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Fatus_Asticus

macrumors 6502
Oct 24, 2021
281
252
I've been an Android user since moving on from an iPhone 3GS, and I'm considering returning to iPhone for a much shorter list: Integration. I've been a Mac user since '06, and enjoy my iPad 7th gen. I had been using Pixels for their superior computational photography, but their lead in that area has now evaporated, in my opinion. So my reasoning for staying with Pixels is pretty much gone. And the integration across all my devices would be nice.

If you are in the Apple ecosystem there doesn't seem to be a better offering when it comes to the phones. I'm not really missing anything from Android at this point. Took me a couple of days to really get settled in and get used to IOS after being on android for so long but reality is the two are 95% the same.

I love being able to share full res stuff with my wife or one of my computers with air drop. I wanted to upload a few receipts that were on my phone the other day for a HRA request and on android I would of had to: Take the scan, probably multiple times because android OCR tends to crop stuff the wrong way, upload them to drive, fire up my windows computer, open chrome, go to drive, download each one individually as they will zip them if you don't, then do what I need.

Instead all I did was scan the document (one time, it worked the first time I was shocked) select the files on my phone, share, selected my Mac and they were there. Easy and quite frankly how it should be.
 

RadioHedgeFund

Cancelled
Sep 11, 2018
422
869
And this is why my next phone will be an iPhone.

Imagine an ideal romantic partner. Now imagine that a caveat for dating them was having to constantly buy them expensive things and that you would have to disown all your friends. Sounds pretty abusive doesn't it?

This is Apple and their customers. Once you're in, you're in. They want to wring you for all you're worth and won't play nice with your other tech (ever pulled your teeth out getting iCloud to run on Windows? You're about to). Very few Apple customers realise the spiral they are locked into.

Apple make great hardware and software (ideal, remember?) and i'm not going to tell you Google or Microsoft are better in some way but at the very least you can download every Google or Microsoft app you need to any phone you like, Apple included and carry on but the same cannot be said of Apple's stuff playing nice with an Android phone or a Windows laptop.

Be warned.
 

gericb

macrumors newbie
Feb 3, 2009
22
10
I got my first smart phone my senior year of high school back in 2009. It was some cheapo Virgin Mobile hunk of junk with a slide out keyboard. And I absolutely loved it. I loved the variety of apps. I loved that it was open-source. I loved the interface and customizations. But most of all, I loved that it wasn’t an iPhone.

After only a few years since its release, the iPhone was already a sign of snobbery and pretentiousness. Everyone that could afford one of these(in the middle of the housing crisis) seemed to constantly flaunt their overly-expensive devices. I was on the other end. I had a 512MB mp3 player and later a Zune instead of an iPod and an iPod touch. So when I got my hands on my first Android, I instantly felt like I belonged.

Throughout the years, Android(and Android devices) kept getting better and better, and there were so many options! Want a keyboard that pulls out? Here you go! Want 10 extra batteries and a phone that’s half the price of an iPhone? No problem! This was definitely the sweet spot in Android history. I had many different phones on each subsequent OS version, and had lots of fun bricking and un-bricking them with custom ROMs and recoveries.

My favorite phone by far was my LG V20. In my opinion this was the last great Android. It had everything: a fingerprint sensor on the back(not under the friggin screen that never works SAMSUNG!), a removable battery so I could have 10,000Mah in my pocket, headphone jack with a quad DAC, SD card slot, infrared blaster(this was fun in doctor offices), and much more. Sure it was missing some desirable LTE bands and the screen was meh, but this phone really was all I had ever wanted. It was a very sad day when it had to be retired and I upgraded to what I am using now, a Samsung Galaxy S10+. All in all, it’s a pretty good phone. Great storage and RAM, fast, awesome camera, headphone jack and SD card slot. The only thing I really wish it had were a removable battery.

There are so many things about iPhones I made fun of back then(and often still can).

Storage was a big one. So many people were stuck with 16GB or 32GB of storage, and would have to delete their entire photo album just to install a security update. Apple is finally increasing the amount of storage you can upgrade to, but it is absurdly expensive. To this day, tons of friends of mine are still walking around with 32 or 64GB and deleting photos(which are memories) because they are out of space. And here I am laughing in 1TB(plus a 512 SD card). This is really my biggest requirement in a modern phone. Sure I don’t use all of it, but I have all my photos going back to my first phone, shows and movies for offline viewing, my full music library, and countless files that have built up over the years.

Another was the lightning port. Talk about slow data transfer rates. Devices have been taking advantage of USB-C for years now and Apple is STILL making phones with lightning. Besides being very slow, it’s also not very expandable. With my S10+, I can use an adapter to connect monitors, many USB devices, a standard SD card, an ethernet port. a headset, AND charge my phone at the same time. Not to mention it actually scales to a monitor unlike an iPhone.

The most notable, of course, was the headphone jack. I relished the endless ridicule I could unleash upon relatives and friends when they could not plug in to cars, audio equipment, or even just normal speakers without carrying around a stupid adapter. And even then, they could not charge their phone and plug in audio at the same time. We all remember Samsung’s brutal commercial mocking Apple’s decision to remove the port.

But in the last few years some things have changed. Suddenly, other phone manufacturers began following Apple’s mistakes.

The first thing to go was the removable battery. I guess I can understand some rationales for this decision. Water resistance, thinness, blah blah blah. Personally I couldn’t care less. I’ve never had any encounter with my phone and water. This is a device that I carry with me every day and is not cheap, so I am going to always be careful with it. But there are a plethora of ways to make it water resistant or even proof without needing to take away removable batteries. And as far as thinness, I will take the thickest phone/tablet/laptop any day. Bigger means you can fit more inside(including cooling).

Another quite disappointing trend is the ditching of the SD card slot. Want to double the amount of storage on your phone? Well you’re now out of luck as only a few very lame budget phones still have one. This would be fine if new phones had massive amounts of storage, but looking at the newest Pixels, OnePlus, Samsungs, etc, it’s extremely hard to even find 512GB, let alone 1TB like in my S10+. Like Apple, storage just doesn’t seem to be a priority anymore. To me this makes no sense, as we go to 2K, 4K, and even 8K, files just keep getting bigger. With these new phones, I would massively have to cut down on the amount of several hundred gigabyte movies I could store on my phone, the humanity!

Probably the saddest was the headphone jack. Each year that goes by I see more and more phones dropping this essential plug. I had been hard-pressed to actually find a phone that had one, which was why I chose the S10+. But alas, the S20 did away with it. I can’t say I’m surprised, just very disappointed. Samsung even quietly removed their ad mocking Apple which, in all honesty, was shameful and a middle finger to Android users everywhere. As Obi-Wan would say, they have become the very thing they swore to destroy.

If it were just hardware things like those, I might have still been convinced to stick with Android. I am very comfortable with them and know how to use them very well. But of course there are some very important, and arguably more important, issues to take into account apart from the physical parts.

The first and foremost are security and privacy. It’s true, Android has made some improvements over the years. But Apple is making these a priority. When I am doing banking, signing important documents, or just talking with a friend, I want to be protected. I never really got a great feeling of protection with any Android I’ve used. Sure there are lots of updates to apps and the occasional security patch to the OS, but there’s always a sense that what you are doing isn’t quite secure. App permissions still aren’t very transparent and it’s often difficult and frustrating trying to revoke permissions of apps that aren’t actually needed. Apple is definitely going in the right direction locking down their OS more and really puts emphasis on protecting their end users, while Google and manufacturers exploit and track them.

Next in line are bloatware and carrier versions of phones. These have been a massive blight to Android since the earliest days. Almost every phone besides the Pixel(which has pretty trash hardware) comes absolutely loaded with garbage apps that never get used but can’t be removed and run in the background. This is akin to Microsoft loading Candy Crush on your new laptop. At least Microsoft lets you remove it. With Android you are lucky if you can even disable the app, many of them do not let you do even that. This is a massive abuse and always drove me crazy but I overlooked it because I liked the hardware. Then there are the absurd carrier-branded versions of each phone. With 20 different versions of each model, no wonder manufacturers and carriers can’t support them! Not to mention even more carrier-related bloatware that comes shipped. Apple ditched this years ago and I commend them for that. The pinnacle of my frustration with this came when I tried to use T-Mobile on a phone that was branded AT&T. It technically had all the LTE bands required but when the T-Mobile SIM was inserted, some of the bands were locked down. Apple includes all the bands and lets you use all of them when the phone is paid off, this is how it should have always been.

The last non-hardware point is related to updates and longevity. As hinted a few times in previous paragraphs, Android manufacturers(and even Google themselves) have not prioritized supporting their phones with OS updates and upgrades AT ALL. You are lucky if you get 3 years of updates if any. Again, I’m sure this goes back to the pure amount of phones and versions that are made, but to me that is no excuse. I can maybe understand this on a cheap $300 phone like in the early days of Android, but on a flagship that is even more expensive than an iPhone, this is(and should be) a massive deal breaker for many, including myself. If I’m going to buy a phone that costs more than most laptops, I want it to last a very long time and have faith that there will be consistent updates and upgrades.

All the different hardware distinctions that made Androids cool and desirable to me were all slowly phased out as manufacturers tried harder and harder to follow in Apple’s footsteps. I want to stay on Android, I really really do. If they were a lot more secure and supported I could easily justify staying. If they brought back more storage, ports, and things that used to make them great, I could easily get past their other flaws. I’m no Apple fanboy as anyone that knows me will attest. I have put this off as long as I possibly could. But as Androids have now ditched literally everything that I care about in a phone, there is no reason for me to stay with them when I can get the same level of hardware(which is much too low in my opinion) but gain security and peace of mind. I’m sad to go, but Samsung and all the others have done this to themselves by their own negligence and extremely poor design decisions. And this is why my next phone will be an iPhone.
So correct and true - I couldn't agree with you more! As a technologist, security professional, all in all, though not bug free, the Apple OS'es ecosystem is by far more stable, reliable and just WORKS together, like things should. It's no wonder why IBM, yes IBM, ditched there various Windows/UNIX workstations for Apple. Their Helpdesk went from being over 300 people to around 30, and their ROI has been substantial.
 
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Bandaman

Cancelled
Aug 28, 2019
2,005
4,091
Imagine an ideal romantic partner. Now imagine that a caveat for dating them was having to constantly buy them expensive things and that you would have to disown all your friends. Sounds pretty abusive doesn't it?

This is Apple and their customers. Once you're in, you're in. They want to wring you for all you're worth and won't play nice with your other tech (ever pulled your teeth out getting iCloud to run on Windows? You're about to). Very few Apple customers realise the spiral they are locked into.

Apple make great hardware and software (ideal, remember?) and i'm not going to tell you Google or Microsoft are better in some way but at the very least you can download every Google or Microsoft app you need to any phone you like, Apple included and carry on but the same cannot be said of Apple's stuff playing nice with an Android phone or a Windows laptop.

Be warned.
What on earth are you talking about?
 

omeletpants

macrumors 6502
Oct 21, 2005
397
164
Imagine an ideal romantic partner. Now imagine that a caveat for dating them was having to constantly buy them expensive things and that you would have to disown all your friends. Sounds pretty abusive doesn't it?

This is Apple and their customers. Once you're in, you're in. They want to wring you for all you're worth and won't play nice with your other tech (ever pulled your teeth out getting iCloud to run on Windows? You're about to). Very few Apple customers realise the spiral they are locked into.

Apple make great hardware and software (ideal, remember?) and i'm not going to tell you Google or Microsoft are better in some way but at the very least you can download every Google or Microsoft app you need to any phone you like, Apple included and carry on but the same cannot be said of Apple's stuff playing nice with an Android phone or a Windows laptop.

Be warned.
So what? Where is it written that Apple needs to play nice with other technologies or that it should? I have been dealing with Microsoft since 1989 and win vers 3.1 and they are the devil so screw them
 
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daviddcmd

macrumors regular
Apr 22, 2010
126
71
OP; go buy a Sony 1 III, SD card slot, headphone jack, minimal skin, 4K screen, 512GB internal storage.
 

ian87w

macrumors G3
Feb 22, 2020
8,704
12,638
Indonesia
I got my first smart phone my senior year of high school back in 2009. It was some cheapo Virgin Mobile hunk of junk with a slide out keyboard. And I absolutely loved it. I loved the variety of apps. I loved that it was open-source. I loved the interface and customizations. But most of all, I loved that it wasn’t an iPhone.

After only a few years since its release, the iPhone was already a sign of snobbery and pretentiousness. Everyone that could afford one of these(in the middle of the housing crisis) seemed to constantly flaunt their overly-expensive devices. I was on the other end. I had a 512MB mp3 player and later a Zune instead of an iPod and an iPod touch. So when I got my hands on my first Android, I instantly felt like I belonged.

Throughout the years, Android(and Android devices) kept getting better and better, and there were so many options! Want a keyboard that pulls out? Here you go! Want 10 extra batteries and a phone that’s half the price of an iPhone? No problem! This was definitely the sweet spot in Android history. I had many different phones on each subsequent OS version, and had lots of fun bricking and un-bricking them with custom ROMs and recoveries.

My favorite phone by far was my LG V20. In my opinion this was the last great Android. It had everything: a fingerprint sensor on the back(not under the friggin screen that never works SAMSUNG!), a removable battery so I could have 10,000Mah in my pocket, headphone jack with a quad DAC, SD card slot, infrared blaster(this was fun in doctor offices), and much more. Sure it was missing some desirable LTE bands and the screen was meh, but this phone really was all I had ever wanted. It was a very sad day when it had to be retired and I upgraded to what I am using now, a Samsung Galaxy S10+. All in all, it’s a pretty good phone. Great storage and RAM, fast, awesome camera, headphone jack and SD card slot. The only thing I really wish it had were a removable battery.

There are so many things about iPhones I made fun of back then(and often still can).

Storage was a big one. So many people were stuck with 16GB or 32GB of storage, and would have to delete their entire photo album just to install a security update. Apple is finally increasing the amount of storage you can upgrade to, but it is absurdly expensive. To this day, tons of friends of mine are still walking around with 32 or 64GB and deleting photos(which are memories) because they are out of space. And here I am laughing in 1TB(plus a 512 SD card). This is really my biggest requirement in a modern phone. Sure I don’t use all of it, but I have all my photos going back to my first phone, shows and movies for offline viewing, my full music library, and countless files that have built up over the years.

Another was the lightning port. Talk about slow data transfer rates. Devices have been taking advantage of USB-C for years now and Apple is STILL making phones with lightning. Besides being very slow, it’s also not very expandable. With my S10+, I can use an adapter to connect monitors, many USB devices, a standard SD card, an ethernet port. a headset, AND charge my phone at the same time. Not to mention it actually scales to a monitor unlike an iPhone.

The most notable, of course, was the headphone jack. I relished the endless ridicule I could unleash upon relatives and friends when they could not plug in to cars, audio equipment, or even just normal speakers without carrying around a stupid adapter. And even then, they could not charge their phone and plug in audio at the same time. We all remember Samsung’s brutal commercial mocking Apple’s decision to remove the port.

But in the last few years some things have changed. Suddenly, other phone manufacturers began following Apple’s mistakes.

The first thing to go was the removable battery. I guess I can understand some rationales for this decision. Water resistance, thinness, blah blah blah. Personally I couldn’t care less. I’ve never had any encounter with my phone and water. This is a device that I carry with me every day and is not cheap, so I am going to always be careful with it. But there are a plethora of ways to make it water resistant or even proof without needing to take away removable batteries. And as far as thinness, I will take the thickest phone/tablet/laptop any day. Bigger means you can fit more inside(including cooling).

Another quite disappointing trend is the ditching of the SD card slot. Want to double the amount of storage on your phone? Well you’re now out of luck as only a few very lame budget phones still have one. This would be fine if new phones had massive amounts of storage, but looking at the newest Pixels, OnePlus, Samsungs, etc, it’s extremely hard to even find 512GB, let alone 1TB like in my S10+. Like Apple, storage just doesn’t seem to be a priority anymore. To me this makes no sense, as we go to 2K, 4K, and even 8K, files just keep getting bigger. With these new phones, I would massively have to cut down on the amount of several hundred gigabyte movies I could store on my phone, the humanity!

Probably the saddest was the headphone jack. Each year that goes by I see more and more phones dropping this essential plug. I had been hard-pressed to actually find a phone that had one, which was why I chose the S10+. But alas, the S20 did away with it. I can’t say I’m surprised, just very disappointed. Samsung even quietly removed their ad mocking Apple which, in all honesty, was shameful and a middle finger to Android users everywhere. As Obi-Wan would say, they have become the very thing they swore to destroy.

If it were just hardware things like those, I might have still been convinced to stick with Android. I am very comfortable with them and know how to use them very well. But of course there are some very important, and arguably more important, issues to take into account apart from the physical parts.

The first and foremost are security and privacy. It’s true, Android has made some improvements over the years. But Apple is making these a priority. When I am doing banking, signing important documents, or just talking with a friend, I want to be protected. I never really got a great feeling of protection with any Android I’ve used. Sure there are lots of updates to apps and the occasional security patch to the OS, but there’s always a sense that what you are doing isn’t quite secure. App permissions still aren’t very transparent and it’s often difficult and frustrating trying to revoke permissions of apps that aren’t actually needed. Apple is definitely going in the right direction locking down their OS more and really puts emphasis on protecting their end users, while Google and manufacturers exploit and track them.

Next in line are bloatware and carrier versions of phones. These have been a massive blight to Android since the earliest days. Almost every phone besides the Pixel(which has pretty trash hardware) comes absolutely loaded with garbage apps that never get used but can’t be removed and run in the background. This is akin to Microsoft loading Candy Crush on your new laptop. At least Microsoft lets you remove it. With Android you are lucky if you can even disable the app, many of them do not let you do even that. This is a massive abuse and always drove me crazy but I overlooked it because I liked the hardware. Then there are the absurd carrier-branded versions of each phone. With 20 different versions of each model, no wonder manufacturers and carriers can’t support them! Not to mention even more carrier-related bloatware that comes shipped. Apple ditched this years ago and I commend them for that. The pinnacle of my frustration with this came when I tried to use T-Mobile on a phone that was branded AT&T. It technically had all the LTE bands required but when the T-Mobile SIM was inserted, some of the bands were locked down. Apple includes all the bands and lets you use all of them when the phone is paid off, this is how it should have always been.

The last non-hardware point is related to updates and longevity. As hinted a few times in previous paragraphs, Android manufacturers(and even Google themselves) have not prioritized supporting their phones with OS updates and upgrades AT ALL. You are lucky if you get 3 years of updates if any. Again, I’m sure this goes back to the pure amount of phones and versions that are made, but to me that is no excuse. I can maybe understand this on a cheap $300 phone like in the early days of Android, but on a flagship that is even more expensive than an iPhone, this is(and should be) a massive deal breaker for many, including myself. If I’m going to buy a phone that costs more than most laptops, I want it to last a very long time and have faith that there will be consistent updates and upgrades.

All the different hardware distinctions that made Androids cool and desirable to me were all slowly phased out as manufacturers tried harder and harder to follow in Apple’s footsteps. I want to stay on Android, I really really do. If they were a lot more secure and supported I could easily justify staying. If they brought back more storage, ports, and things that used to make them great, I could easily get past their other flaws. I’m no Apple fanboy as anyone that knows me will attest. I have put this off as long as I possibly could. But as Androids have now ditched literally everything that I care about in a phone, there is no reason for me to stay with them when I can get the same level of hardware(which is much too low in my opinion) but gain security and peace of mind. I’m sad to go, but Samsung and all the others have done this to themselves by their own negligence and extremely poor design decisions. And this is why my next phone will be an iPhone.
Some of your concerns are valid and I agree with. Privacy is also why I bought an iPhone 7+ in early 2020 for my banking apps, despite still using Android as my daily driver. Apple’s decision to restrict what being exposed to third party apps is what pushed me.

But there are other things that imo are not that bad on Android.

1. Bloatware. Yes, OEMs can install a lot of crap on their phones, but some like Samsung is getting better. On my S21, even the Samsung browser is an optional install. There’s still bloatware like Facebook (that for magically reinstalled after Android 12 upgrade) though, and countries might require some local apps to be preinstalled. But I do hear it’s so bad for you guys in the US since your carriers are weird. Owning an Android is like owning a Window laptop. You have to uninstall or disable a lot of unneeded software.

2. Updates. It’s getting better. Google now promised 5 years of updates on the Pixel 6. Samsung already promised 3 years on their most recent devices. Xiaomi promised to match that starting with their Mi11T series. That’s not bad at all. Unfortunately, the rest of the OEMs are still bad, offering only one or even no OS upgrades at all. Part of this is Qualcomm’s fault for refusing to support their chips with drivers for more than two years. Part of it is also Google’s fault for having very lax update requirements for Android certification. To get certified, an OEM only needs to provide security patches on quarterly basis for 2 years. Obviously most OEMs will just do the bare minimum.

There are invaluable features for me on Android that will still keep Android as my daily driver. Twin apps, auto call recording, and physical dual SIM are my must haves.
 

RadioHedgeFund

Cancelled
Sep 11, 2018
422
869
1. Bloatware. Yes, OEMs can install a lot of crap on their phones, but some like Samsung is getting better. On my S21, even the Samsung browser is an optional install. There’s still bloatware like Facebook (that for magically reinstalled after Android 12 upgrade) though, and countries might require some local apps to be preinstalled. But I do hear it’s so bad for you guys in the US since your carriers are weird. Owning an Android is like owning a Window laptop. You have to uninstall or disable a lot of unneeded software.

Its funny how nobody mentions Apple when talking about bloatware. Apple Mail? Worst email client there is. Maps? Still doesn't have basic information like motorway junction numbers on in the UK. iCloud? The web client is pretty terrible if you need access on a work PC. Tips? First thing you delete. Watch? Talk about pushy sales techniques. Podcasts? lol. Camera? Still no full manual modes on the so-called 'Pro' phones. Messages? Nobody outside the USA uses iMessage.

The first thing you will do on your new iPhone is install Outlook/Gmail/Spark, Google Maps is much better than Apple Maps, GDrive and OneDrive have better web clients (or rather an actual web client) where you can edit and collab, Watch is only of use if you buy an Apple Watch, Overcast is light years ahead of the default Apple client, Halide or Camera+ should be your default camera app because they actually let you use manual settings and everybody you know already uses WhatApp.
 

TechRunner

macrumors 65816
Oct 28, 2016
1,351
2,340
SW Florida, US
If you are in the Apple ecosystem there doesn't seem to be a better offering when it comes to the phones. I'm not really missing anything from Android at this point. Took me a couple of days to really get settled in and get used to IOS after being on android for so long but reality is the two are 95% the same.

I love being able to share full res stuff with my wife or one of my computers with air drop. I wanted to upload a few receipts that were on my phone the other day for a HRA request and on android I would of had to: Take the scan, probably multiple times because android OCR tends to crop stuff the wrong way, upload them to drive, fire up my windows computer, open chrome, go to drive, download each one individually as they will zip them if you don't, then do what I need.

Instead all I did was scan the document (one time, it worked the first time I was shocked) select the files on my phone, share, selected my Mac and they were there. Easy and quite frankly how it should be.
Glad your transition went smoothly! I use an iPad daily, and there's little practical difference for my use between iPadOS and iOS, so the transition for me should be pretty easy.
 

RadioHedgeFund

Cancelled
Sep 11, 2018
422
869
Glad your transition went smoothly! I use an iPad daily, and there's little practical difference for my use between iPadOS and iOS, so the transition for me should be pretty easy.
Could you not just photograph them and upload to GDrive, making them available anywhere?
 

phrehdd

Contributor
Oct 25, 2008
4,516
1,468
My first smartphone was Apple and went back to the days were waiting on the web pages to fill in might allow you time to get at least a half cup of coffee. A few versions later, I switched to Android because Apple kept telling us what we want and need which was frustrating. The first thing I did with my Android phone was to have fewer icons that were larger and slightly larger fonts to go with them. The iPhone at the time did not allow this flexibility which took me all of 4 minutes plus an additional app to customize other facets of the phone. For me, it was about whether I would have to put on glasses to read the damn iPhone or go to Android. The latter was a success. Do I miss iPhone, yes in some way and certainly the "ecosystem" facet. I use a Samsung these days with AirPods which at times is matched to my iPad and M1 Mini.
 

ian87w

macrumors G3
Feb 22, 2020
8,704
12,638
Indonesia
Its funny how nobody mentions Apple when talking about bloatware. Apple Mail? Worst email client there is. Maps? Still doesn't have basic information like motorway junction numbers on in the UK. iCloud? The web client is pretty terrible if you need access on a work PC. Tips? First thing you delete. Watch? Talk about pushy sales techniques. Podcasts? lol. Camera? Still no full manual modes on the so-called 'Pro' phones. Messages? Nobody outside the USA uses iMessage.

The first thing you will do on your new iPhone is install Outlook/Gmail/Spark, Google Maps is much better than Apple Maps, GDrive and OneDrive have better web clients (or rather an actual web client) where you can edit and collab, Watch is only of use if you buy an Apple Watch, Overcast is light years ahead of the default Apple client, Halide or Camera+ should be your default camera app because they actually let you use manual settings and everybody you know already uses WhatApp.
I think for some, the definition of "bloatware" would be anything other than first party software.

If you include first party software as "bloatware," then Android is worse. Google Chrome, Play Books, Play Music (despite the service being discontinued, the app is still being pre-installed in many phones), Google Drive, Google Photos, etc. This is why Android has the issue of app duplications as part of its bloatware problems, where each phone has two versions of apps, OEM and Google's.

Your assumption of what apps you installed first is just your assumption of people using those services.
 
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Fred Zed

macrumors 603
Aug 15, 2019
5,888
6,561
Upstate NY . Was FL.
Some of your concerns are valid and I agree with. Privacy is also why I bought an iPhone 7+ in early 2020 for my banking apps, despite still using Android as my daily driver. Apple’s decision to restrict what being exposed to third party apps is what pushed me.

But there are other things that imo are not that bad on Android.

1. Bloatware. Yes, OEMs can install a lot of crap on their phones, but some like Samsung is getting better. On my S21, even the Samsung browser is an optional install. There’s still bloatware like Facebook (that for magically reinstalled after Android 12 upgrade) though, and countries might require some local apps to be preinstalled. But I do hear it’s so bad for you guys in the US since your carriers are weird. Owning an Android is like owning a Window laptop. You have to uninstall or disable a lot of unneeded software.

2. Updates. It’s getting better. Google now promised 5 years of updates on the Pixel 6. Samsung already promised 3 years on their most recent devices. Xiaomi promised to match that starting with their Mi11T series. That’s not bad at all. Unfortunately, the rest of the OEMs are still bad, offering only one or even no OS upgrades at all. Part of this is Qualcomm’s fault for refusing to support their chips with drivers for more than two years. Part of it is also Google’s fault for having very lax update requirements for Android certification. To get certified, an OEM only needs to provide security patches on quarterly basis for 2 years. Obviously most OEMs will just do the bare minimum.

There are invaluable features for me on Android that will still keep Android as my daily driver. Twin apps, auto call recording, and physical dual SIM are my must haves.
Doubt a pixel will last more than 2 to 3 years before falling apart. 😂
1739 paragraphs and still counting.
Should have left the paragraphs out and used capitals, more impact.
Its funny how nobody mentions Apple when talking about bloatware. Apple Mail? Worst email client there is. Maps? Still doesn't have basic information like motorway junction numbers on in the UK. iCloud? The web client is pretty terrible if you need access on a work PC. Tips? First thing you delete. Watch? Talk about pushy sales techniques. Podcasts? lol. Camera? Still no full manual modes on the so-called 'Pro' phones. Messages? Nobody outside the USA uses iMessage.

The first thing you will do on your new iPhone is install Outlook/Gmail/Spark, Google Maps is much better than Apple Maps, GDrive and OneDrive have better web clients (or rather an actual web client) where you can edit and collab, Watch is only of use if you buy an Apple Watch, Overcast is light years ahead of the default Apple client, Halide or Camera+ should be your default camera app because they actually let you use manual settings and everybody you know already uses WhatApp.
you’re last paragraph must be the the things you did. I know I didn’t. Except for gmail account and YouTube my device is google less. I have a separate Samsung android device for my Google spyware. 😂
 

ian87w

macrumors G3
Feb 22, 2020
8,704
12,638
Indonesia
Doubt a pixel will last more than 2 to 3 years before falling apart. ?
LOL. Well, can't comment on physical build quality. But at least software wise, Google's decision in copying Apple by designing/using their own chip allows them to offer longer OS support than what's typical for Android. Hopefully it will become the norm.
 

Fred Zed

macrumors 603
Aug 15, 2019
5,888
6,561
Upstate NY . Was FL.
LOL. Well, can't comment on physical build quality. But at least software wise, Google's decision in copying Apple by designing/using their own chip allows them to offer longer OS support than what's typical for Android. Hopefully it will become the norm.
That’s a positive outcome for android users and a less than positive one for android makers that have now effectively increased their devices shelf lives. 😂 I suppose more price hikes are on the horizon. More so with less Android phone competition in the America market.
 

ian87w

macrumors G3
Feb 22, 2020
8,704
12,638
Indonesia
That’s a positive outcome for android users and a less than positive one for android makers that have now effectively increased their devices shelf lives. 😂 I suppose more price hikes are on the horizon. More so with less Android phone competition in the America market.
Well, we already have OEMs like Oppo and Xiaomi making $1000 phones that only have 1 or 2 OS upgrades in their lives. So that price hike already happened. :D Hopefully consumers will be expecting more. I mean at the least security patches. Google has made it easy and it doesn't require too much effort from the OEMs, yet they are still being lazy. Only 2 years of quarterly security patches is pathetic.
 
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RadioHedgeFund

Cancelled
Sep 11, 2018
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I think for some, the definition of "bloatware" would be anything other than first party software.

If you include first party software as "bloatware," then Android is worse. Google Chrome, Play Books, Play Music (despite the service being discontinued, the app is still being pre-installed in many phones), Google Drive, Google Photos, etc. This is why Android has the issue of app duplications as part of its bloatware problems, where each phone has two versions of apps, OEM and Google's.

Your assumption of what apps you installed first is just your assumption of people using those services.
The issue here is with OEM's though, not Google. Google's apps are, by and large the best at what they do on the Android platform and the last thing most people will delete. Even barebones companies like OnePlus still put theor own pointless Gallery app on their phones knowing full well their users will still rely on Google for their cloud backuops.
 
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