To be honest I think the phones are very equal which is actually why I want the opinions to color my decision because I’m finding it hard to decide. I bought the phone, but I’m not set on switching to it so I wanted to hear what people have to say before I get it.

Sometimes experiences are useful and I’ve heard experiences from people who use their phone very similar to me be happy with the switch. I’ll have to report back.

But yeah I’m conscious of the frugal part. I even calculated out how much my android phone has cost me in depreciation and decided that the best way to think about it was in terms of that.

For example; my Note 10 plus cost about $1000 new and I’ve had it about 4 years, now it’s worth $250. So my cost is roughly $200 to own the phone over that time. However, I can (and did) buy an iPhone 12 pro max for $600 and I expect it to follow a similar depreciation at $150 per year-ish.

So when people say that apple phones are more expensive, they’re right, but there’s an upfront investment. After that, owning a used iPhone is similar to owning a used android phone. Just a thought.

I don’t see why this is cynical. They fell pretty flat on their face with windows 8 (no explanation necessary) and then made a Frankenstein job out of windows 10. I have zero idea what the plan is here.

You’re not wrong about all of this. I wasn’t trying to tribalize or start a fight (said so in my post even) because I know that people do that. However, my view has changed from when I last owned an iphone.

When I last owned an iphone, the fights made sense. I could see why people fought over platforms because they were very different and comparing and contrasting them at the time was pretty difficult to do directly. Like was it better to have back and forward button bars? Or were curved phone edges a good idea?

But nowadays my opinion is diffent. Phones do a lot of the same things. They’re all very mature platforms for the most part. So when I ask my question I’m asking why, for most general use cases, anyone would want an android. And the response I’m getting back for the most part is: you don’t.

This is coming from someone who desperately wants the competition. I ditched iphone about a decade ago when the S7 edge was a thing. I left behind all of the features iphones have for connecting with people for a platform that I believed had better tech, was more affordable, and had similar software support.

Nowadays I’m looking at the platforms and most of my reasons no longer make sense. Android phones are expensive. They aren’t at apples level, but some of them are and none of them hold value. So why not wait two years and get a brand new android? Because the software updates aren’t going to keep up. So for a higher initial investment, I can get a phone that will have decent resale value when I’m ready to upgrade and still get software updates.

All of this is to say that my ability to connect with friends over FaceTime and imessage aren’t worth sticking it out on android to me. I don’t see a lot of hope for the platform in the directions I want. I haven’t seen the improvements I was hoping for. And so I’m jumping ship. Maybe I’ll be back, maybe I’ll hate iphone, we shall see!

Which is why reddit has been a target for gorilla marketing campaigns for a while now. I only trust review sites that I follow now

I’ve had similar experiences with android phones, seems like an older gen tech problem so I want to see if that’s still an issue.

I appreciate the detailed response, it’s good info. I’ll just respond to the curiousity part. I mean that their phones and tech seem to be maturing and aren’t slowing down. I saw their last WWDC and I know most of it is marketing but even then, it seems like all of their interface gets updates yearly. I can’t say the same for Android phones as I never see updates aside from major ones. And when they happen, I have no idea what’s in them.

Like the messaging app on iPhone is light years ahead of anything available on Android. FaceTime continues to be a standard for calling and alternatives exist but Google has changed the service they use like twice now since I’ve been on Android I think. Not to mention that Google meet is just… not good enough. FaceID isn’t a thing really. The health apps on iOS aren’t talked about enough and they’re pretty good as far as I know. Privacy still does seem to be with iphone, the ad blocking is great.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s some Android phones that do some of these things really well or maybe even better. But the iOS stuff is just a really good package overall that delivers a consistent experience. And from what I’ve had in my decade on Android, it continues to be inconsistent for me.

I mean, getting files off of iphones is certainly a hurdle but I can’t say I do it often. I back up my photos and videos, so I don’t know what else I’d use on my phone in the way of files.

Ah I’m jealous! I can’t afford a foldable but they’re very cool tech so enjoy it!

Luckily for me, my partner owns a lot of Apple devices which is what pressured me to switch and talk about this. So in my use case I think it makes more sense potentially. Thanks for the feedback though, cheers!

Thanks for the feedback! The price is a sticking point but I’m not worried about it because I’m buying used and Apple products seem to have very good resell value. My 4 year old note 10 plus is worth about a 4th of what I bought it for. Meanwhile iphone 11 and 12 pro max phones are worth literally double that or more while starting at the same price. It’s wild.

Also luckily for me, my partner has a lot of apple tech so I expect I’ll be just fine in that regard. Other than the phone, I can mooch of of them lol.

I appreciate that response, very detailed. To be clear I don’t blame Google for not fixing the RCS thing. I just dont see them making any progress. Even if RCS gets through, every android messaging service is still far behind Apple and would take awhile to catch up. iMessage can send payments, play games, has custom reactions, a whole ton of stuff.

And fingerprint is nice, but most android phones have switched to under the screen readers and I just can’t. They’re extremely inconvenient when compared to scanning my face which is always looking at the device anyways.

And the OS support is a sticking point. Google and Samsung both suck at this and I can point it out using the Material You thing they did. When it came out, I had no idea what the features were. I had to go watch videos and even then, it didn’t seem like a big upgrade. Because it wasn’t a big functional upgrade for me. And then Samsung had no clue when it would even come to my Note 10 device. So I was left going: what is this update? When will I have it? And why should I care?. I couldn’t answer any of those and its a problem with every Google update imo. Because some features only come go the pixel. And then others will be changed by Samsung.

Not to mention that Google doesn’t provide support for their features anyways and frequently drops them. Like Apple arcade crushes it while the best that Google can do with gaming is just do a poor imitation of it with zero support.

So I’m just a little tired of thinking that android phones will improve these things and thought I’d at least try the other side for a change.

I hear you on all of these points. But I asked myself if I can live with those flaws to have something that works more seamlessly and doesn’t have the social cost of not having iMessage. Turns out, I feel like I can. Some of us must choose the dark side I guess. But like I’ve said, I’m not opposed to coming back to android if they can get some of my gripes with the platform ironed out. Like if everyone switched to using whatsapp around me or went to signal, I wouldn’t bother switching.

I think that this statement is only made by people who enjoy tinkering and adjusting their devices. To a certain extent, apple let’s you do that. You can change plenty of settings on an iPhone. Sure stuff is off limits, but I wouldn’t be complaining that Android Auto treats me like a child because I can’t modify it. The customization and adultification is only good if you’re going to use it or are okay with complexity.

And as I pointed out, they’ve developed a lot of unique features at this point that other phones are struggling with. It’s the competition between dumb simplicity and focus vs trying to appeal to everyone. And that’s fine, like I said it’s not a war.

No notes here, my thoughts exactly. I will say though, the info regarding android updates on older phones is a mess. Like okay new android update, but when will my phone get it? Or will it at all? No clue. It’s frustrating that I can’t even tell if or when or what I’ll get in any android update.

I appreciate the thorough response, thanks! And I hear most of this but I’d give some pushback on a few things. Most of this comes from experience with Samsung devices so keep that in mind.

I recognize that the RCS thing is an apple problem that they’re making. But my issue is that even if they solved RCS, I think that iMessage is still somewhat running away with messaging and I can’t convince anyone to use signal. I like the security, but signal isn’t very feature rich. And I’m kind of done waiting for a better android alternative to exist unfortunately. If it did, I might come back.

FaceID: I too love the fingerprint reader. My Note 10 isn’t great with having it under the screen and I’d prefer face unlock personally. I can’t imagine FaceID to be any less convenient than having a wet finger and being unable to scan it. So I’d call that neutral for me personally.

iMessage: I know I’m rewarding them, I hate it, wish I could live without it but it’s stopping me from getting video messages from people.

Home Screen UX: it’s less about customization (not being able to place apps in certain places bugs me) but more about the design language itself. I guess less about the home screen specifically and I mean more about the general UI layout, drawers, and control panel. All those are mature on android and I just fine the Apple stuff easier to visually control. Especially comparing the Apple stuff to OneUI or material you. I know I can fix some of what I’m talking about, but I don’t necessarily want to fiddle with it.

And Battery: isn’t usually a problem for me with a note device, but I’ve had issues before. Like a weird bug used to drain battery for no reason (Linus of LTT noted this a few times on his Note device). But in general, Apple seems to be making advances in efficiency that aren’t present in android devices yet. Hence the larger (and heavier) batteries in many devices.

Again not trying to start a war, don’t feel obligated to respond. Just hope that explains my thoughts here.

That’s pretty comforting. I’m kind of nervous to switch but it’d good to hear you haven’t had a bad experience

True but won’t be hard to fix in the future.

Oh yeah I tried it. And it even worked better than jerboa in some ways until jerboa had some updates. It still has some features that jerboa doesn’t have, like opening links to other instances within your own instance (that’s a huge problem right now for me). So yeah the webpage version is still competitive with this app but probably not for too long.

Or lowest age to work without parental consent. Otherwise 16 year olds can’t vote for who gets to tax them.

That’s the worrying part of this trend. The local coffee shop might still give their employees the tips. But the local chain fast food place? No. I’ve had subway workers tell me that directly. They said “don’t tip me, I don’t get any of it” and sonic employees will sometimes tell you the same.

Thats fair but I don’t think this description is entirely accurate either. And I do think it’s a big scummy because minimum wage is already very low. So putting employees tips into their wages is just employers taking advantage. It’s legal, yes, but it’s bad for everyone except the employer.