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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I think in day-to-day use they’re pretty equivalent. I agree with most of what you say, except I don’t consider being able to choose between third-party apps and services (Google Calendar and Gmail, Amazon Photos or Google Photos) and Apple’s own that are more exclusive to Apple hardware to be a con; if anything, it’s a pro. But in everyday use, I don’t care much about the difference. Mostly, I bought an iPhone when I finally wanted a flagship to last many years (and Android phones at the time were still not great at long-term support), and I like the experience of using it and don’t see a reason to change.
people always forget privacy, built design, 5+ support, and the famous: it just works.
iPhone 15 pro + AirPods Pro 2, you’re set up for very high standards for a long time. add the Apple Watch to it, an iPad Pro, a MacBook… right now, I’m typing on a Side Car’ed iPad, whilst music is airplay to my HomePod, after I was FaceTiming with my family via the Apple TV using the phone as a camera on a MagSafe support, a FaceTime call I first picked up on the watch whilst parking my car.
It’s only after that I realised **how high the bar for android to beat** and that we couldn’t imagine how fluid it’d get 10 years ago.
All of that private, secured, high quality and it just works all up over the air, MagSafe or USB c.
Android in the current state of the hardware cannot never beat that.
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
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
It sounds like you should have just bought a pixel.
Most Google apps used in Android are also available on iOS as Google pays Apple billions every year to push their services on Apple users. So this solves most of your problems right away. Just use WhatsApp or whatever third party messaging app if you want. I don’t get the fascination with all those third party messaging apps. On Android I always used whatever googles stock messaging app was. On iOS I use iMessage. What’s the point or purpose of using a third party messaging app other than social media bullshit? Just download your preferred scrolling app of your choice and dissolve into the digital world lol.
The few and tiny things you think you’re losing on iOS are more than made up with superior software support, top notch hardware and components, and a fully matured and fleshed out operating system.
I used Google devices for over a decade and there’s no way I would ever go back. The play store is a joke compared to apples App Store. The security and privacy are virtually non existent. I have met more people with bugged out malware infected Android phones in a week than I have a messed up iPhone in my entire life.
Better modems, better software, better ecosystem.
Letting social media aspects make your phone purchase choices for you is a mistake. Social media isn’t everything and is a blight on society imo.
I tell people all the time when they ask for my whatever handle to just email, call or text me. It’s really not that hard.
If you want cheap hardware and an ecosystem created by the biggest ad company in the world then grab a pixel. Otherwise the iPhone is the better choice.
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
Nothing anymore, to be honest, just the investment into the ecosystem.
I used to use Android OS phones. I’m comfortable with my iPhone.
As far as Apple’s Calendar vs. Google Calendar, Apple’s Calendar is not a factor. I just use my Google Calendar app as my default calendar. On the odd occasion that I need a reminder that is not available in the App, I go to the Google Calendar website which I have bookmarked in the DuckDuckGo app on my iPad. After I set the reminder in website, it quickly syncs into the app. This only comes up when I want a reminder to occur simultaneously with an earlier event’s reminder whose time is not conducive to what is available in the app. I will almost always set multiple reminders to help me remember.
Huh, fast charge? Even the fast charge on my 12PM is insane. 20 minutes should give you plenty juice. Are you using a powerful enough adapter?
Some recent Android phones have much faster charging, like well over 100 W (as opposed to, what, 17 W on iPhones?), full charge 0-100% in 15 minutes or less. Does anyone really need that? Probably not, but it’s there.
Sounds like a way to quickly deteriorate a battery.
I have only had Android devices and I don’t see what the fuss is about with the fast charging. I can only think of a single moment within the last 5 years that would have been helpful, and even then, I was fine with my charger at the time (17 watt - I was had a brief layover between flights and didn’t get my phone plugged in until about 15 minutes before I needed to board). My Pixel 6 Pro has a max charging speed of 23w. It’s more than fast enough for almost any scenario. I don’t see why anyone would need to charge to full within 15 minutes. I mean…that’s neat and all, but. when would I actually ever need that?
I prefer the overall design of Android with an app drawer, back button/gestures, the ability to side load if needed, and hardware variety.
I left Android because the best experience (Pixel) wouldn’t let me dial 911, I’m not the first, and it’s an ongoing thing for 2 years. I like Samsunghardware but there’s always a miss software wise, and I don’t need 2 versions of all apps.
Apple integration with AirPods, iCloud, etc just works way better than Android. Switching APP to my Apple TV is fantastic. Auto switching between other devices is killer too.
Find my network is unmatched.
The watch kills Android watches. I think $800 for an Ultra that gets good battery life is ridiculous but it is fully featured.
Cameras. My pixel could take good shots most times, but not always. But they’re leaning too hard to AI and languishing in other areas. Speed of the UI, Consistency of shots colors and lighting, and frankly, quality just sometimes misses. It can’t do Macro nearly as good as my iPhone.
It used to be simplicity up to around iOS 5 or 6.
But these days it’s as complex as Android but I still stick to Apple because now I’m used to it.
Go back to Android. A phone at this point is so much an extension of you that if you are having second thoughts, go back to the other phone. Perhaps the question should be, why do you even want an iPhone? I am an iPhone user since the very first iPhone. I’ve never consider moving to another system. I’ve tried, taking advantage of the various offers, but I like my iPhone better.
iPhone does everything I want it to, looks beautiful, and I’m familiar with the UI out of the box.
Yes I could learn Android, or I could customize Android to be just like iOS, but I do IT for a living and don’t want to troubleshoot when I’m off the clock.
It’s actually really hard to customize Android to be just like iOS. I tried Android a few years ago expecting to be able to customize everything to make my perfect phone, but as it turns out most of the customization you get is extremely superficial.
I wasn’t gonna say that and shit on the Android iOS makeover lovers, but yeah. The Android iOS themes you can get are cool for what they are, but you can tell it’s an Android under the hood.
I find the ios very customizable imo. You can have it set to full straight brain rot mode or complete silence or business mode. The DND function is also amazing. You can choose which contacts can call and which can’t specifically on each mode. Whereas Android does not have that freedom
Android also has nicely working DND mode that you can also customize like whose calls to accept, after how many times etc… It does not have different focus modes though IIRC like sleep, work, etc
Yeah that’s the issue. I dont want to be at work and be bombarded by memes by my friends. And i dont want to be bombarded with work stuff when im at home
Makes sense and is a nice feature!
BTW out of curiosity I googled it now and it seems that Samsung has multiple focus modes similar to IOS… Feature parity that we mentioned!
Yeah unfortunately i had a bad experience with samsung so i dont shop with them anymore. Theyre top tier in the android game imo
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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