7 ms·

After 7 years Android user across three phones, I decided to try iPhone. Now 2 years in, on my 2nd, and never going back. Android tends to slowly slide into gli

by bdamm 9y ago

After 7 years Android user across three phones, I decided to try iPhone. Now 2 years in, on my 2nd, and never going back. Android tends to slowly slide into glitch land and demands you throw away your phone far more aggressively than iPhones do. The 911-crash on Android was the last straw. That's when you call 911, and the phone crashes instead of, you know, calling for help. iPhone might not be latest and greatest. But the overall package is better. Definitely not perfect - I've experienced a disabled Phone app on iPhone where I would not have been able to call 911 had I needed it - but all my i-devices have been glitch resistant in a way none of my Android devices ever were.

ssijak 9y ago
My experience exactly. I always said bad things about iPhone. Hay it is closed, it has fewer options, worse hardware than top Android phones, etc.. It was the time during which I fiddled with the phone much, installed Ubuntu on Android phone, etc.. But then my last Nexus started to glitch like any other Android top phone after 1 year of use. I was so irritated by it that I said well I will try iPhone now. It was about 6 month ago and I could not be more happy. I have phone that just works, never glitched, not once in 6 months, never sttutered with animation or anything. Yes, it is less extensible, has less options, but actually I like that now better. I wan`t it to work good, work well and be reliable. One major additional benefit is that I use iPhone less than Android phone, and it spams and pings me less. At first iPhone, notifications felt overly simplistic, but now I love them. There are no permanent notifications/icons that some android app can put there, and I can just scroll from the lock screen and see without clicking/opening everything that happened. Also, I can disable every notification/spam per app, disabled all bubbles (red circle numbers over app icons) except for messaging apps. This way I feel that I don`t expect dopamine dose from my phone, and I use it only when I really need something.
- syshum 9y ago
  >>Also, I can disable every notification/spam per app You can do this on Android as well >> Nexus started to glitch like any other Android top phone after 1 year of use ... 6 month ago and I could not be more happy. I have phone that just works, never glitched hmmm, Anyone else see a issue with these 2 statements?
  - Grazester 9y ago
    I really don't know about that. I had the og Moto-X and it served me will for years without issue. I now have a Nexus 6 and didn't wipe the phone for two years after use. I only did so because I wanted the better system encryption that came with a newer Android and that was only available after a full wipe.
- ImSkeptical 9y ago
  What Android phone were you using? I have a Pixel 2 XL and no idea what you're talking about regarding glitchiness or animation stutter. I previously had a Note 4 for maybe 3 or 4 years and only had problems with it when I needed to replace the battery You can also disable notifications per app on Android. I think a high end Android phone is going to be very similar to an iPhone. Personally, I like the Pixel's camera better, I think it has a better touch id to unlock, the voice assistant is much better, and there is a better integration with Google maps in my experience. All that, plus I can root my phone if I need to.
- antihero 9y ago
  Also there's small stuff like: Photo map. I've traced back treasured photos that would have been lost in a sea of 44,000 photos by finding them on the map. Google Photos doesn't seem to have this. Notes also works really nicely for loads of stuff.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    https://github.com/k3b/APhotoManager/wiki https://github.com/k3b/APhotoManager/wiki
    - antihero 9y ago
      It's good that someone has made that but it looks nowhere near as nice. When you open the Photos app on iOS you have a beautiful map with clustered thumbnails. http://tinyimg.io/i/d4DRgIT.png http://tinyimg.io/i/d4DRgIT.png http://tinyimg.io/i/0lVO6KC.png http://tinyimg.io/i/0lVO6KC.png It's useful enough that I could find out the exact spot I slept by the river Seine years ago based on scrolling around Berlin on the map for 5 minutes until I found the photo, taken several years ago on a completely different iPhone, then go back there recently and recreate the picture.
      - Infinitesimus 9y ago
        FWIW samsung's gallery does that https://imgur.com/a/Qgc3yUH https://imgur.com/a/Qgc3yUH (probably only on the S8 and above but idk )
  - ams6110 9y ago
    > lost in a sea of 44,000 photos You're taking too many photos. Honestly ask yourself, how often do you go back and look at old photos? Maybe you do, but for me, I realized that I never do. So I stopped taking them.
wvenable 9y ago
I think sometimes it's a grass-is-greener situation. I had an iPhone bug where the camera/gallery would just crash on startup or basically anytime I had to do anything camera related. I eventually fixed it (after months of trying) by connecting to a PC with a 3rd party app, navigating the file system, and deleting a bunch of thumbnail cache files. I had plenty of problems answering phone calls on my iPhone -- it would be glitchy and unresponsive and I'd miss calls. Even more annoying about the iPhone is the always growing "Other" space on the phone. I was constantly short on disk space with no way of knowing what the cause was or how to clean it up. The bluetooth stack would crash every week disconnecting all my bluetooth devices temporarily. Very annoying when you have a smartwatch. My wife's iPhone screen doesn't turn off after she uses Siri sometimes -- it'll just say on all night long. The entire iPhone 6 (non-S) line was total garbage. Tons of people bought these and had nothing but problems. My point isn't so much to rag on iPhones -- they're actually really solid devices -- and I highly recommend them to non-technical users pretty much exclusively. They are hands down better than the vast majority of Android devices. But I switched from iPhone to Android on this last cycle and couldn't be happier -- this article covers much of what's good about it. But I love the flexibility and a lot of little touches that iOS devices don't have. And I think all devices have different problems. My Android phone is not glitch free either.
- cm2187 9y ago
  I have beefs with my iPhone and iPad but not those. 1. Nagging for Apple paid services 2. Gestures changing every month and becoming increasingly complicated with small variations doing different things, inconsistent experience between iPad and iPhone 3. Audio jack 4. Anything that involves editing is a catastrophe. Selecting an element of a table on a web page or trying to copy the text of a link (not the url) is nearly impossible. 5. Auto correct introducing more errors than it corrects. 6. iTunes on Windows which is still the only way to sync my music to the iPhone is just completely broken. Which is why I am tempted to move. I can see some candidates for an iPhone replacement but the iPad Pro 10.5 doesn’t seem to have any competitor (large-ish screen with high refresh rate).
  - wvenable 9y ago
rusk 9y ago
I agree. Frustrating and clunky as the iPhone might be at times, it's relatively reliable and stable. I'm quite happy to use Android on a tablet. It's far closer to a "traditional" operating system in terms of the amount of control you get over everything.
- rusk 9y ago
  Although I've got to say, the headphone jack might be the last straw for me ... my iPhone SE could be my last iPhone if a reasonable alternative materialises ...
  - pmontra 9y ago
    I like small and light phones so I bought an Xperia X Compact at the end of 2016. It's more or less the same form factor of the SE and it still works very well. Unfortunately its ticker (9.5 mm vs 7.6 mm) and it weights more (135 g vs 113 g). The Xperia Compact XZ1 from 2017 is 2 mm less tick but weights even more (140 g). If I could make me like iOS I would have got a SE immediately. The Compact is probably the best small phone in the Android world but I stopped researching phones. I'll start again when the Compact will be about to die. I hope it lasts at least as long as my old Galaxy S2, 5 years.
  - krisdol 9y ago
    Same. I’m holding on to my 6s until its last breath. I replaced the battery recently and that boosted its performance back to launch-day levels, so I’ll probably keep chugging along for another two years at least. To me, no headphone jack means no phone.
  - kup0 9y ago
    Yep. Trying to hold onto my SE as long as I can and I'm really stumped at where to go next...
jacksmith21006 9y ago
I had a similar experience with a S7E but now have a Pixel 2 XL and that is the key. My Pixel is as smooth as an iPhone. Plus does not slow down over time. In someways phones like the S7E give Android a bad name.
Double_a_92 9y ago
> Now 2 years in, on my 2nd, and never going back. Android tends to slowly slide into glitch land and demands you throw away your phone far more aggressively than iPhones do. I doubt that an Android phone would become unusable in the first 2 years.
- vesak 9y ago
  Each of my Androids have, with the exception of the absolutely brilliant LG Nexus 5.

by bdamm 9y ago

ssijak 9y ago

My experience exactly. I always said bad things about iPhone. Hay it is closed, it has fewer options, worse hardware than top Android phones, etc.. It was the time during which I fiddled with the phone much, installed Ubuntu on Android phone, etc.. But then my last Nexus started to glitch like any other Android top phone after 1 year of use. I was so irritated by it that I said well I will try iPhone now. It was about 6 month ago and I could not be more happy. I have phone that just works, never glitched, not once in 6 months, never sttutered with animation or anything. Yes, it is less extensible, has less options, but actually I like that now better. I wan`t it to work good, work well and be reliable. One major additional benefit is that I use iPhone less than Android phone, and it spams and pings me less. At first iPhone, notifications felt overly simplistic, but now I love them. There are no permanent notifications/icons that some android app can put there, and I can just scroll from the lock screen and see without clicking/opening everything that happened. Also, I can disable every notification/spam per app, disabled all bubbles (red circle numbers over app icons) except for messaging apps. This way I feel that I don`t expect dopamine dose from my phone, and I use it only when I really need something.

syshum 9y ago
>>Also, I can disable every notification/spam per app You can do this on Android as well >> Nexus started to glitch like any other Android top phone after 1 year of use ... 6 month ago and I could not be more happy. I have phone that just works, never glitched hmmm, Anyone else see a issue with these 2 statements?
- Grazester 9y ago
  I really don't know about that. I had the og Moto-X and it served me will for years without issue. I now have a Nexus 6 and didn't wipe the phone for two years after use. I only did so because I wanted the better system encryption that came with a newer Android and that was only available after a full wipe.
ImSkeptical 9y ago
What Android phone were you using? I have a Pixel 2 XL and no idea what you're talking about regarding glitchiness or animation stutter. I previously had a Note 4 for maybe 3 or 4 years and only had problems with it when I needed to replace the battery You can also disable notifications per app on Android. I think a high end Android phone is going to be very similar to an iPhone. Personally, I like the Pixel's camera better, I think it has a better touch id to unlock, the voice assistant is much better, and there is a better integration with Google maps in my experience. All that, plus I can root my phone if I need to.
antihero 9y ago
Also there's small stuff like: Photo map. I've traced back treasured photos that would have been lost in a sea of 44,000 photos by finding them on the map. Google Photos doesn't seem to have this. Notes also works really nicely for loads of stuff.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  https://github.com/k3b/APhotoManager/wiki https://github.com/k3b/APhotoManager/wiki
  - antihero 9y ago
    It's good that someone has made that but it looks nowhere near as nice. When you open the Photos app on iOS you have a beautiful map with clustered thumbnails. http://tinyimg.io/i/d4DRgIT.png http://tinyimg.io/i/d4DRgIT.png http://tinyimg.io/i/0lVO6KC.png http://tinyimg.io/i/0lVO6KC.png It's useful enough that I could find out the exact spot I slept by the river Seine years ago based on scrolling around Berlin on the map for 5 minutes until I found the photo, taken several years ago on a completely different iPhone, then go back there recently and recreate the picture.
    - Infinitesimus 9y ago
      FWIW samsung's gallery does that https://imgur.com/a/Qgc3yUH https://imgur.com/a/Qgc3yUH (probably only on the S8 and above but idk )
- ams6110 9y ago
  > lost in a sea of 44,000 photos You're taking too many photos. Honestly ask yourself, how often do you go back and look at old photos? Maybe you do, but for me, I realized that I never do. So I stopped taking them.

wvenable 9y ago

I think sometimes it's a grass-is-greener situation. I had an iPhone bug where the camera/gallery would just crash on startup or basically anytime I had to do anything camera related. I eventually fixed it (after months of trying) by connecting to a PC with a 3rd party app, navigating the file system, and deleting a bunch of thumbnail cache files. I had plenty of problems answering phone calls on my iPhone -- it would be glitchy and unresponsive and I'd miss calls. Even more annoying about the iPhone is the always growing "Other" space on the phone. I was constantly short on disk space with no way of knowing what the cause was or how to clean it up. The bluetooth stack would crash every week disconnecting all my bluetooth devices temporarily. Very annoying when you have a smartwatch. My wife's iPhone screen doesn't turn off after she uses Siri sometimes -- it'll just say on all night long. The entire iPhone 6 (non-S) line was total garbage. Tons of people bought these and had nothing but problems. My point isn't so much to rag on iPhones -- they're actually really solid devices -- and I highly recommend them to non-technical users pretty much exclusively. They are hands down better than the vast majority of Android devices. But I switched from iPhone to Android on this last cycle and couldn't be happier -- this article covers much of what's good about it. But I love the flexibility and a lot of little touches that iOS devices don't have. And I think all devices have different problems. My Android phone is not glitch free either.

cm2187 9y ago
I have beefs with my iPhone and iPad but not those. 1. Nagging for Apple paid services 2. Gestures changing every month and becoming increasingly complicated with small variations doing different things, inconsistent experience between iPad and iPhone 3. Audio jack 4. Anything that involves editing is a catastrophe. Selecting an element of a table on a web page or trying to copy the text of a link (not the url) is nearly impossible. 5. Auto correct introducing more errors than it corrects. 6. iTunes on Windows which is still the only way to sync my music to the iPhone is just completely broken. Which is why I am tempted to move. I can see some candidates for an iPhone replacement but the iPad Pro 10.5 doesn’t seem to have any competitor (large-ish screen with high refresh rate).
- wvenable 9y ago

rusk 9y ago

I agree. Frustrating and clunky as the iPhone might be at times, it's relatively reliable and stable. I'm quite happy to use Android on a tablet. It's far closer to a "traditional" operating system in terms of the amount of control you get over everything.

rusk 9y ago
Although I've got to say, the headphone jack might be the last straw for me ... my iPhone SE could be my last iPhone if a reasonable alternative materialises ...
- pmontra 9y ago
  I like small and light phones so I bought an Xperia X Compact at the end of 2016. It's more or less the same form factor of the SE and it still works very well. Unfortunately its ticker (9.5 mm vs 7.6 mm) and it weights more (135 g vs 113 g). The Xperia Compact XZ1 from 2017 is 2 mm less tick but weights even more (140 g). If I could make me like iOS I would have got a SE immediately. The Compact is probably the best small phone in the Android world but I stopped researching phones. I'll start again when the Compact will be about to die. I hope it lasts at least as long as my old Galaxy S2, 5 years.
- krisdol 9y ago
  Same. I’m holding on to my 6s until its last breath. I replaced the battery recently and that boosted its performance back to launch-day levels, so I’ll probably keep chugging along for another two years at least. To me, no headphone jack means no phone.
- kup0 9y ago
  Yep. Trying to hold onto my SE as long as I can and I'm really stumped at where to go next...

jacksmith21006 9y ago

I had a similar experience with a S7E but now have a Pixel 2 XL and that is the key. My Pixel is as smooth as an iPhone. Plus does not slow down over time. In someways phones like the S7E give Android a bad name.

Double_a_92 9y ago

> Now 2 years in, on my 2nd, and never going back. Android tends to slowly slide into glitch land and demands you throw away your phone far more aggressively than iPhones do. I doubt that an Android phone would become unusable in the first 2 years.

vesak 9y ago
Each of my Androids have, with the exception of the absolutely brilliant LG Nexus 5.