Comparing Apples and Androids

I meant to publish this back in September 2015 when I got my first iPhone. However, I was unable to publish until now. While I am now more accustomed to the iPhone, I thought it would be interesting to look back at my original perspective.

I’ve had an Android phone forever (well, at least since the HTC Thunderbolt when Verizon first offered 4G LTE). However, as an APM I recently joined the Google app for iOS team. Having an Android phone actually made my job harder. So with the launch of the iPhone 6s / 6s Plus, I switched over to the Apple camp of cellular devices. These will be my initial thoughts, because I’ve only had my iPhone for two full days.

Something to note: The last “i” device I’ve owned is the iPod Touch 2nd generation. I still have it, still use it to play music, but I haven’t been able to update the apps or the OS in forever.

Pros:

• folders in their default state on the homescreens show up to 9 of the apps contained in them (versus stock Android stacking the app icons so I can only see the first one and slivers of the ones below)

• (new iOS9 on 6s feature!) force touch on the keyboard when typing makes it really easy to use trackpad-like functionality to edit any typing errors

• camera is gorgeous. probably the thing I was looking forward to most on iphone

• swipe down from homescreen to search for apps - makes up for the fact that I dont have a drawer where all my apps are alphabetized

Cons:

• no swipe on keyboard

• no widgets (today section in the notification bar doesnt count)

• sharing fuctionalities lacking (within some apps I cant even share to facebook messenger easily)

• no back button (really hard on iPhone 6s Plus where the screen isn’t comfortable to reach at top corners with one-handed use, and the only way I can go back is at the very top.)

• no drawer where all my apps are alphabetized. sometimes I forget what apps I have or what theyre called, and then being able to search for one by name doesnt help. (some might say this is actually a problem of having too many apps I don’t use consistently, and I would tell them thats a good point for another discussion)

Neutral:

• ability to access lots of my data from android simply because google has so many iOS apps. for example, since my iPod touch I had uploaded my music to Google Play music so that I could access it from anywhere. now instead of re-syncing my vast iTunes library to my new phone, I just downloaded the play music app and voila, all my music is there

• I worried about not being able to get some of my favorite apps when moving platforms, but it seems that besides widget-type apps, there is great parity between the app stores, at least in the case of moving from android to iOS