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"?
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.