I’ve been using Google Pixels since they were Nexus phones and just activated my new 14 yesterday. It’s a little weird but I like it so far. I do miss twire instead of twitch, YouTube re-Vance’d, and Firefox with Adblock. What does a long term android user like me need to know/install/settings tweak/etc?
The best advice I can give is: don’t immediately abandon the stock apps. I see tons of people who get an iPhone, immediately install Chrome and Gmail and all I can think is, what’s the point?
AdGuard or a similar adblocker for Safari will give you the results you got from Firefox. Safari on iOS also supports full desktop extensions if the developer chooses to make them available. So things like 1Password work great on it.
Same with the Mail app, Calendars, etc. Try setting up your accounts and services in the stock apps and see if you like them. Besides that, there isn’t much to tweak, that’s kind of the point.
If you want app recommendations, it depends on what services you use. Some of my favourite apps are:
Weather - CARROT Mastodon - Ivory Lemmy - Bean or Voyager Package Tracking - Parcel RSS - Reeder Password Manager - 1Password Remote Management - Remotix Home Server Management (Sonarr/Radarr/SabNZBd) - LunaSea
carrot looks super cool but just don’t see the value in a subscription weather app
Any free weather data is either being subsided by the cost of the device or harvesting your location data for ad surveillance purposes. Paying for carrot means the developer gets to put food on the table without telling ad networks wherever you are.
I got grandfathered in from when it was a one time purchase.
Technically most of the weather data is derived(within the United States) from the National Weather Service, all of this data is a matter of public domain under federal law(so it’s being subsidized by taxpayers). What companies like the weather channel or accuweather can do is increase the accuracy by adding more stations and providing more compute power to run more powerful simulations(something the NWS can’t do because of budgetary constraints) or what an app like Carrot can do is allow you to add your own weather station and interpret the data to give predictions.
I’m using the free version and it’s still great. The best feature for me is that you can see hourly timelines of temperature and precipitation for every day for the week ahead. I’ve found the free data source to be reliable enough, so I don’t currently have a reason to pay.
Default weather app can show the hourly temperature and precipitation for the next 10 days as well; simply tap the day you want more info for from the 10-Day Forecast section and you can see all the forecast details. I believe this was added after Apple bought Dark Sky.
You know, I just realised this yesterday. I thought to myself “oh, this is mostly the same as Carrot, then!”. Good to know :)
Agree to not write off the stock apps, but I personally hate Safari and the way it feels and controls. It’s genuinely harder to navigate and around webpages and it’s hard to put my finger on why. Its interface is also just super dated and not as intuitive as the other browsers. And there isn’t really any real reason to use it since every web browser on IOS is secretly Safari under the hood. It’s just the UX on top that’s different.
The Mail app has a similar issue where it’s just kinda dated and clearly hasn’t been given much love since its creation. The calendar app, Notes, weather, and others are pretty rock solid though.
One more tip: this probably applies to Android as well, I’m not sure as I haven’t used it extensively. But iOS has very good, deep, system-wide autofill.
Make sure you have a contact card in your contacts marked as you (“My Card” at the top of your contacts list) and populate it with all the phone numbers, emails, and addresses you can think of. Tag them all properly (work, home, secondary, etc) and even add usernames and whatnot, go all out.
iOS will use those details to autofill signup flows in many apps and services, as well as autocompleting stuff like “my address is” and “my phone number is”. Saves a lot of time.
It also has deep password manager autofill integration. So you can enable your favourite 3rd party password manager as the system autofill and you can call it up even in apps to create new logins or retrieve saved ones.
One piece of advise I can give; do not try to replicate your android experience on iOS. More than likely it will leave you frustrated. Make the switch with an open mind to a new way of doing things and you will have a much better time.
I actually switched from a lifetime of Android to the IPhone 13 and found it pretty seamless. After many years, iOS has copied enough Android features that they’re basically the same at this point. Like the functional differences are few and far between.
You’ll want to spend some time learning how notifications work as they’re quite different.
Also - seriously consider buying an Apple Watch - doesn’t have to be the most expensive model. iPhone and Apple Watch are good products on their own, but combined they are amazing.
Getting used to the notifications has been probably the biggest learning curve. I also miss having my app drawer exactly how I wanted it. I did get an Apple Watch, I had a Samsung galaxy 4 and couldn’t get it to pair with the iPhone. I gotta say I’m impressed l, I LOVE the watch. Got the SE 2nd gen, I think.
Ever since I switched to iOS I always have like two weeks worth of notifications at any given time. My wife thinks I’m nuts but like… if you don’t jump on any given notification it’s just tucked away under a second swipe and I never remember to look there lol.
Though I am SO happy that with ios17 IOS is FINALLY adding active notifications.
Wdym “active notifications”? Do you mean live activities? Those have been a thing since iOS 16
To get that ad-free YouTube experience, I use Vinegar safari extension and have pinned the YouTube site to my home screen rather than using any apps.
I also use Banish to remove all those annoying “Open in our app” pop-ups in Safari.
Lastly, I use AdGuard to block ads on the phone locally and have also set up my own Wireguard VPN server at home with PiHole so that I’m always protected ad-wise when I’m out and about over 5G and on any public Wifi (I used to use my own Wireguard VPN with my old Pixels too).
Absolute bliss.
Thank you for sharing this! I am a happy camper now.
No problems! 😀
When I was on Android I used to love the F-Droid open source repository. Both Newpipe (3rd party YouTube app) and DNS66 (local VPN on device that blocked ads throughout the phone).
I switched to iOS and really missed those applications and needed a solution for my new phone. Those 5 things above (Vinegar, Banish, AdGuard, WireGuard and PiHole) have worked wonders helping me when I switched.
Wouldn’t be without them now.
Edit:
If anyone happens be be on android or still uses Android devices with their Apple things, here are the apps I used to use:https://f-droid.org/en/
https://f-droid.org/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/
https://f-droid.org/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/Both platforms with compelling solutions to block ads and nagging popups.🤝
Install adguard, i rarely see ads anywhere. I also like dark reader to make websites dark by default
Get Wipr for ad blocking on Safari
Always remember that you can add any website as app to the Homescreen using the share menu in Safari while being on the website. PWAs (webApps) will look like installed apps if opened from Homescreen. (No browser UI)
You can use NextDNS to block ads at DNS level
Enjoy not needing to reboot your phone all the time.
As far as something like YouTube Revanced: the App Store rules make it harder, but you can still do it! Check out an app called Yattee, which is fairly barebones—until you connect it up to a third-party YouTube front end for wonderful effect. https://www.reddit.com/r/Yattee/comments/13d3lj7/how_to_set_up_and_use_yattee_to_watch_youtube/
If you’re looking for a very similar experience to YouTube re-Vance’d you should try YouTubeRebornPlus. It’s a modification to the official YouTube app with all the features one would expect, No Ads, Skipping Sponsor Spots, proper PIP support. Similarly to side loading APKs on Android you can side load IPAs on iOS. It’s not as simple, but it’s not difficult either.
Anyway, here is a link to the GitHub for the IPA. https://github.com/arichorn/YouTubeRebornPlus/releases/tag/v18.29.1-4.2.0
In addition to the adblockers, you can install Hush to get rid of the cookie notices.
If you’re willing to tinker a little, check out AltStore. It’s a way to install apps Apple doesn’t want on the App Store (so things similar to re-Vance’d, torrent downloaders or emulators).
Yeah, I’m trying to de-Google my life while not going all out, if that makes sense. Thanks for the suggestions. I gotta say I never realized just how much I used my Gmail address as the login. I’m never tying my logins/passwords to a behemoth again.
Just install whatever apps you want to use. Maybe get an AdBlock for safari.
It doesn’t require much tweaking to work properly.
