For Lo!, I have defected from iPhone to Android. Did I err?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Who else has made this switch and can comment on the culture shock? Anybody with any regrets? I have until next Tue or Wed to pull out, as the phone has not shipped yet.

I’m not talking about the reputedly “more technical” requirements of its users imposed by Android vs. iOS, or fear of the suggestion to “root” my phone; I have in my life built a PC from parts and installed a working Linux OS on it, and am a computer programmer by trade. I’m looking for first person accounts, to the good or to the bad, of apps freezing, crashing or going amok; of quantity or quality of available apps (“the XYZ app is only on the iPhone / is SOOO much better on the iPhone than the X”); apps that might have annoying problems on the S4 because it was actually designed for a different or older Android phone.
Here is my story: I first fell deeply in lust with the iPhone after playing with a friend’s original iPhone, around Christman or New Year’s Eve of 2007. I waited until the iPhone 3G came out in June to get the WiFi functionality; after the 3GS came out, I passed the 3G to to my wife and upgraded.

Since then we’ve tag-team upgraded iPhones, as well as passed along relict phones to our daughter, such that she now has an iPhone 5 and Elder Daughter and I each have a iPhone 4S. Daughter #2 has long been promised my current iPhone 4S when it was time for me to upgrade, no later than the end of July, 2013 (we are going on a month-long cross-country road trip in August, and we feel she should have her own phone by then). We also have 2 iPads in the house, one with LTE and one without (I chain it off the hotspot on my phone when not on a WiFi network), and an iPod Touch.

I was prepared to wait until the iPhone 5S or whatever came out, supposedly in April, then maybe in May, then maybe July, and finally I read that a passing comment from Tim Cook mentioned the stuff they were planning for “this Fall”. Dang, the iPhone 5S is probably not going to hit until beyond my target date… And when it does, it will probably be a little faster, have the same form factor and screen size, and come in a few different colors. Biggus Dealus?

I walked into the AT&T store and played with the demo model of the about-to-be-available Samsung Galaxy S4. Also HTC’s “The One”. Then I went over to play with the iPhone 5 they had on display as well. It felt like a tiny toy in my hands. The front of the phone has so much more “bezeling” than the other phones, too.

The S4 fits almost perfectly in my long-fingered grasp. I can easily use the whole screen with my thumb while securely holding the phone against my palm with my forefingers (I do not “need two hands” to use it, as some people might). The screen… Beautiful. Removable SD Micro storage is what I’ve wanted on top of my list for a long time (I have about 45 GB in MP3 music files and would like to carry a few movies/TV episodes as well). The other new Samsung software doodads don’t matter to me nearly as much as the screen, the expandable storage, and the swappable battery.

My concerns were that I’d lose the investment I’d made in all the apps I’d purchased over the years, and share with the rest of my family, and the ability to use Find My Friends, iMessage or FaceTime with them. But hey, I still have my iPad to do those things, right?

So I made a list of all the iPhone apps I’d want to carry over to the S4. I think they all exist in Android space in one form or another.
Facebook
FB Messenger
Tapatalk
Foursquare
Open Table
LinkedIn
SoundHound
Tuner (for internet radio)
Netflix
Sky.FM
HBO GO
Fresh Direct
Amazon
Chase
AmEx
PayPal
eBay
StubHub

Timer
Converter
Google Drive / DropBox
JotNot Pro (PDF converter)
FTP OnTheGo
GEICO

Wikipedia client app
Dictionary (M-W)
IMDB
Nook / BlueFire eReaders

iBridgeBaron
Hearts
Spades
Cribbage
Gin Rummy

GPS MotionX (Don’t need with Google Maps)
PrimoSpot
Amtrak
WSJ
NY Times
AccuWeather
CBS YourDay
SB Nation
Sportacular
MLB At Bat
Cracked Reader
Bejeweled
Sporcle
Unblock Me
Backgammon

WWF
Scrabble
Crosswords
Lexulous

Angry Birds
Moron Test
Temple Run
DrawSome
Fruit Ninja
Minecraft
Sketchman
Tetris
iFitness
Livestrong
WebMD
ZocDoc

2

I went the opposite direction going form android to iOS. I don’t think I’ll be going back to android anytime soon.
I’m more into getting rid of clutter, simplifying things, and not having to learn how to use everything. The iPhones did that for me.
I read a review recently about the newest Samsung Galaxy and they said while it was a nice piece of hardware it was just too bogged down with preloaded crap from Samsung that you couldn’t get rid of. 5 different ways to watch a video and you never know which one is going to work. I hated all that garbage.
Some people like that though and think more is better, like to wade through the dozen different ways to perform a task and customize it to how they like it. I’m not into that. I have no need to customize a home screen with widgets on my phone.

3

I have devices on both platforms, and have used both regularly for several years (I need access to both for my job). I vastly prefer iPhones, but I do think that at this point it’s becoming more a matter of taste than true functionality (whereas a couple of years ago, Android was way behind on what you could actually get done). I don’t think there’s really a definitive way to answer this for you.

4

I flip-flop back and forth between iOS and Android. I’m currently on the iPhone 5. So you can always go back if you want.

Obviously, the flexibility of Android blows iOS out of the water, but the fragmentation of Android is very, very annoying. Major Android version updates are slow and sometimes stop altogether, unless you get one of the Nexuses (Nexii?).

If games are important to you, I don’t think you can beat iOS. I’ve even found the iOS versions of cross-platform games to be superior to the Android versions; for example, Android Fruit Ninja lagged considerably for a long time. I think it finally has the pomegranate now, but I got tired of waiting.

Oh, also, your battery life is going to be terrible. With that said, I’m probably going back to Android again next year.

5

I read that review too (was it David Pogue’s review in the NY Times?), but elsewhere I’ve read that there are relatively simple procedures for clearing up the “preloaded crap” to retain only what you want. I’ll have to do some research on what exactly that means.

I’d gladly switch (back) to an iPhone if they came out with a larger and more edge-to-edge screen. iPhone 6?

As far as iOS updates go, as far as I can tell they mainly do things like fix security problems, antenna power issues from some time ago, and add features to the built-in apps, such as replacing Google Maps with something utterly useless for at least several weeks. :stuck_out_tongue: What kinds of updates to Android involve what kinds of changes?

Games are not at all important to me, at least from a technological perspective - I do play games on my phone, but mostly word or card games like crosswords, Scrabble, Words With Friends, Bridge or Cribbage or something. Not actual video games like Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja, though I do have them on my phone, and my kids play Temple Run all the time.

6

I’ve lived in both the Android and iOS world. You’ll be fine with the Android phone. The pluses include better Gmail and Google maps integration and Swype, which I miss with every fiber of my being since switching to an iPhone. Seriously, learn how to use Swype, you’ll thank me for it. The minuses include having to reboot more often and the whole thing eventually becoming horribly unstable as your device manufacturer stops supporting it in favor of the latest models, but hopefully that won’t be for a while.

7

They’re actually pretty significant changes, like going from iOS 5 to iOS 6. I’m sure you know this already, but Android versions have alphabetically sequential dessert codenames, e.g., gingerbread, honeycomb, ice cream sandwich, and sometimes they’re drastically different. But Apple seems to do a better job making those kinds of updates available to older devices. With a carrier-sold Android device, you might get one or two upgrades if you’re lucky and then it’s EOL. And sometimes the Android version is already out of date the day you buy it, and you can’t update until the carrier approves the kernel 6 months after Google releases it.

8

Or, just get a Nexus phone (best value, anyway) and don’t have those issues. Or, if you’re more technically minded and don’t have a Nexus, just root the phone and flash a ROM, and give your carrier the finger.

9

I like Android better, but you do have to root it and install something like Nova. Better yet install cyanogen mod and then something like nova. When you have this level of customization, an android phone is much better than the iphone IMHO. When just using a stock Verizon or blur or whatever, the iPhone is actually superior. Ymmv.

10

I tried that but I hated using an Android phone. It felt great going back to the iPhone.

11

I started with an android phone, then went to an iPhone, and dumped the iPhone for a Windows phone. to me the biggest annoyances were the small, cramped display and the fact that Apple’s idea of a “home” screen is a place for shitting app icons all over hell. it gets cluttered fast. WP8 and Android leave the contents of the home screen up to you and put the list of apps one tap away.

OTOH I switched from an iPad 2 to a Nexus 10, which I like a lot more.

12

not having a dog in this fight I have to ask what is involved in transferring the software listed above to either phone?

13

I use my Android as a portable computer as cell phone service here in my valley is catch as catch can and spending an extra $40 a month for something I rarely use is senseless.

Given that, I find the Google apps available online to be quite remarkable. I used Google Sky a few days ago to teach a 5 year old girl about what the names of the stars and planets were. No… not all of them. Just the bright ones she could ask about. Couldn’t have done that without one of these little gizmos.

They seem to me to more flexible than the much vaunted iPhone architecture. But, I have always disliked closed architecture system in computers. So, this may be one of those pseudo-religious discussions at one level. And, yes, a Galaxy class starship could totally take out a Star Destroyer. You can’t imagine the conversations I have had about the Android and the iPhone. With people on both ends who are users of this tech and buy deeply into the marketing and mythos associated with each. Ye gads! It is as if they wish to take sabers to each other from 40 feet at a run.

We do get attached to our toys, now don’t we?

14

As far as I can tell, hunting down the equivalent Android app and installing it. There’s no transfer facility, and for the pay apps (like MLB AtBat) I assume I’ll have to pay all over again, as the original iOS purchase was done through iTunes with an AppleID and all that.

What has driven me off the iPhone is the smaller, cramped screen and my ever burgeoning set of app boxes, and the slow speed of the phone (and on the 4S, the continuing lack of LTE). Swappable battery is a very nice feature too, much better than “juice packs” that thicken the phone or dangle off as an accessory.

On the other hand, what Giraffe included as first-person experienced minuses as “having to reboot more often and the whole thing eventually becoming horribly unstable” is worrisome. Speed is critical but stability is a close second. Overall I have very little to quibble with about the quality of apps on iOS, they work and they play well with each other and when they crash, don’t cause instability on my phone as a whole. I do still have to reboot my phone every once in a while, but it’s fairly rare.

In the end, I figure a hot phone like the S4 will be easy to resell after a few months if I hate it and would rather get the iPhone 6, whenever that comes out. I’ll eat some money in the swap, but it will be the price of “seeing how the other half lives”. Or, maybe my daughter will love using it and I’ll upgrade her line to the iPhone 6 while swapping devices with her.

Rooting my phone, installing Cyanogen, Nova, … I’ll have to Google these things to see what they mean and how to do it, and if it really should be a Day One With New Device type of thing :slight_smile:

15

I decided to give Android a try just a few weeks ago. It’s OK, still getting used to it. Swype is fantastic. Some of the social networks-related integration seems to work a lot better on Android. But I do notice that Android makes me work to figure some things out; might just me being getting used to a different system, but I never really ever had that problem with the iPhone, even the first time I got it.

We’ll see what happens when I’m up for my free upgrade next year…

16

Actually, my biggest beef so far is with the on/off button: on iPhones, it’s on the top of the handset. On my phone, it’s on the side, directly across from the volume control, which I invariably hit/adjust while trying to hit the on/off button. Drives me nuts.

17

I also switched from iOS to Android in 2010, and I never looked back. There are only a couple things I prefer on iOS.

I am a bit of a “power user,” though. I’ve rooted all my Android phones (3 thus far, the original Galaxy S Epic, the original Evo, and now the Galaxy Nexus,) and I’ve rooted all of them, and installed custom ROMs on the first two. Thankfully, since the Nexus is stock and free of carrier and manufacturer “bloatware,” I didn’t feel a need to get a custom ROM.

In terms of things Android does better, the widgets are amazing, because you can easily see things like weather, sports scores, etc… right on the desktop without having to open an app. Notifications are also much better on Android. Getting icons in the notification bar for new texts, calls, emails, etc… is great, and then “pulling down” on it to get the notification shade is amazing. It gives you the first few lines of the emails, texts, etc… you’ve gotten, and tapping them goes right to the app, etc…Really well done.

And it wasn’t until I went to Android did I realize how much I hated iOS’s “row after row of icons”-style desktop. Having an “app drawer” be separate from the “desktop” feels better to me, and in a way, closer to what most PCs are, so it’s intuitive. And it allows you to really customize how your phone looks. Here’s my main screen:

And now that I’ve seen it blown up all big like, I’ve noticed there’s a tiny gap between the bottom of my shortcut’s and the top of the Action Bar. Now I’ll have to try and fix that…and my icons look blurry, but on the small screen, you can’t really tell.

18

Help is on the way…Apple And Nuance Deliberating Bringing Swype Keyboard To iOS | Ubergizmo

19

This isn’t as much of an issue as it seems – by the time that happens, the new bottom tier (i.e. free or cheap) phones will be roughly comparable to your mid-to-upper tier phone from a couple years ago. (Of course, you might want the new level of mid-to-upper tier, but in that case you’ll have to pay again anyway regardless of upgrade availability for the old phone).

One advantage of Android is that upgrading your phone won’t entail buying a new set of proprietary cables and chargers.

20

bouv, what icon set are you using for your sidebar? That’s pretty neat.

I switched from iOS to Android (specifically, the Galaxy S3) a few months ago. Here’s my list of the pros on each:

iOS:
PRO:
Very user-friendly.
Better battery life.
*Lots *of accessories.
Better peripheral integration (my car bluetooth easily works with the iPhone, hardly works with the S3).
Larger app store.

Android:
No iTunes.
Replaceable battery.
Expandable storage.
No fuckin’ iTunes.
Cheaper (I got mine for free with a two-year agreement, and they bought me out of my old contract).
Very customizable (rooting is ridiculously easy).
Seriously, no iTunes- just drag n’ drop files onto your phone.

As soon as my contract runs out, I’m going to switch back to the iPhone. I like being able to customize my phone the way I want, but I can’t find a decent pair of earbuds for the S3, and it only *kinda *works with my bluetooth stuff.