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I've switched between the two platforms a bit - I had an iphone 3G, a few android phones, and switched back to iOS with iPhone 5. I really like Android but ther
by slykat 14y ago
I've switched between the two platforms a bit - I had an iphone 3G, a few android phones, and switched back to iOS with iPhone 5. I really like Android but there were a few deal killers:
1) Battery life - pretty much the reason I switched back to iPhone. It doesn't matter how great the software is - if I can't turn on the phone it's useless. I don't know how many times I would be racing to meet friends at night, hoping I would reach them in time before my phone completely died. I spent an unforgivable about of my time tinkering with settings to extend battery using widgets (toggling data, location services, turning down brightness to the point it was barely viewable, etc.). My last phone was a Galaxy Nexus and almost everyone on my team had one. Guess how many people had 4G on? No one - the phone died in hours with it on.
A close friend, who is a diehard Android fan, keeps a stock of 3 charged batteries on him at all times (he has a separate charger). All of this was just too much of a hassle for me to justify. I haven't had a single day where my phone has died before I've gone home with my iPhone; it lasts a full day with my normal usage.
2) OS upgrades - I was debating between the Galaxy S3 and the iPhone 5 for my last phone purchase. Besides battery issues, a major con was that I knew the S3 would probably never be updated. Some of my favorite Android features are recent updates (Google Now) and it'd be painful to know that I probably miss out on new features for the 2 years of my phone contract. If the phone you want is a Nexus, this won't be that much of an issue, but that severely limits your device options. And it still somewhat applies to Nexus phones - the Verizon Galaxy Nexus is 3 OS updates behind due to Verizon's approval process.
3) UI/design - There is still a lack of UI/design consistency across the Android ecosystem. It means that the learning curve for the ecosystem is still higher than iOS and sometimes things don't behave the way you expect. Anyone who uses a combination Maps, Nav, and the back button heavily will feel this. I find that the Google Maps iOS app is significantly more consistent than the Android version (although less powerful). This is a consistent theme with iOS vs. Android - better UI but less power.
4) Camera - The camera is one of my most frequently used applications and Galaxy Nexus camera was pretty bad; Google sacrificed camera quality for shutter speed. There are a few Android phones with great cameras (S3) but they are not part of the Nexus line (see #2)
5) App polish - There is still a gap in the quality of applications on the two ecosystems. This is due to many developing on iOS first and Apple's review process. This is a minor complaint since the gap is narrowing and I expect this advantage to be gone by the end of 2013.
6) Maintenance & Depreciation - Have a cracked screen? Good luck finding a shop that will replace your phone model at a decent rate. Screen replacement on my Galaxy Nexus was $100+ while you can easily get your iPhone screen replaced for $30. Depreciation is a "feature" many don't think about, but it's nice to know that I can sell my phone for a decent rate if I switch back to Android (http://priceonomics.com/phones/ http://priceonomics.com/phones/)
I'm still a big fan of Android and will probably switch back when there's a Nexus phone released with a solid battery & camera.
- shardling 14y ago>And it still somewhat applies to Nexus phones - the Verizon Galaxy Nexus is 3 OS updates behind due to Verizon's approval process. It really is fairly straightforward to unlock the bootloader and update the ROM yourself, though. It would certainly be nicer if you didn't have to, but it's definitely an advantage of the Nexus devices that there's always good community support for this. It also lets me use 4G wireless tethering on my unlimited data Verizon plan -- for that reason alone I'm not even a little tempted to switch to an iPhone. Really, the huge difference in camera quality is the only thing I'm jealous of. Sent from a Starbucks where the internet is down. :)
- slykat 14y agoIts probably not that straightforward for the non-techie crowd; at the end of the day these devices are built for the general population and not just hackers. And to go on that reasoning, it should be just as easy to jailbreak an iPhone to allow tethering as well. Regardless, my point was not that iPhones have a better feature set than Android (this isn't the case) but rather to outline a few deal breakers that made me migrate back to iOS.
- lallysingh 14y agoI've got a GSM Galaxy Nexus. I picked up a 3.5 Amp-Hr battery on amazon, and the phone lasts 3-4 days on a charge now. It's a massive quality-of-life improvement. The only things I switch on/off are GPS and wifi. I had an iPhone 3G. I despised the thing. It just made me wait all the time for everything I wanted to do. It was probably the slowest iPhone ever made (bad RAM decisions), but after I left, I'm happy never to go back. Most importantly, I can avoid the iTunes ecosystem now. I can stream my music on my work linux box, off my phone, or any other device I want. My 4G Xoom dies really quickly with 4g on. it's kept me off of 4g as a technology for at least a year.
- CountSessine 14y agoI've got a GSM Galaxy Nexus. I picked up a 3.5 Amp-Hr battery on amazon, and the phone lasts 3-4 days on a charge now. It's a massive quality-of-life improvement. The only things I switch on/off are GPS and wifi. The fact that you still have to turn off GPS and wifi to get 3 days battery life with a 3500mAh battery sort of proves the original point. Most importantly, I can avoid the iTunes ecosystem now. I can stream my music on my work linux box, off my phone, or any other device I want. That's funny because in Canada, iTunes is the only realistic way to buy digital music on a smartphone. On Android I really missed Sound-hounding a song, and then clicking on the link to buy it in iTunes instantly. My 4G Xoom dies really quickly with 4g on. it's kept me off of 4g as a technology for at least a year. I don't have 4G, but a friend has an iPhone 5 and even though he's always on 4G he gets great battery life. YMMV.