I will likely swap to a Pixel 6. Have used iPhone for my main phone since they launched and slowly but surely they addressed all of my concerns (no app store, poor camera, setting alternate main apps, etc). They are amazing devices and while their iterative process is annoying slow, it's executed well and I'm generally fine with waiting.
Have had a number of Android devices as backup phones over the years and while some have been nice, and I've reviewed a ton publicly, none of them could sway me from Apple.
However... there are four factors (in order) that will likely have me switch this fall.
- No fingerprint sensor. This is old tech, well understood and already rolled out on other devices in their portfolio. While my Apple watch unlock usually works, it often doesn't, and it's annoying. Apple devices are still great at home but I'm masked 100% of the time outside the home and it's a constant annoyance for me.
- No call screening. When call screening came to my Google Pixel 4 backup phone it was a game changer. There are entire months I have forwarded all my calls on the Pixel instead of my iPhone simply for this feature. If you've never used it you don't understand, but for those of us that often receive dozens of unsolicited calls a day it has saved my bacon more than once. Being able to not just accept or deny calls, but rather see why people are calling and then making a choice is huge. Robocaller kind of offers this for iOS but it doesn't work well in practice. I pay for 4 separate spam filtering services on my iPhone and on the Pixel I don't need any.
- Moving CSAM from the cloud to on-device is a sleeper issue. Stick it in the cloud based service, sure, but putting that functionality on the device all but guarantees it's going to be exploited by third parties. On device Apple photo libraries were already slow and sluggish... trying to have a 100GB+ photo library on your phone or iPad is an exercise in futility, this just burdens that code down and will slow the devices even more. They need to be streamlining that code, not introducing vulnerabilities and bloat. It also indicates a sea shift... this is the vulnerability that was announced. It's a closed source OS, what other vulnerabilities have been or are will be introduced? When Apple was privacy focused I was inclined to trust them, but with this shift they've made it clear that this is no longer the case and because of various laws around the world it's unlikely any misuse will become public anytime soon, unless some security researcher gets very lucky. This could simply be the front facing shield to "explain" away all of the new on-device processing that's either going to be, or could be, happening in places like China. I'm sure security researchers will be all over this but it's not a question we would have even had to ask about 2020 Apple. Suffice to say that iOS now has very public on-device decryption backdoors in it. Either you care about that (if you're a journalist or someone who deals with proprietary data you should) or you don't. Either way it makes iOS a less secure platform than it was just a few months ago and if security is less of a selling point it needs to compete on features, where it comes up short.
- I can finally switch away from my Apple watch and it's terrible battery life. I use approximately 5% of the "smart" functions of my Apple watch and most days the only reason I wear it is so that I can unlock my phone while wearing a mask. I switched to an Oura ring for general tracking a couple of years ago and love it. I would consider getting a Fitbit now that it's a Google product if I make the switch because not having to charge my watch every single day would be blissful and it's occasionally useful for skipping songs while biking or checking my heart rate, in addition to knowing the time.
While I don't trust Android to be secure and I'm not likely to install a fraction of the apps I have on my iPhone on a Pixel if I do switch... at least I'll be able to unlock my phone, screen my calls and have a watch with usable battery life. I'll still keep my Macs and iPads, but at least I'll have a more enjoyable phone experience which I'll probably pair with the new iPad Mini 6 so I can still iMessage on the go. Also, as an aside, the Google Pixel Buds I have are SO much nicer than my Airpods or Airpods Pro in terms of my personal comfort. First headphones I can actually wear all day comfortably... more than I can say for Beats, Bose or any of the others I've used.
Hopefully Apple with pivot away from #3 and introduce features to address #1 and #2 one day... probably around 2024. Not sure they will ever address 4, they need a "fitness" version that is simplified and streamlined with the same sensors but less app bloat and interface. Either way, I just can't wait anymore, particularly for #1.
www.theverge.com
