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
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.
To be honest, the interface doesn’t really seem to change much to me, and most of the big changes recently have been to add features that have kind of always been on Android (e.g., custom lockscreens). I don’t know what’s happening in the Android world, but if this is what’s so appealing to you I’d really sit down and think about what features / interface changes you’ve seen that make you so excited. Maybe it seems fast paced from the other side, but from here everything just feels like incremental progress?
I don’t really use FaceTime or Messages. I guess when I have used FaceTime it’s been good quality, though. Messages is kind of whatever to me. I’d rather use Signal or something. I mean, Messages seems pretty solid, but there’s not too much magical about it and you can only use it if everybody in the chat has an iPhone, which is kind of lame… otherwise it defaults to SMS which is super unreliable. May be worth it for the group of people you talk to, but I don’t understand it as a selling point.
Frankly, you have much better ad blocking options on Android than on iOS, at least if you’re rooted. You have options to install DNS / host file style ad-blocking in Android that works system wide, and that’s just not available on iOS (I think you might be able to get a local VPN that blocks ads, though). You have some ad block options on Safari, but it’s not the best in my experience. At least on Firefox for Android you can install add-ons like uBlock Origin and stuff, which is a big win in my opinion.
Anyway, I don’t mean to discourage you at all. iOS can be pretty great too. Just want to give you a full picture of some of the things I’ve been frustrated with from switching, and I think it’s worth considering if this is just a “the grass is always greener on the other side situation”. I also don’t really know what Android is like these days.
I’m definitely considering all of those things. I don’t use much ad blocking in android except for youtube, but I researched iphone workarounds for that.
And as for iOS being updated quickly, I think my thing is that they make a lot of changes to phones over their 5 year or so support cycle. Whereas with Samsung, I’ve had only one or two updates that I even noticed anything changed and now my phone will likely not see any more significant updates despite being 4 years old. I think I’ve only updated once this year.
Okay, that’s fair, especially if you don’t go down the custom ROM route when you lose support.