My six year old iPhone still receives software updates
This is why I made the switch from android to iPhone too
Tbf new android phones are now getting ~8 year of software updates, plus you can install lineage to get more
As an android user, I looked at the phone list for iOS 18, and I was jealous.
Google and Samsung now provide updates for 7 years, and Fairphone provides updates for 8 years.
From what I can tell, Apple doesn't promise a set number of years for updates. The iPhone x got about 5 years of updates before support was dropped, but Apple will occasionally give security updates to older devices if they're severe enough.
With Fairphone 5, they guarantee at least 8 years of software updates but they will actually try 10 years! ^1
And Apple was recently forced to disclose their software support commitment in the UK due to regulations. Apple guarantees at least 5 years of software updates, which is less than Google, Samsung, and Fairphone. Apple is no longer the leader in software support! ^2
I went from an iPhone 7 to an iPhone 13 . I had replaced the battery on the iPhone 7 already, it still was getting updates but physically the charge port started wearing out and the NFC stopped working .
Was a good run, phone was super reliable needed no tweaking to work.
I have also been using iPhones since the iPhone 3G. Long before it existed on Android it was very easy to movie everything from your old phone to the new one, first via iTunes desktop then later via iCloud.
Family sharing for apps and family backups pooled in iCloud is also very convenient.
Good to hear, but I don't think I will have a phone for as long as six years, because for one thing the battery probably will have become unusable by then - they can only be charged so many times.
But updates for what? You gain very little from security because nobody is targeting you and no new major features, so what's it really worth? Maybe I'm wrong about my perception of those things though... I've used 2 androids for around 8 years each no problem.
You gain very little from security because nobody is targeting you...
It's not about being targeted, it's about being caught in the big fishing net that scammers are throwing. You don't have to be targeted to have security concerns.
If a phone isn't receiving regular security updates, I won't use it. My Pixel 5a just got replaced because it's coming up on end of support. My new Pixel has 7 years of support, so I feel a lot better about keeping it longer.
Updates to secure the operating systems are worth it. Apple has a fantastic track record of supporting the older phones. It shows they've really planned ahead and thought about the entire lifecycle of their device. They will also accept your old phone after its life is complete and responsibly recycle it.
Correct. You are wrong about your perception.
I trust Apple more than Google. May be misplaced faith, but that’s the primary reason.
Using Google services is not a strict requirement to run Android. There are whole online communities around unGoogled Android.
I’ve long considered making this switch from iPhone to an ungoogled Android device. What always bothered me is still basically having to install proprietary apps from a Play Store adjacent source. Like the Aurora store is basically just the Play Store logged under someone else’s account. I know you can side load but that’d be a pain to maintain updates. Wish there was like a Flathub-like store on Android I could use instead.
Same here, try to de-google my life while sitting comfortably in the Apple ecosystem as the happy hypocrite that I am. But the ecosystem is also the main reason to stay, not that it is hard to get out, but it is just a vastly superior experience if you don’t want to spend unlimited hours to customize every goddamn setting. Also, the ecosystem’s main feature ‘continuity’ is unmatched on other systems.
So first, I will say that the phrase "stopping me from switching" kind of implies that I'm looking to switch but can't.
I used to have android between the iPhone 4s and the iPhone X. Back then, there were significant features that I wanted that I couldn't get from iOS. Tho now there isn't much that android has that I don't feel I have access to that is significant .
As for what keeps me around and happy with iPhone is
- I'm in software engineering and I have always been mac person. I know windows has had the Linux subsystem for a long time now but it feels like a new feature and clunkier than max being freebsd based. My current job forces me to use windows, and I hate it but it's been 4 years, so I've adjusted. That said, the Mac/iPhone/iPad interoperability is great
- I love my Apple Watch. I'm sure Android wearable have gotten better but the integration feels complete and well supported. I don't have to worry about my phone getting updated and my watch stopping working
- The find my network is pretty great. I know there are other solutions but airtags are great. All of my devices also have seamless location tracking and sharing out of the box.
- I pay for the TB of iCloud storage (it's outrageously priced but I'm used to it now). It's great to have all my devices able to just all be using it. Latest addition to my icloud usage was using the Logitech Circleview doorbell and camera. It saves directly to icloud. I don't have to worry about storage and I also don't have to worry about the company sharing my footage with cops cause the data is stored in my icloud drive.
- it's not flawless nor perfect but knowing that there is app review before something gets published makes me feel better about the entire ecosystem. Kind of like how a bouncer at a bar let's ya know that when you go inside, the riffraff had to at least sneak in
- apple pay works great for me
- having all my devices made by the same company is a pro for me but I know others might see it as a con. But my Mac, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, Apple TV, HomePods, AirPods, etc all just being from apple means I have less to keep up with. I don't have to worry about a matrix of who makes what and when it's gonna get updated or dropped
- resell/trade in value is great cause old devices have such a long life due to software updates
- my shit just works and I'm happy
- I know it might be contraversal but I trust Apple. Be it them having a pretty good record on user privacy, or them not allowing bloatware cause of user experience, or them not cramming AI into shit the same way everyone else did (even with the upcoming IOS, their implementation seems well thought out and conservative
- backups and transferring to new devices has been completely painless (which I do suprisingly often)
Over the years, I've gone from being a major tech enthusiast to now not wanting to have to futz around when I'm not on the clock. I still like getting tech and adding it to my home, but I don't get in the weeds anymore. I just want my shit to work. I want my stuff to just work for my family.
I dunno, tweaking and futzing used to be important to me. But now confidence and simplicity matter more to me now
As someone who used to make apps, but run Android myself, here are the things I usually hear
- App quality tends to be worse on Android
- I have a MacBook, airpods, and Apple watch
- I don't know if a good Android phone that has the same camera quality and longevity as an iPhone
The subtle reason is also status. People feel rich/different with an iPhone
Apple def doesn’t have the status symbol effect that it used to.
I considered the jump to iPhone and did some testing on one of my kids iPhones. The common apps were essentially identical to my android, but the weird thing is free apps on iPhone all seem to just captive webpages or some other crap quality thing. You have to pay for good apps on iPhone. On android the free stuff is consistently better. Just my experience.
Google.
This, this, 💯 this. When there's a sizable push into a Android future that isn't #GuidedByGoogle in the same way Chromium/Chrome is, I'll consider it. Until then its just open source paint on a proprietary cow.
After exclusively using android for 10 years I switched to an iPhone. Only regret is not doing it sooner.
Yeah, I got tired of being the product. It used to be Google phones were significantly cheaper, that's just not nearly as much a thing anymore.
Then you have to take the additional steps of finding privacy focused roms etc... It just wasn't worth the savings to me. There's things about Android I miss, but the fact that my phone is good for years and years is such a game changer.
I have been gradually transitioning over to proton for additional privacy and I've basically completely divorced myself from Google at this point.
Why would I? My phone works fine tyvm
I hate google.
Fyi google≠android. You can have an android phone w/o google play services
Yeah but it’s a hassle. I had a pixel for a while, but I prefer apple.
I’m a different poster, but I could also just… not hahaha. I went through unlocking bootloaders and rooting Android phones before but my six year old iPhone works amazingly and I don’t need to deal with any of that to not use any Google products or services.
- Cross-device integration/the Apple ecosystem. I use a Mac for my userland computing, and the ease with which it works together with my phone is a killer feature. Also in this category is integration with my family's Apple devices.
- The software ecosystem. Apple's first party apps and services are really nice across the board, and once again the ecosystem integration is the single biggest reason I use an iPhone. (the user facing apps, at least--Xcode and everything related to it are hot trash).
- Purely subjective, but Android is ugly to me. The hardware, the OS(es), and the apps just look bad to my eye. The iPhone looks and feels nice in a way that I haven't experienced in an Android product.
- I don't trust Google and I can't be bothered to spend any time configuring my phone. I spend too much of my life installing shit and tinkering with config already; I want a phone that just works out of the box.
Pretty much the same for me. I try to do zero business with Google. I tried android several times and it just felt like a rough draft of a real product.
I absolutely hate the interface. The apps just feel cheap. So do the phones
I absolutely hate the interface.
Huh? At least it can be changed.
But no matter how you change it, the overall experience in Android is inconsistent and sub par. Little things like flickering between switching apps or janky animation when the keyboard shows up is what causes poor Android experience.
Customisability is the bane of clean and consistent UI.
I don’t want to.
- There is no reasonably sized android phone. They’re either huge (>6“) or tiny (<4“) and the smaller variant usually has ancient and slow specs.
- I passionately dislike google. Big parts of that is privacy, which Apple might not care about as much as they should but Google isn’t caring about at all. And yes, it’s possible to use Android without Google but it’s quite a hassle.
- I prefer the UI of most apps on iOS to the equivalent on Android. It’s fairly consistent, usually following certain standards (like the menu bar on the bottom).
- Most android phones I’ve used over the years have an ungodly amount of bloat. Why would anyone want to use a second, worse app store? Why are facebook and tiktok preinstalled and can’t be uninstalled?
- I also have a Mac and an AppleTV. The iPhone fits right in.
- I’m used to it. It works. As long as Apple doesn’t do a major privacy oopsie or someone releases a small android flagship phone again, I have no reason to leave because android offers nothing I desire beyond what I already have.
Edit: structure
They made a huge oopsie with Siri once, when it was revealed that audio was reviewed by real people without my consent. It made me question everything for a bit. But is it better at Google? I don't think so. And Apple fixed the issue.
Same, no reason to switch. The iPhone just works and it actually never slow down while I had this problem with my parents android phones and my old android
Keywords there are 'old Android'. I haven't had a phone do that classic android slowdown in years.
#1 is the most legit reason itt. I had an iPhone for work. Perfect size even with a rubber case. Despise almost every other feature... Size was perfect. Now I'm stuck with 6" after 6" (gigiddy)... At least they're cheap and fit in my pockets.
4 might be where people are getting their phone. Haven't had this on the last 2 phones at least (unlocked, not bought from carrier)
Carrier phones aren’t really a thing here in Germany. You usually just get the exact same as retail. I believe the problem is just with some brands more than others and probably also price point.
If u really care about privacy that much then why are u using the closed source system of apple. Also the bloat apps of android are removable,u dont even need to root, just use https://github.com/0x192/universal-android-debloater
Because it’s more convenient. I trust Google less than Apple and degoogling android is a hassle. Or rather getting all the apps you need with a degoogled android. I do want privacy but I also don’t want to give up useability.
Also, the point is less, that you can’t remove or deactivate bloat apps but that they’re there in the first place. I‘ve got a similar issue with Windows.
And the other factors still play a large roll. If I could have a reasonably sized, speced and priced android phone, I might consider it and maybe will in the future when my iPhone 13 mini gives up the ghost.
First thing: Privacy. I am aware that iOS is not entirely private too, but I trust Apple Photos much more than Google Photos. You can even enable end-to-end encryption iirc.
Second point is control over my data. I can easily export my photos from Apple Photos as files, whereas Google maliciously separates Photos and Metadata upon export. In my experience this is the same for a lot of other services as well. Being able to easily export my data enables me to escape the walled garden more easily should I get fed up with one system. I also try to use as many open source services as possible for this as well as other reasons.
Apple has a lot of malicious practices too, especially when it comes to EU citizens and third-party app stores, etc. - but in my experience Google is no better.
Lastly, I considered switching to an Android with Graphene OS (privacy focused Android derivate) a couple of times, but the added control over your data comes with a lot of other inconveniences. So for now, I’m just sticking to iOS.
Not entirely disagreeing with you but, what exactly is "malicious" about separating photo and metadata? It could be just how their servers process and stores those photos, with the added benefit of geotagging videos.
I use Google Photos and upload in original quality. When I download from takeout, the metadata is still in the original files. Iirc, only if you select upload in "high quality" where they compress it again, do you lose the metadata in the file stored in the cloud.
When you re-import the images into another program/library, they will not be displayed in the correct order and all other information will be lost as well.
Metadata in general is very useful and contains a lot of valuable information like location data, lens, focal length and device information which you have to manually re-integrate into each and every photo.
I mean yes, I could write a quick and dirty Python script for this, but why should I have to do this in the first place?
In my subjective opinion this is malicious as in it only being this way to make it as hard as possible to migrate away. I highly doubt this is the way their servers store the images as it is very inefficient and the images are likely stored in a database instead. This means in order to retrieve a file they have to process each image anyway, so why not follow the universally accepted and well defined standard and include the metadata in each file?
Apple Photos is more private than Google Photos
Sure, but if you care about privacy at all, then surely you wouldn't use either of them anyway? You'd use Ente Photos (available for both OS), or Immich (available for both OS), or any other private solution? So this shouldn't really be a factor in choosing between Android and iOS. Same with the export point. Both have good options for photo backup, and neither Apple Photos nor Google Photos are one of them.
Apple has actually built a nice ecosystem. Apple Pay, Apple CarPlay, etc. are just more widespread and consistent than their Google alternatives. For example, my current car and every car I’ve rented in the past 5 years have Apple CarPlay, but only one rental actually had Android Auto (my current car does not.)
Plus I don’t really feel like reinstalling all new apps, getting new games, etc. And while I like software freedom on my PC, I don’t mind a walled garden on my phone.
I’ve used both for years. iPhone is simply the better device compared to any Android phone I’ve tried, including Pixel and other high end phones.
iOS is a better OS for me. I’m a software eng, and so I’m able to do all sorts of things to androids, and some things to iOS, but at the end of the day I want my phone to work and that’s it. I don’t tinker in my free time because I tinker all day at work.
As others have mentioned, the Apple ecosystem is pretty fantastic.
Finally, I’d rather buy hardware/software from a hardware/software company than an advertising company.
I came to the same conclusion. Also, the year I was going to try a top of the line android device was when they started bursting into flames in people's pockets.
I just switched back to iPhone a couple of months ago, after 10 years on Android.
In short, I trust Apple more than Google. That’s not to say Apple is 100% trustworthy, but I definitely trust them more than Google.
I technically have both since I’m a developer but my daily driver is my iPhone because when I have an android phone, I constantly want to put different roms on it so it ends up unstable. So, Apple’s walled garden saves me from myself making my phone unstable when I need a phone for calls/messages and not tinkering.
I don’t notice much of a difference these days, though. Sometimes, I charge my iPhone and grab my Pixel and I don’t even notice. Back in the day, iOS was generally more polished and Android was either slightly behind or ahead on specific features but I find that both are pretty much mature at this point. Flagship cameras are both excellent. Accessory ecosystems exist. There’s really not an overwhelming reason to switch, (especially if the Android phone is also a walled garden, which seems more common now).
Kinda random question: are you a FE developer? If so, is there a reason you would want to have an android phone instead of using a desktop emulator?
I guess these days, I’m primarily a manager and full stack web developer (which often means writing APIs and doing DevOps). But I’ve built several apps over the years. Nothing really consumer-facing. Mostly one-off things like apps for a conference or festival.
But to answer your main question, I use the emulator most of the time but I think it’s important (at least for me) to use a real phone sometimes. Like, “Does this design choice feel right in this OS’s ecosystem?” That can’t always be answered well via emulator. It matters less nowadays but back in the day, Android and iOS hadn’t copied each other yet and there were some big differences.
Beyond work stuff, though, having a spare phone that isn’t your daily driver is nice. Android devices are usually pretty cheap if you don’t need a new, current-gen flagship. I’ve used my spare while traveling abroad with a cheap SIM card. Friends have borrowed it after breaking their phone while waiting on a replacement to be delivered. I have a little camera drone that uses a phone as the controller screen. And I can fuck around with it and install custom ROMs or experimental stuff.
And I can sing “2 Phones” by Kevin Gates and pretend to be cool.
As an Android user, I'm considering switching to iPhone due to how much worse the Android experience is becoming without Google Play Services. I'm using a custom ROM with microG, which potentially means no RCS since it is only available through Google Messages which doesn't work with microG.
As much as it would suck jumping ship, at the very least, Apple is still a consumer hardware company first & foremost while Google will always be an ads company. Android exists to that end & that end alone.
I'm using a custom ROM with microG, which potentially means no RCS since it is only available through Google Messages which doesn't work with microG.
This is a common misconception. Android just doesn’t let you access the necessary low level stuff to talk to carrier RCS services. If you’re already using a custom ROM that may not be a problem. Here’s a third party RCS demo app: https://github.com/Hirohumi/RustyRcs
I don’t know how actually usable this is though, or if there’s anything else that’s usable that’s not Google Messages.
iMessage, Airdrop, and Android feels janky
iMessage is not as good as Google Messages, tbh. It's the one thing I miss after switching from Android. I miss having access to my messages in a browser and any device.
The only people that Google Messages isn't better for is iMessage users, and that's because iMessage cripples it on purpose. It's shitty.
I hated this too and used jailbreak tweaks to give me the ability for awhile, but now I have an m series MacBook so it doesn’t even matter anymore.
- Live Photos. I love having a little video attached to every photo. I wish high end mirrorless cameras would do this.
- I can use my phone without and Google products. Apple Maps is especially useful. YouTube and Google Voice are my last two I haven’t ditched. yt-dlp and PeerTube with help, and I’m looking into VOIP providers.
Live Photos! They’re like the portraits in Harry Potter
- Android has motion photos, which i think is on by default and is more or less the same as live photos.
- This is just a coincidence, I know Apple maps is good these days, but just the other day my friend was using Apple maps to guide us and it hallucinated a restaurant wholesale. Like, this location for this restaurant has never existed as far as we can tell.
Google.
I used to have Android, from HTC Desire upto Pixel 4a 5g. But Android 11 and 12 really ruined the experience for me. And I went to iPhone. I'm not going back anytime soon.
History: I used/preferred Android until the iPhone 4S. I still have Android phones/tablets laying around for software testing.
- I'm a developer and as much of a PITA the App Store is to deal with, their APIs are really productive to work with, especially in the SwiftUI world.
- I'm a Mac user (have been since 1990) and the platform integration is really good.
One fun story: I had to implement the Google Pay equivalent of Apple Pay QR code passes and holy crap was that a shit-show. One Android phone I had had literally two different things called Google Pay, one as an app and one hidden in the Settings menu, with different feature sets and different passes. What the hell???
I just saw an article about Google adding pop-ups during navigation to Google Maps.
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-maps-pop-up-ad-3458170/
It’s so funny that this post was only a bit below this one: Google Wants To Start Tracking 300 Million iPhone Users Within 5 Years
Locked down bootloaders. If it’s not my device, I’m going for the prettiest walled garden. I was with Android from Droid X until Galaxy S8; not being able to flash my own ROM on the S8 was the reason I left for an iPhone.
I also don’t want to have to sysadmin my mom’s Android phone that was constantly having bullshit apps installed. Apple’s walled garden makes my life as family sysadmin significantly easier.
As a former sysadmin and MDM specialist I stay(ed) loyal to Apple because MDM quickly makes you realize what a cluster android is. Some phones allow for certain lockdowns in one profile while other Android OS’ wouldn’t be able to recognize it. Knox was attempting to do something akin to iOS for MDM, but even still it was missing a ton of features.
It’s troubling seeing the amount of brands moving from freely unlockable, to waiting periods with registration, to all-out blocking unlocking. I am happy I double checked the unlock status before purchases an ASUS Zenfone last year right before they took their unlocking servers offline with just a marketing promise they would be back (they never came back online, & they paid out a lawsuit this years already over it).
Android Auto just shitting the bed on me across multiple devices. Constant crashes. Maybe it’s my carc, but CarPlay works just fine on the same head unit and USB port. A wireless AA dongle didn’t help, neither did a bunch of different cables of various quality, so it’s either AA itself or the head unit. Anyway, I’m not changing cars because of this, and when upgrade time came, I just bought iPhone. I’m not totally sold on either platform, to be perfectly honest…
I totally forgot to include carplay in my long list of things. It's such a dependable and clutch feature. Good carplay support had way too much influence in my decision of what car I bought.
Not an iPhone user but if there's one thing that is making me want to switch it's the ads and bloatware. Spending $1000+ on a device that shows ads inside the system apps and includes software like ESPN and Facebook that you can't uninstall without serious technical know-how is insane. Are the profit margins really that bad on smartphone hardware??
Google
The original reason I switched from android to iOS is because iPhone’s consistently work well and smoothly, all receive the same updates at the same time, and you’d get more updates out of them which helps them last longer. I just didn’t feel like dealing with the hassle of only getting 2 software updates on a major flagship (which was slowed by 6 months to a year by carriers having to apply their own patches) all for a phone that didn’t work too well to begin with.
Android has come a long way since then and I can pretty confidently say I’d be more than happy switching to a Pixel or Galaxy S phone these days. I’d even argue their phones are generally nicer in terms of design, and I love that they are more open for customization and other fun uses (ex. Game emulation, termux, mobox, etc).
The main thing stopping me is that Apple’s integration is just too convenient to beat. Everything syncs seamlessly between iPhone / iPad / Mac and it genuinely feels like they are extensions of each other rather than separate independent devices. Android just doesn’t offer enough for me to justify it over the Apple ecosystem.
That being said I do have an android phone I bought used on eBay for some of the fun stuff I mentioned above. I highly recommend it to any Apple users who don’t feel like fully switching to android
tbf Samsung has a decent-ish ecosystem as well...
as long as all your devices are Samsung onesthere's stuff like automatic earbud switching, dragging files between devices, "continue work on other device", Samsung seamless codec for audio etc
I remember in the bad old days of the early to mid 2000s, Apple was pushing software updates considerably past the ability of their hardware to actually run it. I had a 5th Gen iPod Touch and after about two and a half years of owning it, it had become basically a brick. Non-responsive UI more often than not and it took upwards of 8 minutes just to reboot the thing, because they were pushing software updates to it intended for a device 2-3 generations ahead. And this was not an isolated incident. I'm convinced it was on purpose, intended to push people to buy the new models.
Is this still a problem? I switched to Android and never looked back round about 2008.
I had a similar situation with that exact iPod and the original iPad mini. They just weren’t meant to handle iOS 9 and it was made significantly worse by aging batteries.
I’d say it’s definitely not as bad as it used to be, today’s devices are far more capable in terms of processing power. For the most part if a device can’t handle a new software feature they just don’t get it in the new update. I’m sure it’s not 100% perfect, and there’s bound to be isolated incidents, but I never had any issues with slow downs on my iPhone 6S or iPhone X (outside of battery problems, which were fully resolved once the batteries were replaced)
At this point the only reason I upgrade my phones is aging batteries and/or dwindling replacement battery support. That being said Apple makes official battery replacements a bit of a pain (which could be viewed as intentional to help encourage new iPhone sales).
I'm an Android user contemplating moving to Apple because of audio applications. Android's audio implementation was absolute garbage for years and years, and as a result, all of the good, mobile audio production software is for iOS. Android is finally catching up in terms of latency and whatever else, but the software side is still a total shitshow.
How can you do music on auch small screen estate? A double screen computer setup already seems not enough.
It's music! Screens are hardly a necessity. Many electronic producers these days are going "DAWless". Mind you, dedicated hardware has come a long way. Things like Elektron's Digitakt and Synthstrom Audible's Deluge (and a bunch of other options) verge on being hardware DAWs themselves.
If you do everything via VST in DAW, then yes, you want lots of screen space. I downsized to 1 monitor recently, and I really miss the second when I'm in DAW.
Used to use android, but switched to iPhone when the 12 came out. I simply don’t care about the flexibility anymore... I used to tinker a lot, but now I personally don’t find it amusing. And even if I did want to tinker, the Shortcuts app provides a lot of cool features. iOS is refined, sleek, and I enjoy the UI. AirPlay works miles better than anything on android. CarPlay is a better experience. The ecosystem just works. Apple Maps street view is available in places google maps isn’t. I’m currently on the 15 pro max, and the design and feel of the phone is awesome. Probably a handful of other things that don’t immediately come to mind.
Don’t want to, I’m used to it.
My personal preference.
Nothing is really stopping me, I just think iPhones align better with me now.
I am going to give 3 examples of why I switched from Android to iPhone. 1 - I used Samsung Galaxy S every generation till the S5, flashing ROMs every second day and I got tired of it. One thing that particularly bothered me was when I got my officially branded Galaxy S car holder, Car charger and a lot of other accessories and they didn't work with the SII.
2 - I use to jog quite a lot and used the arm strap with the cable and I thought I want a phone that prioritizes wireless audio. Apple was the first company that did that. I would have thought it would have been Sony with some of their previous phones.
3 - Samsung had many of the things I like in iPhone now already back in the Galaxy S and SII time. S Calendar, S notes, S diary, S transfer I think. That was dropped as a novelty after a few times. Once apple start with something they keep it, at least for a while.
I know phones are more mature now and Samsung probably doesn't do this anymore (Or hopefully they don't). But I already made the switch and I don't feel any reason to switch back at the moment.
Why I like iPhone: 1 - It doesn't change much over generations which helps with not having to buy new accessories the whole time.
2 - It doesn't allow me to change much so I don't bother changing much (I still do the dev betas etc, but they are not as time consuming as Roms)
3 - They don't generally try to be first to the market
4 - Privacy is better than commercial Android (I know you can get Android builds that are better)
5 - I like(d) that the App Store is the only way you can get Apps
6 - I like the eco system (I now have homepods, apple tv, macbook, iPad, iPhone, airpods and watch) - I know Samsung has a good one, but too late.
7 - Homekit/Homekey and carplay/carkey - I literally can walk around without keys. (I know this isn't unique, but again when I bought by car Apple was the only option)
8 - I don't feel like I have to upgrade every year.
I think I can do most my likes with Android as well. I just like the way Apple does it currently and they restrict some of my shortcomings.
ITT people who seemingly haven't used an Android phone in ~10 years
ITT people who seemingly haven't used an Android phone in ~10 years
Well yeah, no shit. When was the last time the average Android user used an iPhone as their daily driver? Same is gonna be true in the other direction.
That said, as I scroll through I’ve seen a post from someone who still uses Android and a post from someone who switched in 2020.
I myself switched in 2022.
I used an iPhone for a while cause my phone broke and I got it for free. Used it until it died and then went back to android
Size. As long as my iPhone mini is working, I’ll keep it. My next phone will probably be a Fairphone though. Gotta deal with the vendor lock in somehow, but maybe my mini will survive long enough for the EU efforts to have shown some results? One can dream.
iMessage is encrypted in transit by default when talking to other iPhone users, and 95% of my contacts use iPhones. That is the ONLY reason I use an iPhone.
Apple keeps the encryption keys and they can access all of your messages, if they feel like it. signal is encrypted by default and just saves when you created and when you last logged in to your account.
Honestly? The hardware just seems so much more solid. I was a longtime android user. My brother is a techie and was going on and on about how I should switch to iPhone. I was pretty much like you guys. “Why wouldn’t you use android?”
But then I changed jobs and went through two android phones in a matter of a year or two. I decided to spend the extra money on an iPhone. I wasn’t able to get an android to last me much past lunch, battery-wise. I bought an iPhone 11pro and noticed the difference straight away. First of all, the bloatware on android is ah-bsurd. Yeah, iPhone feels more like a walled garden, because it kinda is. But who am I kidding? I wasn’t jailbreaking and rooting my phone or whatever. I’m not super tech savvy. I’m also not a big phone user. My screen time sits around 1hr these days.
And my now much older iPhone has not given me any of the problems I was having with the many android phones I went through. I don’t have to think about how poorly my phone is working. I don’t have to worry about the annoying problems I had with my androids. It’s maintained its battery capacity from like three years ago, when I bought it used. From my perspective, when I’m forced into buying another one, what, three, four more years from now? (barring some accident) I’ll probably stick with my second-ever used iPhone. Because then I don’t have to worry about it again for another five+ years.
I was refusing to get an iPhone because it was basically the juggernaut. But it’s not like Samsung/android is some scrappy underdog protecting my privacy. They’re another massive, shitty corpo. I just don’t see much difference in ethics using one over the other. Or privacy. If I’m not sticking it to some shitty corp, sacrificing my convenience for my moral compass, why sacrifice usability
My family uses iPhones, and my wife and I got a deal on two when we signed onto Verizon after we got married and our parents booted us from the family plans. I’ll probably switch back to Android, to a Fairphone, when my iPhone goes kaput
I think there is a core reason for everyone. Strong reliable basics.
I want to FOSS everything and I moved to a Samsung phone as a start but even basic things such as weather app are not good. There is a weather widget for Samsung but no stand alone app for some reason.
Other things like apple notes, I don't even know which cloud based note taking app can replace that, Obsidian is a hassle to sync, OneDrive is slow as hell, Google keep is pretty much the only viable alternative.
Then I have to look for a to-do list app again same problems, I don't want a subscription and Microsoft To-do is literally the only option with online sync that I could find.
Now there are things like Apple's Journal app, like.. there is pretty much nothing that is both free and reliable. I am even open to one time purchase options but I feel everything is a free tier with subscription options.
Apple literally does one thing, strong reliable basics. Their notes app is simple as hell, but it works reliably and I know it is not randomly going to disappear/get dropped in 2 years.
My Samsung phone shipped with Samsung Notes on it, which works perfectly as a basic notes app and while not FOSS, so far as I can tell if you haven't logged into a Samsung account the contents stay local. You can also just deny internet permissions to the app if you're paranoid about it. But if you want a cloud sync it supports that with a Samsung account, can't speak on that feature very much as I don't use it.
Accuweather has both an app and a widget I've been using with zero problems for almost a decade.
I use Keep Notes for cloud sync notes and to-do lists shared in real time with my partner and family.
I don't use a Journal app, but from some brief searching Obsidian seems to do most of what you'll want out of it, and could also serve as a generic notes app.
I either already had all of these installed or, in the case of Obsidian, found it within about 2 minutes of brief searching. (Looked up what the Journal app does -> "hmm, this sounds like Onenote" -> there is no Libre office Onenote alternative -> didn't Evernote used to be good? -> Evernote has enshittified, Obsidian is the best rated replacement).
At the risk of maybe sounding like an asshole, I really don't understand your complaints here. All of these suggestions either came baked into my OS or were very easy to find on the app store. Keep Notes was the only one I had to be introduced to and only that because I had no use for a multi-user-sync list or notes app beforehand.
Thank you for a solid response. I hate that android users say their phone is better in every way and yet they can not mimic the simplicity of a bare bones Apple phone. I don’t need all the hacker shit that android users love to brag about.
I don't really care about phones and my parents give me their old iPhones for free.
I’ve used android at various times. Most recently around 3 years ago. I probably won’t switch back unless there is some really compelling hardware I just can’t resist.
Some reasons I prefer iPhone is that iMessage was just a better experience for messaging than SMS and the fragmented support that RCS had back when I was an android user.
iOS is also consistent experience across devices rather than having a different flavor with different launchers and bloat per manufacturer. Android is nice in that you can extend your experience by sideloading apps but eventually the more you add, the more chances you have of them randomly crashing and detracting from the experience
Finally I am locked in to the hardware ecosystem, android/Google do have their own alternatives to this but they aren’t as nice as apple’s. AirPods just work. AppleTV doesn’t have ads unlike google tv. Your iCloud files, photos, messages etc. just sync to your Mac without thinking.
If I did get a new android device I’d probably be a pixel but I just don’t trust google. And I don’t trust them to support a device or service and keep it out of the killedbygoogle graveyard
The eco system really. I was anti apple for quite some time cuz I was always a gamer. Did android til maybe galaxy s2 I think and always had windows mobile phones prior to that. For a while I couldn’t do an iPhone without being jailbroken, but damn near every tweak I could have wanted has been incorporated into the OS. Plus they hired a couple of those jailbreak and jailbreak tweak developers.
AirPods work extremely well… M series MacBooks are insane… kids have an M series iPad. Have wore a watch since I was in 1st/2nd grade. For while I had every series of Pebble watch and that was my first smart watch (damn good watches). Of course grabbed an apple one when they came out.
2 Apple TVs as well. Everything just works so well together. On top of these I have a windows desktop and a Linux server and a remote Linux server. I’m not crazy against any one brand like some of the psychopaths you see here on Lemmy. I’d even be down to try out some of the newer androids. Just would be a waste at this point.
Spent a fortune on apps that are also accessible to my family who also have iPhones, and this gives me good parental controls. Switching would be a massive ball ache for not much reward if any.
I do try it from time to time. My last try was with a Pixel 7 and although I loved Material You on it, my main issue was that the quality of apps wasn’t great and most just didn’t feel nice to use (even Google’s own apps feel better to use on iOS).
Didn’t help that the Pixel 7 was way too big and I couldn’t get used to that either, among a few other problems.
Basically it’s habit. I’ve been on the iPhone since the “3G” (2008), which also has brought me to many other Apple products.
I actually switched from Android to iPhone maybe a year and a half ago, after I got an iPad to take notes on for university and really enjoyed using it.
- I hate Google
- I mostly like how iOS works
- I mostly don’t like how Android works, it has a lot of rough edges and jank (imo, partially resulting from stock apps sucking or just not being there at all but there not being enough low level access for third party apps to provide a well integrated replacement)
- Shortcuts/Automation is amazing
- Builtin Calendar/Contacts/Reminders apps are amazing and especially lets me connect to my DAV server without any hassle
- Nobody has built anything that comes close to Apple’s cross-device interactions (but I guess that’s also Apple’s and Google’s fault for locking the systems down)
- A consistent look and feel across the system is very important to me and iOS apps seem to care more about that. Even Google’s own apps used different visual styles sometimes last I used it
- The hardware and OS looks nice without being overly flashy, it just hits that sweet spot of “pleasant design”
- If I want to develop apps I really don’t want to touch anything related to Java
I'm not throwing this phone away before it breaks. And I don't want android, I want a Fairphone or something.
Fairphones run Android, don't they?
(Yes, they do!)
I'm not sure, I'm not too tech savvy myself.
Safety. I like the locked down ecosystem.
The fact that I’m fine with iOS? I actually like the “closed” ecosystem; I’m glad we can now have different browsers (instead of using the WebKit engine) and the only think I feel is lacking, right now, is the possibility to open local HTML files.
I use a phone just to chat, a bit of instagram, sometime writing and browsing internet, nothing too fancy… why would I want to mess that up?
US still gets webkit only 😭
I originally switched because there was still a small flagship iPhone. However I stayed because it works just fine and iMessage worked better than SMS for whatever that time period was before people moved to other messaging apps.
Now I use an Android phone for work and don’t really see enough advantage for me to switch.
I tried switching to Androind a few years ago, but never could shake the feeling that Google was looking over my shoulder, I realize that Apple probably does this as well, but I don't get the same feeling on iOS.
Switched from Android to iPhone.
Everything just works in the Apple ecosystem. Android has an app for everything but none of them work well. They always require some sort of configurations, etc, etc. what really set me over was consistently missing calls because my phone just didn’t receive them.
Seriously, nothing in the Android ecosystem works well together. It all just sucks.
Because I'm already using an Android phone.
Used to have android phones but iphone just works better for me and I do like the ecosystem. Yes its a walled garden but it works pretty damn well and reliably.
My job.
Chit tier level of security.
What’s stopping you as an android user from switching to iPhone?
People on Lemmy tend to hate walled gardens.
I would prefer to go in the opposite direction and have a completely open source phone rather than more closed down.
When I was looking at replacing my phone, I was considering an iPhone. But the major thing that stopped me was the lightning port.
The other major thing now is Firefox. It is simply better on android than iOS. It is by far the most used app on my phone, and not being able to use the extensions I do on android is a significantly worse experience.
I also really like my current phone, it has a marvelous bit of technology called a 3.5mm headphone jack and is amazing.
I asked this the other day...
I meant it more as a joke
It's mostly that apple products are a pain to use with non apple ones. They even have a proprietary image format so something as simple as bulk copying your photos over can be a pain (each has to be manually exported through the GUI).
Select the photos you want -> Save to Files (will convert to JPG) or Export Unmodified Originals (will stay HEIC)
HEIC is not proprietary.
Girls judge you harsher if they see that green bubble
Should be a plus as that would be an instant red flag.
Gen z spotted?
I think (hope) it’s sarcasm
