So because I was a Microsoft employee all my smartphones for the last 5+ years have been windows phones, well it turns out today that windows phone is officially dead.
So I am now going to change eco-systems and it’s not something I want to do often. However, I have limited knowledge of the pros and cons of each system. I tend to have little nit picks about devices and usually it is the small things that make or break a phone for me.
For example on windows phone I could watch a video on youtube and read the comments at the same time, I used an iphone at work for a while and if there was a video playing it had to be full screen which really annoyed me. I could read a hundred articles about the iPhone and probably never see that feature mentioned.
I’m deciding if I want to pull the trigger on the Samsung s8+ or possibly the iPhone 7 plus. Can you give your review about the little things that bug you and/or you love about your favorite phone? BTW I’m a very technical person
I was just able to watch a Youtube video on my iPhone that played at the top of the screen while allowing me to read the comments in lower part of the screen at the same time. Mine’s a 6 Plus, don’t know if that matters.
I have to imagine your specific complaint is really about the iOS YouTube app (written by Google, most likely), rather than the iPhone itself. Either way, the latest app does allow what you want. I’m not sure if you were using a really old version before or just trying to view things in the web browser.
I’ve used the iPhone for quite a few years now. My long term trend appears to be to gradually get annoyed about a lot of little things about my phone and then switch to whichever one of Android or Apple that I’m not currently using. That said, my previous experience was Android was fairly poor, and personally I didn’t like a lot of the way the UI worked, so I’ll probably stick with Apple for a while. I think this is pretty subjective though. I’d spend a bit of time with each in the store trying to get used to their quirks. Enough people swear by each one that I’d say they’re both perfectly fine, and the differences are really in the margins and a matter of personal taste.
You stuck with Windows phone for a long time. My wife used to really like hers that she got through work (not a Microsoft employee), but their neglect of the platform really became too hard to ignore. Case in point: trying to download a kid’s show for an airplane trip through the Microsoft Store, and getting codec related errors because they just couldn’t be bothered to support the platform! Microsoft seems to have developed some really terrible habits of completely screwing over any customer that makes the mistake of choosing them. I have to wonder if anyone is actually at the helm.
I have an iphone 5 and I love it, but I don’t know how to use it. I just hand it to my daughter and she takes care of it for me. I probably don’t deserve anything but a flip phone. Lol
I think I’ve used it for directions once, and my daughter set it up where Siri calls me sexy. I’d be just fine with a flip phone, and would ignore it the same as I do my iphone.
One reason I’m not sure I want android is that I’m not really fond of Google and their business practices. Any time I use google I feel like the product rather than the customer.
I’ve had an iphone 6 and a bunch of different android phones. I’m happy with either OS really, but tend to favour certain android phones(mostly Samsung’s flagships) with amoled displays over Apple’s IPS tech. In functionality and build quality, I put Samsung flagships and Apple on par ever since the S6/7 released. For GUI I easily rank it as:
TouchWiz < iOS < Stock android
Any other opinion on gui is WRONG! But touchwiz has gotten a lot better in recent iterations.
If you’re a very technical person and want to do technical things with your phone, I would get an Android, no hesitation. I think a Galaxy S8 would be a good choice, or a Google Nexus phone, they tend to get more frequent updates than most other Android phones. I tend to prefer phones with a removable battery and microSD card slot though, I think you have to go back to a Galaxy S5 for that. I have a Galaxy S4 with a 64GB microSD and it still works great for me but I’m not heavy into apps any more. Just basic texting, email, browsing, and photos.
Android Pros
-MicroSD slot (depending on the model)
-Removable battery (depending on the model)
-Full access to file system. Plug an Android phone into a computer and you can freely copy files to/from the internal phone storage or microSD. You can’t on an iPhone, it only gives you access to the standard DCIM photo folder AFAIK
-Very customizable, you can easily install dozens of different launchers that change the whole look/feel of the desktop
-No iTunes. Seriously, check out iTunes before you decide to go Apple. Most people hate it or at least dislike it.
iPhone Pros
-Easy to use
-Frequent security updates
-Potentially more secure
It is true that Google is seemingly more evil all the time, but Apple will put you in a walled garden where you can’t hurt yourself and give you crappy iTunes software that is required to move music/photos back and forth to your phone. Forget having filesystem access, plug an iPhone into a PC and it immediately starts asking for iTunes. And if your phone storage gets full Apple sells you cloud storage rather than equipping their hardware with a microSD slot.
Overall Google/Gmail/etc. works well, your Google account stores all your Android settings, email, contacts, apps, etc. and allows you to move to a new device with only a few hiccups but nothing major. Android has more choices and capability than Apple.
SWMBO and I are long-time Galaxy users. I love the Galaxy.
Last time we renewed, though, the Sprint guy talked us into iPhones. Ghods, what a piece of shit that phone is. When the contract is up, I’m going back to Galaxy. I may find a way to break my iPhone before that so I can go back sooner.
Google ran out of numbers for their Nexus line, so they started calling their new phones “Pixel” instead. Also, I think they manufacture them now, instead of contracting out to Motorola, Samsung, etc, like they did for the Nexuses.
I’m a big fan of both. I don’t know what I’ll do without Cyanogenmod now, though. It was a big plus to Android, and especially the easily unlockable Google Nexus/Pixel devices. There are other ROMs out there, I guess.