Bye Bye iPhone: Have You Been There?

[Chicki]

I seriously don't understand why third-party keyboards are so awful on the iPhone. They've had a couple years to figure this out. I hate Apple's default keyboard and when I try a third party keyboard, like Swiftkey, it just defaults to the Apple one, or it takes a long time to pop up. Your complaint is valid and Apple really dropped the ball on this one.

Yeah unfortunately moving swiftkey to the top only worked for about an hour, it still defaults to the Apple one. Its too bad they haven't made it a priority to change that

 

[lordofthereef]

@BasicGreatGuy has a thread where he reviews many of the currently available content blockers right here. The reviews are kind of randomly spread throughout the thread so I put together a sort of tier list here with links to all of the full reviews.

As of now it seems like Adblock Fast works pretty well and is free, so that might be a good place to start. I use it as well but I often go back and try out others to see if improvements have been made, since as of now none of them work perfectly for all the places I visit, but of course some are slightly better than others.

Thank you! Right now I'm using Adblock plus in chrome (Windows and OS X) and love it. It's free but it's worth money IMO. I'm hoping we get something from that team in iOS. Trying Adblock fast for now and will be reading those reviews.

 

[Gathomblipoob]

Thank you! Right now I'm using Adblock plus in chrome (Windows and OS X) and love it. It's free but it's worth money IMO. I'm hoping we get something from that team in iOS. Trying Adblock fast for now and will be reading those reviews.

I'm running an iOS 9.1 beta and content blockers don't seem to work. Life of a beta, I guess.

 

[wchigo]

Thank you! Right now I'm using Adblock plus in chrome (Windows and OS X) and love it. It's free but it's worth money IMO. I'm hoping we get something from that team in iOS. Trying Adblock fast for now and will be reading those reviews.

Glad to be of assistance. ABP is indeed available for iOS but thus far opinions on it seemed mixed and some of the other blockers available seem to do a better job as of now. There are those as well who take issue with their business practices.

I also used ABP in Safari and Chrome for the longest time and just recently switched over to using uBlock (Safari) and uBlock Origin (Chrome). Haven't really noticed any differences though, haha.

 

[kasakka]

You'd certainly think things would have improved with Android but you'd likely be disappointed. Been switching back and forth between iOS and Android for years. HTC One. EVO 4G LTE. Galaxy S5. You know what? They are only as good as the operating system they run on. I finally realized I didn't have to keep swearing at the Google Play Store app from crashing every third app I'd tap download on. If Google can't stabilize their own platform apps on any of the three flagship Android phones I had owned I decided I needed to fire them. Always keeping an eye on them for a possible future purchase but so far the software quality isn't there yet.

I disagree. I'd say Android L and iOS 9 are pretty neck and neck. Anything before had their own set of annoyances and they still do. But to me an OS is good enough when I don't have to jailbreak or root and install a bunch of tweaks, hacks etc to make it work like I want. I went from iPhone 4 to Galaxy S4 (iOS 6 to Android 4.3) because at the time I felt iOS was way restrictive. Now if they can just fix the 3rd party keyboard reset I'd be quite ok with it and have even considered the iPhone 6S. I do own an iPad Air 2 and for tablets feel that iOS is still way better thanks mostly to better tablet software support.

I recently looked very hard at getting a new phone and it made me realize how good the Galaxy S4 was. It's got thin enough bezels that it's decent to use with one hand but even now still performs quite decently in all areas and is also repairable with spare parts available cheap. Everything after that from Samsung has been awkwardly big and has things like excessive specs for the sake of specs. None of the other big Android manufacturers have done much better.

Likewise Apple has lost something with their iPhone 6 series. The bigger screen was welcome and the 6 may be a perfect size, but at the same time the phones lost some elegance with those ugly bands and a case was still necessary because the phones can be a bit slippery. When you consider what you get with Android phones (even if the specs are excessive), Apple's efforts seem way too influenced by bean counters yet come at a significant premium. They give insufficient space in the base model, just now decided to give a decent amount of RAM and to me the iPhone 6 design didn't fully take into account how the larger size affects usability.

We keep getting new phones on the market all the time but they are barely different from each other and come in the same sizes. Phones have become such a commodity and the only relevant new feature in the past few years has been a fingerprint reader (standardized support coming to Android in 6.0 so app support should eventually catch up with iOS), the best implementation being in Sony Z5 phones (perfect placement, your fingers are near the button the moment you pick up the phone).

I'd like to see manufacturers try harder at making phones that are a pleasure to use and not just something that looks good in a press shot. This one upping each other or chasing thinness is just a terrible thing.

 

[Chicki]

In case anyone was interested, I saw a friend who works for a phone company today, and he showed me how to get the keyboard to stay the same. You hold down the globe and a menu will pop up to change the keyboard. Pick the one you want and that's it. It hasn't changed back since.

I played with the S6 Edge Plus today. That phone is really gorgeous. And I'm jealous of the screen, there is definitely a noticeable difference. I'm keeping my iPhone but I'd be lying if I said I'm not a little jealous lol

 

[QuarterSwede]

Is there one you might recommend?

I am not against them. I am against having to use them for (what I consider) a usable device. The 6 plus was literally the only device I ever used where I found myself wanting (outside of maybe a feature or two). I felt it was a waste of money, frankly. Never felt that about an iPhone. EVER.

I use Purify. Great amount of options and a whitelist so I can still support MacRumors and some other less ad egregious sites.

 

[sunking101]

In case anyone was interested, I saw a friend who works for a phone company today, and he showed me how to get the keyboard to stay the same. You hold down the globe and a menu will pop up to change the keyboard. Pick the one you want and that's it. It hasn't changed back since.

I played with the S6 Edge Plus today. That phone is really gorgeous. And I'm jealous of the screen, there is definitely a noticeable difference. I'm keeping my iPhone but I'd be lying if I said I'm not a little jealous lol

When reading content on websites those sloping screen edges get in the way and make the text look strange. I quickly found the gimmicky edges to be a hindrance but I will agree that the display itself is very nice to look at.

RAM management is of massive importance to me and now that the 6S+ has it nailed on, reading about reloads on Samsung devices with 4GB of RAM turns me right off them.

 

[DiceMoney]

I have had an Iphone for the last 2 years ago. Reason why I went with the Iphone, was mostly because I had an ipod touch, I was tired of having two similar devices all the time. I had a Nexus phone, but then I had my Ipod touch. I had to charge two devices. When a call came in, I couldn't hear a lot of them, because I had my headphones blasting, and couldn't hear the phone. So then I would blast headphones lower, being afraid of missing calls.

Also when driving, I had to lower the volume on the ipod touch, and then pick up the the phone. The Iphone was the only one, that I could do both at the same time. So I switch to 128 GB, and sold both Ipod touch and Nexus phone.

I like the Iphone, but I do sometimes get the itch to try Android.

But I'm too dependent on my itunes, I don't really like streaming, I have wasted too much time setting up my own library.

So I don't see myself sampling an Android any time soon, though my mom recently got an Iphone, she is having a hard time, she liked her Samsung phone better, is because Phone App, was way more advanced in Samsung.
Apple really has a horrible Phone App. When you do compared it to Android's phone app.

 

[sunking101]

I have had an Iphone for the last 2 years ago. Reason why I went with the Iphone, was mostly because I had an ipod touch, I was tired of having two similar devices all the time. I had a Nexus phone, but then I had my Ipod touch. I had to charge two devices. When a call came in, I couldn't hear a lot of them, because I had my headphones blasting, and couldn't hear the phone. So then I would blast headphones lower, being afraid of missing calls.

Also when driving, I had to lower the volume on the ipod touch, and then pick up the the phone. The Iphone was the only one, that I could do both at the same time. So I switch to 128 GB, and sold both Ipod touch and Nexus phone.

I like the Iphone, but I do sometimes get the itch to try Android.

But I'm too dependent on my itunes, I don't really like streaming, I have wasted too much time setting up my own library.

So I don't see myself sampling an Android any time soon, though my mom recently got an Iphone, she is having a hard time, she liked her Samsung phone better, is because Phone App, was way more advanced in Samsung.
Apple really has a horrible Phone App. When you do compared it to Android's phone app.

What more do you need in a phone app? I hate seeing email contacts pop up in a phone app and if I can search my address book and call people then what more do I need?

 

[garirry]

I started with an iPod Touch 5 as my first "smart device". I kept it for slightly more than a year and I liked it, except for a few problems. In September 2014, I sold it and bought a Moto G, since I ended up needing at least some kind of basic phone and text, as programs like TextPlus sucked at their job. Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed the Moto G quite a bit more than the iPod. Now, obviously it's a cheap phone, it's merely $200, so the design isn't as premium, but it's still a good phone. There are things which I much prefer with the phone than the iPod. First, the display is bigger, but that was fixed with the iPhone 6. Then, I prefer the freedom of Android much more than iOS's. The store lets me download emulators without having me to do weird exploits, I have all tools of customization, I can actually download things without having to deal with iTunes, and I even have widgets. So, I ended up liking Android better. If I'll have the money, I'll get an iPhone just to try it out again in a few years, otherwise I'll stay with Android. But just to clarify, I am NOT a heavy phone user, since I left school last year, I barely used it. But in the time I still used it quite a decent amount, I ended up preferring it. I guess it's just a question of preference.

 

[DiceMoney]

What more do you need in a phone app? I hate seeing email contacts pop up in a phone app and if I can search my address book and call people then what more do I need?

I use an app call connect, I like to organize my contacts by groups, which you can't in the main app. But Samsung did a lot of this like Magic, Google does a great job pushing easy to see photos of contacts, that came from Email or some other form.

Also because she is farsighted, I could tell, she doesn't seem to know exactly where she is at, an I think is because how soft the grey is, that show exactly in which section of the phone app you are. Not enough visual cues, and there was some other stuff that the Samsung phone did for her.

One thing I notice, she doesn't pick up her phone as much now, compared to how much she did with the Samsung. Maybe she will get the hang, who knows.

 

[DiceMoney]

Mine doesn't do that lol OK, I'm in an email, I click a link and go to safari. From that point, I can only go somewhere else if I tap the menu (? Not sure if that is what you guys call it). If I press the home button and try to check an email, it doesn't let me until I tap done on the safari page and it goes back into mail. Now this may be because for this particular email I use an app. I just realized that as I was typing this out lol I'll try it in regular and see what happens.

In any event, I'm getting more use to things, really enjoying the battery life, better than my old phone even with the extended battery

I have a couple ways of going back, double tap home button, and you will get the deck of cards, which are your currently open apps, touch the card(app that you were previously in), but I also use this launcher,

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/launcher-notification-center/id905099592?mt=8

is quick way to go to your favorite apps, set up which apps you want to have quick access to, an after you set them up, you swipe down from the top, and click your app.
I find that I like to go back using this method even more, of course is limited to some apps, so I usually put apps I use often in the launcher.