I'm a platform agnostic guy, too. I think both Android and iOS really have some huge plusses and minuses that makes neither one perfect. I'm currently struggling as to which platform I'd like to make my home. I'm using an iPhone X right now, but as I stated in another thread, I'm in a love/hate relationship with it. I really want to test out the Pixel 2 and see if this is something that could bring me back to Android full time. But something always gives me cold feet when I try to leave Apple anymore.
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Mobile OSs The iOS/Android "Band of Misfits" General Discussion Thread
- Thread starter AustinIllini
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I go through phases for sure. I haven't been more excited by a phone than I was after the Pixel 2 announcement. Heck, I ordered it during the keynote. After all the hardware issues I had, I returned it for a replacement model and put it back up for sale. Now I'm on the X and I love it.
I am quite green! That for me would be so cool, iPhone upgrade path, Samsung upgrade path and Pixel upgrade path. So many phones, so few active sims.Be even more jealous: I still have a Note 8 as well that I keep telling myself I'm going to sell any day now.
I had the same experience with the X. I wasn't expecting to love it like crazy, and yet here I am. What sold me is Face ID and the new gesture system. Face ID is so good it's ridiculous. The gestures make moving around a pretty fluid OS even faster. And...they're...fun? Like, I enjoy apps jumping back into their row when you dismiss them with a swipe up. I don't understand why tech bloggers kept saying the app switcher took some getting used to. It was pretty easy for me from day one and now I can't imagine having to click any button to get where I need to go.
Pixel XL 2 is Android heaven for me. Android that runs like old school iOS. It's fast, fluid, and "cute". And I'm someone that returned a device for burn in or ghosting or whatever that thing is. That's how much I love this phone, I wouldn't give up on it.
I really wasn’t planning on upgrading on iOS this year. I have been VERY impressed with my 7 Plus. It’s those darned camera upgrades that get me every time. Not that I up and decided to get the X. It’s a Christmas present from a very loving and generous husband. But I had to express the interest in it and I couldn’t help admire the X seeing it in action.
I didn’t think phone camera output could get any better than what my 7 Plus was outputting, but then my husband and I did a competition of low light photography in a restaurant and I could not get the pictures on my Samsung or my iPhone that he got with the X.
When we tried a similar competition in the restaurant with our Pixel 2’s we couldn’t get good results under similar lighting, so I’m going to guess if I still had my Pixel 2, this is one area in which my X can beat the Pixel 2’s rear facing camera in low light. However, the immediate result of every X picture taken under these circumstances is not good, so you’re not going to see the results I’m talking about in the usual online shootouts between phones. But one simple step in editing in the camera app makes the low light photos shine on the X. I suppose the edit trick would also work on the Pixel photos, but our particular cameras were both producing heavy yellow skin tones that would require additional processing to correct. So it would likely be a multi step editing process to get comparable results.
That’s just an observation not a criticism.
As for Samsung, every iteration of Samsung’s Software experience gets better. So I’m interested in seeing what they do next. But right now they can’t match the smoothness I experienced with the Pixel 2. Not quite. I do battle some lag and hiccups on my S8+.
Sometimes I wish I had tried the Note 8 but I just wasn’t feeling it this year. Not after shelling out for the S8+ and getting the wonky pink display. I had to go off and sulk, lol. The funny thing is I have all these twitchy little complaints but I use the heck out of this phone. I’m nuts.
Next year’s Android competition is going to be so fierce. LG and Samsung really brought it this year. Even HTC had some tricks up its sleeve. Pixels show some incredible promise. I’m looking forward to the 2018 flagship showdowns!
I do like my iPhone X, don't get me wrong. It's probably the best iPhone ever. However, for what I want to do in a phone, it still leaves something to be desired for me. I just don't get that "this is absolutely worth $500+ more than a comparable Android" phone feeling. It takes great pictures, but they don't look demonstrably better than my 6s Plus or my wife's S8. Portrait is cool, but it failed miserably when I tried to take a selfie with my son that I had to edit away the Portrait and make it a regular picture. I think that's probably my biggest issue - the price. Yes, it's a great phone. But for me, especially not being invested in the Apple ecosystem (thanks Movies Anywhere!!), the price isn't justified. $75 for tax plus $56+ a month and I don't see it being worth that. Too many compromises for me. I want to love it because I feel like I'm "supposed" to love it, but I'm not there. It's probably going back so I can get a little time with the Pixel 2 I just ordered because I get a free Home Mini and $100 credit to the Google Store. If all else fails, they're pretty available these days, so I can get another one in a week's time.
That keynote was amazing though. So much promise! I think they’ll be better prepared to make good on all the promise in the coming year.
Gonna say it now, I'm an iOS guy. I've been on it since the iPhone 3GS (so like 8-9 years) and I'm still on it, but now with the iPhone 8 Plus (my first Plus iPhone). I do love a lot about Apple hardware and software which creates this fabulous ecosystem, but recently I've grown a bit bored with iOS, along with some iOS 11 bugs.
Now, I've used Android here and there, my best experience with a Nexus 6P briefly a few years ago, and I enjoyed it for the most part. I like the things like notification system, customisation options, (especially the live wallpapers), and am thinking about getting an Android as a secondary phone. I'm thinking of getting a discounted flagship, though the trouble I run into is that no one manufacturer nails both the hardware and software imo.
Samsung (thinking of discounted S8) - Great hardware, software is bloated with duplicate apps and poor services (albeit much better than it used to be).
OnePlus (OnePlus 5T) - Decent hardware although bit lacking in camera department, software is apparently lightning fast with frequent updates although some privacy issues.
Huawei (generally) - Solid hardware, slow software.
I imagine the software/launcher on any of these can be changed to the stock one that the Pixel 2 runs?
Now, I've used Android here and there, my best experience with a Nexus 6P briefly a few years ago, and I enjoyed it for the most part. I like the things like notification system, customisation options, (especially the live wallpapers), and am thinking about getting an Android as a secondary phone. I'm thinking of getting a discounted flagship, though the trouble I run into is that no one manufacturer nails both the hardware and software imo.
Samsung (thinking of discounted S8) - Great hardware, software is bloated with duplicate apps and poor services (albeit much better than it used to be).
OnePlus (OnePlus 5T) - Decent hardware although bit lacking in camera department, software is apparently lightning fast with frequent updates although some privacy issues.
Huawei (generally) - Solid hardware, slow software.
I imagine the software/launcher on any of these can be changed to the stock one that the Pixel 2 runs?
We need to be careful here. At the risk of confusing OP, the launcher that runs on Pixel devices is NOT the stock android launcher. The Pixel launcher is a google-specific launcher and as far as I know is only available on Pixel devices.
Thanks for clearing that up, I was unsure about that. Shame it's only for Pixel devices though...
I may pick up a Pixel 2XL (have a Pixel XL at home) if I find one at a good price to snag for a "second phone". I really like Android and iOS is growing stale. But as I get older I find myself caring more about ease of use and things just working seamlessly over how many different ways I can set up a home screen. The Pixel phones come as close to Apple as anyone has gotten, but there are always 1 or 2 nagging issues that kill it for me. Normally they are bigger issues (BT or screen).
Then there's the wearable dilemma. I really like my apple watch, Android wear seams to be something that google has forgotten about much like a lot of things google develops and then drops or lets die.
Then there's the wearable dilemma. I really like my apple watch, Android wear seams to be something that google has forgotten about much like a lot of things google develops and then drops or lets die.
I'll let you decide, of course, but I'll kind of revisit my impressions with Pixel 2 XL
- The blue shift is pretty terrible - bad enough that you need to use Night Life (Android's Night Shift equivalent) once the sun goes down. So you're getting a yellow screen at sundown. Not good. My Night Light setting turned off at 7 AM, so when I woke up the blue screen was incredibly off-putting.
- I started getting burn in. Like bad. I started seeing it on videos, despite having the dimmer buttons from the beta and the November security patch.
- The ambient light sensor went haywire in the dark. It was never the right brightness. Many people don't use auto-brightness, but I always have and it's just not something I wanted to do
I know that's a lot to stack against the device, but it's still by far the best android user experience.
^^That's totally understandable. I feel like Apple tuned the user experience on iOS for the max appeal for the most users, but if you depart or want to use non-Apple solutions, there are a lot of options on Android.
This is Android so it's only officially available on the Pixel but here it is on my unrooted Nexus
So, I think I prefer iOS where they just shove the whole title into the space, but neither is a great solution.
Me too. I would change that to "Finance" or something that fits.
Yeah that's what's preventing me from ordering. The screen is the main interaction with these devices, if the pixel 2 was priced how the Nexus phones used to be you could overlook a few things, but not at $900. My iPhone X is flawless and I wouldn't expect anything less for a $1500 phone.
So FaceID definitely has some limits that I'm still discovering. 90% of the time it is great, but when I wake up in the morning (in the dark) I have to put in the password. Also, some odd angles still need work.
Same for me. Like I wrote on the S8 thread today, I stopped wearing my Huawei Watch in favor of my series 0 Apple Watch, but I seem to be putting off moving my primary SIM back into my iPhone, so currently I'm rocking my S8+ as my daily driver and the iPhone follows along in my backpack with a secondary SIM. Maybe I should take a look at the Gear watches and see if they can more closely match (and hopefully surpass) my Apple Watch experience. Gear S4 maybe once it comes out?
In addition, if I do end up moving my SIM, I think I'd need to upgrade my iPhone as I'm rather spoiled by the S8+ camera and the iPhone 7 (regular size) doesn't quite match it. However, the current iPhones are rather expensive at this side of the Atlantic, so I'd really need to convince myself to spend so much more than I did for the S8+ (got it at a nice discount) just to change one set of advantages and downsides to another. iOS 11 isn't exactly helping Apple here.
Not to diminish Overcast in any way (I agree it's a great app), but have you tried Pocket Casts lately? For me that's my current preference as I use both iOS and Android and not only does it offer a good experience on both, but it syncs between the platforms too.
Great thread.
I am moving toward becoming platform agnostic. This past week has been so ridiculous with iOS 11, that I would be more than glad to give Android another try. I am realizing that every platform has issues, bugs and/or hardware problems. So knowing this and my simplified needs (I do not use the camera or bells and whistles a lot), going forward I will strive to use whatever phone, computer etc. works best for me at a price point that maximizes my value.
The new Honor V10 looks stunning in that deep red (alas, I am not in China or on a GSM.)
I think it's great the folks can avoid becoming too dependent on one single platform and work across many.
I am moving toward becoming platform agnostic. This past week has been so ridiculous with iOS 11, that I would be more than glad to give Android another try. I am realizing that every platform has issues, bugs and/or hardware problems. So knowing this and my simplified needs (I do not use the camera or bells and whistles a lot), going forward I will strive to use whatever phone, computer etc. works best for me at a price point that maximizes my value.
The new Honor V10 looks stunning in that deep red (alas, I am not in China or on a GSM.)
I think it's great the folks can avoid becoming too dependent on one single platform and work across many.
Well, now everyone can get root access to High Sierra, so get excited about that.
I love my mac, but really?
I love my mac, but really?
I’ll second this suggestion. I’ve used both Overcast and Pocket Casts and like Pocket Casts better. It’s a near identical experience on both iOS and Android AND it has cast capability (ie Chromecast) built in on the iOS version. One of my favorite apps.
+1 for pocket casts. Probably my favorite (and I have tried overcast).
[doublepost=1511962470][/doublepost]Also, the root workaround fixes the security issue on Mac.
[doublepost=1511962470][/doublepost]Also, the root workaround fixes the security issue on Mac.
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