The iPhone being called ‘boring’ and ‘stale’ is what I appreciate about it. The software and hardware is reliable and mostly rock solid. Apple over the last few years had added features that android users enjoy from widgets to now new lock screen customization features. I came from android a few years back after first starting on iPhone and I’m never going back, apple has been consistent and has the features I need and care about.
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Other With the growing competition and alternatives, why do you choose to stick with iPhone (and iOS)?
- Thread starter newdev9
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Full offline backups, iTunes compatibility (I have a local music library), and global carrier compatibility (no weird VoLTE issues on the unlocked model because the carrier didn't certify that variant)
it's usually the same story 95% of the time. some person has been using the newest iPhone for 10 years updating every year and then they go to try Android and they pick some budget 4 year old android that has never been good so they say android sucks and moves back to apple.
or the same story above and they pick a flagship but are so engraved in imessage and apple ecosystem they never truly give the flagship android phone a chance and return it in the 15 day window.
for me it's the opposite, I've always had verizon so the first 3 iPhone weren't available I got used to flagship Motorola Droid and their 24-48 hour battery life LTE phones, and remind you this is 2010ish when LTE was first being rolled out so everything LTE sucked ie the thunderbolt phone which supposedly only got 2 hours screen time. sure I got the iPhone 5S on release as a second phone, went back to droid, got the iPhone 7 on release, went back to droid because the public found out apple was throttling the phone through battery health. so I've basically been hopping and skipping back and forth flagship samsung to the latest iPhone upgrading every year
now I'm on the s23 ultra, and my iPhone 14 Pro Max sits on the desk. I can't imagine going back to iPhone with this current iteration, I can plug a USB storage into my phone and do a backup any time, my information isn't stored in the cloud and it's secure.
oh yea the third type of person, always bought the budget android for $50 on sale and has delt with plagued 5 year inferior hardware that'd be laggy. then decides it's finally time to spend $1,500 on an iPhone and thinks it's world better, zero lag, now an iPhone user for life. when in theory if they would have spent the same money on a flagship android they would have never given iPhone a second glance.
or the same story above and they pick a flagship but are so engraved in imessage and apple ecosystem they never truly give the flagship android phone a chance and return it in the 15 day window.
for me it's the opposite, I've always had verizon so the first 3 iPhone weren't available I got used to flagship Motorola Droid and their 24-48 hour battery life LTE phones, and remind you this is 2010ish when LTE was first being rolled out so everything LTE sucked ie the thunderbolt phone which supposedly only got 2 hours screen time. sure I got the iPhone 5S on release as a second phone, went back to droid, got the iPhone 7 on release, went back to droid because the public found out apple was throttling the phone through battery health. so I've basically been hopping and skipping back and forth flagship samsung to the latest iPhone upgrading every year
now I'm on the s23 ultra, and my iPhone 14 Pro Max sits on the desk. I can't imagine going back to iPhone with this current iteration, I can plug a USB storage into my phone and do a backup any time, my information isn't stored in the cloud and it's secure.
oh yea the third type of person, always bought the budget android for $50 on sale and has delt with plagued 5 year inferior hardware that'd be laggy. then decides it's finally time to spend $1,500 on an iPhone and thinks it's world better, zero lag, now an iPhone user for life. when in theory if they would have spent the same money on a flagship android they would have never given iPhone a second glance.
If you upgrade so often, why would the battery health throttling have concerned you?
Anyway, I think you stack the deck a bit with your two scenarios... there are also plenty of ppl who have used both platforms in depth, and have a preference for whatever reason (I'm one of them!).
at the time the general public thought that apple would throttle their phones right before the release of the newest phone. I personally felt like my phone had gotten jittery and the battery life wasn't lasting as long as I would like so I jumped ship. it wasn't until maybe 3 months later that apple released a comment about throttling and the battery. I think this was to cover their butt they got caught throttling to boost sales and blamed it on "old battery" we'll never know the actual truth
I work in IT fixing/implementing/overhauling/tweaking systems.
When I’m done for the day (heh), the last thing I want to do is tweak and play with my phone. I just want it to do what it does and not have to think about it.
I thoroughly enjoyed my younger days of jailbreaking and modding, but I’m over it now because I get paid to do that for work computers.
When I’m done for the day (heh), the last thing I want to do is tweak and play with my phone. I just want it to do what it does and not have to think about it.
I thoroughly enjoyed my younger days of jailbreaking and modding, but I’m over it now because I get paid to do that for work computers.
I switched my main to Android a couple of years ago (OnePlus). Recently I picked up a Samsung S23 Ultra. Seriously great phone. I switched as I was tired of the little bugs that never seemed to get fixed and the never ending push by Apple that they know better than I and the fake privacy/security push/claim. It got tiring. At least with Android I can do a good bit to set the device how I want and reassign default apps if I run into problems or find better apps.
That said, my other phone (for work) is a 13 ProMax.
I don’t think it is as simple as you state. There are a number of great looking flagship level android devices I would like to try out but not allowed here in the US. As for Android itself… OnePlus user here and am royally disappointed what Oppo did to it.
As for malware I cannot agree. That is likely country or they’re level specific. Most issues of these types are phishing attacks or socially engineered attacks. This happens on both Os’s.
As for experience, that is in the eye of the beholder. Use them both and they both have their good/bad aspects. Besides, I am multi-OS and glueing myself to the Apple world will never occur.
Your last paragraph reads more like the Android of yesteryear. That said, I am not up to speed on the situation in 3rd world markets.
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To avoid Google, who makes their money off data, about people’s habits and searches.
I ask this question occasionally: what is bloat?
On my S23Ultra it is the added Samsung stuff.
On my OnePlus 10 Pro it is the Oppo stuff
On my 13 ProMax it is the Apple stuff.
It’s all bloat. Anything other than the stripped version of the OS.
At least on Android I can redefine my default apps If I have issues or find something better.
On iOS/iPadOS I don’t have that option.
What is bloat? Having Facebook pre-installed on your phone and locked into the operating system so it’s not deletable without wiping the whole thing.
I find the premise of the original question to be off. There was a time when LG, HTC, Nokia, and Motorola had phones with perceptible benefits over iPhone. I just don’t see that any longer with the new competitors out there. I switched when the 8 plus came out and haven’t looked back since.
If anything there's less competition, at least in the USA. It's pretty much Samsung for flagship phones. Unfortunately they are being protected from serious competition. There is the Pixel of course. Budget android phones are mostly Samsung with a few other brands thrown in.
At this point there are negligible differences between the various phone OSes but two words keep me to iPhones and they are “Apple Watch”!
The Apple Watch series is way ahead of the competition in my humble opinion.
I'm REGULARLY tempted to switch to Pixel. I own and operate Pixel phones that are not activated and mainly because I was once an Android user and I have a fair amount of investment in that platform.
There are two main reasons why I have yet to give in and switch:
1) Being able to answer phone calls and SMS/MMS messages on my Mac and iPad is HUGE. This might be the single biggest reason why I haven't switched. I know that I can do this with Phone Link in Windows with Android. But to not have any sort of accompanying functionality on iPad is largely what keeps me here.
2) The Apple Card. I could easily get an iPhone SE, slap a SIM card into it so that it "Activates" iOS, but doesn't have a plan (similar to how I use my Pixel phones currently) and just use that for Apple Pay and for the Apple Card. That would be much easier for me to do than ditching the ability to answer calls/SMS/MMS from non-iPhone Apple devices.
Were it not for these two things, I'd totally have switched back to Android by now. The Mac and iPad are great and they work well together. But it's only the iPhone that is the center of an ecosystem of devices and services that absolutely will not function 100% without it. I hate that on principal.
Otherwise, iPhones work reasonably well. Some are glitchier/buggier/less reliable than others. They can't all be the iPhone 6S Plus, after all.
In Nokia’s 2021 threat intelligence report, Android devices made up 50.31% of all infected devices, followed by Windows devices at 23.1%, and macOS devices at 9.2%. iOS devices made up a percentage so small as to not even be singled out, being instead bucketed into “other”.
Apple blasts Android malware in fierce pushback against iOS sideloading
Apple is continuing to pushback against looming antitrust legislation in the United States that could bring major changes to the...
9to5mac.com
Not really.
Android vs. iOS: Security comparison 2025
Both iPhone and Android boast of continuous security improvements. Find out how they measure across different security factors and which is considered safer.
Should it not be that no matter what android you buy the experience should be good?
in theory yes, but it's kinda like buying an international flight.. you can pay $800 for the peasant area or $33,000 for first class. both seats go to the same destination but both experiences are vastly different.
A flight is a service though.
A phone is an object, a very personal one at that.
I used Android for 10 years, I always bought flagships, they were great but I grew out of it (some day I’ll grow out of iOS too).
I avoided android low and mid end phones like the plague, it shocked me how poorly they could perform, where a person could even buy a 4 year old iPhone and still get a great experience and updates.
Your scenarios don’t seem applicable to the general population, maybe they are applicable to your own experiences?
I have my whole family integrated in the Apple ecosystem. We have some HomeKit only devices, we use iCloud+ and AppleOne service, Macs, iPads, Apple Watches etc. For us, the only competition is the next new iPhone. I don't care for Samsung, Google and hundreds of Chineses phone makers. What we got works for us and we are not planning to change that any time soon. I would rather use 5 years old iPhone then change to a new platform.