Right. So I switch to an android phone, and then when I have complaints about how it locks me in to using google services, or has a terrible permissions model, you tell me to just choose an iPhone… and back and forth we go.
Same here, except for me, the reason to switch to iPhone after many years with Android is:
a) Google managed to shove an update onto my phone even though I did not have wireless configured and had it set to not use cellular for data. I only used it as a phone.
b) after their imposed update, all kinds of shit broke. Speech to text became terrible. When viewing a photo, I couldn't zoom it: it would crash the photo app.
c) Google kept asking for permissions that didn't make sense to me.
I tried doing another update but things didn't improve. The phone was circa 2017 and I think they just don't test their software on older devices. I have up and switched to iPhone and have been very happy with it. The one thing I did like better about Android is putting one-touch phone numbers on the home screen. With iPhone I have to click the phone icon, Favorites, then the number. Maybe there's a way to put them on the the iPhone home screen, but for me, a phone is really just a phone, so I don't get all crazy with figuring out the features.
As a reverse example, my wife _just_ switched from iPhone to Android (Samsung S21) because she was sick and tired of her iPhone not doing what she wanted it to. The cries of "arg, why is it doing that?!?" were pretty common. Things like adding a song to it using iTunes, only to get in the car and it turns out it's not on the phone (the phone wants to grab it from the cloud... and we don't have unlimited data).
Ugh. I use an iPhone, but it's not so superior to the competition that I'm willing to put up with this shit. I'm seriously considering moving to Android (or in my wild dreams, iPhone on another carrier) after my contract is up.
Personally, I use an Android as my primary phone, but I also have an iPhone 3GS for whatever development needs I might have.
Even though I like the iPhone and the apps available on iTunes, I think high-end Android phones are just better. For example I made the switch basically because on Android I can block unwanted calls and even make it do various tricks related to that and even if the API itself is not public, there are apps in Android's marketplace that do this (though eventually I ended up cooking up my own app, for fun). To do the same on iPhone, you have to root it and use Cydia.
This is one example of freedom the Android gives you that is immediately useful to some end-users that couldn't live without blocking some calls or SMS messages.
I switched to an iPhone in 2019 or 2020 after about 10 years on Android (I did own the original iPhone). Overall I’m very happy with the decision. I became increasingly frustrated with Google’s data monopoly on android, and of manufacturers attempts to get a piece of the pie too (it seems like every phone had the play store, and the OEM store, and repeat that for various apps and services).
I’m a Mac user so switching had massively improved integration for me.
Almost all of this guys problems are the result of giving the user options that simply don't exist in iOS. If you really need your OS to tell you how YOU want to do things then I guess you really should go back to the locked down iOS.
Choices are hard. Apparently even choosing what phone was too hard.
I switched to an iPhone about a year ago, and got annoyed at the pushy things iOS was doing that Android wasn't. So I switched back to Android recently, only to find that many of the annoying iOS things had now been adopted by Google. Great, thanks. I'll stick with Android for the near future though, as with a custom rooted ROM I can at least remove a lot of 'unremovable' stuff, even if I now have to play annoying cat and mouse games with apps trying to detect my rooted device and disable themselves.
The only reason I am using an Android phone and not an iOS one is because of F-Droid to install the open-source app I like and need. I would definitely switch to iOS if I could have this freedom there.
I hate that with Android I trust that Google will at some point succeed with a dark pattern in letting me agree to siphon my data without my real agreement.
Google taught me to hate Android by forcing an update to my phone even though I had WiFi and cellular data disabled. And after the update, I could not zoom a picture: it would crash the message/view picture app every time. And, their speech to text got worse, to the point it was practically unusable.
That's why I switched to iPhone. I didn't want to, because the phone (refurb on eBay) was 4x pricier than my Android phone, which was fine until Google made it unusable. Thanks Google!
I actually would have loved to switch to Android but unlike you, really don’t like the UI, which I find unpolished, and customization useful but not worth the risk of using android devices to begin with. And I definitely don’t trust Google (not using any of their services, except search via StartPage and YouTube in an isolated tab). I think Android has such a bad reputation by now in terms of privacy and risks, I will probably stick with iOS until something new, and preferably open source, comes along.
Re lock-in: I agree. I attempted to switch to Android (Nexus 4) several years ago from whatever iPhone I had at the time. I had no issue transferring data over (or data I cared about, at least). Services (mail, chat, etc.) mapped just fine. My primary complaint, at the time, was lack of a well-performing PDF reader/viewer, and a handful of apps that I'd become semi-dependent on and had trouble finding suitable replacements for (e.g., Omnifocus - which has nice intregration between the mobile and desktop versions). I only wanted to change my mobile workflow, not the rest, so I switched back to iOS (I also found the interface grating at the time, not certain why anymore).
This is not, strictly, the fault of Apple, but of app developers and myself. Either for not making multi-platform a thing (Omnifocus), or for others not stepping up to compete, or for my inability or unwillingness to continue my search for suitable alternatives.
All this said, most of my coworkers use Android devices, and several want to switch to iPhones, but have run into the same issue I did, but in reverse.
I haven’t switched, but I often use my fiancée’s iPhone (which isn’t at all the same thing, I know).
The way that I put it is that the iPhone is a better smart phone; Android is a better pocket computer. If you want something which is basically a small communications device, which does one thing at a time & gets out of your way, then you probably want an iPhone. If you want a flexible, capable device which does many different things and respects your choices, then you want Android.
Things I like about iOS: on brand-new hardware, it feels snappier than Android on similarly brand-new hardware; the experience within a single app is less distracting.
Things I like about Android: real Firefox; headphone jacks; ability to sideload apps; open source apps; back button; task switching; less lock-in (iCloud, I’m looking at you); doesn’t make me want to chuck the phone at a wall after using it for three minutes.
I trust Apple more than Google, but I trust me even more than Apple, and with Android I can have a mostly Google-free existence, while with an iPhone I cannot have an Apple-free existence. For me, the choice is easy.
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.
Android is a huge step up from Blackberry or Windows Mobile, but it is a big step down from iOS. Android lacks basic usability touches; the manufacturer customizations don't make things any better. Battery life is dismal. Additionally the system pauses all the time when performing basic tasks.
Some of these problems, I think, are fundamental to using a virtual machine for everything. The performance overhead is exacerbated by the less powerful mobile hardware. The garbage collection causes noticeable pauses. And more battery is used to accomplish less.
The other problems are rooted in design. Whoever was doing the UI for Google did not understand good UI. Sorry. Impressive looking UI elements waste space, get in the way, and actually slowed me down for no reason. Little iOS UI touches like the elastic scrolling that let you know you're at the end of a list are absent, making you wonder if you're at the bottom of the list or if the device is just taking a break to collect some garbage. I usually scroll repeatedly just to make sure whereas on iOS I see the bounce and I know I'm done immediately.
You're on AT&T. As long as you're happy with the service stay there and stick with an iPhone for now. Personally, I would not even consider another Android device until after 3.0 fixes some of the UI problems. And even then I have serious reservations about Android's technical fitness due to the VM.
I realize lots of people have all kinds of confidence in Android's technical fitness. People far more accomplished than myself. But whatever. The emperor has no clothes. It might be a good design for a portable OS, but it's not a good design for a mobile OS.
Not the parent, but I recently switched to an iPhone and I'm liking it.
On Android, I was constantly using new Apps, looking at /r/android for release announcements, and getting excited about all the new releases. Then, at some point, I realized I just wanted a phone that works. That's when I switched to Apple. That's not to say my Pixel didn't do everything my iPhone does. It could do it all and in many cases it could even do it better or in a more customized way. But, it also required effort. Effort to learn the new apps, effort to change all the settings, and effort every time Google decided to change something that I thought was already working just fine.
Then I switched to Apple and I realized I didn't want necessarily want to spend all my time learning my phone, I wanted to spent my time USING it. To me, my iPhone is more like an appliance than a new tech gadget. It doesn't necessarily provide you with all the options and capabilities that an Android phone does, but it absolutely nails its core competencies and is very easy to use. I don't spend a single extra second trying to figure out HOW to use it, it just works.
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