Intro
This post is inspired by a post titled "Android to iPhone, whats it like? (Update)" by @CleoTheWizard@beehaw.org.
I grew up with an iPad and desktop computers and my family members also had Apple products. When I had the chance to purchase my first phone I did lots of research, I looked up the best smartphones at the time, I saw videos from Marques Brownlee, EverythingApplePro, Unbox Therapy, etc. It was a tough decision between Samsung S7 but I ended up getting the iPhone 7. Apple was all the rage at school, I got hooked into the ecosystem, even bought the first Airpods, used iMessage, and all the other Apple stuff. Their UI is very polished. I was even an iOS beta tester all 4 years I had it.
iPhone Experience
2 years ago, my iPhone 7 started to have severe battery issues and so I decided it was time to upgrade. I also did research on my phone choices at the time too. This time it was between the iPhone 13 and Samsung S22. I did a bunch of research on this one too, much like my previous phone and ended up choosing the iPhone 13. I preordered the phone right when it opened but then I changed my mind, I wanted a different color, so I canceled it but the color was gone. So, I ordered the Samsung S22. However, when I was doing my research, I got into privacy and security and the r/degoogle subreddit. So I saw these solutions like CalyxOS and GrapheneOS. I then cancelled that Samsung S22 order. I was amazed, I saw how private and secure these solutions were without even having to touch Google or Apple. Stuff like the Aurora Store and Fdroid sounded like really cool stuff. I cancelled my Samsung S22 order and bought a used Pixel 5, because I didn't want to directly support Google.
CalyxOS on Android Experience
I started off with CalyxOS because GrapheneOS sounded really hardcore and hard to use. The experience was amazing. I really liked Netguard and the firewalls for the apps. I used ProtonVPN, ProtonMail, Bitwarden, Signal. My ecosystem of Foss, privacy, and security was complete. However, after a year or so of using the OS, it started getting buggy. My distinctly remember that my volume would magically keep on raising to the max volume, it was a terrible bug. I would watch videos or listen to music and it will shoot up to 100% like someone was holding the power button. I tried to look up answers on this issue and couldn't find any solutions so I decided to try out GrapheneOS.
GrapheneOS on Android Experience
I figured I heard a lot about this amazing project and so I should get on it before my device is no longer supported. I think I'm about a year into using GrapheneOS and I can say that it is amazing. It felt like a more refined deGoogled OS. I felt like CalyxOS was more like a few devs coming together and throwing some security tools and hardening it a bit but GrapheneOS has a much larger and dedicated team and truly making it the most private and secure Android operating system. With the compartmentalizing of Google Play Services or whatever it's called. I even found out that when using Location, they have their own SUPL and PSDS proxy servers. Instead of using Netguard, GrapheneOS has network permission toggles much like for mic and cam access. It's truly the best phone OS I have ever used. People can safely use Google Play Store like nothing happened and all the information is segregated and protected. It's been pretty stable and I couldn't be happier.
TLDR and Recommendations
That being said, iOS has its strength and weaknesses. Apple being very locked down and hard to break and mess up, Android being less refined and even more so the more you branch out away from Google. Would I change what I did? Not really, all of this helped me gain experience and evolve as a person. Would I recommend it to other people? I recommend GrapheneOS, if you are tech savvy and want to mess with phones a bit. The argument is fairly similar between the argument between Windows and Linux. Do you want to use something better and free you'll need to play around with or use something locked and just works at the cost of freedom, privacy, and security?
The official websites can probably explain it better than me:
I had quite a steep degoogling journey. I bought a Pixel 3a half a year ago to try out some custom roms. Calyx was nice but I decided to go with Graphene on my main phone (Pixel 6) because in some way I was and am dependend on some Google Apps and services like chromecasting my kid's TV shows to the telly.
Installation was fine, it is stable and in theory has all the features I need.
I already had my Nextcloud set up, used that for contacts and my calendar, switched to Proton, used more and more alternative apps like FreeOTP instead of Google authenticator and so on.
But after a long vacation road trip with my electric car it was a little tedious to not having Google maps and Android Car to get me more easily to the next charging station.
And a few little things added up like not having 90hz support. So I wanted to tip my toe in stock Android again to see if I was just annoyed by Android in general or by Graphene.
And "sadly" Stock feels like a new and better phone to me, much smoother more features etc.
For now I'm staying on Stock, but I know that I could switch anytime when Trump will be President again and cuts ties to the European Union and Google is expelled from Ireland in the process.
Hey, crazier things happened in the last 10 years.
But I won't lose my children's photos because I just uploaded those to a google service and I'm as degoogled as you can be without a custom rom which is kinda nice.
DeGoogling doesn't mean you need to run these hardened operating systems. Sure they might offer more protections than stock, but everything you've done is amazing. You're still independent from Google and don't rely on Apple either. Though, you might consider running some kind of adblocking or vpn with a blocklist because I notice that stock Android still has a lot of weird stuff running.
Pi-Hole for home, Personal DNS Filter on the Go. :)
Seems like a good setup you're running then.