I'm planning on switching platforms and I'm just curious of the opinions of people here. I think that Android can have advantages in areas of privacy and external app installation, but most of the benefits come with a lot of tinkering out of the box.
I'm a very capable person at modifying my phone and I don't generally mind doing that. I can make the interface work however I want. But I find myself caring less and less about how I interact with things in the light of what Apple is doing.
I'm looking at Android and it seems to be pretty far behind iOS at the moment. The messaging service is a huge sticking point and progress isn't being made to unify iMessage with RCS apps. It seems to me like Samsung is making more progress with the platform than Google itself is. Like they're the ones carrying it right now.
Keep in mind, I'm not a shill here. I haven't used iOS in years. I still think they're overpriced phones and Apple isn't a great company. And I wish USB-C was a thing. This isn't an ad. I'm just frustrated with the android platform and Apple seems to be leaving it behind.
Example features: FaceID, iMessage, home screen UX, battery life, and extended software support.
So can anyone tell me if they feel the same or help me in my decision? Not trying to start a tech war btw
I do not understand your frustration. Like how can google unify iMessage with RCS if Apple refuses to do so. I mean why would Apple even bother and lose one of its pro.
For FaceID there's face Unlock but it's not faceid. Fingerprint is the rule and I'm fine with that one. I'm not sure about the home screen UX but I use smart launcher 6 and it does a good job of providing a neat sorted apps catehpry list for me. As for battery life. The new snapdragon 8 gen 2 provides beastly battery life compared to previous generations which were a regression.
About extended software support. I agree google is a bit behind samsung. But, 5 years os support is not bad. You have samsung, some oneplus smartphones and than google.
In the end if none of that matters, you do you. You do not need justification to use or the other. Just read some reviews and make your decision.
I appreciate that response, very detailed. To be clear I don't blame Google for not fixing the RCS thing. I just dont see them making any progress. Even if RCS gets through, every android messaging service is still far behind Apple and would take awhile to catch up. iMessage can send payments, play games, has custom reactions, a whole ton of stuff.
And fingerprint is nice, but most android phones have switched to under the screen readers and I just can't. They're extremely inconvenient when compared to scanning my face which is always looking at the device anyways.
And the OS support is a sticking point. Google and Samsung both suck at this and I can point it out using the Material You thing they did. When it came out, I had no idea what the features were. I had to go watch videos and even then, it didn't seem like a big upgrade. Because it wasn't a big functional upgrade for me. And then Samsung had no clue when it would even come to my Note 10 device. So I was left going: what is this update? When will I have it? And why should I care?. I couldn't answer any of those and its a problem with every Google update imo. Because some features only come go the pixel. And then others will be changed by Samsung.
Not to mention that Google doesn't provide support for their features anyways and frequently drops them. Like Apple arcade crushes it while the best that Google can do with gaming is just do a poor imitation of it with zero support.
So I'm just a little tired of thinking that android phones will improve these things and thought I'd at least try the other side for a change.