Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Mobile OSs I Tried Android Again… Why Does It Feel Like a Group Project That Never Ends?

I see it as Android being more like a computer. You can do pretty much whatever you want with it, with certain android OS's being more customisable than others.

iPhone is maybe a bit more simple overall, but often too simple (e.g. keyboard) or not simple enough (e.g. no universal back gesture).
 
  • Like
Reactions: MacInTO and robvalentine
Bungaree.Chubbins said:
I don’t have enough experience with Android to comment on details. Given that every time I have had to use an Android it has been massively irritating, I still love my iPhone 14, and I like iOS 26, I can’t imagine what would have to happen to make me contemplate switching.

I have never had difficulty swiping away notifications, do I don’t know what was going on there.

The benefit of the ecosystem is that I don’t have to mess around with third party stuff if I don’t want to!
Click to expand...
To clarify, if I'm scolling fb etc and I get a news notification that I don't care about I can swipe it away there and then, with Apple, it's either open it, or swipe it up to go into notification center, and have to swipe it away later in the notification center. I just find too many small barriers in iOS, such as lack of universal back gesterue, going back from right hand side of screen (very useful if you are right handed), and Keyboard.

Everyone has muscle memory, and ref the ecosystem, when I bought my house I couldn't find a video doorbell that worked with home kit so I went google. it works fine with Apple, but if I had apple music I can't cast to the google speakers, unless I connected via bt. I can cast on Android Apple music lol.

This is coming from someone who thought iOS 26 isn't as bad as somepeople make out.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MacInTO
I have extensively and actively use both iOS and Android. The Android OS itself is...fine. The issue is really the apps one of my biggest problems is how inconsistent everything is between apps, each have their own idea of what navigation should look like and how it should function.

Also depending on the MFG your experience will vary wildly. For example with the unihertz phones (especially their keyboard phones) the OS is extremely clean and minimal, the only extra installed apps are the ones needed to take advantage of hardware (such as keyboard designed for physical keyboards)

However you don't update your phone via settings like every other android phone you have to use their special updater to do so. Then you have samsung which installs like 4 apps that all do EXACTLY the same thing with WILDLY different experiences that use different types of accounts etc.

I would summarize android as just a very messy user experience. I say this as a former Android app developer and I largely blame google, even tablets Google is hot and cold leading to a confused and jumbled android experience that Samsung etc has to then fix and deal with.

Will you get updates? Will you get security updates? "Oh but but but now they promise 5 years of updates!!!" yea but they dont promise WHEN you will get said updates. My current android phone is like 6 months behind on security updates despite being a brand new phone with "5 years of promised updates". Just a mess. Oh and Google is so bad at handling reviews, it really makes Apple look like saints by comparison. Waiting 1-2 months for an update to be approved is normal. Google constantly adding new policies and restrictions and forcing you to update your app is normal. Just a horrible experience for developers which is why ultimately we stopped making android apps.

That being said if you want a keyboard phone (which I do) I dont have a choice, so I swallow the crap
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: MacCheetah3, steelslicerx, dracobdn and 1 other person
It sounds like Android hasn't changed much in the 10 or so years since I left the platform. The core OS is just fine, most of the time, but I remember it always feeling just not quite 100% optimized, even on a Nexus device at the time. The app situation too - there were definitely some good third party apps, but so many just felt like either a wrapper for a mobile site or a port of an iPhone app, it was awful. Also the battery drain when you're not even using the phone is insane back then. Not sure if that's been sorted.
 
Harthag said:
Impressive specs you said? The Pixel 10 Pro XL does not have impressive specs
Click to expand...

It doesn't? Isn't that a $1200 phone?

I'm actually wondering what the minimal pixel would be that runs GrapheneOS and would be expected to work on cell networks for the next 3-4 years (GSM/2G/Edge etc doesn't cut it anymore in most locations).
 
I always play with the Fold 7 at my favourite electronics store while my wife and daughter are looking at other things. What annoys me most is the lack of consistency in the app icons. I’m not even talking about 3rd party apps, but the apps that come with the phone.

It’s like they told person A to go and find a favorite icon for the phone app on the internet. Person B had to go and find a mail icon. And so on.

And then they threw them all together and shipped it. It feels amateurish.

Of course none of that is relevant because the real problem with Android is that it’s only reason for existing is to let Google (an advertizing company!!!!) know where you are, what you are talking about and what you are doing, in order to sell that information and serve you better ads.

It’s a Trojan horse in your pocket and - even knowing that - some still swear by it.

The fact that it looks like a group project is the least of your problems. 😉
 
Corefile said:
Android is liberating when compared to iPhone OS. You can fully customize the display and animations as to how YOU want them to appear and not how APPLE wants them to be.
Click to expand...
Unless you have zero idea how to do that and every time you watch a demonstration you get confused because it feels like they missed a specific step when in fact they did not.
 
Corefile said:
Android is liberating when compared to iPhone OS. You can fully customize the display and animations as to how YOU want them to appear and not how APPLE wants them to be.
Click to expand...
It absolutely liberates your info and data.

And then sends it to Google after which nothing good happens. But hey, you got your custom animations!
 
According to Edward Snowden, both Google and Apple provide information to the NSA via the Prism program. When asked about the program, they will deny it or state they have never heard of such a program. 🙄😂

I suspect the same reasoning for the US government banning foreign wifi routers is so they can have back doors to monitor Internet traffic more closely.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: BigMcGuire, Steve Adams, capamac and 1 other person
There's lots of people here who seem to be commenting without actually having used an Android recently. Sure there's some terrible devices, mostly at the cheaper end, but it's a better OS IMO.

There's also a lot of people here who think the Apple privacy marketing is true lol.

At least Google are honest about data tracking unlike the big fruit.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Evil Lair, MacInTO, Steve Adams and 2 others
robvalentine said:
There's lots of people here who seem to be commenting without actually having used an Android recently. Sure there's some terrible devices, mostly at the cheaper end, but it's a better OS IMO.

There's also a lot of people here who think the Apple privacy marketing is true lol.

At least Google are honest about data tracking unlike the big fruit.
Click to expand...
And at least you can go in on android and know exactly what's going on. Apple, no such luck.
 
  • Like
Reactions: robvalentine
HouseLannister said:
Don't judge a phone by the crappy gacha games that paid for placement on the device. Those apps help keep the price down. Just delete them.
Click to expand...
Yes, ride the delete key. Terminate everything that is not necessary. You can always get it back later if you change your mind.

I did the same thing when I got the new iPad. Apple ships a lot of bloatware too. If only I could delete the useless apps on my Mac as well. I have a list.... 😉 (looking at you Stickies; you'll be first against the wall when the Revolution comes.)
 
ZipZilla said:
I've used both for years. Android has its strengths, as does the iPhone. It's Mac vs. PC, except the phone version
Click to expand...
No, it isn’t. Microsoft was never like Google, not even at their worst. Microsoft wanted it all, wanted Windows everywhere, wanted the money. At least they were honest about it.

Google pretends to be a tech company and gives you things for free while the only purpose of those free things is to know more about you, sell that data and serve you ads.

Google is an ad company that bought a mobile OS and put it in your pocket like a Trojan horse.

Apple’s business is to sell you expensive hardware at very high profit margins.

They are completely different business models.
 
Dirk Pieters said:
No, it isn’t. Microsoft was never like Google, not even at their worst. Microsoft wanted it all, wanted Windows everywhere, wanted the money. At least they were honest about it.

Google pretends to be a tech company and gives you things for free while the only purpose of those free things is to know more about you, sell that data and serve you ads.

Google is an ad company that bought a mobile OS and put it in your pocket like a Trojan horse.

Apple’s business is to sell you expensive hardware at very high profit margins.

They are completely different business models.
Click to expand...
*Apple’s business is to sell you expensive hardware at very high profit margins, whilst pretending they don't steal your data

Fixed it for you.

If you think apple don't steal your data, I have some magic beans to sell you
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ct applefan, MacInTO and Steve Adams
steelslicerx said:
Gave Android another shot. Regret arrived before my apps finished installing.

Beautiful hardware. Impressive specs.
Then the experience hits you like a group project where nobody showed up prepared.
  • Three apps for one job
  • Five places to change one setting
  • Notifications arguing with each other
  • Random battery “optimizations” quietly breaking things
Android doesn’t ship finished—it ships flexible.
Translation: you finish it.

Somewhere between fixing what shouldn’t need fixing and choosing defaults I already chose yesterday, I realized:

This isn’t customization. It’s unpaid QA.

Switched back. Everything just worked.
No meetings. No debugging. No existential questions about my notification shade.

Respect to those who enjoy it—but I’m convinced Android users either love chaos… or don’t remember life without it.
Click to expand...
Nice post, ChatGPT
 
  • Haha
Reactions: MacInTO and Steve Adams
robvalentine said:
*Apple’s business is to sell you expensive hardware at very high profit margins, whilst pretending they don't steal your data

Fixed it for you.

If you think apple don't steal your data, I have some magic beans to sell you
Click to expand...
He's already drank the magic kool aid by the sounds of it.

News Flash....ALL the tech bros' steal your data.

EDIT: Just to be clear in my position here. You can like a company for many reasons. Their hardware, software, their services. BUT....if you think ANY megacorp. has your best interests, security, privacy as one of their values. You are sadly mistaken. They ALL spy, sell, use your data the same way. Some are up front about it, others *ahem* are shady and stealthy about it. At this point, it doesn't matter.

I use Microsoft, Apple, Google and others because I have come to the realization that they are all the same and I am going to use what I enjoy. I am not under some grand illusion that any trillion dollar company has my best interests at heart.

They are all the same. Just like the meme goes. They are the same picture.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: NUFC2025, MacInTO, jamezr and 2 others
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back