I'm back to Apple products

[nickdalzell]

So...I have returned. No flaming or trolling here however I have tried to like Android and had many devices, some cheap, some with multiple cores and some with single cores, some with lots of RAM and some without. No matter what I couldn't be happy with Android. Best comparison was buying a car to use as a daily driver (Apple) vs. buying a car that one spends more time under the hood than behind the wheel, constantly tuning engines, rebuilding carburetors, and tearing down and rebuilding when all else fails (Android). I don't hate Android, and can certainly understand where it is heading, however I must rely on my phone and tablet to work and not cause tons of frustration when on the job. My phone is a work communication tool as well as a source of relaxation during a stressful job as an MP3 player. I cannot afford to have the music player crash or the phone being incapable of receiving calls due to some radio glitch. I have therefore gotten an iPhone 4. while some may no doubt hate me for my choice (although I do hope these forums are open minded enough to understand) I will still hang around the off topic area and any other to offer helpful advice since I am at least versed enough in the OS to help those struggling with it, and I will still be here for random chats...but here are some things I had dealt with in Android that caused my departure:

1. Constant crashing for no apparent reason

No matter the articles saying iOS crashes more than Android, I just can't see it, I have never had an iOS app crash. And if I did, I never knew it had done so. Android also ends up being a royal pain with alerting the user and, much like Microsoft Windows, offers no help for the user to diagnose the problem. It just says "this app crashed" and that is it. Sometimes one can reload the app and it works fine, leaving the user scratching his or her head wondering just what had happened the first time. Other times the app continues to crash as if it isn't compatible with the version of Android, although the version is included in the list of supported apps according to the app's page in Google Play. Either way the frequency I had with apps crashing in Android made it unusable and very unstable in my own experience. I don't like being annoyed with my phone when I need it to work

2. Battery life abysmal

I am not sure what causes it. Is it the apps that seem to run in the background after I exit them? Them restarting themselves for no reason? Low signal? Defective battery? Or just Android? I may never know. Jelly Bean, Froyo, Eclair, Gingerbread, Ice Cream, all suck on battery life. 1500, 5000mAh or whatever same result. A phone or tablet that constantly needs daily life support. I can uninstall apps that seem to consume large amounts in the settings page where it shows the apps using this or that amount of battery but the results remain unchanged. I leave work with less than 10% battery--that is, if I make it through a 8-hour work day at all before the battery is completely depleted. I turn off wifi, GPS, set screen to unusably dim, turn silent mode on, disable background sync, none of which are needed to get days of standby out of my iPhone 4, and certainly unnecessary for a smartphone, only to get 35% at best after work. What makes the iPhone consume very little with constant use while a rarely used Android phone is a battery hog?

3. Clippy returns! (Sort of)

"It looks like you're writing a letter. Would you like some help?" Everyone remembers the god-awful office assistant that once graced Office 97 until Office XP removed him from the default install. Now he seems to have inspired a new 'feature' that exists in Android versions 4.0 and up in the form of an 'app not responding' notice, yet another feature that despite Android being Linux-based and customizable, cannot be disabled. If an app takes too long it will cause this prompt to constantly pop up, until the user gets frustrated and either breaks the phone or hits 'force close' which will simply crash the app. All of this because it is 'taking too long'. Well. Sorry, but I happen to be more patient than that, especially if the app happens to be a large game. Maybe some users can't wait a few seconds for one to load up, but I'm not that kind of impatient user. Apparently Android caters to folks who need apps to load perfectly instant, which makes me wonder about the next issue below

4. Lag!

Jitter, stutter, glitch! Anyone who regularly plays Call of Duty can attest to the annoying nature of lag! It may not be as pronounced as in the game, of course, but I always dealt with transition jitter, jerky scrolling, and apps whose animations, which often dazzled me in iOS on the iPad, were ruined by jitter and lag within Android. the scrolling in iOS is so smooth and responsive that I feel a true interaction between man and device, as the feel is realistic, and I actually seem to be manipulating what appears to be virtual paper. In Android, the screen takes a few extra milliseconds to respond to a scroll swipe, and oftentimes causes it to jump straight down to the bottom of the page by mistake. This ruins the interaction. Apps such as Facebook have their transitions ruined by jitter. Even in multiple core systems running jelly bean, while reduced, it still exists. Google even admits to it, which is why they created project butter in the first place. iOS has been lag-free since 2007. Inexcusable, Android, especially given how your high-end products happen to cost as much if not twice as much as Apple products...

5. Ctrl-alt-delete

When all else fails, reboot. This happens to be a daily or weekly issue that harks back to when BlackBerry users coined the term 'battery pull' to fix a non-responsive device. Now I hardly have had any Android device lock up per-se, but rebooting is often the fix for a non-responsive radio glitch causing permanent no service (have bars, but cannot make or receive calls, or have 3G but cannot get online) as often using airplane mode to 'cure' a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place doesn't always revive the dead radio. Also seems the only cure to fix a problematic proximity sensor driver that turns the screen off but won't wake it back up when you need to enter numbers on the virtual keypad. Android is based off Linux so rebooting should be something that is needed in WP7. But the only time I ever had to reboot iOS at all has been during OS updates.

6. OS [non]updates

Buy a nice high-end Android phone, and guess what? It runs gingerbread. Want ICS or up? Root! Root! Root! ROM! ROM! ROM! Voiding the warranty and risking a brick shouldn't be necessary if the hardware can support the upgrade. So why is a closed-source software as iOS is updated without needing a jailbreak while the open-source and 'free' Android not? This is inexcusable. Carriers cannot control an OS made by Google unless AT&T and Verizon own Google. Statistics seem to confirm that over 65% of current Android users are still on Gingerbread! An OS well over two years old!

7. App stores

Google Play is a worthy upgrade from the older crash-prone Android Market, but it still seems glitchy and takes more steps than needed to achieve the same thing that is done in virtually one click in the iOS App Store. Also, most of the games I love don't seem to exist. The popular and fun Sky Gamblers games only exist for iOS. The Star Trek PADD app, iOS only. But the Play Store does have Tricorder, right? Well, sure, but it is three updates behind the iOS version. Apparently the devs don't like Android....

keyboard lag

This is a problem. I type at 100wpm. My ipad can keep up with the superior touch response. Android forces me to type half this speed due to it being a bit laggy with the response. Tapping the keys too fast and android misses half of them, turning a word like 'laggy' into 'ly'. While iOS's autocorrect is not perfect, at least I can have words that are misspelled correct to the right spelling without going back. I just hit space bar and it replaces the word for me. In Android, the stock keyboard cannot do that. You need to actually click the replacement word in the suggestion box. Swype wouldn't install. Swiftkey worked and was close, but no tabootie. I still had to type at best 50wpm and the autocorrect was close, but not quite on par with the version in iOS. Plus, swift key is not free.

no equal to the retina display (yet)

I say "yet" as I know Android will catch up to Apple in this regard if it is to hope to compete, but it hasn't yet here in this town and the current available selection of Android tablets, smartphones, and media players. I have a migraine problem. This is even more pronounced when I spend more time behind a computer screen. Pixels cause it a lot. That is, if I can notice them. Android has high-end products that carry a higher ppi density (Nexus 7) than the iPad 3 I use, but is AMOLED, so I notice the pixels even more so, and the brightness is insanely high and my brain hurts! This also caused me to stop using the PlayStation Vita due to the problem being even more pronounced in OLED screens. The Apple products with retina have been a lifesaver. Or is it head saver? Soft, easy to read, comfortable after extended use.

 

[Frisco]

Hello nickdalzel.

There are well-known, often simple remedies for every mentioned issue you bring up.

But you sound savvy enough to know that your post there could be written pretty close to the same way but with the products reversed, as I'm certain you've read in the Apple/iPhone forums, as I have.

I think that you just like iPhone more than Android. Cool.

Nice to have the choices!

 

[nickdalzell]

I think it is just that I am not one to tinker around and wants a device to just work. I also have more dollars invested in apps and games from the iOS store that don't exist in the Play Store or ones I don't want to purchase twice. Maybe my iPad has me spoiled? Perhaps I'm not the target that Android sells to? I'm not by any means a fanboy who makes claims that this OS sucks or that this OS is superior. Apple just fits more with me. I have read many forums, yes, and often wonder why android users are so hot headed when someone chooses Apple instead? It kinda makes me upset that Android fans care. Do they want every user to have only android to choose from? That would be a very boring, un diverse society. I like choice. I have given both platforms a chance, only to come back to Apple. That doesn't mean I'm going to troll here and tell people the best solution to their Droid X having bad battery life is to get an iPhone. I'm just not that concerned over someone's choice of a phone personally.

 

[novox77]

any reason you're avoiding the 4s or 5?

 

[yeroc1982]

I've owned 5 I phones all together for a number of years. I would never go back. IPhone is just soon borning and restrictive, can't do anything cool unless you jb it. Since I phones I've owned a gnex and s3 and never had issues with them.

 

[nickdalzell]

The 4s seems to have Siri as the only advantage. The 5 is too new and I learned long ago to not early adopt. I don't need a iPhone pretending to be a phablet so the increased length is not necessary. I hardly use Siri on my iPad as I find it faster to click the app icon, so while it helped immensely to overcome some of Android's shortcomings via voice command, that is much less an issue with the iPhone. I often forget that Siri is there on the iPad. I also don't need the A6 chip. Can't imagine playing a game on such a small screen. My primary uses for my previous android phone was calls, messaging, music and weather.

I will admit though that the 'iPhone OS' was terrible. I had an early iPod touch with iPhone OS 3 which didn't allow the wallpaper to be changed without jailbreaking...also sucky battery life in an iPhone 3GS. Neither lagged, though. They seem to have immensely improved battery life since then...my boss has an iPhone 4 as does my sister. Most people here have iPhones so the market is there, but I only hear positive stuff about the 4, and a lot of negatives about the 4s and the 5 hasn't sold well enough to know if the upgrade is worth it. My boss's iPhone is now three years old and the 'non-removable' battery never misses a beat. I was with him at Frog Follies last year and took some pictures with his iPhone camera, and, despite it warning me that the battery life was around 15% (he didn't charge it for a few nights) it still had enough juice for five more camera pictures, two voice calls lasting ten minutes each, and countless text messages (evidenced by the tri-tone alert sound going off)

 

[Kamau]

buying a car that one spends more time under the hood than behind the wheel, constantly tuning engines, rebuilding carburetors, and tearing down and rebuilding when all else fails (Android).

And that's the thing. When I go to auto shows, I see the time and money those people have put into their cars. You want it to not only stand out appearance wise, but you want it to run the best it can be. Some will put thousands of dollars into their car just to get a couple extra horsepower out of it.
Android is like the kit car. It has all the basics covered when you buy it. But it's also made to make it better, better being a relative term for each of us. Just like me right now. I flashed a stable last night, even though the last update was smooth. So far, it is running & operating like it should. But at the same time, I still looked at some of the other builds out there to see if there was something with just a little bit more. I'm also about to tweak my voltage a bit more to try to get a few extra minutes out of my battery. I've got an awesome theme, but now maybe it's time for me to start thinking about themeing myself. That's what Android is all about. And personally, I'd rather stand out because Apple doesn't have that option. Each of their phones looks, feels and performs the same way.
They say it's not the kill, but the hunt that give you the satisfaction. Androids' season is 24/7/365, and I got my license.

Good Luck to 'ya!

 

[nickdalzell]

Well, all I want is a car to drive, which is why I drive a pontiac bonneville with well over 260,000 miles. I also want a phone that just works and not to tinker with everything on either one aside scheduled maintenance. I just don't have the time or patience to mess around with ROMs and such. Besides there isn't any way to remove the ANRs and crash notices inside Android. I tried. Even SQlite couldn't do it. Since I'm very opposed to deer hunting and any hunting in general, I won't touch that particular analogy with a ten-foot pole

At least if I wreck my $995 Pontiac, I don't cringe the same way one does if they wrecked a custom Shelby Cobra (ouch!)

 

[ardchoille]

You just need to find the right phone for you. I started my Android journey on the htc G1 the day after it was released. I went through several android phones (and even moved to iOS and back) and am now on the Droid Razr HD. I have used and developed for android versions pre-Donut all the way through Jelly Bean. Android devices are like automobiles, a Volkswagen is cheaper but it won't have the power of a Ferrari - you get what you pay for. I haven't tinkered with my Droid Razr HD and it works quite well as is. I spend more time enjoying it than I do maintaining it. I've found that, the less I tinker with an Android device, the less I have to tinker with it.

Crashes
I remember having an app crash when I was on the Motorola Cliq XT years ago, but haven't noticed an app crashing since then. With all of the crashes people report, I can only assume that I use my devices differently than others.

Battery life
I'm going on 51 hours with 17% left on the battery on my Droid Razr HD. This phone has awesome battery life. I was getting around 32 hours between charges on the Samsung Vibrant. Again, I can only assume that I use my devices differently than others.

Best phone I have owned
It's a toss-up between the Droid Razr HD and the Samsung Vibrant.

Updates
Unless you're buying a Google experience phone, updates come from the manufacturer/carrier rather than Google. The reason for this is that manufacturers and carriers modify Android before the device is sold and those modifications need to be worked into updates before we get them. This includes whatever "skin" the manufacturer has added on top of Android.

I remember, on the Cliq XT, that Motorola promised us an upgrade and then changed their mind citing that blur was too difficult to work into the upgrade - many users dumped Motorola and vowed to never return. I think this is one reason Motorola's new skin isn't as heavy as blur used to be.

My time with Apple
I spent a year (from March 2012 to March 2013) on Apple products. I had sold all of my Android products and was determined to rebuild my life around Apple. I am now back on Android products, having dumped everything related to Apple. I thought Apple products would be better for me, I found out that I was wrong.

We all need to use that which best suits us, regardless of which product that is. All I ask is that you hold on to your Android devices for one year after moving to Apple products. Before you move to Apple products, I recommend reading this article. It was written by an die-hard Apple fan boy who has moved to Android. It's a very informative article.

From iOS to Android - By Aayush Arya

 

[nickdalzell]

Well I didn't take the extreme step of tossing or selling my android devices, I even kept the small tablet that has a spidered screen due to last frustration I had with it, that still works but is painful to look at now. Just in case, always have a backup, especially if my iPhone ends up under a golf car motor while working on the job....

Speaking of Google experience, the Google+ app won't run on my android phone, or dual-core tablet. It loads but crashes if trying to do anything with it, such as look at my stream, circles, or profile. In JB it says 'unfortunately, Google+ has stopped' and in GB I get the force close alert. The same app works perfectly fine in iOS which I must say was rather ironic given it failed to function at all in Google Android, both 4.1 and 2.3.5

 

[Scootmien]

Firstly, I am neither a die-hard Android or Apple fan in any way, seeing that both of them have a worthwhile niche they fill very well. I am running both an iPhone 5 as a personal device and a Samsung Galaxy S2 for work. I did have an S3 but it was a POS so I sold it. I won't go into details over what was wrong with it save it was bought on Day One and was a 'Friday Afternoon' phone.

I love the iPhone. It does what I want, when I want it, without any fuss whatsoever. I haven't jailbroken it as I don't see the need. It's never crashed, never hung and the battery life is exemplary.

My SGS2 was so abysmal that in order to get it to function properly I had to root it. Now I have done so though it is a fabulous device with a battery that is not far off the equal of the iPhone.

Both of them have served me very well over the time I have owned them and now do exactly what I want. However, the S2 is old and on its way out so I am replacing it with either an SGS4 or an HTC One, I haven't decided which yet, in the next couple of months.

I echo the sentiment that you should not get rid of your Android stuff until you are sure you are happy with the Apple ecosystem. No mater which way you go, being ingrained too far with one ecosystem makes it very hard to swap. Although I have an iPad, that is the only other Apple device I have and everything I need to sync from my Galaxy S2 syncs perfectly fine with the iPad, so for me this is a non-issue.

Good luck with the swap.

 

[Frisco]

I'm attracted to iPhones (and iPads) simply because of the ways they are presented to us.. I can't think of another way to put it. I'll try a 3 point list:

- They have a "concise" sort of appeal.. they're basically one of a kind, an attraction that most Android users find a limitation (I'm of mixed feeling on that; but I've never wished there was only one Android ).

- I've handled many of them, and they handle well, they are pretty to look at and instantly recognizable, something I used to like about my Blackberry Pearl and my 8330. I like a Corvette or Mustang analogy on this particular point.

- I don't see any issues in the Apple forums that look much different at all than the ones here. Android Forums is huge, with constant, hourly new posts on this or that problem or user help needed on operation of these things. Android Forums would either not exist or would only be something like a fan forum for the above two mentioned cars if Android devices were any better than Apple devices.

Those opinions aside, I've chosen Android as my hand held way of communicating on personal and business levels, using the internet, playing games and listening to music. The reasons for not choosing iPhone/iPad for doing those things had to do with a sort of natural segue from the Samsung Instinct, the first touch screen I ever handled in a store, to the Eris. I still had my Blackberries back then, but allowed them to drop off usage as I began to see where this touch screen thing was going.

Now that I've been with Androids for several years, I don't see any reason to allow those good points up there in the beginning of this post to cause me to switch; I need to be able to go into the store and handle several different of the latest Androids to see which one suits me for my next upgrade. With iPhones.. well.. not much in the way of choices.

 

[nickdalzell]

Since I have used both I tend to favor these forums unlike others for being a lot more open minded and friendly to those who aren't die-hard anti-apple 'Fandroids'. Although the usual poking at Apple does exist, the forums aren't full of hate that I see on others. Thanks for hearing me out and being open!

For me Androids costs outweigh the benefits for my preferred use. I don't spend hours staring at the screen to even enjoy the widgets, live wallpapers, and such(which i can watch my battery draining doing so). My phone spends most of its time in my pocket acting as an MP3 player, my dual-core tablet, Angry Birds Star Wars, or in an app. The home screen is the most rarely seen in any device I own. I spend more time in-app. Or I have the screen in standby. Widgets mean nothing and I derive no benefit from them. Android's abilities also seem to hold it back, as if it tried to do too much, thus lag, jerky scrolling. The open nature of the Play Store means every bit of malware and apps can be in there, iOS never has this issue with air push. Apps only today present the notice that they use air push. The ports of Facebook, Weather Channel, Skype and such are quite watered down compared with their iOS counterparts. Something I often hated soon as I fired up the same apps in my iPad with a 'wow' expression at how they are presented. Then came the love of retina display. Although I could spend hours and hours hacking the lag out of Android, I was left with a paltry lookalike to iOS, and then said to myself, 'why?' What good is using this phone if I copy Apple and still have ugly apps and glitches, crashes? What am I getting? For me, nothing. I can see the appeal with tinkerers but I just don't happen to be one of them. I get frustrated when I cannot check the weekly forecast because the phone thinks it is offline when I see a nice, blue connected 3G icon with both arrows flashing in sequence. I am not happy when a post to AF takes twice as long due to keyboard lag and having to go back and correct spelling mistakes missed by SwiftKey...when I need my device to work, I can't afford to spend time in settings hunting down and clearing cache in some app (Facebook.) just to clear out the 'low space' icon that for reasons I fail to grasp, kills the ability of Yahoo! mail to function.

 

[XplosiV]

At least you tried to get along with Android, if it's not for you then fair enough. :thumb:

 

[nickdalzell]

I don't get it. What would my points do for those threads other than come off as trolling? I'm no fanboy and don't intend to start suddenly promoting Apple here. Heck I hardly promoted Android, although I was always willing to put my own feelings aside to help those who are new converts or otherwise needing support

 

[Frisco]

"Keyboard lag?"

Predictive text and swype has me entering and sending texts so fast now that using "words per minute" makes me feel like I'd be cheating.

 

[pastafarian]

Sounds like you either made some very poor choices or had an extremely bad string of luck with your Android devices or maybe a little of both. I don't have any of your issues. I have had extensive experience with iOS and don't find it particularly better the the latest Google offerings. Of course, it's not unusual for someone who's started out in one "system" to have many issues with the other. I'm mostly Android now (started out with WinMO and Palm)and find iOS to be horribly limiting to use and not nearly as intuitive as the Apple brethren are so quick to promote. OTH, one size doesn't fit all in this world and if you're happy with your iDevices? I wish you well.

 

[NYCHitman1]

Going based by the products listed in your profile, I can see you haven't owned any of the signature devices from the major OEM's (Samsung, Motorola, HTC, LG, etc). I feel bad that you've had a poor experience, but I'm almost certain that if you had tried any of the flagship devices - you would certainly change your mind. In any event, I wish you the best of luck in finding the best device that fits your usage.

 

[Speed Daemon]

Best comparison was buying a car to use as a daily driver (Apple) vs. buying a car that one spends more time under the hood than behind the wheel, constantly tuning engines, rebuilding carburetors, and tearing down and rebuilding when all else fails (Android).

Strange, I'm an Android user and I don't have to do any of those things. :dontknow: It just works. :car:

I like the fact that my "hood" isn't welded shut, and that I'm not addicted to buying a brand new "car" every year just because it's a new model (adding to a large and growing collection that I can only use one at a time, "how many yachts do you need to water ski behind?"), or spend the weeks (and dollars) in-between buying many costly proprietary accessories for my "car".

I am happy to hear that your financial situation has improved to the point that you can afford to buy luxury phones, and dump your prepaid cellular provider for one with better service. Congratulations on that! :five: IMHO that's your real victory.

 

[mikedt]

Fair enough Nick, if you got the money for $600+ Apple iOS devices, go for it. Budget Android devices are good enough for me. I know many people and budget Android devices are all that they can afford, owning a genuine Apple iOS device is only something they can dream of. That's why there's so many knock-offs around, because Apple makes desirable but expensive luxury products.

I've never have any problems with them, certainly nothing like you've experienced. Well the cheapo tablet I've got lags and the battery life is crap, but then it only cost the equivalent of $50 for a 7inch ICS device, so it's unreasonable for me to expect iPad like performance out of it. But on the other hand the phones I've got are OK, including a cheapo Galaxy Note 2 clone.

Of course I'm in China, and so I can get to pick and choose the good ones from the lemons at a local store. But then there are hundreds of posts on this forum that frequently contain the words like "help, crash, broken, lag, China"

BTW I've recommended that some of my more affluent one-to-one students buy Apple iOS devices over their Android breathren, simply because of the lack of good quality, graded and professionally written educational software for Android.

About the migraines from looking at certain types of screens, you might want to consult an optometrist or doctor about that. Could be an underlying medical problem you might not be aware of. That just doesn't sound right to me, honestly I'd be worried about something like that.

 

[jhawkkw]

Going based by the products listed in your profile, I can see you haven't owned any of the signature devices from the major OEM's (Samsung, Motorola, HTC, LG, etc). I feel bad that you've had a poor experience, but I'm almost certain that if you had tried any of the flagship devices - you would certainly change your mind. In any event, I wish you the best of luck in finding the best device that fits your usage.

This is certainly true, flagship devices tend to preform better than low-budget devices. Judging android base on those is like only reading the prologue of a book, you only get a taste of what it is truly is like.

 

[jmar]

Google Experience devices and big name flagship devices are the true way of comparing Android to iOS.

My GNex is amazing! So is my Nexus 7. Reason being is the stock experience. Sure, I do run a custom ROM, but those are based off of stock, so any issues I would have tend to be user error or a ROM dev error. Nevertheless, I rarely have hiccups. I know that you've already left for iOS but if you ever come back to Android, fix yourself up with a Nexus or high end flagship. It's an entirely different experience.

 

[Frisco]

Google Experience devices and big name flagship devices are the true way of comparing Android to iOS.

At least price-wise.

 

[huh]

funny....I'm stuck on a Macbook pro.for a laptop..have an iphone and an ipad too but have an HP desk top and an android tablet...was just complaining about stupid apple tonight!! I literally said "THAT"S IT!!! I"M DONE!!. It's too restrictive and I can't take it anymore hahaha

to each their own

 

[Stuntman]

No matter the articles saying iOS crashes more than Android, I just can't see it, I have never had an iOS app crash.

You can't see it because when an iOS app crashes, iOS tried to hide the fact that something went wrong. If someone wrote an app in iOS to deliberately crash, you will never see any error message when it does. It's like driving a car without any indicators on the dash saying there is a problem. The thing about software is that if there is a problem, restarting the app will allow you to keep working. If your car has a flat, there no way to reboot it to make it work again.