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"?
Hell no. Fuck all of them. My point is get off the corporate cycle.
You're phone isn't dead just because two years have gone by and Apple/Samsung/Google tell you so. Stop giving them money and use your phones for longer, or preferably (though understandably much more difficult for most regular people so not really feasible for most) replace the built in software with privacy respecting alternatives that don't send all your data back to their home office.
Sure. Keep your phone until it’s dead, I’m all for that. Same with cars. But when it goes, what do you replace it with?
Are you going to build your own car? That’s awesome if you can and have the time. Otherwise, you’re going to buy a car, hopefully used, that was still built by EvilCorp.
Same with your phone.
I drive a Tesla; bought it used. Elon is a shit human. Know who else is a shit human? Literally every CEO of every car company in the world.
I have an iPhone. Bought it used. Tim Cook is a shit human. Know who else is a shit human? Literally every CEO of every major tech company in the world.
I work for NVIDIA. I make them a lot of money and they pay me very well. Do I think Jensen Huang is a shit human? Fuck yes I do, he exploits people the same way every other CEO ever does.
But what can I do? I self-host most of my services and pay for privacy-respecting ones that I don’t. But I’m a career IT worker; I know how to do that. Most people don’t even know what Linux is.
Sure, I could just move to Baja and live a Mexico beach bum lifestyle. Doesn’t sound so bad until one thinks a little deeper about it.
You do what you can, when you can. Every bit helps. Buying your iPhone used is a great thing. Self-hosting services. Also great.
There is no "one" solution that is ever going to be perfect, because the corporate greed has been allowed to run rampant as far back as the 80s. Reaganomics took us from a world where company "x" would make a product, attach a reasonable profit margin to it (usually 30-40 percent) and be happy with that. Then shareholders came along and suddenly it wasn't about a profit margin, it was about INCREASING a stock price at the expense of everything else. At the expense of customers. At the expense of employees. At the expense of the environment.
But all we can do is do what we can, when we can. Otherwise we're rapidly heading for the movie "Elysium", where the super rich live on a space station (or other paradise) while the rest of us are in slums. The only difference being is that unlike Elysium, no one in the slums will notice or care, as long as long as they can spend a months wages on the new hotness each year.