Picked up an iP XS yesterday...

Zorachus said:
Swipe down brings up app search ? That's a strange function. Swiping down on the screen should lower the notification shade for easier access to missed texts or calls.

iOS works in such a weird way.

How do you apply a dark theme to get rid of the blinding white everywhere in iOS ?

No Back key is still my biggest gripe on iOS, it just works so well in Windows Phone and Android. And no software home key either.

So in new iOS you need to swipe that bottom flat line up to go home? That seems a bit harder than just tapping a home key in Android.

And to go back in iOS it's swipe gestures ? Or sometimes a very tiny back key usually way up in some top corner of an app ? Swiping instead of a dedicated back key, to me, never works as well. A real software back key is always there, and always works 100%. Swiping to go back seems to usually work, but can missed or not swiped properly and you need to do it a couple times. I'd rather have a back key always there.
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Notification shade comes down if you swipe down from the top of the screen. The search function comes from swiping down in the middle of the screen when on the home screen.

Dark theme would be nice obviously, but again; how much time do I actually spend in the actual iOS settings app? Everything else is a translucent "shade" pane that comes down unlike in Android where its usually a solid color so it doesn't need it as badly.

The "back key" is a simple swipe from the left side of the screen. Very easy.

Not sure how a swipe is harder than a tap...? That's a bit of a stretch. They're both incredibly simple gestures. In the year that I've used swipe gestures I haven't missed swiping up on the home button and maybe have only had a "back" swipe not read 3 or 4 times out of hundreds if not thousands.

Also, I think your post is a bit contradictory. You indicate there is no back button or software home button then mention how both are implemented using simple swipe gestures. I'm a bit confused.

Zorachus said:
Incoming phone call in iOS ? If you're currently typing a text and a phone call comes in, does it still come at you screaming in full screen, kicking you out of your text, and taking up the entire display ?

I mean really ? In 2018. An incoming call should come in as a banner across the top only, with options to accept or decline, when your already in an app.

No T9 disker either in iOS ? Really ?
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The incoming call screen is still bullshit on iOS and I hate it. How this continues to be overlooked is beyond me so I'll agree with you on this.

Not sure what a T9 disker is; but if its in reference to T9 text input then I have to throw the "dude, its 2018" phrase at you. I haven't used T9 since 2006.

And I'll add in one of my own personal gripes for iOS - FIX THE FUCKING CAMERA SETTINGS LOCATION. How these settings are not within the camera app itself is beyond me.
 
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Thanks for the reply. I'm not bitching more curious.

T9 means you start inputting a phone number or name and the contact comes up right away, when you first put in a couple numbers or letters.

Dark theme is way more than the Settings. iMessage being dark. Phone app being dark. Email app being dark. Whole point is get rid of the bright white, and offer a more pleasing dark look.
 
Zorachus said:
Thanks for the reply. I'm not bitching more curious.

T9 means you start inputting a phone number or name and the contact comes up right away, when you first put in a couple numbers or letters.

Dark theme is way more than the Settings. iMessage being dark. Phone app being dark. Email app being dark. Whole point is get rid of the bright white, and offer a more pleasing dark look.
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True. But to be fair, I believe stock Android didn't even implement dark mode until the latest Android P software update so iOS not having it yet shouldn't be seen as a, "wtf Apple" just yet. Apple just released dark mode for MacOS so I'm hoping that they'll do the same with iOS 13 next year.
 
exlink said:
True. But to be fair, I believe stock Android didn't even implement dark mode until the latest Android P software update so iOS not having it yet shouldn't be seen as a, "wtf Apple" just yet. Apple just released dark mode for MacOS so I'm hoping that they'll do the same with iOS 13 next year.
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Yeah stock Android hasn't had a dark mode since like ICS. No idea why they don't "officially" offer it ?

But Android has been offering stock dark mode for years. Stock. Not rooted. Scamsuck phones have it. LG phones have it. OnePlus phones have it. Almost every Android phone besides Nexus / Pixel offer it.

And with Apple going OLED last year, a dark theme is a must.

And AOD ( Always on Display ). Few years ago I thought was a gimmick, but now I think it's great and a must have.
 
Zorachus said:
Yeah stock Android hasn't had a dark mode since like ICS. No idea why they don't "officially" offer it ?

But Android has been offering stock dark mode for years. Stock. Not rooted. Scamsuck phones have it. LG phones have it. OnePlus phones have it. Almost every Android besides Nexus / Pixel.offer it.
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Yeah, but pretty much all Android "skins" suck except for the OnePlus. So while they offered dark mode, they were still garbage.

But I thought dark mode was implemented and natively supported by Android P now? I use it on my Essential phone - just discovered it actually this past week. Whoops.
 
I don't know how Zorachus really feels. But the dream of a perfect phone is still alive. Some of us have to nitpick on the details, or else we'll never reach that dream.
 
CHANG3D said:
I don't know how Zorachus really feels. But the dream of a perfect phone is still alive. Some of us have to nitpick on the details, or else we'll never reach that dream.
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The dream can be alive, but it'll never likely come true.

Too much variance in opinion. One person wants IP68 water/dust resistance while the other person wants a removable battery. One person wants an all metal chassis for durability while another person wants a glass back for wireless charging. One person wants a headphone jack while another person wants the thinnest phone possible.

Constant trade-offs so its essentially impossible to please everyone and make everyone's dream phone. Will just have to constantly buy the phone that is the closest to your "dream" and then settle.
 
Don't even get me started on app icons being stuck and not truly movable.

It blows me away, seriously unbelievable that in 2018, Apple still doesn't allow you to move app icons wherever you want on the screen. I cannot fathom how that still isn't allowed. This truly pisses me off, like Apple doesn't give a fuck, or even aware how outdated and ancient this makes a smartphone.

I like my most used apps on the bottom, right above the dock, for easy quick access to reach. And no other apps on the top part of the screen, and like to view a pretty or good wallpaper.

I don't want the home screen to look like "someone left the app drawer open" LOL
 
Zorachus said:
Don't even get me started on app icons being stuck and not truly movable.

It blows me away, seriously unbelievable that in 2018, Apple still doesn't allow you to move app icons wherever you want on the screen.

I like my most used apps on the bottom, right above the dock, for easy quick access to reach. And no other apps on the top part of the screen, and like to view a pretty or good wallpaper.

I don't want the home screen to look like "someone left the app drawer open" LOL
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You're the only person I know that uses their phone to stare at their wallpaper instead of using it for...you know...apps, calls, texts, and whatnot. ;)

Hell I don't even know what wallpaper I use on my desktop and laptop half the time because I don't even see that.

But to each their own.
 
Android has beautiful app icon packs and stunning wallpapers or photographs to put on your home screen and sometimes it's just nice to look at it for a few seconds and admire how pretty it all looks on these big full screens displays.

I don't like a cluttered ugly screen of apps that don't match, and you can't even see your wallpapers because all these app icons cover the entire screen. To me that's an outdated way too have a smartphone home screen.
 
Pretty pumped about the 12.1 update; dual SIM was one of the big reasons I upgraded to the XS from the X. Looking forward to not having to carry a second phone anymore!
 
Dual SIM is why I might ditch the Essential. But the OnePlus 6T is also dual SIM and will be offered by TMo. My Essential has been having the dreaded dropped signal issue lately ever since TMo finally started testing the 700MHz bandwidth in my area (finally!!), not to mention numerous soft restarts a day. While the soft restarts are vastly better than my GS9's frigging actually dying and needing hard restarts, I find it stupid to have to enter my device password so often like the phone really had restarted. Leaning towards iPhone cause OnePlus is untrustworthy.
 
Zorachus said:
Great point. I suppose I'd need to try the iPhone XS Max for the 14 day trial, to truly see
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I suspect some of your complaints from earlier would still stand (though T9 really doesn't matter), but it would provide a much clearer understanding of how the gesture interface works. As I like to put it: the interface isn't as immediately intuitive as the old home button approach, but it's fast and becomes very familiar before long.
 
Zorachus said:
Great point. I suppose I'd need to try the iPhone XS Max for the 14 day trial, to truly see
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Based on your complaints against iOS and what you desire in a mobile operating system I’ll just save you the trouble and say iOS isn’t for you - at least not in it’s current form.
 
If someone spIns off Android to use memory management like iOS and Windows Phone (save states with a few categories of apps that is approved for multitasking instead of all apps multitasking), it'll be pretty close to perfect. This memory allocation issue killing the launcher or other system vital tasks is what I don't like the most about Android. Shit like TouchWiz is even worse by using so much RAM that's there's hardly any free memory left. I can't even answer phone calls on that POS GS9 because the phone app just simply don't work. An iPhone with 3GB of RAM performs better than an Android with 8GB (though a superior processor might have a lot to do with that too).
 
CHANG3D said:
If someone spIns off Android to use memory management like iOS and Windows Phone (save states with a few categories of apps that is approved for multitasking instead of all apps multitasking), it'll be pretty close to perfect. This memory allocation issue killing the launcher or other system vital tasks is what I don't like the most about Android. Shit like TouchWiz is even worse by using so much RAM that's there's hardly any free memory left. I can't even answer phone calls on that POS GS9 because the phone app just simply don't work. An iPhone with 3GB of RAM performs better than an Android with 8GB (though a superior processor might have a lot to do with that too).
Click to expand...
iOS’ task manager is leaps and bounds better than Androids free for all approach
 
Not to get too far off topic. But that's why Nexus / Pixel phones have always been the best of Android, the smoothest most fluid and close to Apple's iPhone lag free enjoyable experience.

My Wife has the LG V30, it was a super bad ass phone when she first got it last year. Smooth. Fast. Lag free.

Fast forward now, phone is almost a year old, I was just playing with it. Wow it got laggy and slow. Stuttering, etc... And it's on security patch from August 1 almost three months old.

Same with her LG G6 before the V30. The G6 was great out of the box. Fast forward to the 8.0 Oreo update and the phone lags and sucks, she was always behind like 4 months on security updates.

My Pixel 2 XL, it's a year old, and seriously is just about as smooth as the first day. It still fluid and fast.

I've experienced only Nexus and Pixel Android phones staying smooth and lag free a year + later. Compared to LG, or Samsung phones, which a year later become a lag fest.
 
My Essential, aside from the frequent soft restarts now (I think it's just the launcher restarting), gives me no issues answering phone calls and it's smooth. But after setting up my mom's XR, I think I might pick up one myself. The XR is much lighter and the display is better. Sure, it's not the XS but I don't want to put a down payment for Jump On Demand. Also the dreaded signal drop is annoying. WiFi calling why I'm not really hating the Essential unlike the pathetic GS9.

Another annoying thing on the iPhone is there's a very fat bottom with the keyboard out. It's like they could fit another row of keys and then some. Once again, nitpicking.
 
Zorachus I've been a long time Android user who switched to iOS after about 8 years of hardcore Android power user usage (Roms, kernels, nova setups, substratum the works etc)

I've owned a few Nexus and Pixels, and the S7/ S7 Edge phones in the past. I actually like iOS.

I noticed the newer Androids were so good, I didn't need the ROM community. I was running my Pixel XL, Pixel 2 and Pixel 2XL stock and they were great. It made me realise that maybe we don't need certain tweaks and stuff if the phone just worked well.

When i bought the iPhone X, I'll be honest, I bought it to just give iOS a try. But the phone is nice. The gestures are super intuitive. It leaves Pie in the dust. And there are a couple of nice touches around the OS.

And there are a few things which Apple just does right... Displays are excellent, speakers are excellent, SOC and memory management is excellent, haptics are excellent, build quality and finish are excellent, software support is insanely better than Android. Battery life is meh but wireless charging helps. Compared to Andoid, it's rare to find the same combination. The Pixels hit the software on the mark, but the hardware is lackluster. The Samsungs hit the hardware on the mark but the software is lackluster. The middle ground is Oneplus 6 but that is again, just the middle ground... Middling display, middling camera, middling brand image etc.

And the icons are nice tbh. I consider it a challenge to pick a wallpaper which matches my mood as well as the icon grid colour palette. If they double down and give us dark mode and a few more software features (split screen multitasking) then the OS will have a layer of polish and added functionality.

I still don't think the phone is worth $1000 though. Not by a long shot. The Pixel 2 camera is substantially better, but I think the XS camera can go toe to toe against the best in the world and hold its own.
 
My boss sent me an XS Max, today. He hates that I'm the only one in the agency on Android. He told me I'm fired if I sell it. :ROFLMAO:
 
iOS 12.1 out now! Downloading it as I type this.

I shouldn't be so pumped for Dual-SIM, but man am I excited to merge two phones into one. Also interested to see how the selfie mode improved with the apparent SmartHDR fix.
 
exlink said:
iOS 12.1 out now! Downloading it as I type this.

I shouldn't be so pumped for Dual-SIM, but man am I excited to merge two phones into one. Also interested to see how the selfie mode improved with the apparent SmartHDR fix.
Click to expand...

Just don't expect to use it if you're on Verizon, not right now at least -- it's not activating eSIMs because of an issue where a Verizon SIM in the secondary slot is forced to use CDMA. There's a fix coming by the end of the year, but still...
 
Aurelius said:
Just don't expect to use it if you're on Verizon, not right now at least -- it's not activating eSIMs because of an issue where a Verizon SIM in the secondary slot is forced to use CDMA. There's a fix coming by the end of the year, but still...
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Nope I’m on T-Mobile so I’ll try it out later tonight when I’m home.

EDIT: Nevermind. Looks like T-Mobile doesn’t support eSIM either right now, but are working on the software required for it.
 
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Looks like 12.1 also improves cellular connectivity if anyone was having issues.
 
CHANG3D said:
If someone spIns off Android to use memory management like iOS and Windows Phone (save states with a few categories of apps that is approved for multitasking instead of all apps multitasking), it'll be pretty close to perfect. This memory allocation issue killing the launcher or other system vital tasks is what I don't like the most about Android. Shit like TouchWiz is even worse by using so much RAM that's there's hardly any free memory left. I can't even answer phone calls on that POS GS9 because the phone app just simply don't work. An iPhone with 3GB of RAM performs better than an Android with 8GB (though a superior processor might have a lot to do with that too).
Click to expand...

wtf? I don't think I've ever had this problem on my s9+, actually, it is the smoothest android device I've ever used, and my last one was a Nexus 6P
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
wtf? I don't think I've ever had this problem on my s9+, actually, it is the smoothest android device I've ever used, and my last one was a Nexus 6P
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I had the regular S9 with puny amount of RAM for TouchWiz. I have like under 300MB of free RAM out of the box.
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
wtf? I don't think I've ever had this problem on my s9+, actually, it is the smoothest android device I've ever used, and my last one was a Nexus 6P
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Try any other Android phone, you will find Galaxy phones are just pile of junk and stutter fest.

Gen 1 Pixel, HTC 10 and U12+, none of them stutter and lag like any of the Galaxy phone that I owned.

Even with full clean wipe install on my unlock S8, it's still stuttering out of box.

Some time the phone call came in and it doesn't even show up the phone app, I can't even pick up the call or the control UI doesn't even do anything.
 
Switching from iPhone to Android is "simple" (not simple at all, but at least I could spend $10 on getting my WhatsApp and Line messages ported over). Switch from Android to iPhone is fucking ridiculous. After 5 hrs of researching and trying to get my WhatsApp and Line messages on this iPhone, I give up. There is no way that I would spend $80 on getting them to work. I give up.
 
CHANG3D said:
Switching from iPhone to Android is "simple" (not simple at all, but at least I could spend $10 on getting my WhatsApp and Line messages ported over). Switch from Android to iPhone is fucking ridiculous. After 5 hrs of researching and trying to get my WhatsApp and Line messages on this iPhone, I give up. There is no way that I would spend $80 on getting them to work. I give up.
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You left you're Essential and picked up an iPhone XS ?
 
Zorachus said:
Not to get too far off topic. But that's why Nexus / Pixel phones have always been the best of Android, the smoothest most fluid and close to Apple's iPhone lag free enjoyable experience.

My Wife has the LG V30, it was a super bad ass phone when she first got it last year. Smooth. Fast. Lag free.

Fast forward now, phone is almost a year old, I was just playing with it. Wow it got laggy and slow. Stuttering, etc... And it's on security patch from August 1 almost three months old.

Same with her LG G6 before the V30. The G6 was great out of the box. Fast forward to the 8.0 Oreo update and the phone lags and sucks, she was always behind like 4 months on security updates.

My Pixel 2 XL, it's a year old, and seriously is just about as smooth as the first day. It still fluid and fast.

I've experienced only Nexus and Pixel Android phones staying smooth and lag free a year + later. Compared to LG, or Samsung phones, which a year later become a lag fest.
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My experience is similar, but not exactly the same. My N6 was laggy and slow a year after I got it. Dropping a custom ROM on it made it significantly better, but another 6 months and it was back to being crappy and slow. The fact that the Google phone couldn't manage to stay stutter free for more than a year is part of what convinced me to move away from Android as a whole.

CHANG3D said:
Another annoying thing on the iPhone is there's a very fat bottom with the keyboard out. It's like they could fit another row of keys and then some. Once again, nitpicking.
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I don't like that either.
 
CHANG3D said:
Switching from iPhone to Android is "simple" (not simple at all, but at least I could spend $10 on getting my WhatsApp and Line messages ported over). Switch from Android to iPhone is fucking ridiculous. After 5 hrs of researching and trying to get my WhatsApp and Line messages on this iPhone, I give up. There is no way that I would spend $80 on getting them to work. I give up.
Click to expand...

What's hard about getting your whats app switched over? (what is line messages?), I've switched both sides, and it was free and easy.
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
What's hard about getting your whats app switched over? (what is line messages?), I've switched both sides, and it was free and easy.
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tell me how you imported your WhatsApp messages over from Android now that WhatsApp isn't allowed to pull data from Google Cloud backup.
 
CHANG3D said:
tell me how you imported your WhatsApp messages over from Android now that WhatsApp isn't allowed to pull data from Google Cloud backup.
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Ahh, you want your history :) that's a different story I guess. I Thought you meant your account.
 
WhatsApp used to be able to pull from Google Cloud upon first login, but use iCloud the rest of the way; but that stopped in last November because Apple put a stop to it. Line, a chat messenger popular in non-communist Asia, were also prohibited in the same way.

Going from iPhone to Android (since Androids can't use iCloud storage), you can make a backup of your iPhone with iTunes; drag the DB files out; move it onto your Android phone; and spend ~$8 on an app that will transfer from those DB files to your Android WhatsApp DB file.

For Line from iPhone to Android, you log in to your desktop web app, and backup the messages to desktop; then etc etc

Going from Android to iPhone is far more complicated. And solutions that supposedly works aren't well reviewed if not completely untrustworthy.
 
CHANG3D said:
WhatsApp used to be able to pull from Google Cloud upon first login, but use iCloud the rest of the way; but that stopped in last November because Apple put a stop to it. Line, a chat messenger popular in non-communist Asia, were also prohibited in the same way.

Going from iPhone to Android (since Androids can't use iCloud storage), you can make a backup of your iPhone with iTunes; drag the DB files out; move it onto your Android phone; and spend ~$8 on an app that will transfer from those DB files to your Android WhatsApp DB file.

For Line from iPhone to Android, you log in to your desktop web app, and backup the messages to desktop; then etc etc

Going from Android to iPhone is far more complicated. And solutions that supposedly works aren't well reviewed if not completely untrustworthy.
Click to expand...

I did some reading, it seems that apple and google are using different encryption protocols which makes it impossible for third party apps to access google cloud.
 
Change, why would you be getting an iPhone ?

Why not get the Pixel 3 or something vastly superior instead ?
 
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