feel it was even slower on the dynamic island animation, but I have not timed it.) Tons of apps use FaceID and lots of websites need FaceID to let me use Bitwarden, my password manager. The little FaceID animation is something I see at least 30 times a day. It is always accurate, but it starts to get annoying and make the phone feel slower when you are seeing that animation ALL THE TIME.
However, on my S23, the fingerprint unlock has its own issues. Ultrasonic fingerprint is supposed to be faster than in-display, and the unlock is fast when it happens. It just doesn’t always happen when I expect it to. The screen is supposed to wake when I lift up the phone, but that is not consistent. So I put my finger where the fingerprint is supposed to go instead of double-tap to wake and then seek the sensor sweet spot. This usually works, but sometimes my finger is off center. I could use always-on display so I know where the fingerprint sensor is, but there is a battery impact. Muscle memory has improved this over the past couple weeks, so only getting occasional failures.
There is also face unlock on my S23, but don’t confuse this with the IR-magic that is FaceID because it only works when I am at work with bright white LED lighting everywhere. At home, a dim warm corner lamp just causes my S23 to fail constantly. Just not enough light in most of my rooms. This feature is practically useless for me and I just turn it off.
But if you don’t like biometric unlocks, don’t forget the S23 has Smart Lock too. You can put in an address or two and make sure your phone is always unlocked at those locations. This does mean a battery impact for some constant GPS activity, I’m sure, so I have only played with it briefly. It’s nice to have the option, but might not be for me.
So Android has a lot more options. None of them are an Apple-level of JUST WORKS, but you are more likely to find something that fits your needs if you play around with all the choices.
Biometrics in apps on Android is a bit of a mixed bag. Chase on Android has a fingerprint button next to the password box. Tap that and it prompts for a fingerprint on the sensor area, making you lift and place slightly lower and to the left of where you just were. Wells Fargo, however, just prompts for my fingerprint when I open the app. What you experience just depends on developer implementation, so your experience might differ from mine.
Now here’s something you will notice when you flip-flop between these OSes. Due to developer restrictions, I gather, 1Password, Enpass, Bitwarden, etc. operate differently on iOS that their counterparts on other operating systems. On Android, I can set Bitwarden to never lock. Those options just aren’t there on password managers for iOS and I assume that is an Apple restriction. Password managers on iOS will always trigger a FaceID check. I already complained about the constant FaceID animations on my iPhone, but that problem doesn’t happen on an unlocked Android phone. If I am already unlocking my phone, then I do not want Bitwarden to authenticate me ever again. And it works. No more animations or PIN requests. No more asking questions. Furthermore, Firefox on Android allows add-ons and the Bitwarden add-on supports autofill. This means as soon as you visit a website that requires a login, the form is filled and just waiting for you to submit it.
Notifications
Okta is an app I need daily to check my work email, approve timecards, access things off our intranet, etc. I go to the site I want (e.g. outlook.office.com) and sign in with my work account. Then Okta gives me a notification asking me to confirm it was me, so I tap on the notification to go to the Okta app, confirm the activity, and then swipe back to Safari. On Android, the notification is interactive. It asks if it was me, I click yes from the notification, and I never leave my web browser. This feature alone is a game-changer for my day.
Internet
Safari with a decent ad-blocker is a great internet experience. Most sites work. AdGuard can make some pages render incorrectly, but can be turned off with a refresh. Some infinitely scrolling pages just die on Safari, but not a frequent problem. Overall, I am very happy with my internet browsing experience on iOS.
On Android, there’s a lot of choice. I am used to a bottom navigation bar like Safari switched to in iOS 15, so my main choices on Android are Vivaldi, Firefox, and Samsung Internet. For a Bitwarden user, Samsung Internet and Vivaldi will both show login info in the keyboard (Gboard) and I can tap to fill. The issue is that it frequently says my vault is locked when I have already told Bitwarden to never lock. Not sure I this is an issue with other password managers or just mine. But, as I mentioned in my Biometrics section, Firefox works best with Bitwarden due to its add-on support. And uBlock origin on Firefox is better than any other adblocker. That said, Firefox has issues. It is constantly opening new tabs instead of just going to the link in the current window. You can set them to auto-close, but my neat freak brain makes me want to close them all the time. You can put shortcuts on your browser homepage like Safari, but there is no way to rearrange them, so I ended up having to delete and re-add several to get it to look the way I liked. Also, you can change Firefox’s wallpaper just like Safari, but you can’t choose your own, so I can’t get an AMOLED black the way I like, just the blue gray dark one Firefox provides. So it’s a good browser with a lot of power, but a few caveats.
Calendar and Mail
Weird that Google Calendar and Gmail apps on iOS are better than Android, but it’s true. Google recently revamped settings on Gmail for iOS and it is clean and easy to find things. Android still has the pre-2022 Gmail settings. Not bad, but it is behind. Google Calendar is the big disappointment on Android for me. Ever since Material You started with Android 12, dark mode on Google Calendar is an eyesore. The pastel events with the black text changed to bright neon colors with white text. You can play with the colors and find a few that do black text still (e.g. wisteria and banana), but most are painful to read. The Google Calendar web experience allows you to specify classic colors, giving me the same black text that iOS does, but the Android app does not respect that preference. After trying a few 3rd party calendar apps, I settled on Digical. It offers a high contrast option that makes it far more legible.
RSS
For RSS, I am an Inoreader user. On iOS, I like Reeder because I can get the full text view without the extra swipe that Inoreader’s own app needs. On Android, I tried Pluma first since it was a pay once for lifetime access. But Pluma had a weird behavior with starring articles, where if I removed the star on Inoreader web, it stayed starred in Pluma. I would also get errors when I tried to refresh my feeds while it was already doing a background refresh. It would recover but you had to wait and refresh again. So I switched to FocusReader, which is very nice but is an annual subscription instead of a pay once app. It’s not a lot of money, so I don’t mind, but might check out other services in a year to see what has changed. Android has a TON of abandoned RSS apps and there are always new ones popping up. Neither of the two apps I have used are as pretty as Reeder, but they both work for my needs.
Podcasts
For podcasts, I never liked Overcast’s layout and was already a lifetime pro Pocket Casts user, so I just stayed with Pocket Casts on Android. It looks the same, syncs with my iPad and the web, and gives me zero headaches. 538 days of listening since July 2016 according to my stats page.
Weather
I miss Dark Sky on iOS. The iOS weather app is great, but it is too colorful and I just want a simple look. Today Weather on Android is awesome. All the data and I can turn off the pictures and radar and just get white text on a black background. It’s a basic look I love but with a ton of info. Great app.
Launcher
Springboard on iOS is old and kind of ugly. Some people complain that you can’t leave blank spaces or put apps where you like them, but my arguments are more about function than the cosmetics of the launcher. Since iOS 14’s first beta, I have been submitting feedback tickets on each and every beta through 16.3 to let them know that App Library is the worst layout ever. (Of course, the feedback is ignored, but I persevere.) App Library is just not organized well and it does not let you pick categories or move apps to the correct category when they are sorted poorly. In fact, they can change their folders sometimes on their own when you add or remove apps, as I once didn’t have an Entertainment folder, but once I hit a certain threshold of apps, they moved from Other into a new folder. I have so many Bluetooth accessories with their own apps, but some are under Utilities, some under Entertainment, and some under Health & Fitness. App Library can confuse further by putting an app in multiple places (e.g. Suggestions or Recently Added, in addition to their regular folder). It’s a real mess. So with the functionality of this feature being almost useless, I just swipe down for an alphabetical list every single time. So why is alpha-sort not the default view or a setting to toggle to make it my default?
Another issue with Springboard is you can’t rename apps or hide apps. I have a Soundcore Wakey alarm clock. I use the app twice a year to sync up daylight savings adjustments. I could uninstall the app until the next time I need it, but I would just prefer to hide it so I can only see it when I search for it by name. I also have Reeder on iOS, but hate the name Reeder. Why can’t it say RSS or Feeds? Let me nickname the apps.
Android has a ton of options and each launcher can be customized a lot. I have not used OneUI much, but Good Lock provides a lot of options to make it look the way you want and it fixes both of my complaints with Springboard. However, my love of small phones steered me towards a launcher that would be easy to use one-handed, so Niagra is my Android launcher of choice. It’s lean but clean. Pin a few favorites to the home screen and you can drag your thumb across the edge to get an alpha-sort of everything or swipe up from the bottom to search. It’s very minimal, so might not recommend it for people with tons of apps, but I can find everything quickly and easily.
Niagra’s homepage supports a few widgets. It can show time, weather, next calendar appointment, and a Now Playing screen. Just like notifications, these widgets are far more interactive than iOS widgets. For instance, you can tap on your calendar to see your entire agenda without launching a calendar app.
Niagra also allows you to rename apps and hide apps. Digical suggests you keep Google Calendar installed to fix potential sync issues and I also have Samsung Calendar that I can’t uninstall without a package disabler that might break something. But I can hide them both and the only calendar is Digical. And if I don’t like that name, I can rename it Calendar. Renamed Gmail to Mail, Pocket Casts to Podcasts, and Firefox to Internet. I make my phone bend to my will, not the other way around. That’s the beauty of Android launchers.
Automotive Experience
My car supports CarPlay and Android Auto wirelessly, so I have had a lot of experience with both.
CarPlay is pretty basic, but works well. App layout is forced alphabetical and no option to remove apps, so the screen is crowded with some apps I would never use.
Android Auto is wonderful though. It provides split-screen navigation with media playback and your most recent text all on the same screen. It switches between apps smoothly, allows you to customize the order of apps on the homescreen or remove some entirely, and is quite a bit snappier than CarPlay.
Interestingly, Siri is faster than Google. This probably has to do with more of the data being processed on device. My daily drive is through residential neighborhoods with tall trees and my signal strength can be a bit weak when moving, but always fine at red lights. Siri can just do more with an intermittent internet connection than Google. Google is a far better assistant however, so your mileage may vary (pun intended).
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