Got an iPhone some months ago because it was cheaper than getting a Pixel or S24 and I hate it.
The apps suck, sideloading sucks ass because of both apple restrictions and the lack of modded apps, browsing sucks because the adblockers suck because the extensions suck, FOSS is pretty much dead of iOS, call spam detection sucks, keyboard sucks.
I never saw an ad on android for the past three years because of how good my setup was with modded apps and Firefox+uBlock but iOS is pure Advertisement Hell.
The OS visuals and responsiveness are better than most android skins but 60Hz is trash as well and 4GB ram means that I can not even open like 3 tabs at once without the others shutting down.
The photo management sucks the most. Any photo I save goes straight to my Camera Roll and has ZERO organization which memes no more epic funny memes are getting saved on my phone anymore.
The integration with Google Photos is also non-existent and images get saved only when I manually sync them and I will never buy iCloud because I hate the locked down apple ecosystem.
Modded apps also suck and nothing is as good as revanced plus the 7 day refresh limit sucks because of course apple wants 99$ per year to have the godlike ability to install your own apps.
Airdrop is maybe the only positive I remember about this. And maybe the battery life which is better than my previous phone’s battery.
I always buy a new $200-ish Android phone every 4 years. The huge benefit is that I don’t have to stress my $2000 phone breaking. Repairs are way cheaper. Also FOSS apps are cool and good. I guess posher friends than me have gotten used to the iOS ecosystem. I’m not gonna give them a hard time for it, but it’s an expensive addiction.
Samsung A15. Seems fine. Don’t want to 100% recommend it, as I’m not a full hardware spec nerd, and someone may know better.
I have a pixel 6 rn and am pretty happy with it. Just checked backmarket and they’re going for ~$160 USD. Solid battery, pretty quick, great camera, no 3rd party bloat, 128GB ssd. You could do a lot worse for the price
Fyi you can save images to your files instead of the camera roll. That way you get more traditional file management (eg you can make a meme folder and save images to it).
Idk if I agree about the apps, most apps are nicer on iphone imo, mainly because developers seem to care more about iphones. But there are some gems on Android.
The ad blockers suck on iphones, and side loading sucks as well. Hoping the eu regulations put an end to that shit.
I think a lot of your issues come from not being used to it. At this point both platforms are so similar that outside of the side loading issues they’re basically the same.
ad blockers suck on iphones
can use an encrypted dns provider with adblocking for no install, no root, all app, no battery drain, no resource adblocking
https://github.com/paulmillr/encrypted-dns
pick one that has adblocking, also better privacy
(AdGuard, Blah, Mullvad, PubHole)
https://libredns.gr also has an iOS profile for blocking ads
these also can be added to android dns for no resource no install no root adblocking and privacy
Blah, PubHole, Libre - all independent and support openNIC domains regular dns does not
AdGuard, Mullvad - corporate, in theory should have better uptimes so usually recommend for normies but using the above three for years and never had issues, ymmv
Yeah going from android takes a lot to get used to. I went from iOS (iPhone 3G) to Android (HTC EVO 3D) then back to iOS (iPhone 6) and I’ve never looked back. I’ve still always kept at least one android phone around, and carry that phone with me almost everywhere.
But you couldn’t pay me to go back to using Android as my main phone OS. To the point that I paid nearly twice the price of my iPhone to import a model with a physical SIM card slot.
The notifications also suck and there is no notification channels like in Android so either turn all notifications off or get spammed.
The customization is also bare minimum and there are no launchers I could use like Niagara which change the way one uses their phone.
I mean they’re the ultimate normie phones because they’re so fixed and easy to pick up. So I think you either go all in on the ecosystem or you get a different phone. Apple can suck my ass no doubt but none of this is a secret lol.
It sounds like you bought the wrong phone
