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What is the single biggest reason you chose the Iphone over the S3?

S3 was never a consideration for me. I'd never heard if it outside if this forum. I got my first iPhone because developers stopped writing reliable apps for the BB OS. So I got an iPhone 4. Now I have a 4s and may or may not upgrade to a 5 in a month or two. But in sticking with the iOS platform because of the seamless ecosystem between all my Apple products.

I don't need a powerful phone or a huge screen. I just need a device that works and plays nice with all my other productivity tools.
 
himedc said:
Call quality! I picked up a Verizon s3 a week before the iPhone5 came out. It was constantly dropping calls. Both stock and rooted with CM10 installed. I took it back the day I got the iPhone 5. No regrets.
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I used the GS3 for a month waiting for the iPhone 5. I really liked it for roughly 2 weeks...I also thought I might be interested in keeping it until little things started to annoy me.

As I read through all the posts, I was able to fully realize the main reasons I returned it for the iPhone 5. There is three, and I cannot seem to pick just 1 as the main one.

1. Call Quality - Like the post above, I had issues with this. Also, I hated the speaker in the earpiece. It sounded awful when I would talk on the phone.

2. AirPlay - I have a Bowers and Wilkins Zeppelin Air Sound dock which has AirPlay built into it. I also have an AppleTV, so I thoroughly missed AirPlay during my time with the GS3.

3. Apple - Their ecosystem and customer services is unrivaled. My phone doesn't work, or I can't figure something out... There is an Apple Genius to help me without judgement. If my phone breaks (knock on wood), I can buy a new one for $199.99 by trading in my damaged phone. Re-Sale Value.

Since most of my electronics are Apple products, I can go into an Apple Store, and get almost all of my answers in one place.

------------------------------

Oh yea, this one is petty but I don't care...

Samsung commercials portray iPhone users as dumb, ignorant sheep. This I am not. I started with the original iPhone, Loved it. Haven't looked back.
 
S3 was never part of my consideration. Size was a big factor as well as the apple 'ecosystem'. I love my touch and decided that it was time to get something that mixed both my cell phone and touch's functionalities.
 
OneMike said:
Having owned the S3 from June - Last week. Here is the biggest reason I went back to Apple and the iPhone 5.

- I'm a Mac

All of my computers are Mac, use Apple TV, Air Print, iCloud and have invested several hundreds in iOS apps that I haven't found comparable android substitutions for.

The S3 is a great phone. I couldn't have used that long if not. At the end of the day though as closed as I may think the apple ecosystem is. And as tired as I may be of the look of iOS. In that 3 month period I got tired of ice cream sandwich and jelly bean.

I've rooted phone, flashed cyanogenmod 9 and 10, checked out supernexus, installed the leaked jellybean roms, used different launchers, etc.. All of that is cool, gets old as well.

Once the wow factor wears off, I've found I'm most happy with iOS and it has the best tools to complete what I need to do on a daily basis.
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Exactly how I feel 100%. I got the S3 the day it was released for Verizon and used it until the iPhone 5 launch. It is a great phone, but like you I have mac, apple TV, and a large investment in iOS apps and itunes music. iPhone just works best with all of these devices. I will admit once the ecosystem has you hooked in it is hard to switch platforms.

I also feel the S3 is just too big. I think 4.3" would be about perfect. Even though the S3 was light and thin, it still was not always the most comfortable to carry and I almost always noticed it in my pocket while the iPhone disappears in my pocket.
 
Apple ios and iCloud everything works flawlessly. Also the quality of the phone is unmatched.
 
King Shady said:
App ecosystem is the one and only reason.
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This. Android may have lots of apps, and even apps that do the same things, but the quality of the apps is horrible compared to iOS versions. It would take a matching or better app ecosystem for me to switch off iOS to any other platform.
 
I've had each iPhone since the 3G and have never considered moving to anything else. Everything just works. You don't spend time thinking about what's "under the hood" and just use it. It does everything superbly and the workflow is very thought out. I was dead against the iPad and bought a Motorola Xoom on launch. Yeah, it had quad core this, and dual core that, and high specs at the time. The OS was tweakable to the nuts. However, apps looked like they were written by 5 year olds, I had so many force closes etc etc that i ditched it and got an iPad 2, and now a "New iPad". Android's failure is it's greatest selling point... it's Open, but geez is it fragmented.

Now I have a MacBook Pro, and it's the same against Windows ... it's great to use and you spend less time babysitting the OS to the point it just melts into the background and you can concentrate on productivity.

It's a cliche, but everything just works.

iOS > Android .... simples
 
Because I would NEVER buy a Samsung phone. Never EVER. They have the absolute worst radios in the industry. If you rely on your cell phone to actually make calls, a Samsung phone is the worst you could buy.

I had a Motorola Droid RAZR before I bought my iPhone 5.

There is no "single" biggest reason for switching. I weighed ALL of the factors: 1) iOS vs. Android; 2) Apple App Store vs. Android App Store; 3) Form factor; 4) Build quality; 5) Ease of syncing with contacts and calendar; and 6) Cloud service (i.e., music streaming from the cloud).

For me, when all those factors were weighed, the iPhone 5 won out over my Droid RAZR and every other Android phone on the market.
 
I have yet to find an Android device with as accurate of a touchscreen as iOS devices. With this being the primary interface of the device, the less annoying to use the better.
 
I've sent a similar message to a few folks who asked me offline for why I went from a GS3 to an iP5.


Battery life was absolutely horrendous. I used the GS3 for about two months (moving to it from an iPhone 4S) and while I liked the ability to customize most aspects of the device, running it with real customizations (such as a replacement for the stock launcher, which had limitations I didn't care for) it became quite flaky and laggy. In addition, call quality was fair, signal strength was fair. Not excellent, certainly not what I expect from a premier / flagship product.

I found the construction to be somewhat shaky - it just never felt solid in my hand, if that makes sense. It was very light, which I liked, and incredibly thin, which I also liked, but it just wasn't comfortable to me as a daily smartphone. It wasn't particularly resistant to small nicks and scratches in day-to-day use.

To me, bigger does not always mean better (and I fully understand that some, perhaps many, will disagree on this point). The huge screen meant a huge, unwieldy device in my hand. It worked fine for two handed use, but I was never comfortable using it one handed for basic operations: making a phone call to one of my key contacts (essentially equivalent to a favorite in IOS parlance), checking email, reviewing notifications. I always had to sort of 'toss' the phone in my hand to get to the top or far end of the screen, which just doesn't feel comfortable to me.

I expected to find widgets incredibly useful (I've gone Android before) but in this case, they really didn't add significantly to the usability of the device for me. I liked the customization but found that, in real world use, it wasn't as impactful as I had expected.

In any case, it certainly wasn't the right fit for me, the key factors being size (too big), battery life (too short), basic phone functions, and just basic feel of the device.
 
Blackforge said:
I have yet to find an Android device with as accurate of a touchscreen as iOS devices. With this being the primary interface of the device, the less annoying to use the better.
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Agreed. I have had an iPhone 3G, HTC G1, HTC Incredible, HTC Thunderbolt and now an iPhone 5. I'm amazed that I could never type well on the Android phones. Even with the THunderbolt's huge display, I gave up. I'd never type anything. Now that I'm back on the iPhone 5 I discovered that I can type again, even with the narrow screen. And I can type with one hand, not possible w a huge and heavy Thunderbolt.

After years of experimentation, I think it comes down to touch accuracy. The iPhone simply is more accurate. There may also be software magic, because it really is amazing. I could see inaccuracy of the G1 and Incredible. You could almost map the deviation. But I hadn't noticed any clear pattern of touch inaccuracy on the Thunderbolt.
 
I was all set to switch to Verizon for the iP5. However, with the news that the iP5 would still not do voice and data simultaneously on Verizon, that plan was out for me. I understand some people don't need it. It's a dealbreaker for me.

So, my choices where to go to Verizon and get an S3 (or possibly wait for one of the upcoming Moto phones), or stay with AT&T and poorer network performance in several of the places that we travel to.

In the end I have decided to stay with AT&T and the iP5 for now. The single biggest factor is probably my current investment in the iOS ecosystem--apps, music, configuration, etc. between two phones and an iPad.

Lesser considerations (yes, I know the title asks for one reason) were:

  • The S3 is too big
  • I develop software for a living and after doing that all day, have no interest in tinkering with a phone just to get it to work right.
  • Missing out on iMessage and shared photo streams with other iOS users
  • Poor build quality of every android phone
  • Longevity and resale value of iOS devices
 
iphone because it is what i'm "invested" in and it works for me. the pros of another device would have to outweigh the cost and pain in the buttness of switching to a different ecosystem, music player, etc...


i've been a long time ipod user, my first smartphone was a moto droid a few years ago but i couldn't give up my ipod for music, just didn't like the music management of android and i was so used to itunes so i was carrying around 2 devices. now on top of the whole music thing, i am invested into apples ecosystem so it would cost a lot to repurchase my apps all over again.
 
I actually went the opposite, iPhone 4S to gs3. Main 2 reasons, I wanted a bigger screen and ios6 did not impress me.

My gs3 is ok. I'd rather have iOS with a few of the android features, if ios6 was like this the I may have stuck with it. I can still access everything pretty easily from iTunes, using double twist to sync iTunes playlists and music. Apps are pretty much the same. Not a user of widgets. I like a clean simple home screen. It's definitely not as smooth and responsive as iOS, but it's not too bad, we'll see how jelly bean is if they ever release it.

I still have my iPad and love that, so I do get to use iOS 6 on it.
 
I reject the premise of Op's question. iPhone 5 and S3 are not even in the same league.
 
I won am S3 in a contest. Tried it out. The screen killed it for me. It was too dim for my taste.

Also my investment in iOS apps!
 
I'll say this - the biggest thing keeping me from switching to Android in general is the Apple ecosystem - too much time and money invested in apps.

The main reason I don't want the GS3 is because the screen is too freaking big. 4"-4.25" is the sweet spot!
 
Quu said:
Software quality. The iOS operating system and the 3rd party apps feel a lot more consistent and higher quality overall than Android. This is obviously just my opinion and I'm sure others will disagree with me! ;)
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I disagree with you. But I don't believe to like one phone, you have to hate the other. I like both phones.
 
never really considered it. hadn't heard of it until the fandroids started inundating this forum which made me google it. I saw a YouTube video of its UI and never thought about it again.

side note: I'm disappointed to see that term has been used before. thought I was being original!
 
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