Why I Am Trying iOS After 11 Years of Android

I was an early adopter of Android. I pre-ordered the second-generation Android phone, HTC Magic, mid-2009. I have long been pro-Android, anti-iPhone/iOS. For a few years, I even taught Community Ed classes on Android and deciding if you need a smartphone. I have never purchased any Apple product of any kind for myself. So why did I just pre-order an iPhone 12? 

Cost

The most I have ever paid for an Android phone is $450. That was for my current, 3-year-old Essential PH1. The idea of paying $600 for a phone that might last 2 years or less has always been hard to swallow. When the iPhone X came out, with Apple testing the $1000 price point, I was more sure than ever that I would never own an iPhone. 

But then the next year Apple did quite an about-face. They released the unheralded, under-appreciated iPhone XR for $300 less than the prior year's flagship. And by most measures, the XR was a small but solid upgrade, rather than an "economy model". And finally Apple increased the bottom-tier memory to 64 Gb, which I think (fingers crossed) remains adequate.

Then last year's iPhone 11 really got me thinking. At $700, it was $50 less than the previous years' XR, while again being a modest upgrade. 

The clincher on price is the fact that our carrier, T-Mobile, seems to have established a very reliable pattern of offering very generous trade-ins for even 3-year-old iPhones. $300 the last couple of years. Since my goal is to keep a phone for 3 years, that means, after the initial purchase price of $800, the replacement cost is $500 every 3 years. Not dirt-cheap, but very tolerable, especially if you don't hate the phone the last 9 months.

Battery life

iPhones always had decent battery life, due to Apple's tight control and integration. But for a long time, Apple seemed very satisfied with just being above average. Every generation, instead of improving battery life, they held it constant, choosing instead to make devices ever-thinner. Totally a case of style over substance.

But the XR changed all that. The XR even had slightly better battery life than the pricier XS! I noticed my wife (not the most careful person about obsessively charging her phone) could routinely go all day without worrying about power! 

I have grown very sick of devoting mental cycles to considering the state of my phone's battery. Battery life is definitely a weak spot for the PH1, which in many other ways is a good Android phone. The whole time I've owned it, I keep it on battery saver. Mostly that works okay, but it messes with navigation and things like my Tile bluetooth tracker. Last year's follow-up with the iPhone 11 appears to have cemented Apple as a battery-life standout (though I fear the iPhone 12 may be a small regression, probably blame 5G).

iOS Parity

Areas where Android had a clear lead have finally disappeared or diminished. Such as ability to select default apps for things like browsing, mail, navigation. Also multi-tasking and inter-app communication. 

Screen size and ratio

I was all-in from Day 1 that larger screen sizes are a big win. I had a Samsung Vibrant, which had one of the largest screens at the time (all of 4"). But Apple stubbornly, smugly stuck to small screens, claiming that it was better, because your thumb could cover most of the screen area. Totally a BS post-hoc justification, of which I was (and still am) contemptuous.

Even when iPhone went big, with the iPhone 7 Plus, it still had comically huge bezels, for a very poor screen:body ratio. That was another thing I was into from early days--minimum bezels, most screen for the size. A big part of the reason I got the PH1.

But finally, with the iPhone X, Apple started putting the pieces together. I say started, because for one thing, the iPhone X was too long and thin. And as mentioned before, at $1000, too expensive. But also as mentioned, one year later, they totally fixed those problems with the XR.

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So that takes care of the negatives that till now had kept me very uninterested in the iPhone option. Now on to the positives. 

Hardware

Even at my most anti-iPhone, I envied the hardware. The smooth, fast, performance from full vertical integration. Innovations that almost always "just worked", and usually led the way for the industry (Touch ID, Face ID). Consistently phenomenal cameras and screens. Great waterproofing.

This is in contrast to the highest-end Android OEM, Samsung--king of the gimmicks. Samsung is a great manufacturer, and they have produced some great phones, but they are inconsistent and unpredictable. Many Samsung-originated innovations are features in search of a need.

Tired of one-off problems

The fragmentation of the Android world is a drag. Especially if you are on anything but the Samsung flagship, any problem you have is hard to pin down. Is it your unique phone or configuration? Not that the iOS world is perfect, but if you have a problem, you also likely have lots of company. Meaning that a fix is more likely to be forthcoming, and if not full-on fix, a much better chance of finding a reasonable work-around.

Updates

Apple has long shone in this department, and Android has long lagged. The Google phones have done reasonably well, Samsung is I think getting better, but the lesser OEMs often don't even ship with the latest version, so the one upgrade you get is just to go to the latest version--12 months late.

Apple's one little black mark was that older phones that were nominally supported were sometimes crippled by the upgrade, because they simply lacked the hardware to run the newest iOS well. My impression is that recent iPhones are so damn fast that this is no longer an issue. That is certainly the sentiment in the iPhone 12 reviews--the performance improvement is not noticeable today, but is nice insurance against future upgrades.

Curiosity

I've been all-Android so long, I am curious to see how the other half lives. My impression is the apps are better. Possibly more expensive, but better. 

Overcast (podcast App)

On the subject of apps, as a heavy podcast user, having a great podcast app is important to me. I have tried a few on Android, and they are all fine, but none seem great. iOS has a podcast app, Overcast, that gets rave reviews. I listen to the developer's podcast, and have recommended it to my iPhone-toting friends and family. But I have never actually used it, because it is iOS-only. So I am looking forward to trying Overcast, and saving time with its Smartspeed feature that eliminates silences.

Repairability

The few times I have looked into repairing Android phones, it has been cost-prohibitive. Like a car that has light damage but is nevertheless "totaled". In the case of the PH1, that applies even to replacing the battery. By contrast, iPhones have a pretty good record for cost of basic repairs, such as screen or battery replacement.