Hacker News Reader

Comment by dopamean | Hacker News Reader

I made the switch at the end of 2021 after only having an android phone since the very first one. I wouldn't say I regret the change but I would say I'm not impressed. The way so many of my friends mocked me for having an android phone and talked up their iphones made me think I _must_ be missing something. Alas, I don't feel that I was. Every once in a while I boot up my old android phone (oneplus 6) and use it and it's snappier than I remember and feels way better in my hand than my iphone does.

I kinda want to go back but we'll see.

View on HN

Apple's real genius is in their marketing.

This was clear as day over 10 years ago, and is just as clear today.

Back in the early days of iPhone vs Android, there was a huge meme of iPhone users praising Apple for "inventing" features that Android had years ago [0]. I remember (but can't find right now) a screenshot of a conversation of an iPhone user all happy about iPhone getting SwiftKey and then saying "When is Android getting this? XD" and the other person responding with "About 4 years ago".

While the meme of "iPhone is better than Android because iPhone can do X" while Android has been able to do X for over 2 years no longer applies, there's still the meme that iPhone is somehow still a superior device. Apple has somehow convinced people that the iPhone is a luxury device, and there are some iPhone users that look down on Android users and think that Android is for people that can't afford iPhone, even though flagship Androids cost just as much.

It's just personal preference these days. I can't stand Apple's walled garden approach, but people that have multiple devices (laptop, tablet, phone, watch, etc) love it since it guarantees compatibility and functionality.

[0] https://imgur.com/gallery/9V2Vr

> While the meme of "iPhone is better than Android because iPhone can do X" while Android has been able to do X for over 2 years no longer applies

It applied as recently as 2020 with iOS 14 releasing picture in picture video, which Android has had since 8 in 2017.

Don't have to go back that far. iPhone 14 Pro is the first iPhone with always on display. Although I guess Android wasn't first with that either.

Ah true, I remember colleagues being in awe of it, me checking what the hell they're talking about, and being surprised this is a new feature.

Similarly to that, I saw people in awe that when you receive a token via SMS on iPhone it allows you to copy it without opening the message. Something that Android also already had since before. In Android's case it even writes it on the app automatically without the need to do anything at all

The dichotomy to me is in the hardware vs software divide.

Apple mobile devices are absolutely luxury hardware.

Apple mobile OS/software is... functional to a most generous description.

AirDrop? Handoff? Fully encrypted iCloud storage, a first-of-its-kind offering that no other mass market OEM has been able to match? Apple pay leading the market and getting mobile vendors to literally adopt contactless payments for the first time? Mobile video chat that took Google years to replicate? The list goes on. I don't know how one could say their software isn't powerful. It is.

Shipping features that only work in a first party hardware ecosystem simplifies development a lot.

Of those, only Apple Pay has a touch point with non-Apple products, no? And enabling it was more business bludgeon than software feature.

To me it's the fact that it just works and I use it as a smart phone and not as a General Purpose Computer. There is a lot of ecosystem stuff on iOS that are just missing from Android. Plus the skinning of each manufacturer is/was terrible. Samsung's early TouchWiz was incredibly terrible...

I also use Android when I need more access to different things e.g. portable pocket pc that runs Linux.

I've launched Android based hardware products, I should be as Android deep as anyone can be and I use an iPhone.

"iPhone is better than Android because iPhone can do X" was never why anyone used iPhones. iPhones generally did things years later than Android but did them significantly better.

And Apple didn't need to convince people, they straight up were luxury devices compared to decay prone Android devices. Android lagged in locking down background services so battery would worsen over time as random apps did random garbage in the background. Lots of devices had weird eMMC and virtual FS bugs that'd also slow them down over time. And for a truly embarrassing length of history, top apps for things like flashlights would install lock screen ads on your device.

I agree it's more personal preference these days, but that's mostly because Google went and copied Apple's walled garden approach. Things power users loved got gutted, more and more core functionality became part of Google Play Services that vendors aren't allowed to modify. Because of Project Mainline even the Android runtime is about to start getting updated via Google Play.

I remember tapping to pay with my Nexus 4 in 2013.

FWIW When I switched from Android->iPhone, I didn't think much of it. Some stuff was better, some stuff was worse. I didn't 'feel' that much better.

Then when I switched back from iPhone->Android (Pixel 4) the change was a lot more jarring. I noticed a lot of polish and batteries issues and I missed my iPhone until I finally switched back.

My theory is it's similar to lifestyle creep. You wont appreciate improvements as much as you'll notice regressions.

> Every once in a while I boot up my old android phone (oneplus 6) and use it and it's snappier than I remember and feels way better in my hand than my iphone does.

I wonder if you'd use it as a daily driver for a longer time if you'd have the same experience as me.

I made the switch to iphone as well in 2021 after androids for 10 years and I echo this sentiment. It's not transformational, it's more or less the same, especially compared to a pixel flagship phone.

I still use google photos because I find it better and it works fine. My next phone will be a pixel again though.

I had a pixel 7 pro, that after a half a year developed a battery problem. I got my money back and could get another pixel but was afraid of battery problems again, and picked a one plus 10 pro. I regret it. Pixel has the best Android expirence on the market. I'm not buying iPhones probably ever. I tried iphone 14 pro max a little bit and it's not worth 400 EUR over the Pixel for me. I also had Samsungs, they are ok, but pixel is better.

Text entry on my android phone was much more reliably good than on the iPhone, and the ux was better. I've had to disable a bunch of stuff to make it work reasonably on iOS, and it still gets stuff wrong far more often than I'd like.

One of the things i unticked removed the words list you get for editing its errors, so i have to edit the mistakes by hand. Very annoying. (And the suggestions were crap anyway.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com