I bought my first mobile phone in 2003. At that time, there was no smartphone concept. Smartphones with more capabilities were called PDA, personal digital assistants.
There was also a Nokia N series that was all the rage back then. I saved some money and bought the Nokia N97 Mini in 2008. By that time, Apple had already launched the iPhone (The first iPhone launched in 2007).
But since it was not available in India, people usually got it from their cousins or relatives who lived in the US. And even then it was quite expensive.
Simultaneously, Google acquired Android in 2005 and made it the iPhone competition. HTC was already using it on their smartphones. Samsung quickly came on board by using the Android operating system on its smartphones, followed by many other companies.
The good thing about Android is that smartphone companies adopted it to make smartphones in different price range, and by 2010 the Android Smartphones were quite affordable, so I got the Nexus S which Samsung created.
The Nexus series was powered by Android where the OS had no other customization on top of it, and it was called pure Android.
And in the last ten years, I have used over a dozen Android smartphones. In the mid of 2015, I tried to move to the iPhone, but it felt so restrictive that I sold it and moved back to Android in just a few months.
The experience of using an iPhone was pretty bad; there are so many things that I could not do which were quickly possible on an Android smartphone. It felt like a jail and no wonder why it’s called jailbreaking to remove the restrictions on an iPhone because it does feel like a jail when you are not able to do the simple things like changing ringtone, downloading a file, sending it to someone else.
Fast forward to 2020, during the Covid-19 lockdown, my Android smartphone got damaged because of some water, and I thought it’s been five years since I used the iPhone so let me try it one another time.
I bought a used iPhone X, and the iPhone 11 was already launched in 2019, so it was around two years old iPhone. It was not a Nightmare to use an iPhone in 2020 after ten years of using Android, but it was still not up to a point where I could completely move away from Android.
I have switched back to Android, but I would like to mention a few things if anyone is interested in moving from Android to iPhone.
Carrying an Android phone vs carrying an iPhone
There isn’t a big difference between carrying an Android phone versus carrying an iPhone because the shape and size of all the smartphones are pretty much similar. No one would even know what type of smartphone you have if you use a smartphone case and the Apple logo is hidden.
The only thing I find different is when you are at your friend’s place, and you want to use your smartphone up because the battery is low quickly. Typically it’s the case with iPhone users. And if there is no iPhone user at your friend’s place, you probably won’t be getting their unique lightning connector.
There are adaptors available that convert a micro USB into a lightning cable, but then again, you will have to carry it with you all the time. However, the Android Smartphones have moved to USB type C from micro USB, so it is another challenge to find an adaptor that converts a USB type C into a lightning cable.
Moving My Data to iPhone
These days it is pretty easy to move your data from one phone to another, but if you are talking about cross-platform such as Android to iOS or vice versa, it is still tricky.
I did not find it difficult to move my data since I have been doing it for my friends who moved from Android to iPhone or vice versa all the time, and I have also written about it on the blog.
The only service that is difficult to move data is WhatsApp which has different methods of backing up and thinking the data on IOS and Android. Unfortunately, there are no free solutions, and the paid solutions are also not foolproof.
So you can quickly move your contacts, photos, videos to iOS, you won’t be able to move data in specific apps.
App availability
All the popular apps are available for all the platforms, so you are covered if it’s a social media app. Even utilities have apps for both Android and iPhone.
Almost every app that I use on Android was available on my iPhone. But the issue is some apps that are e available free of cost on Android or available at a cheaper price, you have to pay a little extra to get it on an iPhone, but it’s an infrequent case. The majority of people won’t even be needing such types of apps.
When it comes to App exclusive 80, there are more iPhone exclusive apps than Android-only apps. Pretty much every start-up first tries to build an iPhone app to gain traction and then build an Android app later.
I was using a subscription-based video editing app for Android, and I had to purchase another subscription for iPhone, which was a little expensive. But one point in favour of the iPhone is that all the apps that I used on the iPhone are much more refined compared to their version on Android.
Once you start using the apps on the iPhone, it will be difficult for you to get the same experience on Android. Several apps have a completely different user interface on both platforms.
Personalization
There was a massive difference between personalizing Android and personalizing in the iPhone a few years ago, but now, Apple has introduced many customization options to the iPhone as well. However, Apple is a little restrictive in I inn comparison to Android.
Their recent update of iOS has now allowed users to put widgets on any home screen, which was earlier restricted to just one page.
But again, you don’t give a lot of thought to you doing extreme customizations to your smartphone after a while. I was happy with the kind of customization I was able to do with the iPhone.
Content creation
It is one place where the iPhone is far better than the Android. If you are creating photo or video content, then the iPhone cameras are leaps ahead of the Android phone cameras, even the flagship ones.
So, to create videos for Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat, it’s better to have an iPhone if you can afford it.
Even the editing process of videos is much better because of the better user interface of video editing apps such as Inshot or Kinemaster.
But it does not mean that your content will suck if you create it using an Android smartphone because there is much more than just the quality of the video. But it helps to have better quality.
Why did I switch back to Android?
There are many reasons I switched back to my Android smartphone. Another reason is, my Asus 6z, the Android smartphone with impressive camera capabilities. I mean, the back camera flips to become the front camera, and you can use it at any angle.
So when I fixed my damaged Asus 6z, I found that I was using it more to record videos than the iPhone X, which does not have an excellent front camera.
I also did not feel good about the battery backup of the iPhone when I compared it with the Asus 6z, which has a 5000 mAh battery.
Also, the iPhone I was using was almost three years old, and it was better to get rid of it before getting its value.
And guess what? I have switched to the iPhone 12 Pro Max, and I love it. The issues I had with the iPhone X, most of them have been addressed in the iPhone 12 Pro.
I am obviously using the most expensive iPhone in the market, but the features like Dictation has improved on all the iPhones.
Dictation on iPhone is what Speech to text is on Android, a feature I use extensively on my phone to reply to emails and messages or even write firs drafts of articles. I couldn’t use it on the iPhone X because of the poor performance of Dictation.
Now that it has been addressed, I am finding myself using it more on the iPhone 12 Pro Max. And the bigger screen also helps in working on it for a longer time.
Another thing that improved is the battery. It was so poor that I had to charge my iPhone X twice a day. And after a few days, I stopped using it much. The iPhone 12 Pro Max definitely has a bigger battery because of its bigger size, but even the iPhone 12 pro has got better battery performance.
Can you switch to iPhone from Android?
Like I said at the start of this article, both platforms a similar kind of solutions and it is easy to adapt if you are just a regular user. I am not a regular user, I am a heavy user, and I have found ways to get my work done. So, it is possible to even heavy users like me to switch to the iPhone.
The initial days aren’t going to be great, as it happens with any type of change. But it’s possible.
