After spending over a decade with various Android phones, I finally made the switch to an iPhone. Here’s why I made the switch and what I’ve discovered since.
The Struggles with Samsung/Android
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Slow Shutter on Samsung Flagships: One of my biggest gripes with Samsung’s flagship phones has been the slow shutter and shutter lag. Trying to capture a moving subjects often resulted in blurry photos or missed shots entirely. This has been an issue with Samsung phones for many years.
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Google’s Service Abandonment: Google has a notorious history of abandoning services. The most recent one being the Podcasts app. The podcast experience on YouTube Music is just terrible.
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Hardware Design: The Samsung S24 Ultra has sharp corners that make it uncomfortable to hold. The Pixel 8 phones have issues with connectivity and overheating. The S24+ comes with an inferior Exynos processor.
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Performance: No matter how fast the hardware is, Android phones always seem to slow down and stutter after a few months of use. It’s like they age in dog years. (My most recent Samsung phone was the S23+, and it already started lagging).
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Apps: Android apps have an inconsistent look and feel. It’s like a patchwork quilt made by someone who doesn’t know how to sew. Also, a lot of Android apps require excessive permissions.
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Disaster: A Samsung update once made my phone unbootable. I had to do a full reset and lost some data. People said I should have made a backup before the update, but Android doesn’t provide an easy way to completely backup the phone. That was the last straw.
The iPhone Revelation
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Shortcuts: The Shortcuts app on iPhone is a game-changer. It automates tasks in ways I never thought possible.
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Face ID: Face ID on the iPhone is leagues ahead of Samsung’s version and even better than Touch ID. It’s fast, reliable, and just works. With the amount of unlocks I need everyday, this turns out to be more impactful than I expected.
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Files App: The Files app is actually useful, and it has built-in support for Windows file shares.
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Look & Feel: Everything on iOS feels smoother and more premium. The animations, the UI design – it’s all just so polished.
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Audio: It’s much easier to select audio output in-app when connected to multiple Bluetooth devices and AirPlay.
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Driving: CarPlay is a joy to use compared to Android Auto. Plus, Apple Maps has better voice directions.
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Emulators: Emulators are now possible to use on iPhone without jailbreaking.
Switching to iPhone has been a breath of fresh air. While Android gave me more freedom and customizations. The consistency, reliability, and overall experience of iOS have won me over.
What was your experience switching to/from “the dark side”?
I dont know what was your problem with slowdowns. I’ve been rocking s8plus and now s22ultra and the only times when either were restarted was an update. I can agree with your point about design but its basically a different approach to development as with iphone you must use certain elements whereas with android you can do what you want.
As someone who did the same as OP in around 2018 I came back when the pixel 6 pro came out. OP says Shortcuts, I say tasker. OP says “Samsung/android” I say Samsung is not “android”. Yes it builds on it but iPhone is a single phone made by a single manufacturer. So is Samsung. Samsung doesn’t make LGs phones. Some comparisons are quite weak. I also ran into older looking apps when I used it in 2018.
Just use what you like, I like my phone to do what I want it to. Nextcloud photo sync worked like shit. Keepass app was not great. Tasker is amazing. Ssh clients were shit compared to Android. iPhone felt too much like it was telling me how to use my phone. I know I’m probably considered more of a “power user” than most.