I’ve just recently switched from my Xiaomi mi8 (May 2018, and about $300 I think) to a pixel 8 pro, mostly because I wanted a better camera and was curious about pixels. It’s so fascinating to hear about all the bugs and terrible experiences on old android devices, but I guess people like us are just the luckiest people in the world.

I can relate to the comment. Within the last month Google messages has required me to resync my tablet app several times. Fixing that required logging out all devices and changing the login method. Speaking of messages, the tablet app is… Not very good. Messages take a long time to notify there, well after my watch, and when I open the app the message still takes a couple seconds to show up as it is apparently retrieving the message from the phone app. Even though the message is (still) shown in the notification. Reading messages on the tablet don’t clear the read receipt on the phone. Various random bugs seem to popup. On the phone I randomly get pictures or messages I had written to OTHER PEOPLE waiting to be sent. Google messages is king of a shit app and I greatly miss Textra and even Samsung Messages. Thank you Google for not opening the RCS API to third parties.

But that’s just messages. Googles auto fill service has sucked from day one. Often I will click a username or password multiple times trying to get the popup to show up. I’ll then sigh, go open Bitwarden, copy my password, go back to the app, click on the password field, and then… the fucking auto fill popup appears. This experience has been shit from day one and Google has never made any attempt to fix it that I can see.

Android Autos new split screen is nice. But every once in a while the maps side will become unresponsive. Or the media app just dissapears and I have a black in its place. Only way to fix that is to unplug the phone and plug it back in. Super fun driving down the road.

I really could go on and on… Google has a habit of dumping random features in the OS and then never bothering to update again as they go on to their next shiny feature like the dog from the movie Up when someone yells squirrel. Apple users may be smug with their “just works” mantra, and they are not immune to bugs like any software developer, but it really does seem to be a more polished experience devoid of issues like the above. It’s also a lot more boring… but I can understand why someone would make a switch. Attributing another person’s issues to user error because you THINK the android experience is flawless seems rather snarky.

Ah yes the classic “why are you using a feature, it’s your fault for wanting it to work”. Thanks. So helpful.