What made you switch?

So I just moved my phone number over to an iPhone SE2. I'm completely lost on how to re-arrange the apps. I think the last time I used an iPhone, I plugged my phone into my computer with iTunes and did it that way. Shows you how long its been. All I really want to do is bundle the similar apps together like the App Library. But I don't like scrolling all the way to the right to get to the App library. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Edit: I figured it out. It basically works the same as Android, but I wasn't gentle enough when trying to combine apps into a folder.
 
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I don't know how it can get more frequent updates unless it is actually not a security update but a bug update for their UI. AFAIK, Google releases monthly updates.
Dunno what to tell you. My wife has an unlocked 3a. She does not get monthly updates.
 
After using iOS again for 24 hours, it's a lot friendlier than it used to be (I mean we are talking 2014 the last time I used an iOS device).

BUT the Apple lockdown is crippling. I'm used to plugging my phone into my computer and transferring files at will. All I want to do is copy my audiobook file to have it play on the iPhone, and I can't come up with a good way to do it other than uploading it to iCloud and then having a 3rd party app find it on iCloud and play it. What a backward system.
 
I used to switch back and forth every year or two between iOS and Android.

I’m on my second year of iOS right now and am getting a bit of iOS and might switch to Android this year or next year. I bought a cheap Note 9 to play with Android and see if I will switch.

Main issue with iOS:
Limited af. I mean I needed to send a file downloaded on my iPhone to another device and I couldn’t even do it through bluetooth.

android:
Notifications…most apps throw ads as notifications and while you can turn most off it’s just annoying getting all these notifications and needing to turn them off when on iOS Theres no issue with the same apps.

kinda miss Windows Mobile days lol
 
I used to switch back and forth every year or two between iOS and Android.

I’m on my second year of iOS right now and am getting a bit of iOS and might switch to Android this year or next year. I bought a cheap Note 9 to play with Android and see if I will switch.

Main issue with iOS:
Limited af. I mean I needed to send a file downloaded on my iPhone to another device and I couldn’t even do it through bluetooth.

android:
Notifications…most apps throw ads as notifications and while you can turn most off it’s just annoying getting all these notifications and needing to turn them off when on iOS Theres no issue with the same apps.

kinda miss Windows Mobile days lol

My couple day experience with iOS has been that the first time you run the app you can tell it whether or not to give notifications, where with Android, you have to go find a setting after install.

What I have found though is that location access absolutely kills the battery on iOS. Why in the world does every app ask for location access anyway? There's no need for 75% of the apps I install to have location access.

The battery life for me on iOS (on the iPhone SE2) has been terrible. I went out and bought a used Pixel 5 to switch back.

I didn't mind Windows mobile too much. There just were no apps available.
 
My couple day experience with iOS has been that the first time you run the app you can tell it whether or not to give notifications, where with Android, you have to go find a setting after install.

What I have found though is that location access absolutely kills the battery on iOS. Why in the world does every app ask for location access anyway? There's no need for 75% of the apps I install to have location access.

The battery life for me on iOS (on the iPhone SE2) has been terrible. I went out and bought a used Pixel 5 to switch back.

I didn't mind Windows mobile too much. There just were no apps available.
I can agree on battery life. My iPhones have always gotten worse battery life compared to my android phones. I think iOS just shows up what apps want location whereas Android is starting to do that. There was a change in iOS 12-14 somewhere where the location request was shown for every app that requested it.

when i say windows mobile I’m refering to the OG OS from the 2000s not windows phone from this decade =D
 
I can agree on battery life. My iPhones have always gotten worse battery life compared to my android phones. I think iOS just shows up what apps want location whereas Android is starting to do that. There was a change in iOS 12-14 somewhere where the location request was shown for every app that requested it.

when i say windows mobile I’m refering to the OG OS from the 2000s not windows phone from this decade =D

I don't know if I ever had a phone back that far with the OG Windows Mobile. I think the first one I had was Windows Mobile 5.0 with the Samsung SCH-i760 and then a Pantech Duo C810 on 6.0. After that I switched to Blackberry and had one of those until my first Android phone (the OG Droid).
 
Between Android and iOS, I started with Android because it was originally the only easy way to share a data connection with PCs. They also were first to market with advances like 4G. I ended up moving to iOS years ago because it always felt like my Android was yet another computer that I had to maintain. I always seemed to need to restart whatever Android phone I had to keep it running well. The updates were nearly nonexistent and poor quality, even on my Samsung Galaxy phones. On my iPhones, the phone physically wears out before software updates dry up. And to be clear, the physical build quality is definitely superior so that's saying a lot. I typically use phones for 5+ years. I'm not a big phone person, but I do like my current iPhone 12 mini. Expensive but it just-works for what I need out of it. I don't think about my phone in any sense, it's not an obstacle or problem, it actually helps me out in life. All of my years on Android, I never understood why people liked smartphones as I mostly hated it, and I wanted to go back to a Nokia brick. I was flashing Cyanogen mod to try to make my phones run better once the updates were done, and it was never a great result. I know many people are happy with Android but maybe my standards and usecases are different.

All that said, I'd like to move back to Android since while I prefer iOS to Android, I prefer Windows to macOS. I'd like the better integration. The only thing that could draw me back though is a Microsoft Android phone that matched or beat Apple's level of support with build quality that at least matches Apple's SE tier of phones. The Android market needs that really bad and it's a huge missed opportunity for quality vendors like Microsoft. I think you'll find a lot of people with a story roughly similar to mine, even if they're less technical users. For now, my Android devices are limited to my TV streaming devices and e-readers, non-critical devices that don't have to work like a phone.
 
I went from IPhone to pixel because I got tired of having to jailbreak my phone to sideload apps.

These days, I could use whatever as they are all the same anyway.

Apple's big pull for me would be update intervals. Personal preference, I guess.
People are still jailbreaking iphones in 2021? What apps are you running that you need to be jailbroken for?
 
The battery life for me on iOS (on the iPhone SE2) has been terrible. I went out and bought a used Pixel 5 to switch back.
To be fair, this is probably more to do with the iPhone SE than iOS. It's an old design with a small battery. A regular iPhone 12 or 12 Pro/Pro Max would likely fare considerably better.
 
I use a 12 mini and my spouse has a 11 Pro Max. There's no comparison in battery life between the two. Mine is widely known to have bad battery life, but I'm also not a heavy phone user and knew it would be "bad" when I bought it. I've never not had it get me through a whole day. Someone who is constantly dicking around on their phone like an ADD riddled child would kill it though. I'm sure the SE2 is similar. I got mine because I'll accept the flaws in a smaller phone that fits in pockets without pulling my shorts down when I walk. Need to tighten that drawstring, wear a full on Batman utility belt, or risk losing your pants if you want one of those jumbotrons on you.
 
how does apple make a phone with a 60hz screen and bad battery life.
 
If you define bad battery life as all day, as most do. I bought mine on launch day, even set my alarm to get in the first minute they were put up to order. Never had my 12 mini die on me once and here we are July 9th, 2021, been using it since November ~15th, 2020.
Then there's also the fact there is no cutting edge small Android phone available at all. Android historically always had to compensate with larger batteries and everyone that ever paid attention knows that. I'm no Android hater, but fact is you're not going to beat Apple engineering today if you're on a level playing field. I'd like to move back to Android but I'm fully aware it's a hardware downgrade on the fundamentals.
 
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If you define bad battery life as all day, as most do. I bought mine on launch day, even set my alarm to get in the first minute they were put up to order. Never had my 12 mini die on me once and here we are July 9th, 2021, been using it since November ~15th, 2020.
Then there's also the fact there is no cutting edge small Android phone available at all. Android historically always had to compensate with larger batteries and everyone that ever paid attention knows that. I'm no Android hater, but fact is you're not going to beat Apple engineering today if you're on a level playing field. I'd like to move back to Android but I'm fully aware it's a hardware downgrade on the fundamentals.

The Pixel 5 is a very tiny small phone, that actually has outstanding battery life. Plus it runs the best OS, stock vanilla Android.
 
It's a mighty fine device, but even 5.4" on the mini is a bit overboard IMO. Can't imagine stretching 1 hand across a 6" screen with any regularity. I'll take a closer look at the successor to the Pixel 5 though the next time I upgrade.
 
To be fair, this is probably more to do with the iPhone SE than iOS. It's an old design with a small battery. A regular iPhone 12 or 12 Pro/Pro Max would likely fare considerably better.

Yeah, it's not like the 1821mAh battery is all that great. I get that. The 12 mini is only ~2200 mAh, so I can see where that gets a knock against the battery also. I've been doing better by limiting background data and location access. It gets me through the day usually. I ended up giving the Pixel 5 I ordered to my wife, and I'm going to wait and see what happens with the Pixel 6. I already don't like it due to the larger size, but I'll at least take a look upon release.

how does apple make a phone with a 60hz screen and bad battery life.

The batteries are physically much smaller. I get it that iOS usually does more with less (battery and RAM), but there's only so much you can do when you have less than half of the battery size in some cases.
 
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The Pixel 5 is a very tiny small phone, that actually has outstanding battery life. Plus it runs the best OS, stock vanilla Android.

I had it in my hands and it is definitely slightly larger than the SE2. It is slightly larger than the 4a also. All of those phones are larger than the 12 mini.

The bang for the buck with Google right now is the 4a if you can find one. It has a battery that will last all day and a good enough processor, connectivity, camera for the average person.

I've extensively used the 4a since release, and in the past week moved to the SE2. I think the 4a is the best all around cheap phone I've used. Unfortunately, I think the 5a is going to be another large phone.
 
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It's a mighty fine device, but even 5.4" on the mini is a bit overboard IMO. Can't imagine stretching 1 hand across a 6" screen with any regularity. I'll take a closer look at the successor to the Pixel 5 though the next time I upgrade.

I've been looking at leaks, and it seems as if the new Pixel 6 is going to be somewhat larger than the Pixel 5.
 
I am currently using OnePlus 8, but thinking of switching over to an iPhone. And the reasons for that..
-Poor and slow camera regardless how fast the phone is
-Curved screen. Thanks for this poor engineering
-In display fingerprint reader. Its just terrible and the their face id security is a joke

That's about it. To be honest I don't see my self owning any other OnePlus device, at least not anytime soon. I don't like much the Samsung either, and only the next Pixel is looking promising, otherwise I am all over for the new iPhone.
 
how does apple make a phone with a 60hz screen and bad battery life.
One thing about this that I think people will find interesting, not on the 60hz + "bad" battery life comment but on Apple's 60Hz devices is that while being true, one of the reasons iOS often still feels smoother than Android is because the render loop of the OS is decoupled from the app by default. The apps aren’t allowed to introduce jank, so if you’re scrolling a webpage and stuff is loading simultaneously, iOS will be much smoother. On Android it's per app and in the app process, so it's hit or miss. That's why so many go to iOS and never come back, things like that change the experience.

I think this is also why they can have such low latency on inputs, for example with the Apple Pencil which is much lower latency than the surface pen or the android stylus. This is why on a 120hz android phone, while the frame rate when scrolling is slightly worse on iOS, overall the OS feels more fluid. On a 120hz iPad it’s no comparison.
There's a lot of these unrecognized optimizations on iOS that people don't know or realize.

One thing macOS on M1 does very cleverly is scheduling threads on cores. UI threads run on high-power cores, while all background tasks run on low-power ones. So they never interfere with each other. iOS likely does the same, Android probably does none of this.
 
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Went from iPhone to Android, years ago.

Apple has polish, and fluid design. That's it. They lag behind in technology. They still have a massive walled garden approach to everything. They fight jailbreaking tooth and nail. They're overpriced. They still have damn near zero customization options.

Android is what you make of it. You can keep it simple, or you can go ballistic. You can easily sideload apps that aren't on the Play Store. Customization is years ahead of Apple. They're relatively cheap by comparison, as long as you don't fall for the Samsung meme.
 
Went from iPhone to Android, years ago.

Apple has polish, and fluid design. That's it. They lag behind in technology. They still have a massive walled garden approach to everything. They fight jailbreaking tooth and nail. They're overpriced. They still have damn near zero customization options.

Android is what you make of it. You can keep it simple, or you can go ballistic. You can easily sideload apps that aren't on the Play Store. Customization is years ahead of Apple. They're relatively cheap by comparison, as long as you don't fall for the Samsung meme.

What you described is basically what the iOS is. Forgot to say that pretty much every iPhone beats the Android phone in terms of performance, camera and overall its a better phone.
 
What you described is basically what the iOS is. Forgot to say that pretty much every iPhone beats the Android phone in terms of performance, camera and overall its a better phone.
I liked your post because you pointed out the distinction between Apple's operating system and its hardware. Will have to assume he was addressing the iPhone as a total package and you broke it down into components.

Someone on [H] posted his ideal phone would be Android operating system on an Apple constructed phone.
 
My first phone was the Moto X (1st Gen), followed by every Moto X successor. When Motorola ceased making the Moto X line of phones I went to a Moto G6. When my Moto G6 became unusable I ventured into Google flagship territory and am now enjoying a Pixel 4 XL.

Google enhances and updates the Pixel phone with software features that continually surprise and impress me. The Pixel user experience has me captivated. Integrating their SOC with their software, as they are now doing was a great move and will make the Pixel even more attractive.
 
I was straight Android for years (Tons of Samsung Galaxy models). I literally despised anything Apple or iOS as inferior because you couldn't customize it and iPhone never had all the cool features that Android did... but I also wanted to see what was on the dark side, so I bought an iPhone XR.

Nearly 3 years later, I have no intention of switching back to Android. The Galaxy S8 has an incredible screen and charges very quickly, but the iPhone XR beats it in every other metric, including my biggest pet peeve about my previous Android phones: battery life. This XR simply does not die. I literally have to be on it nearly all day, play games, watching videos, surfing websites, etc. in order to drain the battery. Otherwise, it has 40-60% battery left at the end of the day fairly consistently. My previous Android phones have been unable to match the battery management of the iPhone XR. Also, no Android phone has FaceID, which is literally a foolproof biometric authentication system that works flawlessly. Interacting with the device is sublime; there's something about the UI on iOS that is so fluid and intuitive that it feels second nature to swipe around on the screen to navigate. And then there's the app optimization... on a 3-year-old phone, all applications and games are buttery smooth. How do they do that?

I can't go back to Android. I have never kept a phone longer than 2 years, and yet I'm coming up on the end of my 3rd year with the XR, and I'm still completely happy with it. It's incredible.
 
I already told my story plus detailed some software differences between iOS and Android.. but that post reminded me- I do have you beat on 2+ years with your phone. I went 5 years with my iPhone SE that I paid a whole $280 for new. I never came close to going 5 years with any of my Android phones (started on Moto Droid, custom non-Android smartphones before that). I've had a smartphone since about 2007. But I didn't want to let the SE go. Still works, still gets iOS updates. :) None of my Androids would beat that either. Agreed, FaceID is absolutely unbeatable. Flawless, just works every time. It was the iPhone5S that was my first iPhone though to move off Android. Game changer. I went from permanently longing for Nokia bricks to loving smartphones.

The 12 mini came out which tickled my fancy because I like a small phone, and yeah, another 5 year phone, at least. After 5 years on a rock solid phone that's still supported in 2021 (and it's getting iOS 15), you're long over the "high end phones cost too much" nonsense. Most of the time, it's "expensive being poor", and "cheaper is more expensive". Once you get to that place, you drop $800 instantly out of sheer appreciation for high quality. I'd bet my life this is the best $800 I ever spent. Just had 5 years of bliss, no problems, no complaints, just works. I wouldn't believe anyone that didn't do a single repair to a phone to keep it going, that matched my 5 years. Mine never saw a screwdriver. That's a long time for a heavily manipulated device like that, in my front pocket everyday for all those years. Unless there's a big change in the Android scene, I won't be back either.
 
I use a 12 mini and my spouse has a 11 Pro Max. There's no comparison in battery life between the two. Mine is widely known to have bad battery life, but I'm also not a heavy phone user and knew it would be "bad" when I bought it. I've never not had it get me through a whole day. Someone who is constantly dicking around on their phone like an ADD riddled child would kill it though. I'm sure the SE2 is similar. I got mine because I'll accept the flaws in a smaller phone that fits in pockets without pulling my shorts down when I walk. Need to tighten that drawstring, wear a full on Batman utility belt, or risk losing your pants if you want one of those jumbotrons on you.

You do have a gift of expression, I couldn't stop laughing reading that.
 
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housecat said:
I went 5 years with my iPhone SE that I paid a whole $280 for new....
The 12 mini came out which tickled my fancy because I like a small phone, and yeah, another 5 year phone...
Impressive histories. Am curious to learn if during your five year sessions, Apple created a new app or updated something on one of their apps; or introduced something within an updated iOS, that would require you to have a more recent model iPhone.
 
.... I'll accept the flaws in a smaller phone that fits in pockets without pulling my shorts down when I walk. Need to tighten that drawstring, wear a full on Batman utility belt, or risk losing your pants if you want one of those jumbotrons on you.
8 Plus owner agrees with this 100%. I'm not a hardcore smartphone user but I'm kinda old so I thought I would like the big screen, but that extra real estate comes at a cost! Jumbotron seems pretty accurate - I'm getting weary of lugging this thing around and may just buy a new SE since they're pretty cheap.

My phones live a rough life and the iPhones seem to hold up better, though to be completely fair the androids I played with were all cheapo plastic ones and nowhere near flagship level.
 
I think this is also why they can have such low latency on inputs, for example with the Apple Pencil which is much lower latency than the surface pen or the android stylus. This is why on a 120hz android phone, while the frame rate when scrolling is slightly worse on iOS, overall the OS feels more fluid. On a 120hz iPad it’s no comparison.
There's a lot of these unrecognized optimizations on iOS that people don't know or realize.
Word is that the Pencil cheats a little at initial activation force by registering even the slightest contact against the surface as pressure, before the load cell behind the nib kicks in... but it's overall very nice, responsive stuff. Played with the occasional demo unit at Micro Center, Best Buy, etc., and I see why a lot of digital artists like it.

Alas, the lack of a hover cursor throws me off (something that should now be a feature since they finally added mouse and cursor support to i(Pad)OS without a jailbreak), and capacitive double-tap on the side of the second-gen Pencil seems massively kludgy compared to just having a physical button or two, not to mention the missed opportunity for a pressure-sensitive eraser end like Wacom's had for decades. It's good, and yet I'm keenly aware of how it could be so much better.

The iPad Pro is something I really, really want to like, between the form factor, battery life, 120 Hz screen, Pencil, the new keyboard with trackpad, finally adopting USB-C support (with Thunderbolt on the M1 models, to boot), but between the exorbitant price, having to pay up for at least 1 TB of storage to get 16 GB of RAM (something that Apple has been notoriously stingy with in the past, which has obsoleted many iOS devices before their time as well as crippled their multitasking capabilities), no headphone jack (at least put a second USB-C port on there!), equally exorbitant prices on the accessories, and my general loathing for iOS limitations that I ranted about on the first page, it's a hard sell when I can buy something like a used HP ZBook X2 for significantly less, trading portability and battery life for a non-crippled OS and tried-and-true Wacom EMR.

Meanwhile, iPhones don't support the Pencil, not even the Max models, so they lose to the Galaxy Note by default (and the LG V60, and the Surface Duo, and any other obscure Android smartphone with active pen support).

Believe it or not, that little Wacom EMR S Pen is pretty damn useful for jotting down a quick note, marking up photos, acting as a mouse for those pesky Web pages with mouseover UI elements, utilizing Samsung's equivalent of the screen Snipping Tool, getting the occasional practice sketch down, etc. (And I kinda hate how Samsung has me by the balls as a result, because nobody else is even trying to compete in this space, even though Apple already has their own tech for it and just refuses to implement it at the smartphone level.)
 
My first phone was the Moto X (1st Gen), followed by every Moto X successor. When Motorola ceased making the Moto X line of phones I went to a Moto G6. When my Moto G6 became unusable I ventured into Google flagship territory and am now enjoying a Pixel 4 XL.

Google enhances and updates the Pixel phone with software features that continually surprise and impress me. The Pixel user experience has me captivated. Integrating their SOC with their software, as they are now doing was a great move and will make the Pixel even more attractive.

The original Moto X was the best Android phone ever. I still have it, even though it died long ago.
 
Word is that the Pencil cheats a little at initial activation force by registering even the slightest contact against the surface as pressure, before the load cell behind the nib kicks in... but it's overall very nice, responsive stuff. Played with the occasional demo unit at Micro Center, Best Buy, etc., and I see why a lot of digital artists like it.

Alas, the lack of a hover cursor throws me off (something that should now be a feature since they finally added mouse and cursor support to i(Pad)OS without a jailbreak), and capacitive double-tap on the side of the second-gen Pencil seems massively kludgy compared to just having a physical button or two, not to mention the missed opportunity for a pressure-sensitive eraser end like Wacom's had for decades. It's good, and yet I'm keenly aware of how it could be so much better.

The iPad Pro is something I really, really want to like, between the form factor, battery life, 120 Hz screen, Pencil, the new keyboard with trackpad, finally adopting USB-C support (with Thunderbolt on the M1 models, to boot), but between the exorbitant price, having to pay up for at least 1 TB of storage to get 16 GB of RAM (something that Apple has been notoriously stingy with in the past, which has obsoleted many iOS devices before their time as well as crippled their multitasking capabilities), no headphone jack (at least put a second USB-C port on there!), equally exorbitant prices on the accessories, and my general loathing for iOS limitations that I ranted about on the first page, it's a hard sell when I can buy something like a used HP ZBook X2 for significantly less, trading portability and battery life for a non-crippled OS and tried-and-true Wacom EMR.

Meanwhile, iPhones don't support the Pencil, not even the Max models, so they lose to the Galaxy Note by default (and the LG V60, and the Surface Duo, and any other obscure Android smartphone with active pen support).

Believe it or not, that little Wacom EMR S Pen is pretty damn useful for jotting down a quick note, marking up photos, acting as a mouse for those pesky Web pages with mouseover UI elements, utilizing Samsung's equivalent of the screen Snipping Tool, getting the occasional practice sketch down, etc. (And I kinda hate how Samsung has me by the balls as a result, because nobody else is even trying to compete in this space, even though Apple already has their own tech for it and just refuses to implement it at the smartphone level.)

Yes, Wacom EMR FTW. That's why I bought my wife the Samsung Notebook 9 Pen, their 2-in-1s were the only models on the market that I know that use it. I didn't know about that HP. My wife wouldn't accept that because she used to work for HP and isn't a fan. :) And, I like Samsung honestly, there's reasons why they're more expensive.. like the S-Pen being EMR. Hard to go wrong with them IMO.

It's our only "tablet". I don't own the iPad Pro and pencil but that would be the top competition. For a lot of people it's probably the best choice. For us, it just doesn't make sense. Like Apple, Samsung has a lot of reasons why they're more expensive too. I will say that no one is "making a mistake" getting an iPad Pro and Pencil for sure.. #1 or #2 choice in my book. I'm not invested in the Apple ecosystem because I don't like macOS, but if "someone" (aka a lot of people) use a Mac, it'd probably win out.. but I'll be sticking with Samsung's 2-in-1s as long as they keep EMR.

Impressive histories. Am curious to learn if during your five year sessions, Apple created a new app or updated something on one of their apps; or introduced something within an updated iOS, that would require you to have a more recent model iPhone.

They didn't. That phone started on iOS 9, currently-supported on iOS 14, and will be getting iOS 15 this fall. It was only at the end of 2020 when it probably needed sprucing up. It works fine.. I just wanted FaceID and all the other advancements (which is a huge list) between the iPhone 6S-era and iPhone 12. I never had any problems that I can recall. Maybe the rare application wasn't optimized for such a small screen? I know ZipCar's app even on my 12 mini is slightly off with some buttons like "end trip", but it's there and works fine. No deal breakers for sure. I'm a middle-aged man, so I really just need my phone to hold up, consistently work without restarts, and get security updates for long periods of time so I can access my credit union so old balls can pay for his adult diapers. Willing to lose any dick measuring contest otherwise. It can be a 24hz phone for all I care. A phone gamer definitely wouldn't have made it 5 years. Most phones wouldn't even have the build quality to last 5 years, but I think software would kill them first. I wanted 4G when it first came out, so I still have a HTC Thunderbolt in a bag around here. Worst phone ever, never would've held up, software basically killed that one.
 
Frankly, nothing made me switch. I've pretty much always had higher end Android phones. Apple does make some good phones, but the prices can be wack. The Realme X2 Pro I've been using for the past 2 years, I got for about half as much as a flagship Apple phone and it's still a very good phone. Battery is great, if not used much, could last close to a week even with 90 Hz and performance mode. Oppo does know how to make a good phone. Oneplus and these phones are a good example of it. I'm also not digging Apple as a company, part of why I never had their phones. I did once come really close to buying an iPhone 6, though.
 
As a followup, to my last experience:

I switched back to a Pixel 3a from an iPhone SE2. The screen is gigantic in comparison and the battery life is noticeably better (although, that might be subjective as I don't necessarily keep track of SOT between the two and I probably looked at the SE2 phone more because it was different). I kept reaching for the front TouchID button on my pixel for a while, but I'm back to old reliable rear sensor again. Obviously, the SE2 has a much better processor, but if you have to keep the thing plugged in to use it because the battery blows, it defeats the purpose. Plus, the 3a is "good enough" for what I need it to do.

Overall, I liked certain things about iOS, but there were little things that drove me nuts. Like why does everything need to be at the top of the screen? Why can't I put folders at the top and then at the bottom? Copying files over? Android is pretty simple. iOS? I had to upload to iCloud just to download them again to my phone. USB tethering to my Chromebook? I couldn't get it to work with iOS. I'm not going to swap out my $80 Chromebook for a $800 Macbook just to USB tether.

As for Android, I like the swipe right to get a news feed on my Pixel. I like the app drawer in alphabetical order that is easily accessible. I like the layout better. You can see more of what is in the app folders and it is easier to read on Android. I like the weather/date Pixel widget on the middle of the screen on my Pixel. And I like that I have more access to the file system to add files off my computer without too much hassle.

Now, I'm sure that things would have at least looked a little better if I had a newer phone with a larger screen, but I didn't want to make that kind of financial commitment to iOS at this time.
 
As a followup, to my last experience:

I switched back to a Pixel 3a from an iPhone SE2. The screen is gigantic in comparison and the battery life is noticeably better (although, that might be subjective as I don't necessarily keep track of SOT between the two and I probably looked at the SE2 phone more because it was different). I kept reaching for the front TouchID button on my pixel for a while, but I'm back to old reliable rear sensor again. Obviously, the SE2 has a much better processor, but if you have to keep the thing plugged in to use it because the battery blows, it defeats the purpose. Plus, the 3a is "good enough" for what I need it to do.

Overall, I liked certain things about iOS, but there were little things that drove me nuts. Like why does everything need to be at the top of the screen? Why can't I put folders at the top and then at the bottom? Copying files over? Android is pretty simple. iOS? I had to upload to iCloud just to download them again to my phone. USB tethering to my Chromebook? I couldn't get it to work with iOS. I'm not going to swap out my $80 Chromebook for a $800 Macbook just to USB tether.

As for Android, I like the swipe right to get a news feed on my Pixel. I like the app drawer in alphabetical order that is easily accessible. I like the layout better. You can see more of what is in the app folders and it is easier to read on Android. I like the weather/date Pixel widget on the middle of the screen on my Pixel. And I like that I have more access to the file system to add files off my computer without too much hassle.

Now, I'm sure that things would have at least looked a little better if I had a newer phone with a larger screen, but I didn't want to make that kind of financial commitment to iOS at this time.

As a previous Pixel 3a owner, I have one shred of advice. Don't EVER drop that phone. I had two of them shatter their screens from minor drops, and that was with screen protectors and cases. Other than that, pretty great phone.
 
As a previous Pixel 3a owner, I have one shred of advice. Don't EVER drop that phone. I had two of them shatter their screens from minor drops, and that was with screen protectors and cases. Other than that, pretty great phone.

Really? It's funny I've never had that problem and I've dropped it multiple times. My wife had one also and she broke plenty of screen protectors but never the glass. I have it in a Spigen rugged armor case.
 
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