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Feedback From a Long Term iPhone User About One Month Of Android Experience
- Thread starter robertpolson
- Start date
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I switched to Android once when I was so mad when my iTunes backup got corrupted and I lost all my data; texts, photos, etc. I was like "I have to start over anyways I might as well try Android!" Well I switched to a Moto X for like 2 weeks before I was so frustrated with the battery life and missing FaceTime/iMessage that I switched back.
Elisha
macrumors 6502a
Shirasaki
macrumors P6
Other than last paragraph, I find I cannot understand your metaphor. 🙁
But android does need refinement on all of those small ways. They are not deal breaker but adding them up could affect a lot.
If you care about the core details and are honest about your core use cases, iPhone is hands down better. You don't need all the "potential" that Android phones have with their VR, huge batteries, 8 cores, 20 mp cameras with six axis video stabilization and lightning fast 10 minute charging. At the end of the day, these things are superfluous although it's a hard lesson to learn.
iOS software is absolutely more stable, probably because developers care more and I for sure would say that Xcode is a better developer experience than the massively clunky Android studio. One needs a 4 core computer to develop in Android studio or else the build times are 5 times longer than Xcode. It took me 5 minutes to build up my Android studio project on a macbook 12. Unforgivable.
Fragmentation doesn't seem like a big deal until you experience it on Android. The bloatware is hard to deal with. The media system with its 5 separate streams, is a nightmare on a phone. You forget and incoming calls come in on the headphones and it's super loud and it's a bug that they forgot to lower the volume in this situation automatically, unlike the iPHone , which takes care of it. Or you have the notification volume with the system volume vs the media volume. What??? And when you play a video we want to mute the phone quickly in case it's too loud. Well you've got to open the screen and do three taps, as opposed to just holding down the volume button. These things are infuriating and mind numbingly basic to get right. You take it for granted before you move to Android.
The ergonomics are also factors. The capacitive buttons at the bottom don't let you grip the phone properly and accidental touches happen every day especially in landscape mode.
The cameras are absolutely not better as well. Either color accuracy is off, or it's oversharpened, etc, or there is a camera with a great phone but the rest of phone stinks, so you can't get everything all in one phone. Night photos are better lit but then they take on a yellow tinge. Is that better? I say no.
Apple has an insurmountable lead in the smartphone space. Why? Because in the long run, due to human nature, a company's got to be the benevolent dictator to create a good user experience. Android fragmentation is never going to be resolved, ever. The only way to do this is for Google to take control of it, which they will do at some point, but it's not going to be Android anymore. And Google, while I admire their creativity, they aren't willing to be the micromanagers that Apple is. I don't thnk that Apple is really creative; they're just willing to muck around in those boring details ad nauseum. No other company is willing to do that. They're willing to say no to background processes first and the incorporate extensions or automatic background fetching decided by the OS later. This has the benefit of being more secure and keeping apps cleaner. Well it turned out to be the right decision compared to Google's wild wild west and then let's reign things in later after the cat's out of the bag. Constrainng yourself and inching towards being more open and friendly sounds user hostile, but it's what has made users enjoy the iPhone more. When I saw that a virus scanner is needed on an Android Phone....dear goodness we're back to Windows again. And when I saw that a 5s still outperforms every android phone out there in terms of real world speed....well, I can only go by what my eyes see.
Do not be fooled by the specs and the features you think you need; the speed of the iPhone, even 3 year old devices, outperforms Android. And the software quality is much better. As is the lack of battery drain (unbelievable how this still hasn't been solved and you still have to resort to rooting and using Amplify and greenify to fix it). And the ergnomics. The audio quality is also better on the iPhone.
Seriously, if people are going to copy the iPhone, let them. It's not that easy to do. And if they do so, they'll find their R&D costs and pricing to be quite high and they won't be able to undercut Apple by that much. If and when someone bests the iPhone, I'll be right there to get it. I'm just not optimistic that it's going to happen.
iOS software is absolutely more stable, probably because developers care more and I for sure would say that Xcode is a better developer experience than the massively clunky Android studio. One needs a 4 core computer to develop in Android studio or else the build times are 5 times longer than Xcode. It took me 5 minutes to build up my Android studio project on a macbook 12. Unforgivable.
Fragmentation doesn't seem like a big deal until you experience it on Android. The bloatware is hard to deal with. The media system with its 5 separate streams, is a nightmare on a phone. You forget and incoming calls come in on the headphones and it's super loud and it's a bug that they forgot to lower the volume in this situation automatically, unlike the iPHone , which takes care of it. Or you have the notification volume with the system volume vs the media volume. What??? And when you play a video we want to mute the phone quickly in case it's too loud. Well you've got to open the screen and do three taps, as opposed to just holding down the volume button. These things are infuriating and mind numbingly basic to get right. You take it for granted before you move to Android.
The ergonomics are also factors. The capacitive buttons at the bottom don't let you grip the phone properly and accidental touches happen every day especially in landscape mode.
The cameras are absolutely not better as well. Either color accuracy is off, or it's oversharpened, etc, or there is a camera with a great phone but the rest of phone stinks, so you can't get everything all in one phone. Night photos are better lit but then they take on a yellow tinge. Is that better? I say no.
Apple has an insurmountable lead in the smartphone space. Why? Because in the long run, due to human nature, a company's got to be the benevolent dictator to create a good user experience. Android fragmentation is never going to be resolved, ever. The only way to do this is for Google to take control of it, which they will do at some point, but it's not going to be Android anymore. And Google, while I admire their creativity, they aren't willing to be the micromanagers that Apple is. I don't thnk that Apple is really creative; they're just willing to muck around in those boring details ad nauseum. No other company is willing to do that. They're willing to say no to background processes first and the incorporate extensions or automatic background fetching decided by the OS later. This has the benefit of being more secure and keeping apps cleaner. Well it turned out to be the right decision compared to Google's wild wild west and then let's reign things in later after the cat's out of the bag. Constrainng yourself and inching towards being more open and friendly sounds user hostile, but it's what has made users enjoy the iPhone more. When I saw that a virus scanner is needed on an Android Phone....dear goodness we're back to Windows again. And when I saw that a 5s still outperforms every android phone out there in terms of real world speed....well, I can only go by what my eyes see.
Do not be fooled by the specs and the features you think you need; the speed of the iPhone, even 3 year old devices, outperforms Android. And the software quality is much better. As is the lack of battery drain (unbelievable how this still hasn't been solved and you still have to resort to rooting and using Amplify and greenify to fix it). And the ergnomics. The audio quality is also better on the iPhone.
Seriously, if people are going to copy the iPhone, let them. It's not that easy to do. And if they do so, they'll find their R&D costs and pricing to be quite high and they won't be able to undercut Apple by that much. If and when someone bests the iPhone, I'll be right there to get it. I'm just not optimistic that it's going to happen.
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maxsix
Suspended
I know it's fashionable to bash Android and tell stories about this and that. But when one actually owns an Android 6.x.x powered handset you find out who's telling stories and who's not. Androids not perfect, no smartphone is, but the majority of complaints listed in this forum have been fixed long ago.
Google Duo is such a good replacement for face time I use it on both my Androids and iPhones.
The extra functionality of Google Hangouts is very useful and why the majority of friends and family use it.
My iPhone 6S Plus is a nice smartphone, but my Nexus 6P is my primary and hands down favorite. Faster, smoother and more capable it's been ideal for my needs.
Thanks Google
Google Duo is such a good replacement for face time I use it on both my Androids and iPhones.
The extra functionality of Google Hangouts is very useful and why the majority of friends and family use it.
My iPhone 6S Plus is a nice smartphone, but my Nexus 6P is my primary and hands down favorite. Faster, smoother and more capable it's been ideal for my needs.
Thanks Google
Davelfc
macrumors 6502
I too went to the dark side a few years ago. Android supported phones had gone bigger and they had a few extra bits of tech that Apple just hadn't put in their phones yet. Although I was tied to many IOS apps I wanted to try the opposition to see how it faired.
Anyway after about a month using the latest version of Android and a HTC phone I decided to come back to Apple. A few routine things always seemed like they needed an extra step, call it muscle memory or convenience but I missed the ease of IOS.
At the time I likened it to having an automatic car or a manual ('stick shift' for you Americans) both are great and both get you to where you want to be. For specific tasks, like racing most will always go with stick shift. However if you want to not have to think about something and get on with your life, automatic works best.
Anyway after about a month using the latest version of Android and a HTC phone I decided to come back to Apple. A few routine things always seemed like they needed an extra step, call it muscle memory or convenience but I missed the ease of IOS.
At the time I likened it to having an automatic car or a manual ('stick shift' for you Americans) both are great and both get you to where you want to be. For specific tasks, like racing most will always go with stick shift. However if you want to not have to think about something and get on with your life, automatic works best.
That's okay. I'm terrible with metaphors. NOBODY understands me when I use them.
What it comes down to is I find in my own personal experience that iPhone hardware and software is trustworthy, dependable and reliable but gives me a rather limited usage experience of a smartphone. I find iPhones extremely useful and functional but it takes effort on my part to make them entertaining.
My Android devices will do unpredictable things (I don't know yet how to tell if that's due to hardware glitches or software glitches or a mix of the two) but are designed to show me how to interact with the Internet in new and fun ways and are generally more entertaining. Google, Amazon Prime and Samsung go out of their way to slip me invitations to try our free or low cost themes, games, ways to consume content, etc.
But they are a bit more work to make them capable of handling my work tasks. For example when I get emails from school on iPhone, it's baked into the system already that any events will be clickable and I can easily add them to my calendar. On my Galaxy S7 the events remain as plain text and it's up yo me to note that they are calendar events which I must then enter by pulling up my calendar and manually entering them in. There may be an app to do that but I will have to discover it for myself and install it and get it to work with my mail.
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Just one point about the family communication. I use an iPhone and have done so for many years. However, almost all of my family are on Android. WhatsApp is a great solution for cross platform communication. I use it everyday and find it as good or better than any thing that is limited to an Apple only platform.
Curious, how is hangouts in its current state more robust? I use both quite a bit and I find them pretty much par.
MRU
macrumors Penryn
Yes there can be a consistency issue with Android and it happens on all Androids I've owned with random things.
Battery life can be inconsistent with great battery one day and seemingly dire the next despite same usage pattern.
Similar with apps, will work perfectly for most part and then as we say in Ireland 'act the maggot' the next.
Generally my user experience between iOS and Android is much of a muchness but from pure consistency of experience iOS has been more level.
But I reiterate for the most part however my Android experience and IOS experience are far closer than differing.
I find myself liking all the posts in this thread because I can see the merits to all the points of view. At the end of the day it will come down to personal preference. Some people have a personality and way of working that best meshes with either IOS or Android. Some people are comfortable with both. Things that bother one person will not bother another.
I have experienced inexplicable battery drains on both platforms. I think Apple is trying to move iOS to be more fun and interactive like Android, and Google and Samsung and other manufacturers are working to move Android to at least seem more businesslike and streamlined like iOS.
It does seem like Android is harder to rein in. Odd things just happen on it. Like despite my husband and I experiencing a breakdown in our Note7's after a week so that all of our apps appeared to have been closed but were not closed. We could not even find apps we knew were open on the app switcher. The phones required a reboot. We don't know how long the phones were going awry before the problem became severe enough to notice, but it was only a week and a half into our new ownership.
Odd things have happened to me on iOS too, especially in conjunction with Apple Watch. But they took much more time to accumulate. Whether it's an iPhone or an Android, you're going to have to reboot your device on a fairly regular basis. I just think you can set a longer interval between reboots on iOS.
Please keep in mind my comments and observations about Android are first month observations. I have had no long term experience. I have also listened to my husband's comments about using and developing for Android over the years so I do have enough insight to understand and agree with observations and comments made here by people who understand and have dealt with how Android works from a programmers perspective.
I have experienced inexplicable battery drains on both platforms. I think Apple is trying to move iOS to be more fun and interactive like Android, and Google and Samsung and other manufacturers are working to move Android to at least seem more businesslike and streamlined like iOS.
It does seem like Android is harder to rein in. Odd things just happen on it. Like despite my husband and I experiencing a breakdown in our Note7's after a week so that all of our apps appeared to have been closed but were not closed. We could not even find apps we knew were open on the app switcher. The phones required a reboot. We don't know how long the phones were going awry before the problem became severe enough to notice, but it was only a week and a half into our new ownership.
Odd things have happened to me on iOS too, especially in conjunction with Apple Watch. But they took much more time to accumulate. Whether it's an iPhone or an Android, you're going to have to reboot your device on a fairly regular basis. I just think you can set a longer interval between reboots on iOS.
Please keep in mind my comments and observations about Android are first month observations. I have had no long term experience. I have also listened to my husband's comments about using and developing for Android over the years so I do have enough insight to understand and agree with observations and comments made here by people who understand and have dealt with how Android works from a programmers perspective.
lowendlinux
macrumors 603
I care about detail and am honest about my use case and that's why I choose Android..
===
I've come to wonder about the people here choosing wives or jobs you guys must agonize for years over actual important stuff.
maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
Don't judge Android by the OnePlus implementation, from what I've read it is buggy, where as Android is more stable and more robust.
I've been using iOS and Android long enough that I know exactly what I want from them, exactly how to set them up for my specific needs, and exactly what apps I will be installing. 98% of the time, they both "just work" for me.
My issue with iOS, is the that it's too damn restrictive. So I could never use it as my daily driver. For Android, image backup and restore without root would be my only issue. I'm not that concerned with timely major updates as others are, cause I tend to get a new device every 6 months to a year.
Also with Android, you can choose the wrong phone or device. With iOS devices, you're almost always guaranteed a good experience since there is not much to choose from.
My issue with iOS, is the that it's too damn restrictive. So I could never use it as my daily driver. For Android, image backup and restore without root would be my only issue. I'm not that concerned with timely major updates as others are, cause I tend to get a new device every 6 months to a year.
Also with Android, you can choose the wrong phone or device. With iOS devices, you're almost always guaranteed a good experience since there is not much to choose from.
MRU
macrumors Penryn
Yes I see this too. The end destination / goal of both platforms seems to very convergent even if the starting destination and route taken was different.
Shirasaki
macrumors P6
Haha. 😀
Yeah, I use that smart find feature a lot more than before. Even though sometimes iOS cannot find the event but that's because the detail written is too informal.
I dont have long term experience against android as well, but during the time using android, I can see how less appealing those apps are when running.
Here is also an issue regarding terrible fragmentation of android. That is: you would never know when your device will not be able to run a certain app. Just months ago, one of my occasionally played games makes changes on game engine due to security concerns. The result of this change is a lot of android devices with mis-match CPU unable to run the game anymore, namely a few non-NEON CPU such as Tegra 2. iOS is a hell of lot better on this one.
AustinIllini
macrumors G5
The problem I have, and I love my iPhone, is the fact that they are converging, but in reality they can only get so close so long as Apple keeps certain proprietary. It's seriously time for Apple to consider support for interfacing FaceTime and Duo, iMessage and Allo, and Siri and Google Assistant. At the end of the day, the thing that makes modern Apple great is its devices, not its services.
AustinIllini
macrumors G5
The implementation of Google Hangouts is not very good. Google has all but abandoned it as a platform. Sending texts from my mac is pretty awesome and SMS relay is completely seamless.
bufffilm
Suspended
But what about it, doesn't work well?
Reason why I ask is because if you do a search on what Android apps to replace Apple's, Hangouts seems to be one of the favorites.
And being able to send texts from your Mac is nice I'm sure, but most people uses their phones (myself included).
So if you think it isn't very good, what do you recommend then instead?
AustinIllini
macrumors G5
It's slow, it's missing key features (like search), it gets really confused by basic SMS functionality (It will show phone numbers instead of contact names), and Google has all-but replaced it with Google Messenger (heavily stripped down, however) and Allo. The worst part about Hangouts is Google has completely abandoned it over two-ish years.
TBH, I'm not sure I can recommend one unifying app for Android that handles video chat and messaging.
I would hold out for Allo and Duo, but even then I'm concerned SMS will not be supported for Allo, which would make it DOA.
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bufffilm
Suspended
Thanks for your insight.
I will have to ask what app my brother's family use...they're all on Android. (Whereas my 2 sisters and I are on iOS.)
I had no idea that Google really doesn't support it much, any longer.
I'm just using the messaging that came with my S7. I guess that is just SMS. It works the same in terms of look and feel as iMessage. It has emojis that look even nicer than those in iMessage but I don't know yet what someone on iPhone will see if I send some of them. I guess later my daughter and I will emoji bomb each other and compare the results. We will also test how group texting works with some of us on android and some on iOS.
Of course, all the fancy imessaging confetti that will be coming to iOS 10 will once again throw even more disparity in texting between an android phone and an iPhone.
Duo worked well when we tested it briefly during our vacation. I hope Allo is as good and plays well with iPhones.
Of course, all the fancy imessaging confetti that will be coming to iOS 10 will once again throw even more disparity in texting between an android phone and an iPhone.
Duo worked well when we tested it briefly during our vacation. I hope Allo is as good and plays well with iPhones.
