I switched to iPhone for many reasons, but the main reason was SERVICE. I owned a HTC and then Samsung. I had issues with both the phones at some point in time. Yes things can go bad. I can't take my android phone to a local store to get it fixed. I need to send the phone to them, get a backup phone, port all my contacts to the other phone. But if I have a issue with my iPhone all I need to do is book an appointment at Genius bar, and they take care of the rest. At least I know I can talk to a real person face to face to fix the issue with my phone.
I tend to agree with your thoughts here, and this article seems like nothing more than very minor personal taste notes, but I have only used iPhones for the past six years or so.
What I have done is support both iPhones and Android devices at work. When someone’s iPhone would break or have issues, I would take it to an Apple store and usually get the issue resolved or a replacement phone the same day. On the other hand, dealing with any sort of support issue for Samsung Galaxy devices was a damn nightmare. Those had to be shipped to some processing plant in TX and Samsung had a painfully bad website for tracking the repair. I had one instance where there just sent the phone back a few weeks later with no updates or information on the web. It took numerous phone calls and wasted time to find out they wouldn’t repair its screen issue because it had a third-party battery.
Perhaps (and hopefully) Google is better about this than Samsung, but those support experiences are what led me to prefer Apple’s ecosystem for personal use.
I'm looking to switch from iPhone to Android since the customization, feature set, and google assistant seem far better than what iOS offers.
My main concern with switching: Quality Assurance issues and reliability. Do you see this as an issue for those who have experienced both Apple and Samsung relatively recently?
Happy iPhone user since 2018 and no regrets so far. I used Android for 7 years before that and I don't miss the constant crashes and the bad customer service I had with my HTC and Samsung phones (both flagship phones that cost the same as an iPhone).
a few years ago, switching to android would have been unthinkable for me. preposterous.
now? I am so annoyed by my iphones persistent buggy problems performing normal phone-like operations (texting, typing) that I will probably switch. ugh.
few other anecdotal observations:
their genius bar reservation web page literally redirects to an error page half the time! and not like a "planned" error page with a cute whale or something, but one with weird server logs that obviously are not meant for the end user
half the time i try to use the app store or sync apple ID I get an inscrutable error
i'm not sure if I gave up on apple, or they gave up on me! end rant
I think sometimes it's a grass-is-greener situation. I had an iPhone bug where the camera/gallery would just crash on startup or basically anytime I had to do anything camera related. I eventually fixed it (after months of trying) by connecting to a PC with a 3rd party app, navigating the file system, and deleting a bunch of thumbnail cache files.
I had plenty of problems answering phone calls on my iPhone -- it would be glitchy and unresponsive and I'd miss calls.
Even more annoying about the iPhone is the always growing "Other" space on the phone. I was constantly short on disk space with no way of knowing what the cause was or how to clean it up.
The bluetooth stack would crash every week disconnecting all my bluetooth devices temporarily. Very annoying when you have a smartwatch.
My wife's iPhone screen doesn't turn off after she uses Siri sometimes -- it'll just say on all night long.
The entire iPhone 6 (non-S) line was total garbage. Tons of people bought these and had nothing but problems.
My point isn't so much to rag on iPhones -- they're actually really solid devices -- and I highly recommend them to non-technical users pretty much exclusively. They are hands down better than the vast majority of Android devices.
But I switched from iPhone to Android on this last cycle and couldn't be happier -- this article covers much of what's good about it. But I love the flexibility and a lot of little touches that iOS devices don't have. And I think all devices have different problems. My Android phone is not glitch free either.
I've carried an iPhone and an Android (some variety of Pixel) for the past several years. I use them both heavily for work and I feel like the main difference between the two is that the Android phone fails in more obvious ways, such as the occasional momentary freeze or an app crash dialog appearing. Stuff on the iPhone seems to fail more subtly, such as data not loading properly or an app silently crashing and restarting in a way that doesn't seem like a crash, just the loss of state in whatever app I was in.
There is some truth to this, yet after spending time with Android from first release to 2014. Spending the last 9 years with iPhone/iOS. I've yet to encounter as many issues as I did with Android phones.
The dialer crashing, the launcher crashing (usually due to a widget), the lack of OS updates for a less-than-year-old flagship phone, the plethora of times Google decided to change their mind about messaging solutions, LACK OF COMPREHENSIVE AUTOMATED BACKUPS.
Simple things that 'just work' in the apple ecosystem. I've had the launcher crash once. I've lost my phone, received a replacement, and restored my phone to exactly this state it was the day before I lost it.
Yeah. I had similar issues with samsung and nexus devices.
Despite the removal of the headphone jack, I switched to an iPhone 7+. Had an issue with touch id, and they just replaced the entire screen for free while I hung out at the mall.
Between the privacy moves Apple has made, along with their awesome support, I can't see myself switching back.
I recently switched from Android phones to an iPhone in July of this year.
This after having used android since the G1 (first android phone).
I think your sentiments are the most fair and realistic I've come across in a while (FYI for others reading).
The gap isn't as big as it used to be software wise, but the hardware is still better by a big margin. iOS has also been a little more stable, less app crashes, random reboots, etc.
The only thing I'd add is that the apple stores have been surprisingly helpful and have added more to the experience than I would have thought. Go in, try everything, get brought up to speed real quick by friendly staff, and they seem to always be conveniently located (for me at least).
All in all the experience has been better and I haven't missed Android's famous flexibility.
I moved to Android a couple of years ago as I was so frustrated with all the issues I was having (after being an iPhone user since the first iPhone) only to realise Android is the same mess of bugs and issues. It made me come to the conclusion that tech in general has just lost its path now, and the constant push for higher specs and more features has led to devices that suck at their basic use cases (but look at those pixel-level photo comparison!1one!).
I ended up switching back to an iPhone 8 this year, as it’s the last iPhone I found to actually “just work”.
The iPhone has been such a good constant, high quality and reliable mobile phone throughout its years. I used to work in mobile sales during my graduate years and I attempted to jump from Apple to Microsoft (Lumia), Google Nexus 5X, Samsung S5 and the edge. I found more often than not customers who had problems with their devices were Android devices. Android problems were related to software errors and slowness, whereas Apple problems were related to more user error (backing up photos etc).
Appreciating these are older phones compared to those newer models of today but I quickly went straight back to the iPhone (3, 5, 6 plus, 7, X, 11). I now don't buy them every year, usually now only once the wheels have fallen off.
Looking back I don't even obsess over new mobile phones as they're hardly that much better year on year across any brand.
I swapped from Android after a decade to iOS at the end of last year, and don't regret it one single bit.
Android you just get plagued with software bugs (random battery drain, UI freezes, weird crashes etc) constantly, additionally I wasn't a fan of how system apps because they come from Google auto-update, going in and having an app completely change at random when I'm not expecting it, is not a nice experience when you need the app in a hurry (looking at you Google Maps).
Ironically for a phone, phone calls were the buggiest thing on nearly all Android phones I had over a decade (OnePlus, Samsung, Pixel etc).
iOS, as much as I disagree with Apple's closed ecosystem and propriety behaviour, is just a far better software quality than Android. Google is obviously not a software company.
The top reason was actually an issue with the Android experience. Over 53% of respondents said they moved to iPhone because of problems with their Android smartphone. Specifics cited were “their old phone did not serve them, because it was aging, needed repair, or had some deficiency that affected their user experience.”
I’ve been an iOS user for about 5 years now. I switched from Android because after 6 months of owning an Android-based phone it was practically unusable form a performance standpoint. The hardware companies used was low quality. The experience with Samsung, Motorola, etc. bloatware and half-baked features basically forced you to root and flash the device if you wanted a decent experience. iOS may be a walled garden, but it works. Well.
My partner switched from Android a little over a year ago. These problems, on her current gen, top of the line Samsung phone, still persisted. While the quality of the hardware had definitely improved, she was essentially stuck with a phone that was seemingly trying to become obsolete.
IMO, Android has a longggggg way to go before it really shakes that perception. I realize a lot of the problems aren’t Android’s fault. I’m sure they want companies to provide updates to their devices for years. I’m sure they don’t want some Bixby crap taking over. But, in the end, that’s really what you can expect from their approach.
After 7 years Android user across three phones, I decided to try iPhone. Now 2 years in, on my 2nd, and never going back. Android tends to slowly slide into glitch land and demands you throw away your phone far more aggressively than iPhones do. The 911-crash on Android was the last straw. That's when you call 911, and the phone crashes instead of, you know, calling for help.
iPhone might not be latest and greatest. But the overall package is better. Definitely not perfect - I've experienced a disabled Phone app on iPhone where I would not have been able to call 911 had I needed it - but all my i-devices have been glitch resistant in a way none of my Android devices ever were.
Most of the people I know who have switched from Android to Apple did so because a premium phone they had purchased stopped receiving updates after the first year or so they were stuck with bugs for which the only fix was “buy another phone”.
Everyone has EOL dates in this game, but Google consumer device ecosystems are the worst of the bunch in this regard.
I had more problems with the iPhones I had before I switched to Android than I've had with Android; the product that fails to deliver for you isn't necessarily the product that fails to deliver for everyone else.
I felt the same way 2.5 years ago and finally picked an iPhone for the first time. After years of supporting Google’s nexus line and trying Samsung devices, the writing was on the wall – Android long term support is nonexistent. You get two years of updates on Android devices, then you are left with sporadic updates and broken features ranging from Bluetooth to cameras to privacy. I don’t regret switching to an iPhone at all.
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