Switched to an iPhone today, after being an almost 10yr Android user - My take on it

LesDeals wrote: ↑ The walls on the Walled Garden of Apple is getting so high that getting in is even a problem! lol Seriously though, the best tool for the job is what I encourage. If at this point in your life, the iPhone fits better in your use case, then go for it. I generally find iOS has its set of quirks and you're generally fixed on a given track and not stray from that to control the user experience and from things going wrong. That works most of the time, but not always. My last iPhone was the 6+ and I had a terrible time with both the phone and iOS. Quality was very lacking for the hardware and software was sloppy. My Bluetooth chip decided to kill itself one day and I had flaky and unreliable Bluetooth which I could not figure out until the Genius at the Apple Store used their special app to see that my Bluetooth chip as died. No wonder Bluetooth has been unreliable -- and iOS had no way of telling me that was the case. Thank goodness it still had a headphone jack. If this is the wireless future where my Bluetooth (or equivalent) chip would suddenly die, I have no other audio options other than the phone speakers. No thanks.

The other thing I found with iPhones and iOS is that you better pray that everything works 100%, otherwise, there is next to nothing you can do to diagnose and fix the problem with the hood welded shut. Furthermore, the auto landscape bug was never fixed on my 6+ even though I reported that to them. I would press the home key to exit any app for the phone to randomly freeze for 2 seconds, flash and then the home screen would turn itself in landscape view -- when my phone is in portrait view the whole time. They also haven't solved the film roll/picture gallery slowdown bug either where if you have a lot of pictures stored on your phone, it would drag your performance into the mud.

Battery life and battery anxiety has always been a concern for me as an iPhone user especially with that tiny charge brick. Their batteries are tiny even for a Plus phone. I've had instances where I would arrive home with a dead phone that will not turn on even though the battery was full. I had to plug my phone to get it to come back to life (and it showed the battery was dead as door nail). Furthermore, it doesn't matter that they're the mobile CPU king in the market if their batteries are tiny. It's the equivalent of strapping a V6 engine (or a turbcoharged engine) to lawn mower gas tank. You can go fast, but you won't get very far. Furthermore, fast charge is still a premium feature that's locked away until you pony up for a fast charger (more money in Apple's pocket).

Even though iOS updates are great and they do update for 4 to 5 years on the phone, there's always the worry about mystery battery drain. I had to check the reviews and forums to make sure that the newest update didn't mysteriously drain the battery prematurely before daring to update. It's always the struggle between security versus potential irreversible adverse effects. How many years has iOS been on the market and they haven't figured out how to prevent mystery battery drain? And this is a $2 trillion company?! So much for optimization... I found myself becoming Apple's unwitting beta tester more and more as each successive update got worse. I've never had to worry about such problems on Android -- at least on my Pixel 2 XL so far. I'm so sad, because iOS used to be the most put-together and smooth mobile OS ever in comparison to Android which was a fragmented, disjointed mess with promised updates that never came.

Right now, you're pretty much forced to accessorize in order to get full use of the product that you bought (which is expensive to start with). That means more money in Apple's pocket. All these hidden costs and nickel and diming has turned me off Apple. They've stopped innovating for me to really buy in, and instead relying on cheap tricks and creating problems while charging me for the solution. As an investor and owner, it's a brilliant business strategy with many people willing to pay top dollar for a fragile device that's expensive to fix (and made somewhat affordable to repair only if you bought AppleCare) alongside your iPhone purchase. Let me decide how to spend my money instead of dictating my purchase decisions, Apple.

As an investor and owner, Apple has a brilliant business plan to make money hand over fist. As a consumer, not so much. :-(

I initially bought into Apple, because they were so much better than the other guys in terms of long term support and innovation at a fair price. Now, I'm just paying more to get less. I left Apple, not because the other guys are so good, but because Apple has gotten so bad.

Apologies for the long, rambling rant, but that was my experience with Apple. I haven't sworn off Apple, but they seriously need to innovate and give others a run for their money. The competition has now caught up and have surpassed Apple in some ways. You can get a lot for your money some times with other manufacturers. If you're looking for a predictable (relatively speaking) experience, and the "guided tour" type of experience, since Apple maintains an iron grip on everything then iPhone is the way to go.

LesDeals wrote: ↑ The walls on the Walled Garden of Apple is getting so high that getting in is even a problem! lol Seriously though, the best tool for the job is what I encourage. If at this point in your life, the iPhone fits better in your use case, then go for it. I generally find iOS has its set of quirks and you're generally fixed on a given track and not stray from that to control the user experience and from things going wrong. That works most of the time, but not always. My last iPhone was the 6+ and I had a terrible time with both the phone and iOS. Quality was very lacking for the hardware and software was sloppy. My Bluetooth chip decided to kill itself one day and I had flaky and unreliable Bluetooth which I could not figure out until the Genius at the Apple Store used their special app to see that my Bluetooth chip as died. No wonder Bluetooth has been unreliable -- and iOS had no way of telling me that was the case. Thank goodness it still had a headphone jack. If this is the wireless future where my Bluetooth (or equivalent) chip would suddenly die, I have no other audio options other than the phone speakers. No thanks.

The other thing I found with iPhones and iOS is that you better pray that everything works 100%, otherwise, there is next to nothing you can do to diagnose and fix the problem with the hood welded shut. Furthermore, the auto landscape bug was never fixed on my 6+ even though I reported that to them. I would press the home key to exit any app for the phone to randomly freeze for 2 seconds, flash and then the home screen would turn itself in landscape view -- when my phone is in portrait view the whole time. They also haven't solved the film roll/picture gallery slowdown bug either where if you have a lot of pictures stored on your phone, it would drag your performance into the mud.

Battery life and battery anxiety has always been a concern for me as an iPhone user especially with that tiny charge brick. Their batteries are tiny even for a Plus phone. I've had instances where I would arrive home with a dead phone that will not turn on even though the battery was full. I had to plug my phone to get it to come back to life (and it showed the battery was dead as door nail). Furthermore, it doesn't matter that they're the mobile CPU king in the market if their batteries are tiny. It's the equivalent of strapping a V6 engine (or a turbcoharged engine) to lawn mower gas tank. You can go fast, but you won't get very far. Furthermore, fast charge is still a premium feature that's locked away until you pony up for a fast charger (more money in Apple's pocket).

Even though iOS updates are great and they do update for 4 to 5 years on the phone, there's always the worry about mystery battery drain. I had to check the reviews and forums to make sure that the newest update didn't mysteriously drain the battery prematurely before daring to update. It's always the struggle between security versus potential irreversible adverse effects. How many years has iOS been on the market and they haven't figured out how to prevent mystery battery drain? And this is a $2 trillion company?! So much for optimization... I found myself becoming Apple's unwitting beta tester more and more as each successive update got worse. I've never had to worry about such problems on Android -- at least on my Pixel 2 XL so far. I'm so sad, because iOS used to be the most put-together and smooth mobile OS ever in comparison to Android which was a fragmented, disjointed mess with promised updates that never came.

Right now, you're pretty much forced to accessorize in order to get full use of the product that you bought (which is expensive to start with). That means more money in Apple's pocket. All these hidden costs and nickel and diming has turned me off Apple. They've stopped innovating for me to really buy in, and instead relying on cheap tricks and creating problems while charging me for the solution. As an investor and owner, it's a brilliant business strategy with many people willing to pay top dollar for a fragile device that's expensive to fix (and made somewhat affordable to repair only if you bought AppleCare) alongside your iPhone purchase. Let me decide how to spend my money instead of dictating my purchase decisions, Apple.

As an investor and owner, Apple has a brilliant business plan to make money hand over fist. As a consumer, not so much. :-(

I initially bought into Apple, because they were so much better than the other guys in terms of long term support and innovation at a fair price. Now, I'm just paying more to get less. I left Apple, not because the other guys are so good, but because Apple has gotten so bad.

Apologies for the long, rambling rant, but that was my experience with Apple. I haven't sworn off Apple, but they seriously need to innovate and give others a run for their money. The competition has now caught up and have surpassed Apple in some ways. You can get a lot for your money some times with other manufacturers. If you're looking for a predictable (relatively speaking) experience, and the "guided tour" type of experience, since Apple maintains an iron grip on everything then iPhone is the way to go.

Crichtonfan wrote: ↑ As much as I love using the MacBook pros, every time I end up helping family and friends with their iPhones and media management etc, I am reminded why I stay away. My plebian simple ways have doomed me to using Android

SO and the rest of the family have tried to get me to switch and I admit they are slick and polished devices but iOS is just too annoying to deal with.

MacOS and Linux are superb though.

LesDeals wrote: ↑ My previous post is meant to relay my last experience with iOS and iPhone and it's not sunshine and butterflies for iPhones all the time. And it's not any attempt at "conversion therapy" to dissuade anyone from buying an iPhone. It was my horrible experience at the time with iPhone and take what you will from it. That's fine. Yes, I understand 2014 has been a long time ago as well. Perhaps you had a much better experience than I had. Congratulations. I wasn't so lucky.

I frankly don't care if Apple or Google wins since I have no horse in this race and would be fine using either platform. I feel that some of the restrictions put in place by Apple feel more like a straight jacket for anyone who wishes to "really own their phones" to do as they please than the rigidly regimented experience from Apple (like being able to side load Fortnite on to their phones (priorities, I know.) but can also be a security feature to prevent any nasties from getting installed behind your back.

With technology, there's constant improvement (and no platform is perfect, just what best fits your use case) with plenty of leapfrogging going on and it's us consumers that generally end up with the biggest benefit. The general trend is that as the technology gets better, we get a better, more feature-rich product at about the same and even lower price. Apple seems to be the one going the other way. Each successive generation of iPhones are better in capability, with the price going up each generation (by taking away features and charging for the solution like headphone dongles, offering paltry storage space with 64 GB starting storage at the non-pro level). Fast charging is still a premium feature you need to pay extra for (no fast charger power brick in the box and now no charger brick, period) and at a higher price. Many Android manufacturers have been including fast charging bricks for many years now (with notable exceptions like Samsung depending on if you bought their flagship). And I'm not absolving Android manufacturers of the same anti-consumer moves either, but Apple did it first, proven it as a viable business move (aka remains profitable and product still sells like hotcakes), for other manufacturers to follow the trend like removing the headphone jack and not including a dongle.

Whatever your use case may be, it's your money at the end of the day, and nobody cares about your money more than you do. So buy whatever suits you best for your current use case (after doing your own research) to get the most out of your purchase. I'm currently on a great loyalty plan and don't plan on going on a contract unless the math makes sense for me to be tied up for 2 years. iPhones are generally expensive to begin with (especially outside the US) and even more so buying without a contract.

1. Does iphone 12 have the same screen quality as the S9? I also use a Samsung tablet and it has the Super Amoled screen. I used the iPad Pro 10.5 once and hated the screen quality. I think in smaller devices like a phone, screen quality is even more important.
2. Is there something similar to aCalendar in iOS?
3. Dual sim model? I think I would need to get one from China where it has two physical sim slots. Has anyone had any experience with that model?

idontwantausername wrote: ↑ What kind of issues? Genuinely curious.

Personally, I haven't had issues in years.

I take a photo/video and it appears on all my iOS devices.
Music I use Spotify.

batcave wrote: ↑ Interesting takes on why people change. I'm thinking about changing from android to iOS for a totally different reason, on-board storage. I also want a normal size phone and not a phablet. I'm in year three of my Samsung Galaxy S9 so I will need to upgrade soon as battery life falls off sharply around now from my experience with Samsung phones.

I currently use a Samsung Galaxy S9 Duos (dual sim) with 256GB of storage. I have two physical sim cards installed. The carriers that I use do not have esim. In the storage is about 130GB of music. I want all of my music on the device for long flights as well as when I'm in my car. Where I live and drive, there are several dead zones for mobile coverage and it is annoying when I am streaming music and it cuts out.

I am thinking about getting the iPhone 12 as it is about the same dimensions as the S9. I think almost everything that I currently use on ny S9 would work on an iphone. The only exception is my calendar app, aCalendar - which is the only app that I've ever purchased. It replicates and has a similar workflow to a two page per day Daytimer paper organizer - I'm old. I asked the developer about iOS and was flatly told no.

My biggest questions are,

1. Does iphone 12 have the same screen quality as the S9? I also use a Samsung tablet and it has the Super Amoled screen. I used the iPad Pro 10.5 once and hated the screen quality. I think in smaller devices like a phone, screen quality is even more important.
2. Is there something similar to aCalendar in iOS?
3. Dual sim model? I think I would need to get one from China where it has two physical sim slots. Has anyone had any experience with that model?

If not iOS, is there a similar Android phone that would suit my needs?

Kramy wrote: ↑ This year small phones are not common - Pixels are some of the most well known smaller phones on the Android side, but they only make 128GB models, which does you no good. Your options are quite limited unless you look at Chinese brands. The iPhone very well may be the best phone for you this time around.

The only option to make it work on something like a Pixel is to compress your music library, and then it won't sound quite as good.

If you get an iPhone, grab Spark for email. It's really good.

I would sync your contacts to/from Gmail so that you get as many benefits from there as possible. (Not the searching, at least on iOS itself - but you do get backup/de-dupe and organisation on the web version of Contacts.)