I’m planning on switching platforms and I’m just curious of the opinions of people here. I think that Android can have advantages in areas of privacy and external app installation, but most of the benefits come with a lot of tinkering out of the box.
I’m a very capable person at modifying my phone and I don’t generally mind doing that. I can make the interface work however I want. But I find myself caring less and less about how I interact with things in the light of what Apple is doing.
I’m looking at Android and it seems to be pretty far behind iOS at the moment. The messaging service is a huge sticking point and progress isn’t being made to unify iMessage with RCS apps. It seems to me like Samsung is making more progress with the platform than Google itself is. Like they’re the ones carrying it right now.
Keep in mind, I’m not a shill here. I haven’t used iOS in years. I still think they’re overpriced phones and Apple isn’t a great company. And I wish USB-C was a thing. This isn’t an ad. I’m just frustrated with the android platform and Apple seems to be leaving it behind.
Example features: FaceID, iMessage, home screen UX, battery life, and extended software support.
So can anyone tell me if they feel the same or help me in my decision? Not trying to start a tech war btw
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There are a lot of answers running the gamut.
The bottom line is, as it has always been: you use the technology that works for you. iOS isn’t better or worse than Android, and vice versa. Both OSes are valid, and it’s the individual’s choice as to what works best for them. I would be miserable with an Android device. I happen to get great value from my Apple devices - especially when there is trade-in value and the devices get recycled.
I personally don’t think it’s productive to “tribalize" the two OSes. They are developed to completely different designs and strategies. Android is basically designed for a wide range of manufacturers, each having their own needs and wants, which includes frequent sales cycles. Apple has always, ALWAYS, been a hardware manufacturer first, and any software they develop is intended to enhance the user’s experience of the hardware in a very measured and structured way. Android (and PC) is aimed for mass market distribution. Apple has always been premium boutique. Hell, one big reason the iPhone was originally released by Apple because the existing cell phone market refused to support the Mac platform: essentially the iPhone was the “premium add-on” to the Mac experience. But Apple also has a slower sales cycle - releasing yearly, sure, but with the understanding that every year someone will want an upgrade, not every year everyone will want an upgrade. My last iPhone went 5 hardware versions before I upgraded, or about 3 years, and I average 3-5 years on small devices, and 5-7 years on desktop).
Every user’s experience is personal, and anecdotal, even mine. So I ask: what do YOU want in a phone? What you YOU want your phone’s OS to do? Make a decision matrix and list all the pros and cons of each phone. Which ends up with the most pros? How many of the cons are show stoppers? If Android matches best, by an Android phone. It’s fine.
You’re not wrong about all of this. I wasn’t trying to tribalize or start a fight (said so in my post even) because I know that people do that. However, my view has changed from when I last owned an iphone.
When I last owned an iphone, the fights made sense. I could see why people fought over platforms because they were very different and comparing and contrasting them at the time was pretty difficult to do directly. Like was it better to have back and forward button bars? Or were curved phone edges a good idea?
But nowadays my opinion is diffent. Phones do a lot of the same things. They’re all very mature platforms for the most part. So when I ask my question I’m asking why, for most general use cases, anyone would want an android. And the response I’m getting back for the most part is: you don’t.
This is coming from someone who desperately wants the competition. I ditched iphone about a decade ago when the S7 edge was a thing. I left behind all of the features iphones have for connecting with people for a platform that I believed had better tech, was more affordable, and had similar software support.
Nowadays I’m looking at the platforms and most of my reasons no longer make sense. Android phones are expensive. They aren’t at apples level, but some of them are and none of them hold value. So why not wait two years and get a brand new android? Because the software updates aren’t going to keep up. So for a higher initial investment, I can get a phone that will have decent resale value when I’m ready to upgrade and still get software updates.
All of this is to say that my ability to connect with friends over FaceTime and imessage aren’t worth sticking it out on android to me. I don’t see a lot of hope for the platform in the directions I want. I haven’t seen the improvements I was hoping for. And so I’m jumping ship. Maybe I’ll be back, maybe I’ll hate iphone, we shall see!
I’m sorry if I implied you were causing tribalism. I was ranting into the void on that one. :-)
What you are experiencing though is effectively “paralysis through over analysis” a failing many of us have. This is why you have to pull back a bit and think pragmatically. Which is not easy, but with everything getting expensive, you have to think about the best investment of your hard-earned money. There is always going to be a “next best” especially right after you buy a device. You should always shoot for “the best you can afford” at the time you need to buy.
If Apple is giving you the best value for your purchase, then you are being frugal. It may be by the time you are ready to purchase a new devise, you may find that Android scratches an itch the iPhone can’t. I, for one, would love the more delicate chimes most Android devices have - instead of Apple’s “Fisher Price” sounds.
The bottom line is, this is your money - don’t let anyone’s opinions drive you to a purchase you will be unhappy with. If an iPhone is serving your needs now, that’s awesome. If you find that you miss being on an Android, you can use the time to keep an eye out for an Android device that you feel is an upgrade. It’s all about what the device can do for you, and how long that device will remain useful to you.
To be honest I think the phones are very equal which is actually why I want the opinions to color my decision because I’m finding it hard to decide. I bought the phone, but I’m not set on switching to it so I wanted to hear what people have to say before I get it.
Sometimes experiences are useful and I’ve heard experiences from people who use their phone very similar to me be happy with the switch. I’ll have to report back.
But yeah I’m conscious of the frugal part. I even calculated out how much my android phone has cost me in depreciation and decided that the best way to think about it was in terms of that.
For example; my Note 10 plus cost about $1000 new and I’ve had it about 4 years, now it’s worth $250. So my cost is roughly $200 to own the phone over that time. However, I can (and did) buy an iPhone 12 pro max for $600 and I expect it to follow a similar depreciation at $150 per year-ish.
So when people say that apple phones are more expensive, they’re right, but there’s an upfront investment. After that, owning a used iPhone is similar to owning a used android phone. Just a thought.
I owned an iPod touch and an iPad and I’ll never buy in to the Apple ecosystem again.
Update after update the devices got slower and slower until they were unusuable. With no way to roll back (at the time, not sure if that still holds) the only solution was to buy a new device.
I have yet to have that happen with any of my other devices. Android phones, tablets, Linux machines, Windows machines, game consoles, or Roku boxes.
I’ve had similar experiences with android phones, seems like an older gen tech problem so I want to see if that’s still an issue.
Except that apple was intentionally doing this to drive consumers towards buying more of their product
The phone slowdowns were intended to prolong the lives of phones, not shorten them. The underclocking only happened after your phone had been forced to shut down because the battery wasn’t delivering sufficient power. I had a phone with this problem, and opening the camera would sometimes just immediately shut down the phone instead. I got a free new battery for it, but the general fix was slowdowns instead. They should’ve disclosed it and they also should’ve given users control, but if they wanted people buying new phones, I know from experience that the random shutdowns were worse than a slower phone.
Just one person’s opinion, but I switched to an Apple phone last year after several years using top of the line Android devices, and I’ve been really happy with it. The features are all rock solid, and their particular brand of walled garden is one that I don’t tend to mind much.
I moved to iOS able a year ago after being a diehard Samsung fan. I have a long list of pros to switching. The parental controls if you have kids are way beyond Android. That’s really the reason we switched.
The only real con I can give you from a user perspective is the swipe typing is atrocious on every keyboard. I can’t express how much I hate typing on my phone. It makes bad corrections so often it’s pretty much impossible for me to post typo free posts of any length, and it goes back and changes the word before the one you’re typing so you check that the right word is there and nice on and when you look again later after you post, you find it switched the right word to the wrong one. But if you don’t swipe, you won’t notice.
Lack of serviceability is a big one.
Walled gardens are another.
I have major issues with both. I bought the device, I should be able to repair it. It shouldn’t intentionally not work with other ecosystems that use standard protocols either. I should be able to integrate my device with standards the rest of the world uses.
Pretty much you buy apple devices, you are essentially an expensive renter renting a really strong internal ecosystem that purposefully forces you into buying more of that ecosystem and not working outside of it.
Right to repair is a thing in Europe now (https://www.apple.com/uk/newsroom/2022/12/apple-launches-self-service-repair-in-europe/), though I’ve heard complaints about how it’s conducted.
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I’m on iOS and the biggest downside to iOS in my opinion is the $100/year developer fee, the Mac requirement for development, and the lack of side-loading. What this ultimately means is that it can be hard to find free / open source apps for iOS, especially ones like newpipe that might not be approved on the App Store. It’s honestly a pretty big bummer. Some other restrictions also mean that Safari is pretty much the only viable browser on iOS and ad-blocking / extensions are fairly limited. Another disappointment is that ad-supported apps seemed to be a lot more annoying than the Google equivalents, weirdly enough. I guess Google maybe has more / different guidelines about making ads supremely irritating, or maybe I just had better options for free apps on Android.
I’m curious what you mean by “in light of what Apple is doing”? As far as I know iOS isn’t really miles ahead of Android in any particular area – they’re more or less comparable in my experience, with iOS being a bit more limited in terms of customization and stuff (the fact that you still can’t place icons anywhere you want on the homescreen is baffling to me).
If I’m being entirely honest, I think I probably like the Android operating system more than I like iOS… Which is weirdly part of the reason I like iOS – I’m a little less tempted to look at my phone and a little less tempted to tinker with it. And there are are things that I like about my iPhone. The hardware is nice, the Apple Watch is really nice, FaceID is great, some things I thought would be silly like live photos are actually kind of nice, some of the iCloud features are great, and it’s nice that it pairs with other things in the Apple ecosystem well. Ultimately the main reason I’ve abandoned Android is that I just got sick of my Android phones dying all of the time and only getting software support for like 9 months. Apple’s support window is massive in comparison, which is also a big plus.
I appreciate the detailed response, it’s good info. I’ll just respond to the curiousity part. I mean that their phones and tech seem to be maturing and aren’t slowing down. I saw their last WWDC and I know most of it is marketing but even then, it seems like all of their interface gets updates yearly. I can’t say the same for Android phones as I never see updates aside from major ones. And when they happen, I have no idea what’s in them.
Like the messaging app on iPhone is light years ahead of anything available on Android. FaceTime continues to be a standard for calling and alternatives exist but Google has changed the service they use like twice now since I’ve been on Android I think. Not to mention that Google meet is just… not good enough. FaceID isn’t a thing really. The health apps on iOS aren’t talked about enough and they’re pretty good as far as I know. Privacy still does seem to be with iphone, the ad blocking is great.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s some Android phones that do some of these things really well or maybe even better. But the iOS stuff is just a really good package overall that delivers a consistent experience. And from what I’ve had in my decade on Android, it continues to be inconsistent for me.
Apple refuses to integrate RCS into iMessage despite Google publicly calling it out and inviting it to do so. Apple is not incentivized to do so since they enjoy the iMessage ecosystem lock-in. Google is further ahead than Samsung, and allows you to use RCS with their stock Messages app. Personally, I use Signal with all my friends and family which works on both iOS and Android.
Let’s go through your example features…
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Face ID: This is available in the latest Google Pixel models via Face Unlock. No it’s not as good as iOS, but you also have the fingerprint reader as an additional option with Pixel, which you don’t have on iOS. As someone who experiences Winter, I’m glad to not have to show my face to unlock my phone when I’m bundled up or skiing with a helmet/goggles on. Easier to just take a glove off for a hot second to unlock the phone.
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iMessage: This is blue bubble envy, and it’s pretty slick I can’t lie. Again, I’ve been lucky to get my friends to use Signal, but if all your friends are using iMessage it can be annoying. This is a problem of Apple’s own making, however, and I wouldn’t reward them (on principle) for sustaining the issue despite options being available.
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Home Screen UX: Not sure how Android doesn’t win this one hands down. Home screen customization is way behind Android, and even with the latest changes in the latest versions of iOS, it’s still behind.
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Battery Life: I don’t find my Pixel 7 to suffer from poor or even remotely poor battery life at all. There are Android phones like the Asus Zenphone 10 that are crushing even the best iPhone on battery life. It’s easily a two-day phone, and they do it all in a compact package.
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Extended Software Support: Again, it’s all in who you choose to buy from if you value long term support. Samsung gives four years of OS and five years of security updates for its phones. Google gives three years of OS updates and five years of security updates on its phones. Not quite as good as iOS, but not worth spending a bunch extra for an iPhone.
Ultimately though, it’s Apple’s hostile approach to allowing users to repair their own products that has me staying away from purchasing their phones. Not just in the build process, but in their unwillingness to sell component level replacement parts of any kind to independent repair shops. And their support for killing right-to-repair legislation.
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I made the switch a year ago from android to apple. I did the whole rooting and degoogling thing but that took time and I had bugs sometimes which required more tinkering. At one point I was like I don’t have time for this and the nexus to pixel switch didn’t convince me to keep going with android. I switched to iOS and haven’t regretted me move. A few android phones like Sony and Oneplus almost convince me to go back but not yet.
Th blue and green bubble is blown out of proportion especially now that android made the update that green bubble people can emoji respond to messages now. Before you used to get this odd messages that was like so and so laughed at this message.
One thing I would warn you about is the App Store. Most apps cost money which is a pro and a con depending on how you look at it. There are money grabbing subscription apps but I can usually find an awesome one time fee app. Generally the apple App Store has good quality apps but there’s a fee. This kind of adds to the apple eco system because now you paid for high quality apps and they may not transfer if you go back to android.
I am a gadget fanatic, but I also love to maintain privacy. One problem I always see mentioned is wallet garden on iOS. I put some of my experience into the ring here. I use GrapheneOS as my daily drive for most things. This starts with no google services and ends with profiles where I can separate people and groups and install multiple of the same apps… like signal etc.
For lots of my work, I use a samsung fold 4. It replaced my laptop, and it’s convenient. With adg (remove many Samsung apps and the Facebook and microsoft bloatware) and block internet access to most apps via rethinkdns and decloudus, you get a pretty convenient yet private device. I monitor what goes in and out and block all i don’t need.
My family is all into apple so I also have an iPhone (not an excuse haha, I also love some of the wallet gardened things. Like apple music, imessage (for very few people) and I love the focus setup. I know you can do a lot manually on android to get it similar, but focus modes are a killer. I also never found as great looking and working mastodon apps (and yes, I use tusky, fedilab, and a few others on android. I still prefer what ios (some paid, some free have to offer, mammoth comes to mind on the free end). To make things more private, I use adguard pro in combination with decloudus and block apple our of the device. Still get push, and all works when you add a very few domains listing on the decloudus whitelist page.
So I use 3 options (GrapheneOS what is surly the best when it comes to privacy) but also wouldn’t want to miss ios or a fold.
iOS is great and if it works for you and you are happy with it, perhaps even have a mac then you can make it a great, private and secure device. Use lockdown mode is also a great way I didn’t see on android yet.
Surprisingly, iOS has better privacy than Google because Apple is a hardware company while Google is an advertising company.
I like the freedom that comes with android. Being able to customize what I want, download third party apps, easily use third party accessories. I even have it connected to my computer so I can text and open my apps from there.
Apple is just so… closed off. I don’t own any other apple products (and I do not plan on it) so I don’t even get the full benefits of having the whole ecosystem going. There’s just not an upside to using iOS over Android for my personal use case.
Also, I’m currently using a Samsung Fold and I don’t know if I could go back to a regular phone lol. It’s just so unique and really fantastic for multitasking. I don’t think it’s possible to open more than app side by side on iPhone? (Correct me if I’m wrong) but I regularly use 2 to 3 side by side and even have the option to add a 4th in pop-up view if I wanted to lol.
It’s really all preference, but I’ve just never been a big Apple fan and I don’t really like the UI designs for most of their products.
Ah I’m jealous! I can’t afford a foldable but they’re very cool tech so enjoy it!
Luckily for me, my partner owns a lot of Apple devices which is what pressured me to switch and talk about this. So in my use case I think it makes more sense potentially. Thanks for the feedback though, cheers!
This is a “forced” pro for iOS, but if you were to get an android phone and another iOS user were to send you a video via text message, it will look like shit unless you have an iOS device. I’m an android user and I hate this.
I have a pixel 6 pro. I’d only recommend getting a pixel or a OnePlus phone because all others usually have their crap branded bloatware attached and are usually slower to get updates. Pixel does come with some Google apps, but I actually use a good bit of them so I don’t mind.
Fingerprint scanner on pixel is nice. I don’t do a lot of stuff on my phone so my bar is set at- has working Bluetooth, no bloatware, updates pushed out at reasonable time, can easily move photos to external storage so I don’t have to pay for cloud storage.
I guess I can edit in here that I actually use both. My work phone is some 2 year old iphone. I don’t know what number it is. If I wasn’t paranoid of my company spying on me I would probably use it more and get rid of my android.
For many years I used Android phones and enjoyed the customization, roms, rooting, and tinkering. Now, I don’t have time for messing around and just want something that will text and take pictures. Made the switch to Apple about 4 years ago. For a while I was travelling for work and gone for extended periods of time so Facetime was nice for connecting with people close to me. Yes, I know there are other apps.
Now my home is all Siri’ed up so I feel locked in, and I have a Macbook for work. I sometimes debate going back and running a privacy rom but my current setup is fine for my threat model. The only thing that fucking sucks is the price, other than that everything just seems “fine”. I am not too picky though. :)
Thanks for the feedback! The price is a sticking point but I’m not worried about it because I’m buying used and Apple products seem to have very good resell value. My 4 year old note 10 plus is worth about a 4th of what I bought it for. Meanwhile iphone 11 and 12 pro max phones are worth literally double that or more while starting at the same price. It’s wild.
Also luckily for me, my partner has a lot of apple tech so I expect I’ll be just fine in that regard. Other than the phone, I can mooch of of them lol.
To go along with this, I used my iPhone 6 (2014) until I got my 11 (I wanted the larger screen for work and the upgraded cameras), and handed down my 6 to my daughter who used it until earlier this year when we got her a used SE. the 6 chocked on things like Pokémon Go, where they dropped support because it’s old, but it worked fine for the vast majority of what she did (calls, texts, browsing, drawing with Procreate, games, etc). And most of all, it was STILL getting security patches. (9 years?!)
I’ve had android devices lose support 18-24 months after launch. I ended up rooting them and installed newer android versions, but it was hit and miss and a pain in some regards. With Apple it just worked and didn’t come with bloat.
There’s literally one reason I stick with android, you can just put files on it and use them, I know iOS has improved greatly here, now you can actually have some approximation of file system access, but I really don’t want to use a janky app like iTunes (at least on windows it’s kind of broken still) to get anything on and off the phone outside of iCloud. I end up using my phone more like a pocket linux computer enough of the time that I just can’t jive with such a locked down device.
I really like the hardware, and iOS is a very cohesive and easy to use experience it just doesn’t fill my use cases for a phone. I’m not the kind of person who just uses something, I always want to crack it open and tinker with it, I think my record for not modifying a car after purchase is 2 weeks (only because I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a lemon). Android just fits my ethos better.
I mean, getting files off of iphones is certainly a hurdle but I can’t say I do it often. I back up my photos and videos, so I don’t know what else I’d use on my phone in the way of files.
Yeah it’s one of those things, you know if you need it. Most people don’t need it. An android phone has been an extremely flexible part of my tech toolkit since 2011 and I haven’t looked back. If I want to do something involving another phone or computer I can find some way to do it. iOS has certainly become much much more flexible than it was early on, but I don’t think I can fix an old CNC controller with an RS232 adapter with one.
Be sure if another apps or features are as important for you as those you said Face ID, iMessage, home screen UX, battery life. For example, not being able to run syncthing on IOS is a dealbreaker for me. Another app is minimalism launcher, etc…
not being able to run synching
Do you mean syncthing? I’m just asking for clarification, because that’s an important piece of software for me.
Yeah, that’s what I meant
