I sold my jailbroken iPhone 3 back in January 2011 and have been using rooted Android phones for the last 11 years. The reason I returned to an iPhone were mainly that I love change (has the iPhone improved?), Apple has been doing a good job on privacy (versus Google), I had a disastrous experience with the Nexus 6P battery, my Pixel 2 XL has stopped getting updates after 3 years (iPhone is good for 6 to 7 years), The Apple Watch is just better than any other watch (apart from battery life) and my medical insurance funds an iPhone and Apple Watch almost for free. I got the iPhone 12 Pro and the Series 6 non-cellular Apple Watch in 44mm size.
So now that’s out of the way let me say I’m happy with the iPhone as far as stability, battery life, wide angle camera, I can use my own Keyboard and browser, and the quality of apps go. Yes the Watch does need to be charged daily, but I can get a full day’s heavy use out of it, and I do love its interface and better health data. I’ve been using both for 3 weeks now so all is good, but I just have a few things that do bug me that are worth noting for Apple users as I’d really like Apple to just address some of these:
- There is nothing that touches the Tasker app on iOS. Yes Shortcuts makes a good attempt, but it can be vastly expanded even if just on the reading of data for triggers. I can’t even set up a shortcut to trigger if I lose a WiFi network. It has great potential though.
- No call recording (which is legal in many countries, and the 3rd party line is not an option outside the USA, Android of course needed to be rooted for this anyway) – I got around this by buying the RecorderGear PR200 Bluetooth device which will work with iOS and Android.
- Call line identifiers such as TrueCaller and similar, are crippled. They work fine on Android, but some functions disable in the background even though they replace the default iOS phone app.
- Some apps which you’ve bought a lifetime usage on Android (eg. FaceApp), do not transfer to iOS, but the same goes for moving from iOS to Android. Others which just rely on a login, such as TrueCaller and Pocket Casts, do work fine.
- PushBullet does not work on iOS, to copy clipboard info from my Linux computer. I struggled a bit with alternatives as there are few, but I did in the end find an app called ‘Clipboard – Paste Anywhere’ which is doing what I need.
- Home screen icons and groups have improved but no built-in support for renaming an app icon or changing the icon (because sometimes you must use 3rd party apps, and you forget what they are for). I did find a Shortcut routine which is doing what I wanted, but the downside is no indicators show for message counts.
- Alerts were not sounding properly on the phone eg. for Telegram and Ring Doorbell, but I realised you need to disable their alerts to the Watch, then phone notifications sound properly.
- My Chargie hardware device (to stop battery charging at a determined percentage) does not have an iOS app yet. There is built-in OS optimised charging, but that still charges a full cycle up to 100%. This is also not the fault of Apple though.
- USSD messages appear in a clunky fashion like SMS test messages instead of the straight pop up view on Android. Hopefully this just gets streamlines and I must report it as feedback to Apple.
- No battery usage by app on the Watch so difficult to know which apps are going rogue on battery usage.
- Although the quality of apps is noticeably better, there is a lack of any apps for some Fediverse social networks such as Pixelfed, Tox, XMPP, and others. This is not Apple’s fault at all but is an inconvenience I suppose for someone used to testing lost of alternative network apps.
Otherwise, all is actually good, and I’m looking forward to sweating out a good 5 or 6 years at least with this phone. It is comforting to know firstly there are software and security updates for years to come, and secondly that I can go to Apple and get a battery etc replaced (that was just not an option for the Pixel phones). So I’m enjoying using the phone as I can appreciate what both Apple and Google do well, and what they both don’t get right yet. Neither are perfect!
#technology #hardware #apple #android #ios