Title
I prefer android until there’s a linux phone I can afford.
I used to love android. Then google dropped the don’t be evil motto and started fucking us even harder for data.
Now, it’s only the fact that I can mitigate some of that that makes it better than iOS. Well, that and the horrible ui/ux of iOS.
The UI/UX on iOS has improved dramatically in the last few years (especially for springboard, which was what I most hated). Coming from Android to iOS, my phone looks so different from everyone else I know who uses iOS, since their home screens have evolved over years and mine was, “how can I, in 2022, make an iPhone look as much like my Android Home Screen as possible?”
I have one screen with a giant weather widget, and some folders for my most-used apps, plus I have four on my dock.
To the left of the main screen is the “Today View” where I have a number of useful widgets that get me quick access to specific things.
To the right of the main screen is the app drawer equivalent, whatever they call it. To be honest I never use it.
Most of the time when I want to launch an app I just swipe down and type the first few letters. That’s usually sufficient. I find having used this phone for a little over a year I’m now as efficient or more efficient than I was on Android, at least for the task of getting from the home screen to whatever app I want.
This was huge for me, because in my previous experience springboard was TERRIBLE unless the device was jailbroken. Now it’s really nice.
I would still love the level of customization Android has. Major feature I’d like would be for the home screen not to push all widgets and icons to the front and left. I wish it would let me put stuff wherever I want so I could have a larger amount of my wallpaper visible while still having the icons closer to my thumbs.
I know there are widget solutions to this problem, but that’s clunky.
But it’s SO MUCH BETTER now than it used to be. Old springboard, that was basically just the Android app drawer, was terrible.
Dude, you’re asking an open-source fetish community about ios vs android… it’s like asking vegans whether they prefere steaks over salads. 😂
When you put it that way, I guess you are right, but you should also consider we have m/Apple, a whole apple community and it’s one of the biggest places on kbin.
MacOS doesn’t have the same level of lock down as their mobile devices do. Apple also sets the trends so there’s great interest in what they do, since their moves are those that other companies will follow good or bad.
I know, and I’ve subscribed to them early on, but my feed is flooded with other communities and I don’t recall ever seing amything from /m/Apple…
I also just went there and the newest posts are mostly days apart from each other…
So “one of the biggest” might be true for the subscriber count, but threadwise not so much activity there.
Which is a bummer, honestly… I’m not a huge fan, but I’d still love to be up-to-date on their stuff.
Well, that is obviously because Kbin is new, smaller than something like Reddit, other communities that may flood your feed is mainly because they are generic, while m/apple is well, focused on Apple and it’s products, it has more to do with having less users to post on a community that is more specific.
I use iOS currently. I used Android for many many years, and loved it. I dreaded iOS and its walled garden.
But for various reasons, when my OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren Edition died and nothing in the Android world really wowed me at a reasonable pricepoint, and knowing that I would be able to get full-quality images and videos from my family and my wife’s family without them having to change their messaging app to accommodate me, I decided to try iPhone for the first time since like, the 3GS.
I’ve had the 13 Pro Max for over a year now and honestly I love it. It took a lot of getting used to at first. Everything is a bit different, and getting over those differences was frustrating. There are still things I really miss. Android handles notifications better, Android does gestures better (being able to go back from either side of the screen is huge), and OnePlus at least, maybe Android in general, let me open the camera by double-tapping the power button, so I could have the camera loaded by the time it was in position. I’m still much slower on the draw with my iPhone, unfortunately.
But iOS has its advantages, too. The battery life is amazing. The Apple Watch kicks the shit out of every Wear OS watch I owned (and also fixes my issues with notifications). The search function is crazy quick to the point that I hardly ever open apps from their icons in the Home Screen or App Drawer equivalent. Everything is polished and rarely fucks up. And when anything IS wrong, there are local stores that can fix it that day. I had a faulty front camera on my phone originally, it was replaced within the day, didn’t have to send it off for OnePlus to replace it. When the back glass broke they replaced basically the entire phone for $30 or something, again within the day. Integration between devices is beautifully seamless.
Basically I’ve found that both are very good options these days. It’s silly that anyone really cares which device you use.
When I was younger I liked to root my Android phones and use custom ROMs. But it had been years since I had done any of that, and I realized that what I was giving up moving to iOS was much less than I had thought.
I may go back someday. I’ve tried to keep everything in Google still so that I don’t have to give up anything except app purchases if I go back. But for now I’m happy on iOS.
I’m currently still using a OnePlus 7T, the battery is starting to die on it after so long though.
knowing that I would be able to get full-quality images and videos from my family and my wife’s family without them having to change their messaging app to accommodate me, I decided to try iPhone for the first time since like, the 3GS.
This is the biggest pain for me, but my solution is different. I just ask them to share a link to an iCloud album, which is also asking them to make albums! So far it has worked pretty well, and they almost all appreciate having an album for related pictures. I think it’s insane that Apple does this on purpose.
Android.
If I own a phone I think I should have the ability to do what I want with it, like installing sideloaded apps and customizing it however I want. There’s also much more choice in hardware.
That said, there’s some neat features on iOS that I’m a little jelly of.
Using my iPad and then seeing how difficult it was to find apps that didn’t have ads, apps I could buy outright, and so many subscription only options was what turned me away. And then how incompatible it is requiring work arounds to access the file system if you aren’t using air drop compared to Android where just plugging it into any system and giving permission lets you see files beyond just pics and videos you took, and move files back and forth with ease.
And how difficult it was to find Foss apps without something like F-droid. And because of that I noticed apps I took for granted on Android creates a system where you are having to spend more money and then being up sold subscriptions because of lack of options. It felt like a very gacha like environment. It felt so much like dealing with some scummy sales person.