Hey everyone, genuine discussion here as fair as possible, not trying to start a war or anything 😂
So I have been an Android user for more than the last 10 years and have seen all advancements from Android since version 2. I always respected the build quality and hardware of iPhone but iOS was so restricted you could basically do nothing with it.
Lately, both operating systems have hugely evolved and have reached a certain feature parity so I felt it was time for me to give a chance to the Apple side.
So I did it and moved from my last OnePlus Nord 2 phone to the latest iPhone 15 Pro Max. I know these phones belong to different categories but my discussion will concentrate mostly on the OS stuff so it won’t matter.
What troubles me is that although iPhone is certainly a nice phone with good build quality, I keep trying to find reasons that would explain and make my switch worthy but on the contrary I constantly find things that annoy me and consider loss of functionality after the switch.
So I wanted to try and give a small summary of my pros and cons as fair as possible and have a discussion around what people think.
Let’s start with the cons:
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my work uses Google Workspace accounts. Apple calendar does not fully support Google calendar syncing. What I mean is that PUSH is not supported to get immediately new events from the server but a fetch is done (by the app) every once in a while to get the updates. What is worse is that by default this is set to happen only when the phone is plugged in and on WiFi, which means that you sync stuff once a day… There is the option to make it more frequent up to 15 minute periods. However, even this makes you miss last minute changes that are not synced to your calendar. So this is definitely a no go for me, leading me to use instead…the Google Calendar app which has no such limitations.
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next is the photo sharing with iCloud. You can only share them with people that have Apple devices which is really annoying because my girlfriend does not have one and we used to have a lot shared albums on Google Photos. So again, I ended up using Google Photos on iOS.
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the keyboard… My native language is Greek. Starting from the fact the for some reason Apple decided that they wanted to change the official qwerty outline of Greek keyboard by removing the final s (ς) from its place, which creates a different key placement that constantly leads to typing errors when you are used to the regular outline. Note that the ipad correctly has the outline, only IPhone doesn’t. But more importantly, word correction is a nightmare. If you enter an unknown word, it never learns it and constantly tries to correct it. You have to do the whole process of going into settings and adding a word abbreviation for each unknown word… This is really bad… So I installed swift keyboard which just allows you to tap onto an unknown word and it is added to the dictionary.
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iOS is missing some nice gimmicks such as showing your palm to the camera to get a selfie which is really more useful than the timer when trying to get a group photo
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not showing business caller IDs in dialer!!! This is really bad. Most business have their listings on Google and Google Maps. So on Android you directly get their ID when you or they call you. I would expect this from IPhone as well and was really disappointed to see it is not there.
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Does not support Miracast which is far more widely supported on TVs than AirPlay
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Siri is quite more restricted compared to Google Assistant
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Really miss my fast charging where I could charge the phone in 20 mins
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can’t easily share a WiFi password with non apple devices as done with the QR code sharing in Android
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No actual file system when you connect it to the computer to easily share files with the phone. This was also really useful to be able to quickly use your phone as USB storage
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No sideloading of apps!!! That was also a hit for me… You cannot have apps like ad blocking YouTube or whatever you want like you could in Android
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Notifications seem to require more effort to work with VS how they work in Android
Now about the pros:
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Instant and effortless camera usage
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it does play really well with other Apple devices with features like Continuity, hand off, sharing etc…
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iMessage (although not much for me because huge majority of my contacts are on Android). Again I believe Google RCS is getting close.
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Backup. I really like that when you actually backup the iPhone it also backs up app data meaning that upon restore you can completely resume your work. Only thing needed to set up again is FaceID and apple pay. Android cannot do that natively. However they have started to implement APIs for apps to backup their data on Google so apps that do this have also their data restored during the process. So it’s up to the devs to catch up.
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Video quality on apps. Apps that use the camera and can fully access it’s potential is really a big difference compared to Android where due to the fragmentation and no support of each different vendor you get a really bad quality when using the 3rd party apps. There are attempts to unify this under certain APIs in Android as well but it will certainly take a while.
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FaceTime call quality is stunning. Have never been able to have such good quality calls using any other app whatsoever.
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I would also say update support but this is not that much anymore with more established brands catching up with this. Apple offers 5 years of updates. Samsung offer 4 major updates and 5 years of patches and Google with the new Pixel 8 years!
So there certainly are some good points according to my experience. However, these are more nice to have things as opposed to functionality loss of the bad points which hurt my user experience.
What’s your take on all of the above? And most importantly for those who have switched from Android, what won you over?
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What’s with people typing long ass novels for comments on here….ain’t nobody got time to read yalls 50,000 word opinions.
Ecosystem
I just switched from S23 Ultra to iPhone 15 Pro Max. I been with Android since Nexus 4 all the way up to S23 Ultra. The main reason I switched was for connectivity such as iMessage and FaceTime. One of the big thing I noticed right way is how many features Samsung tries to copy Apple but everything feels cheap and rushed in Samsung phones.
I use both. I typically have a Pixel and iPhone. IMO the features at this point are really on par with each other. There’s not a huge difference. However, I will point out a few benefits of iOS over Android.
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iOS apps are WAY more polished, smooth, and just work better.
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On an iPhone I can get any Google app I want and still use all the iOS apps. On Android, I get all the Google apps, but only a couple of Apple apps.
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The ecosystem on Apple is unparalleled. I mean, my Mac, iPad, AirPods, Apple Watch, and iPhone work flawlessly together in a way no Android set up can.
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The calendar push is mostly a Google thing. Just like they do with mail. For all the crap they talk about equality they basically force you to use the Gmail and Google Calendar apps if you want push notifications. And that’s why I stopped using them. Microsoft or iCloud works much better.
Made by a company not financially motivated to spy on you.
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Ability to separate home and app screens. Do not like Apple’s everything on the homescreen approach. My android homescreen is clean and customized with my most needed app icons and folders such that I hardly ever need to navigate and scroll through multiple app screen pages where I keep my less used apps.
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USB stick like drag and drop file management on plugging in phone to a windows laptop.
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Downloading mp3 files, or for that matter any file, from the internet. (No, I don’t care about spotify. And yes, I know the security risks of doing this and I am prepared to take responsibility for it. I do not need to be treated like a child.)
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Call recording without announcing it to the other person (Yup its a thing on Android. In my country there are legitimate ways to do this because its legal and in others there is always sideloading. And please spare me the holier than thou invasion of privacy BS. We all have been in situations where we wish we could have recorded a conversation).
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Installing FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) apps from the F-Droid store. Related point - Accessing multiple app stores.
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Emulators! Need I say more?
I cannot in all seriousness consider an iphone unless these features are somehow made avialable, which I do not see happening.
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Android is run by Google which is good enough reason for me to steer clear of it.
Instant and effortless camera usage
You have this as a pro but it’s my main con. iPhone photos are now overprocessed for my taste.
However I am unwilling at this moment to give up the effortless integration with my Apple Watch, Mac, iPad, etc.
If I didn’t have those things, I’d heavily consider and Android
Backloading/ Emulation
I switched to iPhone 14 Plus in March as it was the then Apple’s flagship. For some things, I still use my android Samsung phone and tablet on WiFi. Can you do something similar?
If Apple allows sideloading modded apps it’s over.
That would be sth major and supposedly they will need to do that for us European users due to legislation. Let’s see
long time iOS user here ipod shuffle to iphone X . I switched to Samsung Galaxy S10 (2019) because quite frankly im getting frustated with the lack of innovation, useful features from Apple even there keyboards are problematic! hahaha
i agree most of what you said. Android notifcations are better, you can even turn off entirely bluetooth and location from the control center! , youtubevanced!!! , installing 3rd party camera GCAM to my s10, more variety with the devices,
I even tried their ecosystem bought google nest mini, android auto, google pixel watch, jabra elite 75T for the TWS earbuds
Initially it was good especially during the pandemic where I can unlock my phone during covid lockdown, i can download torrents and play the series i love all within my phone.
but after awhile my phone becomes sluggish, unresponsive at first i thought it was my apps. but i watched a youtube video regarding exynos vs snapdragon processor of S10. TLDW: exynos are inferior to snap dragon. from then on my i noticed the little details you have to turn on the lift to wake option, bixby button!! you cant uninstall facebook=(. and samsung doest this weird roll out of their software update where newer phones gets to update first, but when you have older phone you have to wait
call me old geezer but when someone says android is for customization but almost all users want the most vanilla android the one with 2 apps one coming from google one coming from Samsung.
that when i decided to switch back to iOS because of the little details - your alarm slowly rises, A series chip is the best mobile chip around, emojis to me are bettern at iOS, not having system ads on iphone, and quite frankly some apps works so much better on iOS - instagram ( check MKBHD video about that, spotify new features comes to iOS first before android, even RCS only comes to the Philippines on late 2019!!! …it just works
I find that the OS of your community matters a lot in phone choice. If everyone around you uses android and you don’t have any other Apple devices - then sticking to Android would make more sense. I had often switched back and forth every time I renewed my phone contract - depending on how the other side had updated. Apple has advanced and opened up a lot since the early days. Sometimes you can avoid some of the their restrictive features if you have more of their products. For example, you now have a proper file app and drag and drop files via dongle to an usb stick or hard drive. But if you have a Mac too, you would just add files to iCloud storage and it would appear on your computer, no need to sync. Same with phones and videos. If you somehow need to transfer a file to a foreign Mac or iPhone you can use AirDrop which uses wifi and Bluetooth to transfer big files very fast directly between devices.
They did do a big update to the keyboard with the most recent OS update, perhaps they fixed the Greek keyboard? Not sure.
Siri isn’t that great and is best left for basic commands.
The case and accessory market is often not addressed. iPhones always have a huge amount of cases and accessories available and for many years afterwards. Whereas I’ve been surprised how tricky it can be to find a variety of cases/accessories for android phones and this drops off dramatically after a few years. Once looked for a Huawei case a few years after and only found like five on Amazon?
I think the newest iPhones have fast charging? Not 100% sure.
They do have a big focus on security and privacy, as they make their money through expensive devices, rather than leveraging your personal data and selling access to you to advertising companies.
They also have the best customer service you will come across, you can directly contact them and get help with issues surprisingly quickly. Even if the product is out of warranty.
Apps are often better designed for iPhones, as app devs have a set amount of screens to design for. Often with android, apps are just stretched to fit the screen. It can be hit and miss.
All depends on what is important to you. If you want ultimate flexibility and are happy to risk security and privacy and have a lack of variety of cases/accessories - Android is great. If you want something nicely designed with a focus on security, privacy, stability, resale value, high number of available accessories for many years and are happy to live with some restrictions, a much worse AI Assistant and lack of compatibility with other devices, then iPhones are good for that.
You are 100% right about the community importance.
What you mention about accessories is also correct. Personally, I am quite a plain user for that (I only need a case and screen protector glass) so I haven’t felt it.
The iPhones have fast charging of 25W. My previous midrange charged at 65W… For my iPhone I need 45 minutes to get a full charge while with my old one I needed 20.
What I am not sure about is privacy. Android has also introduced a lot of permission wise controls for the apps. But can’t really insist whether in total they offer more privacy or not
For YouTube try PreTub from the store, it’s a good alternative for ad free YouTube.
Thank you I wasn’t aware of that!
I absolutely have adblocker apps on my iphone 13 PM that stop ads on my YouTube app. Adblock and adblock pro. Both from the app store