After spending over a decade with various Android phones, I finally made the switch to an iPhone. Here’s why I made the switch and what I’ve discovered since.
The Struggles with Samsung/Android
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Slow Shutter on Samsung Flagships: One of my biggest gripes with Samsung’s flagship phones has been the slow shutter and shutter lag. Trying to capture a moving subjects often resulted in blurry photos or missed shots entirely. This has been an issue with Samsung phones for many years.
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Google’s Service Abandonment: Google has a notorious history of abandoning services. The most recent one being the Podcasts app. The podcast experience on YouTube Music is just terrible.
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Hardware Design: The Samsung S24 Ultra has sharp corners that make it uncomfortable to hold. The Pixel 8 phones have issues with connectivity and overheating. The S24+ comes with an inferior Exynos processor.
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Performance: No matter how fast the hardware is, Android phones always seem to slow down and stutter after a few months of use. It’s like they age in dog years. (My most recent Samsung phone was the S23+, and it already started lagging).
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Apps: Android apps have an inconsistent look and feel. It’s like a patchwork quilt made by someone who doesn’t know how to sew. Also, a lot of Android apps require excessive permissions.
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Disaster: A Samsung update once made my phone unbootable. I had to do a full reset and lost some data. People said I should have made a backup before the update, but Android doesn’t provide an easy way to completely backup the phone. That was the last straw.
The iPhone Revelation
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Shortcuts: The Shortcuts app on iPhone is a game-changer. It automates tasks in ways I never thought possible.
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Face ID: Face ID on the iPhone is leagues ahead of Samsung’s version and even better than Touch ID. It’s fast, reliable, and just works. With the amount of unlocks I need everyday, this turns out to be more impactful than I expected.
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Files App: The Files app is actually useful, and it has built-in support for Windows file shares.
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Look & Feel: Everything on iOS feels smoother and more premium. The animations, the UI design – it’s all just so polished.
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Audio: It’s much easier to select audio output in-app when connected to multiple Bluetooth devices and AirPlay.
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Driving: CarPlay is a joy to use compared to Android Auto. Plus, Apple Maps has better voice directions.
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Emulators: Emulators are now possible to use on iPhone without jailbreaking.
Switching to iPhone has been a breath of fresh air. While Android gave me more freedom and customizations. The consistency, reliability, and overall experience of iOS have won me over.
What was your experience switching to/from “the dark side”?
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Can’t say the android phones I’ve used have slowed down over the years ( mainly one plus ). I always stayed away from Samsung and the sort because they add too much bloat.
Not to mention that an update changed the power button to “activate bixby” and the constant harassing OD the Samsung app.
I bought the latest Samsung tablet and its underwhelming compared to the precious Samsung tablet I had. At this point I wish I had bought an iPad instead :/
I had an iPhone 4 for years. Got drunk on st pattys and dropped it and screwed it all up so figured I’ll go get a new phone. Got a Samsung s9… believe I had the iPhone for ~6-7 years.
The s9 was great at first but after a few months it slowed drastically. Year later I ditched that phone because if I didn’t reboot it daily it ran like shit. Tried a non-Samsung android, I think it was the asus phone. Same shit, few months in it starts shitting the bed.
Went and got another iPhone around 2019 and I’m only on my second iPhone since switching from android and only reason I switched was I wanted some of the features on the current iPhone and Verizon had a deal where I got a free watch for upgrading.
You either picked crappy phones or installed random stuff on them that caused issues. Neither I nor anyone else that I personally know has had those issues with android.
You’re using it wrong!
Well, sort of. The iPhone is a good option for people that have no idea what they’re doing precisely because you’re heavily restricted. Android gives you a lot more freedom. Which is why some people (or manufacturers) mess up their phones and then the users end up blaming the OS, even if it had nothing to do with their issues.
When I was running custom ROMs and updating daily-weekly my android ran fine. But when I got tired of all that and decided to run stock android it ran like ass. Sometimes rebooting my phone more than once a day, and it got to the point I was doing quarterly wipes of the phone for a fresh install. Finally gave up and moved back to an iPhone last year after being android since 2009.
I have stock android as well and it runs perfectly fine. Also, the OS does not need to be updated as much as it used to because it’s been separated into modules that you can update from the Play Store. Only major changes require an OS update. Regardless of that, you do not need to update often to keep android running smoothly.
I don’t know which phone you had because you’re being very vague but it’s likely that it wasn’t actually vanilla android and the actual issue was either the skin from your manufacturer, the hw or both.
Most recently I had a Moto z4. I got it shortly after release.
Only major changes require an OS update.
And when your phone manufacturer stops sending updates you are screwed. The Z4 shipped with 9, got updated to 10, and that was it. 11 came out when it was 15 months old and it did not get updated.
Some manufacturers do that and it sucks. But 1) that’s a midrange phone that costs about half of what an iphone would cost 2) it’s very gimmicky. The accesories idea is cool but it was never going to work and it made the phone overpriced for the chipset 3) this is something the manufacturer did, it’s “android’s” fault.
Next time buy from a brand that has a better reputation and stay away from gimmicks.
Next time buy from a brand that has a better reputation and stay away from gimmicks.
I did, I went with an iPhone.
Apple is a shitty company but ok, as long as you’re happy.
Nope. I do nothing crazy with my phones and I hardly install anything. Glad your group of people are having success, I did not.
S9 is a crappy phone? I was told at the time it was the flagship if you want an android phone, the whole reason I went with that model.
S9 is a crappy phone?
The hw? No. Samsung’s android skin? Yes. One of the worst.
Regarding “my group”, it’s roughly 70% of the people that have a smartphone and I rarely hear people complain about their phone. The ones that do complain have a $150 5-year old phone usually.
I continue to be baffled that “anyone can grab your phone, point it at your face, and have access to everything” is somehow a feature and not a critical vulnerability. In the US, you can be compelled to unlock a device using biometrics, but not a password, under the 5th Amendment.
If pulled over or something. Hit the power button of your iPhone a couple of times and FaceID is disabled. Easy as that. Or if you’re really paranoid: lock it before leaving the house.
You ever been pulled over? The cop makes it to your window in record time and I would not recommend fumbling around your center console to lock your face ID during said time.
Then say “Siri who am I”. It will lock it as well.
Exactly. You sit still,and wait for the cop to direct you, you don’t grab for shit unless they tell you to.
Have you ever been pulled over? How fast are these cops running to your car window?
Enough times to never try this. Be safe out there!
Crazy. Every time I’ve been pulled over, I have time to dig out my I’d and registration before they get to my window. Maybe I shouldn’t but I don’t have patience to wait for them
Sad when a secure and fast way to unlock your device is seen as a vulnerability, just because you live in a 3rd world country military state where you fear and are in odds with your governments law enforcement. For the rest of us, it’s secure and like others said, easy to turn off with a few button presses if the need arises.
Even if I wasn’t, it’s still a flawed form of authentication. Something you know > something you are/have. You don’t store your housekey halfway inserted into a lock.
So you do use an iPhone great! Because it’s the only phone OS not bypassable by your own government and FaceID is optional. Making their password unlock th most secure in the industry and being someone of high authentication security you must then use it right?
Ofc you don’t, you just shit on an optional featur bacuse you have other totally unrelated issues with the device or should I say company…
There’s a FaceID setting for “attention aware” that I think is on by default. It won’t unlock unless you are looking at the phone with eyes open.
That won’t help with police abuse of authority, but if you power down, restart, or lock the phone it will require your password. US police can’t legally require you give up your password, although courts have.
You can choose not to use FaceID, but it’s less convenient
It won’t open if you’re unconscious. You have to be actively looking at the phone.
file manager ruins any apple experience
I thought I would be bothered by it. But now that iOS Files app has integration with iCloud and Windows shares, I don’t really miss the Android file management too much.
It does take an extra step to “import” files into certain apps, but at the same time I like this better than Android spyware apps accessing nearly everything in the Android file system.
File app has Nextcloud integration , too
It does? Might have to try that.
I don’t think people should be downvoting you for your own personal lived experience and opinions but people be tribal about which tech company they like their black mirrors from.
I had the same switch as you, diehard android fan for several years but eventually switch to iPhone because the user experience is consistent. I don’t want to be on my phone a lot so I appreciate how smooth everything is on IPhone. I pull it out, do what I need to do, then put it away.
Yeah I’m not even an Android hater. I am still considering buying an Android tablet. I wish people who disagree would just voice out their opinion for discussion, instead of just downvoting.
My experience mirrors yours.
The realization that for most apps, the iPhone version clearly has more effort put into it.
Seeing what an app ghetto the Play store is; they let anything on there and it’s scams galore.
Janky UI, as you said.
The final straw for me, though, was phone calls not ringing on the phone and going straight to VM. This was on a “pure” Google phone using Google Fi. When a phone can’t even act like a phone anymore, I’m out.
At my age, I don’t have time or desire to fiddle with shit constantly. I want it to Just Work.
for most apps, the iPhone version clearly has more effort put into it.
Even Google Maps work better on iOS!!
At my age, I don’t have time or desire to fiddle with shit constantly.
Yeah I used to install custom ROMS on my Android phones. Android has more customizations, but I would rather use a design that works well out of the box.
Even Google Maps work better on iOS!!
Really? I find that Android Google Maps is far better, at least through Android Auto. Showing current speed + speed limit icons while driving is a big one. Android Auto allows pinch zooming while Apple CarPlay Google Maps has 2000-era “zoom in and out buttons” only. I believe Android also shows tolls for alternate routes as well.
Google Maps on CarPlay shows current speed and speed limit too.
On my CarPlay implementation, Google Maps has a better layout, button size etc compared to the Android Auto one.
There are so many kinds of display configurations with car manufacturers, so I guess it is down to the implementation and personal preferences.
Oh, ok - my mistake then. I have tried both on two cars and thought that was normal.
My take on the list: seems most issues are related to Samsung specifically. I’ve never owned a Samsung Android so I can’t really relate to them. I don’t really see the performance issue happening with mid tier androids though - I’m using a Motorola edge 20 and it is still just as fast as it was two years ago. Weaker decides definitely have this problem, but a flagship is not supposed to. Might be related to Samsung bloatware, maybe.
Complaints about apps and Google abandoning services is 100% real. I don’t mind the inconsistent look and feel tho, I even kinda like it - I wouldn’t like it if everything on my phone looked the same year after year (I tend to switch launchers and icon/theme sets from time to time). Also not a fan of the extra animations Apple tends to have (I’m saying this based on osx as I haven’t actively used any iOS in a while). I’ve probably even tweaked the animation settings on my phone back when I got it to speed them up. Still, Apple’s app ecosystem is miles ahead of android’s in almost every way. Even though apps can do much more on Android than on iOS, the store is trash and Apple’s isn’t (store itself still has some issues but the average app on it is much better).
I’m curious about this shortcuts app. I vaguely remember hearing about it when it came out but I’m not sure what it can do, I’m gonna check it out. Can’t comment on some other items as I don’t drive, don’t take many pictures, don’t use my face to unlock and only really use one Bluetooth audio device.
My experience switching to iPhone 4 years ago after only android is texting is incredibly more annoying due to terrible autocorrect and prediction on iphone
I have the 15 Pro Max after using Samsung for many years.
No one has mentioned the keyboard here.
I can type decent enough, however, having to go back and forth for numbers, letters, and symbols is frustrating at best.
The gallery app is not as easy as Samsung, imo. Instead of moving something to its own album I have everything stuck in “recents”. Hopefully, I will never forget to immediately move any photo to the proper album.
Photo editing on Samsung has more options.
iCloud wants to sync everything even when you tell it not to. I have documents hiding in there somewhere and apparently not even Apple can figure out where they are.
Spotlight search is amazing.
Adguard with Safari is not too bad. Reader mode is nicer, imo
I found the files app decent enough.
Overall a decent phone. Could it use improvement, yes. I look forward to ios18.
I, too, have abandoned Samsung.
Not going over to iPhone, though, screw that noise. The one time I tried it was on an iPad and yeah, no, screw most of that UX. Plus I’m not giving Apple money. I’m on an Android phone with a 3.5mm jack and a SD card slot, like nature intended.
I wish there were more choices other than Samsung. I don’t want any Chinese phones. Sony isn’t available in my region, and most other Japanese/Korean phone makers have given up the international market.
That’s the entire point of Android. There are more. Pixel, Oneplus, Nothing to mention a few.
I’m not gonna force you to say if you don’t want to, but what is this region where the choice is just Samsung or Chinese phones? No Google Pixels? How about ASUS, or are you ahead of the curve in lumping Taiwan in with China? Nothing? That’s aggressively western. Fairphone? Motorola? Heard some positive things about their offering last year.
There are Pixel phones, but the current/last generations suck. Taiwanese phones are not available here, at least not with my mobile carrier.
Motorola is Chinese as well. I’ve never seen Fairphone and no idea who the makers are.
are you ahead of the curve in lumping Taiwan in with China?
Don’t worry, I am definitely not a tankie. Fuck the CCP.
I… guess Motorola is Lenovo now, which I think highlights the “not Chinese” thing as somewhat arbitrary, because… well, you get people on Lenovo laptops everywhere in government and enterprise, and nobody is out there boycotting that for political reasons.
I think as somebody else mentioned before, that restricting it to one carrier in one country is very arbitrary. There are perfectly good out of carrier options, and I presume that opens Sony back up (which is my personal choice) among others.
Again, if you just want an iPhone, just get an iPhone, but it increasingly seems like nobody is twisting your arm here. There is definitely plenty of choice available, and you’re taking quite a long walk to this “Samsung or bust” position.
Complete list of brands from my carrier:
And I have to stick with the carrier because of my workplace.
My dude, that’s your carrier only. Buy an unlocked phone from a different store, it’s not that hard.
Let’s assume I can choose any brand. Which brand would recommend?
That’s complete nonsense, so many options out there. Samsung sucks I agree though.
Can you please give me some examples?
Few months ago I switched to an iPhone 15 Pro Max after being on Android for years. I think I briefly tried an iPhone 6s back in the day? For maybe a month and gave up. I only switched because I happened to be able to get the phone without having to pay anything down, and the one good thing I’ve always heard about iPhone is the camera. Going to be honest, I despise iOS as much as I remember. Navigating around is a nightmare. The number of times I try to use the android back gesture, only for nothing to happen, is in the dozens of times per day. The fact that there is no dedicated back button or gesture, unless a specific app graciously decides you get to have one(in the most inconvenient location possible), is obscene. Back on Android, not only do I get said feature, I can tweak and customize it to my liking. And for that matter, I can do the same to pretty much the entire UI. The nearly non-customizable UI on iOS is infuriating. The fact that I can’t seem to predict which volume is about to be adjusted when I hit the volume buttons is even more infuriating. As is the phone’s insistence on not switching audio devices when it should. Or refusing to connect to Bluetooth headphones or other devices automatically, constantly forcing me to going into the settings and do it manually. And just countless other things I absolutely hate about this thing. The only thing I have found to be an improvement is the battery life, which after a full day is still at 90% when I am ready to go to bed. But that’s only because I just don’t touch the phone anymore. I check an email or two during the day, and the phone otherwise just sits in my pocket untouched. Switching to an iPhone is probably the single biggest technology-related mistake I’ve made in years. And that’s coming from someone who is running Arch as the only OS on my gaming laptop, and owns multiple VR headset and AR/XR glasses.
I’m glad other people seem to like their iPhones, but I absolutely despise this thing, and oh my god am I desperate to get the hell back onto Android at the first opportunity. I got this through Boost Infinite, so I’m hoping that when it’s time, they’ll let me “upgrade” to the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Which is the phone I wanted to begin with, but they were conveniently only advertising the iPhone at the time, so I didn’t know they had other phones.
Moral of the the story is, if you tend to do any customization at all when you get a new Android phone, you’re probably going to hate iPhone. If you tend to just log in your email account and use the phone as it comes, you might fare better. In either case, do what you have to, to get your hands on a borrowed iPhone and spend some time with it before even considering making the switch.
I’ve used tons of different phones (both Android and iOS) and although I always defended Android in almost every past conversation, I ended up using an iPhone, here’s why:
- On Android the base system that provides all the functionality comes from Google and if you try to remove Google services from Android, your phone is basically crippled. I don’t need to get into how hungry Google is for your personal data.
- Pixels advertise features that they do not have and they probably will never have. Some Pixels have the feature X, but you go buy the same exact model again and bam you don’t have feature X on that phone for some reason. (Also the Pixel launcher has a non removable Google search bar which I hated)
- Samsungs are great mini PCs you can carry, especially with DeX, but why do I have Samsung suite + Microsoft suite + Google suite of apps on one phone? You can’t remove Samsung apps, so you take a photo, view it through Samsung gallery and backup through Google Photos which is very inconvenient.
- Android overall has more personality, although your options are more and more limited each day due to bad hardware offered by brands. You want performance, you need a Samsung and then you get your data collected by all the big tech.
- I’ve had multiple call, audio or app issues with many Android vendors, never had an issue with an iPhone.
- iPhones are stupid and I hate the fact that I have to use it because Android makers are incompetent. iPhones work really well if people around you also use Apple devices (especially for US)
- You pay almost the same price for a new Pixel 8 and a new iPhone 15. You get an experimental chip with the Pixel that is generations behind in terms of performance and you FEEL IT. I felt my Samsung S24 was A LOT faster in terms of performance compared to my iPhone 15, but since the Android system never became coherent, using iOS feels smoother.
- Main reason I’m on an iPhone is getting away from Google (especially with all the AI features coming our way). But I hate that Apple tries to lock you into their ecosystem every step of the way. You can’t access Apple services on an Android (except with a browser, which sucks). Google services work great, but knowing that Google logs my every interaction, file and input feels like hell when you think about it.
- Being in the cyberspace myself, I am aware that there is no such things as privacy online anymore, but at least with an iPhone, if Google pulls a stupid stunt I can just go back to iPhone’s services.
TL;DR Every phone is the same, Android in general is faster for getting things done, and although iOS is limited, it gets done whatever it can get done with no issues. It’s a matter of who you want to give your data to and I think we all know Google’s not to be trusted.
FaceID is what keeps me on iPhone…
I kinda wish ios had a fdroid equivalent. Apples $99 dev fee basically forces apps to rely on subscriptions or advertising (rarely one time iap).
I think it isn’t a one-time, but rather a yearly fee, so more like a subscription. And on top of that they take their third.
Forgot to mention yearly updated (thanks for the catch).
No idea why Samsung is seen as the best manufacturer of Android phones. Bloated crap.
I hate how the files app doesn’t give me access to shit.
The file apps on android aren’t perfect due to no root access but it’s leagues ahead of the awful iOS app.
They usually support SMB shares too.
