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Sample size 1 here. I used an iPhoneX for a few months this year. It was my first iPhone, and I loathed the browser lock-in and the lack of automatic contacts s

by emidln 8y ago

Sample size 1 here. I used an iPhoneX for a few months this year. It was my first iPhone, and I loathed the browser lock-in and the lack of automatic contacts sync. The UX is far less consistent than modern Android apps (e.g. the back functionality out of an app). I missed my app drawer as well. The iPhone was free from work, yet I paid out of pocket for a Galaxy S9+ so I could go back to Android.

ytwySXpMbS 8y ago
Making an assumption here, but I assume you loathed the browser lock in because you tried using a different browser, probably Chrome. Thing is, for iOS, you have to drink the koolaid to truly see the benefit. Personally coming from Android it's so nice not being asked which app I want to open a link in all the time, I dont have to think about it. I know that sounds silly because you can choose a default, but it's too many options, I don't want to have to choose and think which option I'm going to want more often as long as it works.
- wyattpeak 8y ago
  While I suspect you're right (a number of my family members use a full Apple ecosystem and love it), to someone who doesn't there seem to be an almost endless number of changes you need to make. I've had a couple of iPhones, and at times tried to fully use their system, but that promised "perfect simplicity" seems to always be around one more corner. Change your browser. Change your music provider. Change your backup procedure. And after all that, your Windows PC is a problem. And there I hit a wall, because I can't justify changing my PC, which is my livelihood, to an unfamiliar system in the hopes of simplicity. I'm not knocking the Apple paradigm for those who are inside it. But transitioning to that apparent state of seamlessness feels nigh impossible.
  - maccard 8y ago
    > Change your browser. On mobile. Your mobile browser has nothing to do with your desktop browser AFAICT. > Change your music provider. Apple Music, Deezer, Spotify, YouTube music (or whatever it's called now) all work perfectly on iOS, no? > Change your backup procedure. Theoretically yes, if you were performing manual mobile backups before. Otherwise,you just let Apple handle it (and you're free to back up the gigantic image files that iTunes leaves on your PC yourself) > After all that, your Windows PC is a problem. What is your windows PC a problem for? > that promised "perfect simplicity" seems to always be around one more corner I disagree. If you use safari and iCloud you get the perfect simplicity. On Android, that simplicity doesn't exist. I bought a flagship (galaxy s9) phone about two months ago, (my first android) only to find out that on a £700 phone: - Samsung bundle their own crapware, including a crappy launcher and a borderline unusable keyboard - They have their own standard for messages, health, Samsung pay, contacts, and camera, and their own app store. - all of the above are slightly different to the Google versions, or the Huawei versions. - they have bugs breaking fundamental functionalitied (work profile custom keyboard). Am I supposed to research every android feature I'm interested in using and check it's going to work on the (flagship) handset I try and buy? - permissions. There are apps out there with the crappy old permission model, some apps that just ask for catch all permissions and refuse to work without them, and the monitoring of permissions on Android is laughable. - updates. I found out yesterday that actually the android update has to go through Samsung, and then through my carrier, so it'll be 6 months before I get the latest version of Android (based on last year) on my brand new top of the line device. Overall, almost that I've done on Android has been more difficult than on iOS.
- mixedCase 8y ago
  > I don't want to have to choose and think which option I'm going to want more often as long as it works. Last 5 words are why I can't use nor recommend Apple products.
- bla2 8y ago
  > not being asked which app I want to open a link in all the time Huh? Just tap "always use this app", you can the default later if you want. That button is right there every time :-)
- orangecat 8y ago
  it's too many options, I don't want to have to choose and think which option I'm going to want more often as long as it works If slightly more people had had that attitude in 1998, Apple would not exist today.
urda 8y ago
> and the lack of automatic contacts sync. Huh? For anyone reading this please know that, sorry, this is completely false iOS supports contact syncing. I've been syncing my contacts from my iPhone since the 3G days.
- matwood 8y ago
  Not only that, but I sync my contacts from my iPhone to macOS through Google (so they work in email also). Anyone who says the contacts do not sync, I have to wonder if they really tried the iPhone.
  - urda 8y ago
    > I have to wonder if they really tried the iPhone. Especially on HN, where the average reader should know that's been a basic feature, for pretty much the entire lifespan of the device. It made the entire comment, well let's just say their story doesn't add up.
balladeer 8y ago
Let's make it sample size 2 (include me). I have been Android developer since ~7 years and I finally moved to iPhone ~2 years back with iPhone SE (mostly because it was the only sanely sized as per my needs and taste) and I also got the iOS 11 upgrade with the rest of the world and will get iOS 12 again in sometime. My experience on iOS has been a lot smoother than that on Android. It almost never crashes esp. when I compare it to my Android experience of almost 6 years where crashing apps, frozen phone felt like a feature. Upgrades were a never fulfilled dream and sometimes promises (like Moto's). Unless I bought a real costly phone I'd not even hope to get an upgrade and if it wasn't something like Nexus (and now Pixel) or something like an OnePlus device I'd not even except an upgrade let alone timely upgrade. I stopped missing back functionality out of an app exactly on day 3. I hated every browser on Android including Chrome. I had moved to Safari on Mac and iOS Safari experience is superior to any browser I had tried on Android. Yes, it's been a compromise and my comment might seem like a convert's zeal (though I do hate Apple's ecosystem lock in of things like FaceTime and iMessage and other things) but I also no longer want to tweak my phone - root it, run mods, run XPrivacy, hope for a "maybe" upgrade", hope that a security patch will be sent to my phone etc etc. I am done living on the edge. However I also must add that if someone isn't using Macs and other Apple devices and don't want to change just to use an iPhone (I wouldn't) then using an iPhone might not be as convenient. By the way, I am still an Android developer even though when I dabbled with iOS dev for sometime and tried Apple's developer ecosystem I realised what a piece of garbage I've been using in Android Studio but that's entirely a different matter.
- matwood 8y ago
  I have your similar opinion. I was an iPhone user from the original iPhone to the 4s. I wanted a large phone, and wanted to experience Android so moved to an HTC One X. It was okay, but it didn't have the vanilla Android experience so I went to the Nexus 5 and even had a Nexus 7. I was satisfied with those, mainly because the price matched the performance/build quality/random issues I had. An OS update caused my Nexus 7 to take minutes to open apps (I think it was eventually fixed), and my Nexus 5 kept having a random google process spin out of control and drain the battery to zero in minutes. I decided to take another look at the iPhone, and switched back. It also didn't help that Google dropped the budget line and moved towards flagship pricing. I doubt I'll switch again since functionality is roughly equivalent between the two, and the iPhone I think is the better of the two wrt privacy. Is the iPhoneX perfect? No, but it's easily the best phone I've ever used. BTW, I have developed and released both Android and iOS apps. Be happy you even have Android Studio now. For all the complaints about Xcode, the overall experience is a pleasure compared to developing for Android. I don't know what it is like now, but debugging in iOS was easy compared to just even getting the emulator running on the Android side. The iOS frameworks also provide so much functionality. I don't program native mobile apps at all anymore. I do miss it though.
noir_lord 8y ago
I'm slowly joining that group, I bought a iPad mini for testing and it worked so effortlessly I bought the 2018 iPad with a pencil. Outside of work stuff where I care I just want things to do their job and stay out the way.

by emidln 8y ago

ytwySXpMbS 8y ago

Making an assumption here, but I assume you loathed the browser lock in because you tried using a different browser, probably Chrome. Thing is, for iOS, you have to drink the koolaid to truly see the benefit. Personally coming from Android it's so nice not being asked which app I want to open a link in all the time, I dont have to think about it. I know that sounds silly because you can choose a default, but it's too many options, I don't want to have to choose and think which option I'm going to want more often as long as it works.

wyattpeak 8y ago
While I suspect you're right (a number of my family members use a full Apple ecosystem and love it), to someone who doesn't there seem to be an almost endless number of changes you need to make. I've had a couple of iPhones, and at times tried to fully use their system, but that promised "perfect simplicity" seems to always be around one more corner. Change your browser. Change your music provider. Change your backup procedure. And after all that, your Windows PC is a problem. And there I hit a wall, because I can't justify changing my PC, which is my livelihood, to an unfamiliar system in the hopes of simplicity. I'm not knocking the Apple paradigm for those who are inside it. But transitioning to that apparent state of seamlessness feels nigh impossible.
- maccard 8y ago
  > Change your browser. On mobile. Your mobile browser has nothing to do with your desktop browser AFAICT. > Change your music provider. Apple Music, Deezer, Spotify, YouTube music (or whatever it's called now) all work perfectly on iOS, no? > Change your backup procedure. Theoretically yes, if you were performing manual mobile backups before. Otherwise,you just let Apple handle it (and you're free to back up the gigantic image files that iTunes leaves on your PC yourself) > After all that, your Windows PC is a problem. What is your windows PC a problem for? > that promised "perfect simplicity" seems to always be around one more corner I disagree. If you use safari and iCloud you get the perfect simplicity. On Android, that simplicity doesn't exist. I bought a flagship (galaxy s9) phone about two months ago, (my first android) only to find out that on a £700 phone: - Samsung bundle their own crapware, including a crappy launcher and a borderline unusable keyboard - They have their own standard for messages, health, Samsung pay, contacts, and camera, and their own app store. - all of the above are slightly different to the Google versions, or the Huawei versions. - they have bugs breaking fundamental functionalitied (work profile custom keyboard). Am I supposed to research every android feature I'm interested in using and check it's going to work on the (flagship) handset I try and buy? - permissions. There are apps out there with the crappy old permission model, some apps that just ask for catch all permissions and refuse to work without them, and the monitoring of permissions on Android is laughable. - updates. I found out yesterday that actually the android update has to go through Samsung, and then through my carrier, so it'll be 6 months before I get the latest version of Android (based on last year) on my brand new top of the line device. Overall, almost that I've done on Android has been more difficult than on iOS.
mixedCase 8y ago
> I don't want to have to choose and think which option I'm going to want more often as long as it works. Last 5 words are why I can't use nor recommend Apple products.
bla2 8y ago
> not being asked which app I want to open a link in all the time Huh? Just tap "always use this app", you can the default later if you want. That button is right there every time :-)
orangecat 8y ago
it's too many options, I don't want to have to choose and think which option I'm going to want more often as long as it works If slightly more people had had that attitude in 1998, Apple would not exist today.

urda 8y ago

> and the lack of automatic contacts sync. Huh? For anyone reading this please know that, sorry, this is completely false iOS supports contact syncing. I've been syncing my contacts from my iPhone since the 3G days.

matwood 8y ago
Not only that, but I sync my contacts from my iPhone to macOS through Google (so they work in email also). Anyone who says the contacts do not sync, I have to wonder if they really tried the iPhone.
- urda 8y ago
  > I have to wonder if they really tried the iPhone. Especially on HN, where the average reader should know that's been a basic feature, for pretty much the entire lifespan of the device. It made the entire comment, well let's just say their story doesn't add up.

balladeer 8y ago

Let's make it sample size 2 (include me). I have been Android developer since ~7 years and I finally moved to iPhone ~2 years back with iPhone SE (mostly because it was the only sanely sized as per my needs and taste) and I also got the iOS 11 upgrade with the rest of the world and will get iOS 12 again in sometime. My experience on iOS has been a lot smoother than that on Android. It almost never crashes esp. when I compare it to my Android experience of almost 6 years where crashing apps, frozen phone felt like a feature. Upgrades were a never fulfilled dream and sometimes promises (like Moto's). Unless I bought a real costly phone I'd not even hope to get an upgrade and if it wasn't something like Nexus (and now Pixel) or something like an OnePlus device I'd not even except an upgrade let alone timely upgrade. I stopped missing back functionality out of an app exactly on day 3. I hated every browser on Android including Chrome. I had moved to Safari on Mac and iOS Safari experience is superior to any browser I had tried on Android. Yes, it's been a compromise and my comment might seem like a convert's zeal (though I do hate Apple's ecosystem lock in of things like FaceTime and iMessage and other things) but I also no longer want to tweak my phone - root it, run mods, run XPrivacy, hope for a "maybe" upgrade", hope that a security patch will be sent to my phone etc etc. I am done living on the edge. However I also must add that if someone isn't using Macs and other Apple devices and don't want to change just to use an iPhone (I wouldn't) then using an iPhone might not be as convenient. By the way, I am still an Android developer even though when I dabbled with iOS dev for sometime and tried Apple's developer ecosystem I realised what a piece of garbage I've been using in Android Studio but that's entirely a different matter.

matwood 8y ago
I have your similar opinion. I was an iPhone user from the original iPhone to the 4s. I wanted a large phone, and wanted to experience Android so moved to an HTC One X. It was okay, but it didn't have the vanilla Android experience so I went to the Nexus 5 and even had a Nexus 7. I was satisfied with those, mainly because the price matched the performance/build quality/random issues I had. An OS update caused my Nexus 7 to take minutes to open apps (I think it was eventually fixed), and my Nexus 5 kept having a random google process spin out of control and drain the battery to zero in minutes. I decided to take another look at the iPhone, and switched back. It also didn't help that Google dropped the budget line and moved towards flagship pricing. I doubt I'll switch again since functionality is roughly equivalent between the two, and the iPhone I think is the better of the two wrt privacy. Is the iPhoneX perfect? No, but it's easily the best phone I've ever used. BTW, I have developed and released both Android and iOS apps. Be happy you even have Android Studio now. For all the complaints about Xcode, the overall experience is a pleasure compared to developing for Android. I don't know what it is like now, but debugging in iOS was easy compared to just even getting the emulator running on the Android side. The iOS frameworks also provide so much functionality. I don't program native mobile apps at all anymore. I do miss it though.

noir_lord 8y ago

I'm slowly joining that group, I bought a iPad mini for testing and it worked so effortlessly I bought the 2018 iPad with a pencil. Outside of work stuff where I care I just want things to do their job and stay out the way.