Experience in switching from Iphone to Google Pixel

[jamezr]

I'm an Apple guy....I have had every iPhone since day one...every year I upgrade. I will this year too.
But as much as I like my iPhones...they run IOS which has so many bugs. Then features that are hidden behind menus and hard to get to.
Notifications are one of those things.....I can swipe to get rid of a notification from the lock screen...if I hurry. But then I still have the app notification to get rid of. Makes no sense to me. I have to get rid of notifications twice. Then I can only swipe in one direction on IOS to get rid of a notification. On Android I get rid of the notification on the lock screen and the app notification goes away as well.
Back button /Gestures......I love the back button for navigation through apps and menus more than gestures. Gestures can get it wrong depending on how hard i press or how long I hold the the gesture. Then if my fingers are wet or too dry it sometimes doesn't work well. But the back button always works...... There should be an option to choose a button or gestures on IOS.
Then there is Siri versus Gemini and its not even close....The new beta of Siri has been promising but it is just catching up and not better.... Apple is just treading water in AI while the next set of features and AI technology passes them by....again.

 

[ClaraStahlbaum]

If you have a Mac that is on 24/7 you can use OpenBubbles. It's a one-time QR code scan that links your Mac to Android phone. I don't believe your Mac has to stay on 24/7 either, mine is since it's at my office. You'll get iMessage on your Android phone and Android Auto interface. FaceTime video calls also work. The downside is if you don't also have an iPhone powered on and in airplane mode, you'll need to use your Apple ID for iMessage. If you do keep an iPhone, you can use your phone number for iMessage.

As I said above, a lot has changed over the last 4-5 years. Android 16 and now 17 are very well polished.

To me this is something that is just overly complicated. There would be no point for me to have an Android if I also have an Iphone. In my mind it would be "either or", not both.

 

[JiggyJaggy]

So I have an Iphone and a Google Pixel Fold. I usually just use my Pixel Fold for YT, Insta, emails and media in general but I fancied just carrying my Fold on its own as not use my iPhone for a while.

So what software does everyone use to sync their contacts and calendar from iOs to Android easily?

 

[flybub]

So I have an Iphone and a Google Pixel Fold. I usually just use my Pixel Fold for YT, Insta, emails and media in general but I fancied just carrying my Fold on its own as not use my iPhone for a while.

So what software does everyone use to sync their contacts and calendar from iOs to Android easily?

Google.

 

[Luftkopf]

I'm an Apple guy....I have had every iPhone since day one...every year I upgrade. I will this year too.
But as much as I like my iPhones...they run IOS which has so many bugs. Then features that are hidden behind menus and hard to get to.
Notifications are one of those things.....I can swipe to get rid of a notification from the lock screen...if I hurry. But then I still have the app notification to get rid of. Makes no sense to me. I have to get rid of notifications twice. Then I can only swipe in one direction on IOS to get rid of a notification. On Android I get rid of the notification on the lock screen and the app notification goes away as well.
Back button /Gestures......I love the back button for navigation through apps and menus more than gestures. Gestures can get it wrong depending on how hard i press or how long I hold the the gesture. Then if my fingers are wet or too dry it sometimes doesn't work well. But the back button always works...... There should be an option to choose a button or gestures on IOS.

Personally, I would hate it if these were implemented in iOS. I like the way iOS works as it is.

Then there is Siri versus Gemini and its not even close....The new beta of Siri has been promising but it is just catching up and not better.... Apple is just treading water in AI while the next set of features and AI technology passes them by....again.

Outside of tech forums, all that AI stuff is hated. I only know one person in real life who's all in on AI. Everyone else is wary at best.

I think that Siri AI isn't for us, it's for investors to see that Apple is on the mandatory bandwagon. It lets Apple hit some marketing key points, and makes the investors happy. No one is going to buy an iPhone because of it.

 

[jamezr]

Personally, I would hate it if these were implemented in iOS. I like the way iOS works as it is.


Outside of tech forums, all that AI stuff is hated. I only know one person in real life who's all in on AI. Everyone else is wary at best.

I think that Siri AI isn't for us, it's for investors to see that Apple is on the mandatory bandwagon. It lets Apple hit some marketing key points, and makes the investors happy. No one is going to buy an iPhone because of it.

You don't have use the option i mentioned. But I think most would love to have the option to use them.
The same with AI. Most of the people I know use AI for a ton of useful things. But then again..you don't have to use it.
But you do have that choice. Then on device AI is running under the hood of all smartphones. It does similar to what a user prompts AI to do a task. Except it help with machine learning and system performance.

But i agree with you.....I don't think most people base their buying choice on AI alone.
The new Siri is widely popular with beta testers. It is driving a lot of people to try the beta so they can try it.

 

[sharleyP]

Sorry you had a duff one, but I don't think your experiences match others.

Also I view iJustine as entertainment as she's a massive apple stan/shrill. Have a watch of techspurt on YT he's very much the opposite of iJustine lol.

That’s what I mean - I will touch another Pixel when even shills like iJustine admit it’s better.

I’m not writing off Android completely though. Samsung S-series or some Chinese phones with crazy camera specs are very interesting.

P.S.
I remembered another thing that drove me nuts: NFC payments. On Pixel 1 every 3 attempts failed and I had to retry. It looked like a poor NFC antenna placement was the reason. On my wife’s S22 it was more like 1 in 10. Some terminals worked better than others.

On iPhones I had an issue once in 8 years of using Apple Pay.

 

[ClaraStahlbaum]

One thing that does concern me with Google Pixel is the greater degree of "AI" features. It would mean that I would have more features to intentionally search for and disable. I don't use Apple Intelligence, and I don't use Siri. I have both disabled.

 

[Luftkopf]

You don't have use the option i mentioned. But I think most would love to have the option to use them.
The same with AI. Most of the people I know use AI for a ton of useful things. But then again..you don't have to use it.
But you do have that choice. Then on device AI is running under the hood of all smartphones. It does similar to what a user prompts AI to do a task. Except it help with machine learning and system performance.

But i agree with you.....I don't think most people base their buying choice on AI alone.
The new Siri is widely popular with beta testers. It is driving a lot of people to try the beta so they can try it.

As an option you can turn on? Sure, why not. It doesn't get in anyone's way, and isn't much of a contribution to bloat. I think you'd be surprised at the number of people who would start complaining about their iPhones if that were to become the way they worked.

AI is a wider discussion, but I think there is definitely a place for it, but these dumb chatbots and deepfake generators aren't it. AI is a great set of technologies for making better tools though.

 

[MacInTO]

That’s what I mean - I will touch another Pixel when even shills like iJustine admit it’s better.

I’m not writing off Android completely though. Samsung S-series or some Chinese phones with crazy camera specs are very interesting.

P.S.
I remembered another thing that drove me nuts: NFC payments. On Pixel 1 every 3 attempts failed and I had to retry. It looked like a poor NFC antenna placement was the reason. On my wife’s S22 it was more like 1 in 10. Some terminals worked better than others.

On iPhones I had an issue once in 8 years of using Apple Pay.

Funny, NFC payments on my iPhone 13 almost never worked. I had to reset network settings numerous times and then it would work a few times and then break again. I gave up and used physical cards instead.

I'm now using a Xiaomi 17 and love it. It's got three cameras, 512gb storage and a 6300 mAh battery. It's similar to the iPhone 17 pro but it cost about US$800. Google pay works perfectly also.

I have been using Apple products since the 1980s, but I was never an iPhone fan. I used the og iPhone for a month and sold it because my Palm Treo worked better. Ironically, the Palm Treo still works today (in Canada) but the og iPhone does not.

 

[robvalentine]

That’s what I mean - I will touch another Pixel when even shills like iJustine admit it’s better.

I’m not writing off Android completely though. Samsung S-series or some Chinese phones with crazy camera specs are very interesting.

P.S.
I remembered another thing that drove me nuts: NFC payments. On Pixel 1 every 3 attempts failed and I had to retry. It looked like a poor NFC antenna placement was the reason. On my wife’s S22 it was more like 1 in 10. Some terminals worked better than others.

On iPhones I had an issue once in 8 years of using Apple Pay.

NFC payments are more reliable for me on my s26u than my iPhone 17 pro max. Might have been NatWest card though to be fair.

I Justine probably needs to be paid by Google or Samsung to say it's better, so I would look elsewhere. it's like getting a ny giants fan to root for the jets

 

[BMox81]

One thing that does concern me with Google Pixel is the greater degree of "AI" features. It would mean that I would have more features to intentionally search for and disable. I don't use Apple Intelligence, and I don't use Siri. I have both disabled.

Everything you’ve said in the posts you’ve created would suggest you stick with your iPhone mate and have everything switched off.

 

[uacd]

I’m on the fence between Galaxy s26 (regular, no Ultra), some Chinese phone or Pixel. My choice criteria are very strict: I don’t want camera with LDAF, LiDAR or any sort of IR-based camera tech. Despite how tech people are in love with those, there are many disadvantages with such tech, one of them is not being able to focus thru window, blinding animals (despite all the safety ratings animals do not like these things, ever wondered why your cat doesn’t like iPhone Pro being pointed at their face? That’s why).

This automatically deletes Pixel from my consideration list since it has that included in their base 10. I am not a fan of tinkering and putting tapes over those sensors and just want everything to be basic and simple.

Also I am kinda used to One UI, had some experience with that. To me it is better than pure Android, despite being somewhat slower and for some reasons known apps like Instagram can run slower on Samsungs than on Pixels, but I am all for better experience and don’t really care about speed. My current iPhone 17 Pro works about as “fast” as my 2019 Galaxy S10+ used to. It is a shame of Apple so that flagship device works that slow and also overheats.

On paper Apple is always the most innovative, right? They have this new vapor chamber and such, but the thing is - phone heats a lot, unless you tinker with it. Yesterday I had to change a lot of Safari experimental features just to make browsing feel faster. And I succeeded in it btw, Adblock made things even faster (though it is a poor Adblock and it still lets in a lot of ads, but I don’t really care, what I care about are mining scripts, trackers and other JavaScript crap my phone should not process).

In fact I need a phone that is cool to touch and doesn’t overheat. I hate hot phones and phones that constantly drop brightness. This thing is so hot I am about to buy USB-C cooler to stick on the back panel of it… Joking ofc but this should not heat that much, especially in basic applications. I am not playing any games. In fact, phone starts to heat like crazy for some reason when I take photos. Never I had such an issue with any iPhone or Android phone. This is unacceptable to be because photography should be a low-lever job for processor, I don’t need all that AI shenanigans under-the-hood.

Having said that I am leaning towards Galaxy, but still not sure if it would be the right choice. Ideally I would have travelled back in time and got myself a brand new iPhone 5s. I need phone that can simply take natural-looking photos. For other things I have two Macs and will probably get iPad somewhere in future

 

[aespana]

I’m on the fence between Galaxy s26 (regular, no Ultra), some Chinese phone or Pixel. My choice criteria are very strict: I don’t want camera with LDAF, LiDAR or any sort of IR-based camera tech. Despite how tech people are in love with those, there are many disadvantages with such tech, one of them is not being able to focus thru window, blinding animals (despite all the safety ratings animals do not like these things, ever wondered why your cat doesn’t like iPhone Pro being pointed at their face? That’s why).

This automatically deletes Pixel from my consideration list since it has that included in their base 10. I am not a fan of tinkering and putting tapes over those sensors and just want everything to be basic and simple.

Also I am kinda used to One UI, had some experience with that. To me it is better than pure Android, despite being somewhat slower and for some reasons known apps like Instagram can run slower on Samsungs than on Pixels, but I am all for better experience and don’t really care about speed. My current iPhone 17 Pro works about as “fast” as my 2019 Galaxy S10+ used to. It is a shame of Apple so that flagship device works that slow and also overheats.

On paper Apple is always the most innovative, right? They have this new vapor chamber and such, but the thing is - phone heats a lot, unless you tinker with it. Yesterday I had to change a lot of Safari experimental features just to make browsing feel faster. And I succeeded in it btw, Adblock made things even faster (though it is a poor Adblock and it still lets in a lot of ads, but I don’t really care, what I care about are mining scripts, trackers and other JavaScript crap my phone should not process).

In fact I need a phone that is cool to touch and doesn’t overheat. I hate hot phones and phones that constantly drop brightness. This thing is so hot I am about to buy USB-C cooler to stick on the back panel of it… Joking ofc but this should not heat that much, especially in basic applications. I am not playing any games. In fact, phone starts to heat like crazy for some reason when I take photos. Never I had such an issue with any iPhone or Android phone. This is unacceptable to be because photography should be a low-lever job for processor, I don’t need all that AI shenanigans under-the-hood.

Having said that I am leaning towards Galaxy, but still not sure if it would be the right choice. Ideally I would have travelled back in time and got myself a brand new iPhone 5s. I need phone that can simply take natural-looking photos. For other things I have two Macs and will probably get iPad somewhere in future

Do you want a flagship? I can only recommend the Pixel 9a since is the one I have but man, I can tell you that it is a beautiful phone. Yes, maybe the screen is not like the Samsung S26 but I prefer a Pixel over a Samsung always.. Don't like One UI.

The Pixel 9a has a good screen (1080p, good PPI), 120hz that looks fine (60hz is garbage here), really good battery (specially if you don't play videogames), a really really good camera for it's price and I think the design and construction is fine. The fingerprint works good, it could be better but it does the job. It have some kind of faceID but nah, it can't fight against the FaceID from the iPhones.

Overall, for the price, its a really good phone. Good performance, good updates, good camera, good battery. A little clunky for my taste but well. You can install the real firefox with ublock origin and I think the Google apps works really good.

For $350 (blackfriday price) I'm very pleased.

 

[uacd]

Do you want a flagship? I can only recommend the Pixel 9a since is the one I have but man, I can tell you that it is a beautiful phone. Yes, maybe the screen is not like the Samsung S26 but I prefer a Pixel over a Samsung always.. Don't like One UI.

The Pixel 9a has a good screen (1080p, good PPI), 120hz that looks fine (60hz is garbage here), really good battery (specially if you don't play videogames), a really really good camera for it's price and I think the design and construction is fine. The fingerprint works good, it could be better but it does the job. It have some kind of faceID but nah, it can't fight against the FaceID from the iPhones.

Overall, for the price, its a really good phone. Good performance, good updates, good camera, good battery. A little clunky for my taste but well. You can install the real firefox with ublock origin and I think the Google apps works really good.

For $350 (blackfriday price) I'm very pleased.

Thank you for suggesting this one, I was actually thinking about 10a as well. It is well-priced, compact and seems to suit my needs for a functional phone. Also the big plus is that there is practically zero “camera bulge”. I am mainly thinking about flagships because well… Samsung makes midrangers like crap, I’ve had one (M33), and honestly it is too much work to make it useable without overheating, the battery of it was fire tho (5000 mAh, worked for three days for me on a single charge) and overal experience for cheap phone was more than acceptable.

Many people are suggesting Xiaomi phones but… I still can’t make myself go into that territory, I’ve heard they have ads in applications and that’s something I am not able to get used to

 

[ClaraStahlbaum]

One thing I did do is I installed the Gboard App and replaced the standard IOS Keyboard for the Google one. I can already tell right off the bat that the Google one is far better than the default keyboard.

 

[neuropsychguy]

I have an iPhone and a Pixel 10 (free with a T-Mobile promo) so I haven't really switched. The Pixel 10 is just a backup phone but I use it regularly. It's good and there are some things I like better about it (some of the built-in features in the camera app like the 2-axis level) but overall it's a smartphone and there aren't many differences worth fretting about. The Android UI looks much more dated now with Liquid Glass on iOS. That's not a bad thing, but I've always preferred a little more depth to a UI so Liquid Glass is a refreshing update. iOS has also been bug free for me.

The camera is great in the Pixel phones but it's great in iPhones too so it's really a toss-up. I like the "zoom" on iPhone Pros so having just a Pixel 10 without the range of zoom is limiting to me. Also, with a couple Macs, an iPad, and an Apple Watch, I can't really switch full-time to the Pixel without at least getting a different smart watch (the Apple Watch is the device I like the most so any smart watch would need to be at least as good or better).

It really comes down to preference and how much you're into Apple products. The continuity between iPhone, Apple Watch, Mac, iPad, and Apple TV is a huge selling point for me. I'd clearly survive with the Pixel as my only phone, but side by side, I like iPhones better.

 

[aespana]

Thank you for suggesting this one, I was actually thinking about 10a as well. It is well-priced, compact and seems to suit my needs for a functional phone. Also the big plus is that there is practically zero “camera bulge”. I am mainly thinking about flagships because well… Samsung makes midrangers like crap, I’ve had one (M33), and honestly it is too much work to make it useable without overheating, the battery of it was fire tho (5000 mAh, worked for three days for me on a single charge) and overal experience for cheap phone was more than acceptable.

Many people are suggesting Xiaomi phones but… I still can’t make myself go into that territory, I’ve heard they have ads in applications and that’s something I am not able to get used to

Yes, the 10a is practically the same phone but without the mini mini camera bump of the 9a. I'm with you about the crappy midrange phone from Samsung. Of course, a S26 would be a beautiful phone but I'm not into buying that kind of expensive phones since my needs are not that high for that level of money.

The Pixel has a very very good battery. I was able to squish up to three battery life with an average of SOT of 5-6 hours (yes, sometimes I just don't use the phone at all) but that was after disabling a lot of apps and google services.

I recently bought a car with Android Auto so I need the core apps and most of the apps working fine to avoid problems with AA. Now I get around a full battery day (using the phone with Android Auto and Waze) or 2 days with a light use of AA. For me its still a really good battery life. Oh, and after nearly 6 months, I still have a 100% battery health. Not bad

So yes, I think the a series of Pixel are enough for most of the cases.