Before we begin, I want to point out that the code of conduct applies to this post and all others on DEV. I don't expect that anyone will be particularly horrible, but I do know that many folks can get quite proud of their #gear choices.
On to the topic at hand: Should I jump ship to iOS?
I've been an Android user since Gingerbread was released, so I'm quite deeply entrenched into the ecosystem. But I feel like the lack of immidiate update support for Android, and the lack of care for privacy is really turning me off from the OS.
I'm currently using an Honor device (you care about privacy and bought a Huawei device?) and the hardware is amazing, but the base OS is terrible.
I know that I could totally buy a device which actually allows me to unlock the bootloader (Huawei have locked all of their devices down), and flash something like LineageOS onto it. In fact, until I bought my current device, this is exactly what I used to to - stock Android (as in the AOSP) is good, LineageOS with root is better, and most vendor specific builds of Android are terrible.
Security updates for Android, as some folks know, can take months (if not years) to be released for devices. And a lot of users are often left running insecure, outdated versions of the OS simply because the hardware vendors want to sell you the latest and greatest rather than support a device which is less then 9 months old - and the less said about companies like WileyFox the better.
I'm also totally aware thst iOS devices tend to become a lot less useful after 2-3 years of use, and that they're not as open as Android devices can be. I do have PC hardware which runs MacOS, Linux distros and Windows, so I'm not averse to running different OSs.
I'm really interested to hear the experiences of folks who have jumped ship (either way), and folks who have tried out both.
So fellow DEV readers, help me out. Should I jump ship? Or what are some of the things that I should be considering with reference to jumping over?
Top comments (7)
I personally love iOS more than Android ecosystem. If you like to root your phone and tinker with it daily then sure keep the android but otherwise iphone is perfect. Who says they get less useful after 2-3 years? I understand that battery gets degraded but that's normal and happens to every gadget. Atleast iphone supports multiple generations of iOS updates. I am not implying that iOS is better than Android but both are equally good and have their pros and cons. So far I cannot see any con for not trying iphone. And privacy - that's really a big concern!
In android to achieve privacy you need to change things a lot - custom rom, and other stuff
While iphone by default is privacy enabled which is a big deal.
I prefer to degoogle my life as much as possible
This is one of the biggest turn offs for me, when it comes to Android. The fact that the hardware vendors don't seem to be interested in releasing OS updates for longer than 6 months is terrible, in my opinion.
This is one of my main reasons for wanting to investigate the iOS ecosystem. Were I using an Android device which could be rooted and had custom ROMs available, I would go down that root (pun intended) and stick with F-Droid and Magisk - just so that I could maintain my data privacy. Plus, vendor versions of Android (including the version that Google release) tend to wipe out batteries faster - in my experience - than the AOSP version.
I had one of the earlier iPhones (I think iPhone 3?), then Android for a number of years, then that big ol honkin lumia 1040 Windows phone (my favorite). We recently upgraded phones, and I was very close to switching back to apple. My previous phone was an android OnePlus 3, and it was pretty great. This time however, I went with a galaxy S10 - I already kind of regret it. I had forgotten about how much carrier and manufacturer bloatware gets installed on these carrier phones.
I was considering switching back to iPhone, cuz at some point I want to get a MAC to start working from, as it's something i've never had experience with, and I know the phone and computer get along pretty well. My kids' schools have strictly macs around for the kids to use, so I figured that'd be another good reason to start getting the hang of a mac, This way I'd actually be able to know something about what i'm doing to help them out ;)
Why not both? Learn Angular/Vue/React and develop cross platform apps. My two cent.
You can have the best of both worlds IMO.
I am thinking of grabbing a Chromebook that supports Android Play Store. But after several Android devices and years of constant upgrades and ROM management, I am happy with iOS on my XR iPhone now. They get consistent updates for 5 years. Battery life is better. And security is a focus for Apple, unlike the inherent open-access permissions on Android.
Biggest advantage of Android over iPhone is that you can block ads system wide on Android but not really on iOS
The Pixel phones should solve most of your Android issues. The Pixel 3 is on sale right now, I'm planning to upgrade my Pixel XL to a Pixel 3.
iOS-devices have better privacy, longer support, and you can re-sell them for much more than any other phone/pad.