Hey guys, I'm about to go back to the iPhone after being on Android since July of 2012.
One of my main reasons is Optimization, or should I say lack thereof on Android, especially on Samsung devices.
Don't get me wrong, I'm already missing some Android features in principal alone, however, I have a lot going on in my personal life and just want a phone that is going to get the job done. I'd be lying, if I didn't say that iOS 7 tempted me as well.
My question I guess, is how many otherwise happy Android users are tired of Androids lack of optimization with the hardware they're using. Or better still, sites that aren't optimized for any other mobile browser, than Safari!?
I'm genuinely asking, as a recent convert, how many current android users feel similar!?
Apologize for the long post--didn't start out with intention of it being this long but I got on a roll. Please feel free to skip right past. 
I used iOS exclusively until last sumer when I picked up a Galaxy Nexus. Since then, I used an iPhone only for about a month, relying instead on Android, first on the GNex, followed by a Nexus 4, Galaxy Note II, and finally a HTC One (my phone for the last 6 months). There's much about Android I prefer--the ability to customize nearly the entire experience as you'd see fit (change themes, alter the lockscreen, add gestures to control the device), the flexibility (changing default apps, the intent systems allowing you to share content with nearly any other applicable app), its use by a variety of OEMs that subsequently affords one the ability to find the piece of hardware that fits their specific needs (build materials, display size, expandable memory or replaceable battery if you'd prefer, capacitive or on screen buttons, etc), the back button.
Yet after saying all that, I've decided to once again go back to the iPhone (at least for 30 days
) for 2 reasons; integration with my Apple heavy household and nearly iOS/Apple exclusive family & friends and for the reliability I nearly always find using iOS.
I don't do much 'heavy lifting' with my phone. Its use is generally limited to calls, messaging, music and internet radio, light photography (mostly of my family) and some other app use. I've tweaked my Android devices to be able to do any number of cool things--i.e. I set up my HTC One so that I could use it almost exclusively with gestures. I've rearranged home screens, tried any number of widgets, changed themes, rooted my devices, flashed custom ROMs, etc. Being able to do all of this is great and pretty liberating after using iOS for so many years. But you know what else I've discovered? I don't need to do pretty much any of it to meet my phone needs. And you know what else? I'm finding lots of little aspects of Android that on there own don't mean much but put them together and it's much more bothersome. Some examples:
- My bluetooth connectivity is rather unreliable. I'm in my car a lot and use bluetooth to listen to music/radio and to obviously take/make calls. I find that I have to turn BT off and on at least once a day to re-establish the connection with my car after it's mysteriously lost. Sometimes after I do this, the media plays back at various speeds, going twice as fast, then stopping and studdering only to playback at high speed again. When this happens, only recourse is to shut off my car and restart, allowing it to reconnect again. Also, if I start a call on my phone while connected to bluetooth, sometimes it routes the call through my car via BT, sometimes it doesn't and now the caller likely thinks I'm an idiot (if I'm calling my wife, that's a given
) because I claiming I can't hear them. This behavior has occurred to varying degrees with all Android devices I've owned. Similar behavior on iOS? Can count the number of times over the years on one hand.
- Playback of music or radio is inconsistent. For example, I'm listening to ESPN Radio via TuneIn. I shut my car off, later return and start it up and TuneIn restarts on the station I left, as I specified it should in Settings. Although sometimes it doesn't and instead starts playing random songs from the native Music app on my Android phone. The problem is that I listen to music through Google Play Music. And the same thing will occur with Google Play Music. I try to disable the Music app but can't because it's grayed out by the OEM (HTC in this case) and I'd have to root my phone. Don't want to do that.
- Messaging. I like the stock message app in Android. Except that functionality is terribly limited, specifically in my case to MMS. Using the stock messaging app, I can only send photos no larger than 300K. So of course I have to opt for a third party app--I've chosen Textra and I like it, especially since I can designate the max filesize for MMS. Yet I still have see irregular behavior when trying to send photos--sometimes they go through, other times they don't and I have to bump down the limit. Never had to deal with any of this nonsense on iOS, plus I can use iMessage which my iOS heavy list of contacts (realize that benefit is specific to me).
- Power management. I don't like to micromanage my battery life--pretty much a set it and forget it (leave Wifi, BT, GPS on all the time). I heard battery life horror stories from past versions of Android and regarding specific handsets, experienced it to an extend first-hand with the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4 but the latest Android offering acquit themselves quite well (though often because of enormous battery capacities). Except when they don't. All of a sudden a couple of weeks ago, my battery life spiraled downward on my One, so I installed a monitoring app and it appeared some aspect of the OS was causing greater drain than usual. I don't want to have to manage individual apps, wasn't sure what specifically was causing it so I decided to do a reset. Seems to have corrected the issue, but restoring from backup on Android is a mixed bag--tried it twice, once using HTC's backup solution and another time using Google's and neither resulted in a full restore. I'd get my wifi passwords saved in one, not in the other while my bluetooth connections were maintain in one and not in another. App data was a complete mixed bag. So I had to spend far more time than I should have setting everything back up. Needless to say, double frustration--first with the battery issues and then with the incomplete restore from backup.
These are just some recent examples that come to mind. I also miss having a good camera in my phone, the ability to quickly AirPlay it on one of our Apple TV to share something with the family, the ability to message my kids on their iDevices or quickly and easily have a video chat via FaceTime when we travel, being able to quickly set up a photostream to share with my family and friends across the country. I know there are other ways to do all of this but nothing is as simple when everyone is using iOS/Apple. Now I'm not trying to give the impression that I'm constantly having huge problems--95% of the time things work great. What I'm finding now is that it's that 5% that's really having an impact.
And please guys/gals, don't come back at me with replies telling me what I'm doing wrong, or apps I should use instead, or how I should root my device so I can remove certain apps/functionality, etc. I perfectly understand that this all pertains to my own personal experience and needs on a phone. This is not meant to be a critical diatribe against Android and why iOS is better, because that's not my intention. As I said, I find Android to be far more capable in many ways to iOS. It's just that I'm finding for my needs, the advantages of Android are mostly lost on me, yet the problems I'm experiencing are having a wearing impact.
I use a lot of Apple gear, have for years and my needs/uses/habits have likely developed around how the Apple ecosystem works. Maybe I'm just stuck in my ways, who knows. I really like quite a lot about Android and the devices available to me that run it. I like the flexibility and customization. I like the variety of hardware and the larger displays. What I've come to realize is that while I like it, I don't need it, at least in my phone (I'm really liking my Android tablet experience). And over the past year of using Android and everything I've learned about it, I think it's just easier for me to use an iPhone to meet my specific needs and find myself gravitating back to the it, as
inferior as it may be.
Needless to say, I'm going to give iOS and the iPhone another crack. Who knows, maybe after a few weeks I'll have the same feelings about what I'm missing on Android. I am certain that I will at least miss the back button.
