Surprise.
Bet you didn’t see this one coming.
This week’s post has been pretty late. I’m a bit troubled by yesterday’s thread on Apple. So, a foreword: It’s OK to prefer something over another, it’s not OK to say people who like different phones than you are somehow more childish or less intelligent than you. Again, we are going for casual, yet intensely helpful here, so please don’t call people names over petty reasons, we have rules here.
Previously on Lemmy:
Past Discussions:
In this post, it’s not about saying how bad iPhones are, but I’d just like to hear the perspective on iPhones from Android users. I, for one, had an old iPhone 4 for a long time (call it nostalgia, or laziness, or just being cheap), and it was my general frustration with the device that ultimately led to my preference for Androids, (It was quite a while back though).
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It was absolutely painful to transfer files from the phone to my computer (Ugh, iTunes).
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I got it pre-jailbroken and didn’t realize you can’t just update the system casually, so it was really fun trying to find ways to downgrade the system until I realized that I can’t and have to pray for the next jailbreak to get half my things working again.
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The 40-pin cable wears out so fast, and always in the same spot on the strain relief. I swear I’ve gone through 3 of these cables in one year just from normal use.
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All the browsers are somehow flavors of Safari. To do anything, I will have the choice of ad-filled websites, or ad-filled apps.
It always just seemed like I’m fighting against the system. Never did I have that “it just works” moment, until I’ve got my first Android, and realize I have the freedom to do whatever I want with it, and I can install what I want, and if there’s a problem, I can look things up and fix it myself.
(Having a back button is also a game changer.)
Of course, there is a lot that Android manufacturers can learn from Apple as well, one of the most obvious one is the time for software support: I think my old iPhone has gone through like 3 version updates over the years, whereas currently I’m lucky to get 2 out of any Android manufacturer.
But it seems that Android manufacturers are more content on copying things that works for iOS, but doesn’t work for Android, like removing the headphone jack. Or big notches. (It makes no sense to do that because of Android’s notification system uses the full length of the bar.) It’s gotten to the point that I don’t think people who makes Android phones actually uses Android but are content to copy superficial features from Apple without understanding why Apple do them.
Like a bunch of lemmings. (Heh)
Again, these are my personal preferences, I have nothing against people who prefers iPhones, nor do I think they are lesser for it, but it’s just not for me.
I’d use a one as a work phone/for iMessages though.
My first contact with iOS was with an ipod touch 4. I was very excited to finally try it as I had never used one nor any smartphone before and I used to follow a lot of tech folks who constantly praised iOS and mocked android left and right.
My first reaction was disappointment. I couldn’t believe that was the OS that I had read so many positive reviews of. It felt like it did nothing. Even just browsing the web on it felt so much worse than even the hacked Nintendo DS I had put a browser on. Apple claimed it could multitask, but their idea of multitask was to hibernate an app so you could launch another, then hibernate the second to go back to the first. Apps couldn’t process anything unless they were in the foreground. I soon gave up on trying to use multiple apps at the same time.
I later got my first smartphone and I decided to try android, even though I had read so many bad things about it. The experience was the complete opposite. I expected nothing and received an OS filled with every sort of thing I could imagine. It was slow and sometimes it would crash or have other problems, but at least it could do stuff. I loved it.
As the years went by I eventually had to work with multiple apple devices, including iPhones and iPads. Everytime I did, I continued to have the same impression I had back then: “other than it’s main basic purpose, I can’t think of anything to use this device for”.
I had a few android tablets over the years that I always used to write notes (with a pen), browse Twitter side by side with some streaming service, access my computer remotely to load some file I might have forgotten, use as a remote control for playing music on other devices and a lot of shit like that. The iPad I was being paid to create an app for could do none of those things.
Now it’s been over a decade since I last tried any Apple product , so I don’t really know what the current experience is, but I’ve dealt with apple in other ways and it only feels like they are always doubling down in being that way.
BTW I also used to have a windows phone device and at the time it felt like the combination of all the good things about android and iOS without their bad things. I’m still sad it didn’t survive long.