Switching from Android to iOS — the Pain and the Pleasure
Was the grass greener on the iOS side of the fence?
Back Story
My Pixel 3 stopped making calls unless I rebooted it. This quickly got old. Additionally I was angry with Google that after only three years Google is not releasing any more updates for the Pixel 3. Time to go back to iOS after five years using Android!
Notification Management
One thing I noticed right away is notification management. I got a notification from the cat game I installed for my five year old. I immediately want to block all future notifications from the cat game.
On Android 12 I can long press the notification and I get options to mute all or some notifications from this app.
In iOS I have to go to Settings, scroll through a list of a hundred apps to find the cat game. It takes three screens to do what Android can do in a long press.
Winner — Android
Facial Recognition versus Fingerprint Sensor
For Android I used a Google Pixel, which offers only a fingerprint sensor for biometrics. Fingerprint sensors have some serious drawbacks. I’m at the gym and my finger is sweaty — too bad, the Pixel’s thumbprint reader won’t work. Hands damp from washing dishes or washing your hands in the bathroom? Too bad — the fingerprint sensor won’t work unless your finger is fully dry. I often end up pounding out my six digit passcode.
I’m at the gym and my finger is sweaty — too bad, the Pixel’s thumbprint reader won’t work.
Wet hands? Apple’s facial recognition doesn’t care. Occasionally I get a failed attempt from it, but the retry is painless enough and it is pretty rare.
Winner — iOS
Icon Placement
Let’s say I want to put my Wodify app in the lower right hand corner, so that every time I hit the gym I go straight to the bottom right and open Wodify. I also want to have some open space on my front page because I don’t like the cluttered feel of a page full of icons.
On Android I can have four icons and place one in each corner of my screen, and leave the rest empty. Apple’s iOS doesn’t allow me this. I’m not sure why — it seems so basic.
Winner — Android
SMS Messages Via Computer
As a person with a PC, I really miss Google Messages. If I got a phone message while on my PC, I could see the message straight from the computer without picking up the phone. If I was on my PC and found a news story I thought was interesting, I could paste the URL right into Google Messages and SMS text it to my wife. I could paste in screenshots of an interesting picture. All you need is a web browser.
If there was something complex, I could bang it out at 50 WPM on a keyboard instead of fumbling with my phone’s awkward keyboard or messing with text to speech.
There is good news for iOS users that have a Mac computer. They can do the equivalent of this from their Mac. Unfortunately for those of us corporate white collar types, we normally spend most of our day on a Windows PC. I personally don’t own a Mac yet, so I am out of luck.
Winner — Android
Side Loading
Apple says this is forbidden fruit. All software installed must come through their golden gate of the App Store. Ka-ching!!!
Winner — Android
Long Term OS Support
When I bought the Pixel 3 I thought I would get eternal security updates from Google. Here we are three years later and they have already abandoned updating it further. Now they are promising five years for the Pixel 6.
Apple, however, has consistently given five years plus of iOS release for just about every Apple phone or tablet.
Winner — iOS
Price
Yes, you can save $100 or $200 buying a flagship Android device from Google or Samsung. But is it really much money over three years when it is 10% to 20% of the device cost? I don’t think it is meaningful, and judging by phone sales in America, neither does the average American. iOS is running on nearly 60% of all phones.
Winner — Tie
File Transfer
My wife has used iOS for a decade or more. It has never been easy getting her pictures off her phone to a PC or a cloud storage of my choice. Apple has not made it easy. At least now you can pay money for Apple’s cloud offering and use their cloud as an intermediate way to move pictures.
Copying pictures off my Android to a PC was relatively painless. It is still slightly technical, but I felt at ease with it.
Winner — Android
Messaging
As an Android user I constantly got jealous that iOS users could “love” a message and attach a heart to it. On Android I could see that heart, but had no way to attach a heart of my own. I would have to send back a message that appended to the whole thread instead of being able to “love” a single message in the thread.
With iOS, I can be using an iPad that doesn’t even have phone connectivity, and still be able to message via iOS over WiFi.
Sending a social security number over SMS is risky. SMS is easily hacked and spied on by the criminal digital underworld. iOS uses end to end encryption. Send a child’s social security number to your spouse with relative ease of mind. Or a picture of a credit card you want them to use. And the list goes on…
Winner — iOS
Downloading an MP3 File to Your Phone
Another walled garden restriction from Apple. Maybe I bought an MP3 file about the history of Genghis Khan and I want to move it to my phone? Instead of being able to download it straight from a web browser to my phone, I have to download it to Dropbox and then make it available offline.
Winner — Android
Summary
This is by no means exhaustive, but it is the stuff that mattered the most to me. Almost 60% of Americans use Apple devices according to the statistics I could find, so there must be a strong preference for iOS. What is your most loved or most hated feature of either one? Leave it for me in the comments.
