I was seriously considering going for an Android phone this time around but the 6s is really some amazing hardware. It isn't even as hyped up as it should be.
Completely agree that the 6S is underhyped, which is amazing because it's basically the new iPhone4.
So my latest tablet is a Samsung Tab S 8.4 and it's perfect for those needs in a way where an iPad would be sub par. Media management is way more straight forward on Android and I can have 64gb SD card.
But I did root the tablet and uninstall 70% of the bloatware running on it on the first day. It came with 4-5 pages of (useless) applications and I'm now down to 2. Apple products also come with useless uninstallable applications (Stocks, Watch, etc) but it no where near what this Samsung device had running.
My wife has an iPad and I really could not recommend, for her, an Android tablet.
Mobile Safari is very polished. I like how reliable the reader mode is. I like that it now does ad-blocking. On the other hand the web apps feel more integrated in Android. For example Chrome on Android does notifications now, so for example I could just use Facebook on the web and get push notifications. Also Android does alternative browsers, so Android has Firefox and Firefox has real extensions, including ad-blockers. Mobile Safari is really good though.
In terms of UI, Androids notifications are much better, as in they are reliable, they get grouped, you get shortcuts to act on them or you can dismiss them easily. On iOS the notifications are broken and the "unread" indicators are completely annoying. On iOS I also miss the Back button. They added sort of a hack lately for Safari, so you can return to the previous app from Safari. Along with double-tab on home, a pattern emerges ... they keep adding hacks as a substitute for the lack of a Back button. As a consequence of this, one of the things I hate on iOS is how every app opens its own web view. I mean, don't you just hate that?
Skype on my iOS is broken. It simply doesn't ring if the app is inactive. This is probably a bug, but it's also a bigger problem related to iOS. iOS is killing inactive apps, so it has special hooks for apps that need to be awoken by messages. This leads to weird effects - like Dropbox is unable to backup my photos in the background, because it cannot stay alive long enough to do it. And I've lost some photos that way, as I've reset my phone thinking that Dropbox managed to back me up. It's also weird to pause and then resume my music or my audiobooks. As resume doesn't necessarily work remote-controlled through your headsets as you have to wake your phone up first. Actually the behavior is inconsistent. It really depends on whether iOS managed to put your app to sleep or not. The upside of that is that the iPhone's idle mode is very efficient, but given my usage patterns, I haven't seen an overall improvement in battery life.
On the apps ecosystem, I feel Android has better apps. This may sound like heresy, but it's true, with Android having the benefit of a stronger open-source ecosystem. They finally unified the design under the material design guidelines. And with Marshmallow they finally fixed the permissions system, though iOS has the benefit of not having such a broken permissions model for such a long time. So for instance on iOS I felt comfortable installing Waze, but not on Android - thankfully that changes with Marshmallow.
iOS does better at out-of-the box standards being supported. It supports CalDAV and CardDAV for example. For Android you need special adapters that need to be bought for CalDAV / CardDAV and Google should be ashamed of themselves. On the other hand on Android just about anything is extensible, so support for CalDAV / CardDAV synching can be added by buying some available apps.
To sync my iPhone with my desktop I need to use iTunes. I hate iTunes with a passion, I really do. With Android I can just plug it in to my computer and just copy/paste some files in a folder.
Related to UX in general, iOS apps are good, except when they are not. For example RunKeeper on Android is more usable than RunKeeper on iOS, because on iOS you have to tap on things that don't seem tap-able. And for iBooks to not do bookmarks for audiobooks is a total screwup for a company like Apple.
On my iPhone I do like that I get SMS messages on my MacBook through iMessages and phone calls through FaceTime. That's pretty sweet. On Android I've used PushBullet but it's not the same. On the other hand I don't like feeling locked in Apple's ecosystem or in anybody's ecosystem for that matter. So I'm enjoying my iMessages and my FaceTime, but I try not to like it so much :-)
I think I can go on :-)
You mentioned you use a Macbook. I've never owned a Macbook, but frequently wonder if I'm as wrong about them as I was about the iPhone. I ran Cyanogenmod on my Androids and honestly I would not go back from iOS.
My opinions always change with new information and experiences but right now these are my products of choice for various categories. I own or use all of these currently, other than the laptops. Currently using work-provided laptops.
Phone- Apple iPhone
Console- Nintendo Wii U
Music match/service- Google Play Music (if I had Amazon Prime I'd probably move to Amazon Music but we shop more locally and are Costco members)
Browser- Mozilla Firefox
HTPC- Amazon FireTV (replaced a jailbroken AppleTV2)
Laptop- Lenovo Thinkpad
Cheap laptop- Acer Aspire One Cloudbook, 14-Inch
Desktop OS- Windows10 (gaming) & Linux Mint (dev)
Email- Google Gmail
Search- DuckDuckGo (bangs sold me on it, it's the new Google)
Programming language implementation- PyPy4 (Python 2.7)
Media- OTA antenna, Netflix and HBO Now
As you can see, I only use 1 Apple product currently and very diversified. Hardly an Apple diehard, but I'm learning and definitely don't carry that grudge against them that many long-term Android users do.
But my next laptop is going to be a Thinkpad, because these slick MacBooks can't be easily repaired and can't be upgraded. They look and feel good, but that's of no consequence when you suddenly need 16 GB of RAM, or when the battery has worn off, or when the keyboard started to peel. I hate this trend of slim laptops you can't tinker with. OS X is nice, but I prefer Ubuntu's software repositories, though having access to popular applications not available for Linux feels good. And the Retina display on this thing will make all alternatives look inferior.
That's what I do on my home machine, because I have 2 mice, 3 monitors and generally with a setup like that, I've found X falls down on its face pretty easily if you start to ask more of it than a basic laptop configuration presents.
Running in a VM I don't have to dual boot (I hate that more than anything) and gain the stuff you may struggle with, such as that VPN connection, with a silky smooth, problem free Linux environment while retaining full support from your company.
I think most of the things you described could be serviced same-day at an Apple store. I haven't been keeping up on them too closely, but I think even the Macbook Pros have soldered RAM and SSD now which is a bummer. A T450 is a pretty good option that's why I've always leaned towards one of those for my next laptop. I'm a gamer as well so I'm waiting to see how VR pans out before I upgrade again. May stick with upgrading the hardware in my Lian Li tower, or ditching the desktop and moving to a laptop for personal use.
Tried an iPhone 6 and switched back to my Nexus 4 after a week because the notifications were driving me nuts compared to Android.
I have three different email accounts, and unless I used the native Mail app (which I hate), the Gmail app would show all of the individual email notifications on a separate row combined across all accounts. My notifications quickly became useless. On Android, they are rolled up into an accordion grouped by account, so I have three separate mail notifications, and I can long hold on them to see the top few email subject lines at a glance. SO much better.
There also didn't seem to be a way to have more visibility into the notifications on the lock screen the way you do on Android.
Lastly, lack of widgets.
I guess I'm one of the rare power users who cares more about the OS and the interface than the apps.
Oddly enough, I have an iPad 2 that I use as a browsing/media/reading/gaming device around the house and I love it for that. I almost NEVER check email on it because I usually have my phone in my pocket and that is just easier.
--EDIT-- Not sure why I got downvoted for stating my opinion for why I prefer Android. iOS does some things really well, and I happen to like the Android way for other things. Different strokes for different folks. But apparently saying anything negative about iOS is not acceptable...
To be fair, I can't imagine a context where I would find your preferences to be interesting (on HN, that is) so I could be wrong. I didn't vote on your comment in any case.
Must be nice?
> I have many reasons for why I prefer Android
Do tell...