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Those who switched from Android... why?

To answer the question for myself, I cam from the Note 3. It was really great, up until after one year in. Then everything started going downhill. Always were bugs, bugs, bugs, but started having more problems. Support for apps was a problem. Selection of apps was very limited. By the time my 2 year period was up, camera wasn't working, couldn't do anything while I was in a call, Spotify was causing my phone to restart, and logged me out (this happened several times, while I was running), stock music player was inconsistent, complicated to root (feasibility depended on carrier as well) (and more that I can't remember).

Happy to say the new iPhone practically helped me forget all about it. When I saw the SD card slot got taken away, on the Note 5, decided on the iPhone immediately. Had it for about 34 days, so far, and I'm extremely satisfied.

Already had 2-3 updates out. I've had about 4 app crashes, in this time period, and 3 of them were from the same app, because it wasn't updated for the latest iOS version. That was around 2 weeks ago. I bet, if I checked now, there will be an updated version of the app. The stock earphones are fine, but I just ordered some better earphones, with the the controltalk controls. They just came in the mail, and I'm confident that they will work seamlessly. I never had this confidence with 3rd party things and Android. Hell, even some Samsung things didn't work properly with that phone. Then there's the amazing battery life of this thing ( I have 6s Plus). I'm still not quite used to going to sleep without plugging my phone in. A wonderful first-world problem to have.

There are still things I love about Android, but I won't be switching back.
 
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Went from Note 3 to 6 Plus. Always owned Android. Now I'm going back to Android and Note 5. Don't like poor implementation of a swiping keyboard. Don't like how iOS makes it difficult to by Kindle books. You need an alternative browser which often don't work or don't work with swiping keyboard. Also need a few widgets. Like a calendar. And a temperature notification always present. So certain things kinda important to me not well implemented or available. I do like the fantastic battery though.
 
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Been with nexuses. Tired of crappy camera and poor hardware quality. Even tried 6p. But 6s+ is superior. When google makes quality nexus phone someday i may consider switch back.
 
Just the thread I was searching for, just signed up today. I have used android since the original Evo launched on sprint. Since then I have owned the Evo 3d, Galaxy S3, Note 3 and finally the Nexus 6. The Nexus 6 was hands down the best Android device I have ever owned and the front facing speakers were amazing. I left android because honestly I got bored with it, this is my first iphone (6s+) and I am blown away by its battery life and super smooth UI.

I can honestly say the only real app I will miss from android is Titanium Backup, it saved all my texts, apps and data from those apps so I could wipe my phone and install them without losing anything. Android just got to be the same thing to me, new version drops, install, root deal with some bugs, find a newer rom with damn near identical features, install, etc. etc.. I pretty much gave up all hope on anything Cyanogen after every single one of its versions had x amount of issues, take to many photos and the phone would crash and reboot for example.

AOSP was nice but as I mentioned someone would make a new rom with a tweak here and a tweak there but they were all pretty much the same. One feature that I miss is Viper Audio, that app made music sound good again on android. jtwlbz I just read your post while typing this and I have to agree, the nexus while smooth had a terrible camera (all of them did). I like the camera on the 6s plus, I like the size and I love all the accessory made for apple. I was so jealous of all the cases the iphone had versus the limited nexus items.

One major plus of ios is the updates, there is no vast versions of iphone running a million different os. Android was just so divided when it came to os rollouts. Of course the nexus was first in line but with that you get all the bugs and other issues. Some android devices don't even get timely updates or just get forgotten altogether. Anyway /rant, glad to have an iphone and waiting for 9.1 jailbreak.
 
I've had them all this year - z3, LG G4, note 4, Xperia Z5. And I just became fed up with the lag and poor optimized software.
So I tried a 2 year old iPhone 5 and realized it's time to switch sides. I am now a happy owner of a buttery smooth iPhone 6/64
 
Fancuku said:
Had a Galaxy S4 for two years. The first year it was ok, but after that it became slower. It never got updated past 4.4.2 and that pissed me off how there was no more updates after only one year. Plus all the bloat from Samsung and AT&T. The damn thing was consuming 900mb of RAM at idle with no apps open. That's not acceptable.
Click to expand...

You could've always installed a custom ROM with all Samsung bloatware removed, with stock Android if you prefer that etc. The Galaxy S4 still runs quite decently these days and its design is IMO still one to beat - there are very few phones that manage to keep the size so small yet fit a 5" screen.

This year the biggest bane of Android phones has been the Snapdragon 810 chip. Nothing with it I've seen hasn't run smoothly. Anything else and Android can be smooth as butter nowadays. Just need to pick what fits your criteria.

As for fingerprint readers, the best at the moment are the ones on the back like Google's new phones and also the side button on the Sony Z5 series is really damn fast and great to use.
 
Do you all (Android folks) really change batteries so often that it needs to be "removable"? What does that say about your device and/or battery?

"Here, your device is so terrible that you may need to replace the battery daily. Here's a door for you to do that."
 
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jtrue28 said:
Do you all (Android folks) really change batteries so often that it needs to be "removable"? What does that say about your device and/or battery?

"Here, your device is so terrible that you may need to replace the battery daily. Here's a door for you to do that."
Click to expand...
It's probably more in the sense that sometimes some people might use their phone a lot on a particular day or even more than a day and might not have much time or an opportunity to charge it and swapping the battery with a another full one is a quick solution for that. Even on a normal basis it can be quicker for some than putting their phone to charge somewhere for some time.
 
freedomisle said:
The Samsung Note 3 was one of my favourite phones. If only it weren't for that horrible plastic bezel!

It's battery life was incredible, and I could swap it with a spare if I ever forgot to charge it. I had a 64GB micro SD card in there loaded with movies for when I travelled! I never found it lagged, and there was plenty of accessories to go with it. After a year of use though the cheap plastic bezel looked terrible.

What made me go back to an iPhone was the Notes durability and Apple's continuity & and adoption of phablets. Being able to receive/send texts & calls, sync notes, pages and contacts across all my devices was a game changer.
Click to expand...

I am in the same boat, loved my note 3, probably favorite phone I have every owned. but than started having lagging issues after about a year and a half and whatnot..

jtrue28 said:
SD cards and removable batteries....those are your reasons? Good grief.
Click to expand...

yes...I enjoyed not having to charge the phone every night...I could be down to 35 percent when going to bed and use it half the day and be in the middle of nowhere and oh I have a spare battery on me and I am not stuck worrying about charging my phone and whatnot...
The SD cards were nice to have movies and music stored onto because I have so much that they wouldn't fit on my phone..

IphoneIssues said:
To answer the question for myself, I cam from the Note 3. It was really great, up until after one year in. Then everything started going downhill. Always were bugs, bugs, bugs, but started having more problems. Support for apps was a problem. Selection of apps was very limited. By the time my 2 year period was up, camera wasn't working, couldn't do anything while I was in a call, Spotify was causing my phone to restart, and logged me out (this happened several times, while I was running), stock music player was inconsistent, complicated to root (feasibility depended on carrier as well) (and more that I can't remember).

Happy to say the new iPhone practically helped me forget all about it. When I saw the SD card slot got taken away, on the Note 5, decided on the iPhone immediately. Had it for about 34 days, so far, and I'm extremely satisfied.

Already had 2-3 updates out. I've had about 4 app crashes, in this time period, and 3 of them were from the same app, because it wasn't updated for the latest iOS version. That was around 2 weeks ago. I bet, if I checked now, there will be an updated version of the app. The stock earphones are fine, but I just ordered some better earphones, with the the controltalk controls. They just came in the mail, and I'm confident that they will work seamlessly. I never had this confidence with 3rd party things and Android. Hell, even some Samsung things didn't work properly with that phone. Then there's the amazing battery life of this thing ( I have 6s Plus). I'm still not quite used to going to sleep without plugging my phone in. A wonderful first-world problem to have.

There are still things I love about Android, but I won't be switching back.
Click to expand...

Had the same problem with the lagging after about a year to year and a half and just got tired of it doing that..
 
jtrue28 said:
Do you all (Android folks) really change batteries so often that it needs to be "removable"? What does that say about your device and/or battery?

"Here, your device is so terrible that you may need to replace the battery daily. Here's a door for you to do that."
Click to expand...
It's basically the old paradigm, creating the feel of "needing" one. In practice, it's moot point. In fact, removable or not, it is more convenient to just use an external battery pack as one can use the phone while it is charging. Vs having to turn off and reboot the phone after a physical battery change.

Having said that, one useful area would be self replacement of the battery once the phone aged if one wants to keep the phone for years to come.
 
Removable batteries also mean the opportunity to install an extended battery. Which I have done with most of my phones.
 
Dropped my Galaxy Note 3 last night for the first time in months and the screen shattered so I finally picked up the 6S+.

No regrets. Note 3 was my first and last android. It was far superior to the crappy iPhone 5 but TouchWiz had progressively became worse with each iteration of Android on older devices imo.

Removable battery was a nifty feature as was SD storage but ultimately it's less imperative now than it was for my usage.

Had the iPhone 3G 4 4S before that. I've personally always though iOS was a bit better for the average user. But from a hardware perspective Apple slowed for a bit but has finally recovered with the 6S+
 
Switched from the HTC EVO 4G (2010). 30fps cap on top of an already slow OS = painfully slow. Never went back to Android since then because of lag being present in nearly it's entire lifespan.
 
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Jfree3000 said:
I can honestly say the only real app I will miss from android is Titanium Backup, it saved all my texts, apps and data from those apps so I could wipe my phone and install them without losing anything.
Click to expand...

Hm... You don't have to miss that app, iTunes and iCloud backups does back up everything you mentioned and can restore a new or wiped phone to exactly how it was.

AYNOM said:
Dropped my Galaxy Note 3 last night for the first time in months and the screen shattered so I finally picked up the 6S+.
Click to expand...

I bet you must be happy that you finally broke that thing xD
 
Removable batteries were extremely handy in certain situations. For instance if you are hiking on a day or multi-day trip, you can simply swap batteries in the middle of your hike without having to stop your fitness tracking apps for more than a minute. Or if you are skiing all day with the cold and run apps while you're skiing, you don't need to head to the lodge to charge your phone, simply swap batteries. For me it wasn't something I used every day, but a few times per year made it very beneficial.
 
Now if only there was an easy way to download torrents without jailbreak !
 
I will try to keep my story short.
* Updates are not anymore a big thing to shout around (I don't tell my friends I got ios 9.1)
* I have more control over app permissions out of the box (First time I could install Facebook Messenger and forget it using resources in the background, same goes for simple apps and games like subway surfers etc)
* iTunes backup, yes I also hated this bloated software on Windows, but believe me Titanium backup can never compete with the completeness of iTunes / icloud backup.
* TouchID.. face detection on android was a farce and the touchid implementation on android is not that instant.
Even if somebody implements good touchid, be sure due to the fragmentation in the ecosystem most apps won't have support for that
* Better optimized power/memory usage is a huge plus. I am still sure most of the android phones has some kind of task killers installed, Greenify is popular due to this.

I still have a feeling on Android I kept on rooting, tweaking for better battery, smoothness & ui beautification.. well rather do those I got an iphone.

I will keep my case here.
 
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Update to my response.
Just requested early upgrade to an iPhone 6 to get rid of my work issued SGS5.
One year of buggy performance was enough.
 
Samsung got rid of some of my favorite features (replaceable battery, use of SD cards, and having a phone outside that wasn't slippery as snot), plus I was unhappy with how long OS updates were taking to be funneled from Google to the manufacturer to the carrier to me, plus I liked the idea of having the same system on the iPad I use at home and the phone I carry with me (pausing to gasp for breath). I do miss actual widgets, but won't go back.

I'm on Verizon and need their network coverage, so Nexus is not an option
 
Only things I really miss are the notification LED and customizability (last one is huge for me). Someone talked me into updating to 9.1 to improve battery life and I didn't realize there was no 9.1 jailbreak, and ofc Apple stopped signing 9.0.2 as soon as they release 9.1... So now I'm waiting impatiently for Pangu or Taig to come to the rescue, which is hopefully soon.
 
Mike B in ok said:
Samsung got rid of some of my favorite features (replaceable battery, use of SD cards, and having a phone outside that wasn't slippery as snot), plus I was unhappy with how long OS updates were taking to be funneled from Google to the manufacturer to the carrier to me, plus I liked the idea of having the same system on the iPad I use at home and the phone I carry with me (pausing to gasp for breath). I do miss actual widgets, but won't go back.

I'm on Verizon and need their network coverage, so Nexus is not an option
Click to expand...
Except the Nexus is available on Verizon...
 
Even though I love android, I don't mind iOS especially being a Mac user.

It's funny, the feature I that my attention is the 3D Touch and after picking up 6S I rarely use it now. This is probably the first time I actually love my iPhone since the 4S, the past generations I only upgraded to profit off it.
 
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