Sarath
iDota
I recently got myself an iPhone 5S, which I was quite skeptical about because I have been an Android user for years now and I wasn't sure if it was a good choice, but it met my set of criteria so I decided to go for it.
Intro (can be skipped)
The Bad
1. No Widgets: You can't have widgets so that was a big loss for me. Even the app icons are not live so there's no information on them. The blow was more from the comparison to Nexus 4 rather than my old Arc. But I have been using Android and I know how it turns out in the end, first day you get all the widgets you want and then slowly you delete them one by one over the years to preserve battery life or prevent lagging. So I was not that bitter.
2. No Speed dial: On Android I had direct dial shortcuts for family and friends, on the homescreen. So calling was just pick up the phone and touch the name icon. On iOS I have to go to my Contacts and then to Favourites; I can't clutter the favorites too so I had to choose to keep only a few contacts. This bugged me the most because it takes convenience away. Here I would say WP>Android>Symbain>iOS.
3. Screen Size: The screen size is still small and sometimes it bugs me coming from a bigger Nexus.
4. Dropbox: The fact that annoys me is that even now Dropbox doesn't automatically upload photos. I have to open the app to do it and even then sometimes it goes on in the background and sometimes it doesn't. Far inferior to my experience on the android.
5. Lack of folders is really going to bug you after a few days of usage. Everything falls into on unified category like Photos, Movies, Music, Books etc. Over the years this becomes ginormous.
6. No local apps: You will have to miss out on a few Indian specific apps which are available on the Android like the Dominos app for example but many are available like BMS, HDFC, Airtel Money etc. Sometimes local apps come on Android first and then on iOS so you'll have to live with that.
7. Whatsapp: It is inferior to Android in some ways. The iOS whatsapp app actually has more features which are recently coming to Android too like Blocking last seen, making Profile private etc. But the problem is in the messaging. It has to connect to the internet everytime you open the app. The surprising part is, you see a notification and then when you click it the message takes a few seconds to appear on the screen, even thought the same message was displayed already in the notification. The biggest problem of all, in iOS you can't send the message if you are not connected to the internet; the send button just goes dead. In Android even though you don't have net, you can send the message which gets queued till it connects to the net and it sends it automatically. This is a very annoying trait of iOS Whatsapp. Sometimes I'm messaging and when I walk to the basement with weak signal, I can't respond or que my messages.
8. Keyboard: I feel the iOS keyboard is more accurate than Android mostly due to lack of the lag but then the Android keyboard feels more complete, I have to keep opening the annotations tab to use commas and exclamations, these can be found on the main keyboard of Android. The predictive text is better than android but cancelling a wrong prediction is sometimes a pain. This leads to sending wrong words since iOS will automatically correct it just before you hit enter.
9. Inability to download or transfer files from or to PC. This makes iOS feel like it's still in the 90's. Also no torrent downloads.
10. iTunes is annoying when it is needed to do almost anything with your phone. Transferring music especially.
11. Battery life is good but not great like the old iPhones were. Heavy usage will still see you charging everyday.
12. Selecting multiple photos to delete or send is a pain since you have to select each on individually. On Android you can just delete a folder if you want with all its contents.
The good
1. The fingerprint sensor: This wasn't really a feature I was looking for and I almost dismissed it as a gimmick but it's just amazing. What surprises you is the accuracy of the sensor. This coming from someone who has bad fingerprints which repeatedly get rejected. At first I thought it's just a novelty addition but in daily use, it's very convenient. Even better when your screen lights up with a notification and all you have to do it place your finger on the home button to see the message or call; without even lifting the phone or even pressing the home button. I found this to be more pleasing than the unlock to touch function. It uses touch ID even for apple store purchases so no need to keep entering the password.
2. Central Console (shortcut bar): I love this widget like bar. This is a major reason I switched to iOS. To be able to control wifi, screen brightness, screen orientation, calculator, torch etc just from a single swipe of the screen and not even requiring you to unlock the phone, this is really a very nice iOS 7 feature. It is a better implementation than the widgets on android.
3. Search Bar: This is a very good feature of iOS which I have appreciated for many years now. For some very strange reason the king of searches Google hasn't put one like this in Android. You can search for any app or contact using this. It's very useful in latter years when the number of apps you have might fill multiple pages. This is present even on Symbian but it took ages to search.
4. Apps: I have observed this for years that many a times some good apps come out only on iOS and sometimes the same app has a better version on iOS than on Android. Ofc I know the reasons, fragmentation and stuff but this has remained true even today even though the gap between the two has come down. Also sometimes the same app runs better on iOS than Android. Only if you own a popular Android like the SGS2 or SGS4 will you get a comparable experience.
5. Silence toggle switch: I find the physical hardware switch on the iPhone to toggle between Silent/Ringer mode to be quite a neat thoughtful addition.
- These five points above are what really put iOS apart for me from Android and helped me make the choice, the rest below are just minor points
6. itunes: Although I hated itunes in the beginning and still do about the music sync part, I realised that it was actually a very useful software. I was doing my yearly backup/format for my Xperia and iPod when I realised that I will have to redownload all my apps on the droid and had to download some new apps to backup my messages etc. The ipod however was just a format and then connect to PC > Sync with itunes affair. It was pretty simple and saved me bandwidth too. Both OSes have cloud backup though which I use sometimes due to it's convenience. But itunes restores your apps in the exact order they were in so it never feels like you had to download them again.
7. After the iPhone battery is drained it will turn off. Then when you put it on charging you don't have to manually turn it on, it will automatically turn itself on. I want this feature in Android too since the droids die more in real life usage
8. Apple predictive text is better than on Android when it comes to names. It will recognise names from your contacts and auto fill them. On the Android it was actually very inconvenient since Indian names are not recognised so well and also the contacts are not taken into account by the keyboard.
9. Camera folder: The unified camera folder is actually pretty convenient when you have to find a recent photo. Android puts each photo in a different folder based on its source, this can lead to searching for a particular pic quite inconvenient later on.
10. Camera is much better than the Samung phones which I checked before making my purchase. But I'm sure it will pale in comparison to the Xperias and Lumias.
11: Android needs a screen orientation shortcut or widget
12. No more infamous android lag. I'm sure it will or has been reduced/rectified but I can't risk it anymore. The OS seems rugged and reliable, and is a breeze to use due to it's simplicity.
13. Other minor ones are that the iPhone 5S really looks good and is well designed. Also you can flaunt it if you are into that. Or that it has better resale value than other phones. I didn't consider these points but they come with it so it's a good thing.
Edit: 13/4: More points:
14. Accessories: The iPhones has more accessories than any other phone out there. Sometimes in certain shops the iP accessories outnumber the ones for every other phone combined. This ofcourse mostly includes cases. Personally I always wanted that official ferrari case which I could finally get for my phone. The best functional case I have seen is however the one for S4 with the window(?) or something similar.
15. iPhone also has more hardware accessories. Stuff like the Parrot Drone and such first had only iP support which is irrelevant now but even today some of them like RC cars etc are only iPhone supported. There are more examples like fitness bands, medical devices, certain kickstarter projects etc, end up being iphone exclusive.
After using multiple OSes I've realised that no one is perfect and you will have to sacrifice some to gain some, so it all boils down to personal choice. Sometimes even Symbian feels better, you have removable storage and you can install apps on SD cards, it has a call recorder, it has a log of how many messages/calls made, it has a log of each call, you can organise messages into folders, it had wifi tethering years before Android/iOS, torrent etc
So these are just random things I noticed. Maybe the list will grow as I keep using my phone more. I hope that sums up a peaceful transition from a droid to an apple.
Good day
Intro (can be skipped)
Reason I changed: Just wanted a new phone which had things that my old phone lacked. A longer battery life, reliability, good apps, a good camera (old one got scratched) and facetime. iP5S and my old phone have the same proportions so it's comfortable to hold for me. Also I wanted to try iOS and see what's it all about now that it is much better. Plus I got a good deal for a gold 5S 16GB for Rs.40000/- in Dubai (Indian price was 50k that time and now it's around 47k)
Competition: Choosing the iP5S was particularly difficult for me because the competition looked too good, the SGS4 had beats headphones (worth >10k) in an offer and I've been drooling over the HTC one from even before it released. Also the fact that I already had two new phones at my disposal, a Nokia Lumia 720 and a LG Google Nexus 4 both bought in 2013. But the SGS4 looked ugly and the HTC though good, I was just too tired of reliability issues with Android. I couldn't live with WMobile OS for too long either but it was pretty neat.
Previous phone: Sony Xperia Arc (ICS) and Nokia N85
I am not going to dwell further into if it was a good choice or a bad one. I might have missed a good deal or overlooked a certain phone. But I'm content with my purchase and I'm happy with that. I just want to lay down the changes I felt from changing to iOS from Android. Do note that I actually went from Xperia Arc to Lumia 720 to Nexus 4 and then back to Arc, only recently shifting to iPhone5S.
Competition: Choosing the iP5S was particularly difficult for me because the competition looked too good, the SGS4 had beats headphones (worth >10k) in an offer and I've been drooling over the HTC one from even before it released. Also the fact that I already had two new phones at my disposal, a Nokia Lumia 720 and a LG Google Nexus 4 both bought in 2013. But the SGS4 looked ugly and the HTC though good, I was just too tired of reliability issues with Android. I couldn't live with WMobile OS for too long either but it was pretty neat.
Previous phone: Sony Xperia Arc (ICS) and Nokia N85
I am not going to dwell further into if it was a good choice or a bad one. I might have missed a good deal or overlooked a certain phone. But I'm content with my purchase and I'm happy with that. I just want to lay down the changes I felt from changing to iOS from Android. Do note that I actually went from Xperia Arc to Lumia 720 to Nexus 4 and then back to Arc, only recently shifting to iPhone5S.
So the differences I noticed:
The Bad
1. No Widgets: You can't have widgets so that was a big loss for me. Even the app icons are not live so there's no information on them. The blow was more from the comparison to Nexus 4 rather than my old Arc. But I have been using Android and I know how it turns out in the end, first day you get all the widgets you want and then slowly you delete them one by one over the years to preserve battery life or prevent lagging. So I was not that bitter.
2. No Speed dial: On Android I had direct dial shortcuts for family and friends, on the homescreen. So calling was just pick up the phone and touch the name icon. On iOS I have to go to my Contacts and then to Favourites; I can't clutter the favorites too so I had to choose to keep only a few contacts. This bugged me the most because it takes convenience away. Here I would say WP>Android>Symbain>iOS.
3. Screen Size: The screen size is still small and sometimes it bugs me coming from a bigger Nexus.
4. Dropbox: The fact that annoys me is that even now Dropbox doesn't automatically upload photos. I have to open the app to do it and even then sometimes it goes on in the background and sometimes it doesn't. Far inferior to my experience on the android.
5. Lack of folders is really going to bug you after a few days of usage. Everything falls into on unified category like Photos, Movies, Music, Books etc. Over the years this becomes ginormous.
6. No local apps: You will have to miss out on a few Indian specific apps which are available on the Android like the Dominos app for example but many are available like BMS, HDFC, Airtel Money etc. Sometimes local apps come on Android first and then on iOS so you'll have to live with that.
7. Whatsapp: It is inferior to Android in some ways. The iOS whatsapp app actually has more features which are recently coming to Android too like Blocking last seen, making Profile private etc. But the problem is in the messaging. It has to connect to the internet everytime you open the app. The surprising part is, you see a notification and then when you click it the message takes a few seconds to appear on the screen, even thought the same message was displayed already in the notification. The biggest problem of all, in iOS you can't send the message if you are not connected to the internet; the send button just goes dead. In Android even though you don't have net, you can send the message which gets queued till it connects to the net and it sends it automatically. This is a very annoying trait of iOS Whatsapp. Sometimes I'm messaging and when I walk to the basement with weak signal, I can't respond or que my messages.
8. Keyboard: I feel the iOS keyboard is more accurate than Android mostly due to lack of the lag but then the Android keyboard feels more complete, I have to keep opening the annotations tab to use commas and exclamations, these can be found on the main keyboard of Android. The predictive text is better than android but cancelling a wrong prediction is sometimes a pain. This leads to sending wrong words since iOS will automatically correct it just before you hit enter.
9. Inability to download or transfer files from or to PC. This makes iOS feel like it's still in the 90's. Also no torrent downloads.
10. iTunes is annoying when it is needed to do almost anything with your phone. Transferring music especially.
11. Battery life is good but not great like the old iPhones were. Heavy usage will still see you charging everyday.
12. Selecting multiple photos to delete or send is a pain since you have to select each on individually. On Android you can just delete a folder if you want with all its contents.
The good
1. The fingerprint sensor: This wasn't really a feature I was looking for and I almost dismissed it as a gimmick but it's just amazing. What surprises you is the accuracy of the sensor. This coming from someone who has bad fingerprints which repeatedly get rejected. At first I thought it's just a novelty addition but in daily use, it's very convenient. Even better when your screen lights up with a notification and all you have to do it place your finger on the home button to see the message or call; without even lifting the phone or even pressing the home button. I found this to be more pleasing than the unlock to touch function. It uses touch ID even for apple store purchases so no need to keep entering the password.
2. Central Console (shortcut bar): I love this widget like bar. This is a major reason I switched to iOS. To be able to control wifi, screen brightness, screen orientation, calculator, torch etc just from a single swipe of the screen and not even requiring you to unlock the phone, this is really a very nice iOS 7 feature. It is a better implementation than the widgets on android.
3. Search Bar: This is a very good feature of iOS which I have appreciated for many years now. For some very strange reason the king of searches Google hasn't put one like this in Android. You can search for any app or contact using this. It's very useful in latter years when the number of apps you have might fill multiple pages. This is present even on Symbian but it took ages to search.
4. Apps: I have observed this for years that many a times some good apps come out only on iOS and sometimes the same app has a better version on iOS than on Android. Ofc I know the reasons, fragmentation and stuff but this has remained true even today even though the gap between the two has come down. Also sometimes the same app runs better on iOS than Android. Only if you own a popular Android like the SGS2 or SGS4 will you get a comparable experience.
5. Silence toggle switch: I find the physical hardware switch on the iPhone to toggle between Silent/Ringer mode to be quite a neat thoughtful addition.
- These five points above are what really put iOS apart for me from Android and helped me make the choice, the rest below are just minor points
6. itunes: Although I hated itunes in the beginning and still do about the music sync part, I realised that it was actually a very useful software. I was doing my yearly backup/format for my Xperia and iPod when I realised that I will have to redownload all my apps on the droid and had to download some new apps to backup my messages etc. The ipod however was just a format and then connect to PC > Sync with itunes affair. It was pretty simple and saved me bandwidth too. Both OSes have cloud backup though which I use sometimes due to it's convenience. But itunes restores your apps in the exact order they were in so it never feels like you had to download them again.
7. After the iPhone battery is drained it will turn off. Then when you put it on charging you don't have to manually turn it on, it will automatically turn itself on. I want this feature in Android too since the droids die more in real life usage
8. Apple predictive text is better than on Android when it comes to names. It will recognise names from your contacts and auto fill them. On the Android it was actually very inconvenient since Indian names are not recognised so well and also the contacts are not taken into account by the keyboard.
9. Camera folder: The unified camera folder is actually pretty convenient when you have to find a recent photo. Android puts each photo in a different folder based on its source, this can lead to searching for a particular pic quite inconvenient later on.
10. Camera is much better than the Samung phones which I checked before making my purchase. But I'm sure it will pale in comparison to the Xperias and Lumias.
11: Android needs a screen orientation shortcut or widget
12. No more infamous android lag. I'm sure it will or has been reduced/rectified but I can't risk it anymore. The OS seems rugged and reliable, and is a breeze to use due to it's simplicity.
13. Other minor ones are that the iPhone 5S really looks good and is well designed. Also you can flaunt it if you are into that. Or that it has better resale value than other phones. I didn't consider these points but they come with it so it's a good thing.
Edit: 13/4: More points:
14. Accessories: The iPhones has more accessories than any other phone out there. Sometimes in certain shops the iP accessories outnumber the ones for every other phone combined. This ofcourse mostly includes cases. Personally I always wanted that official ferrari case which I could finally get for my phone. The best functional case I have seen is however the one for S4 with the window(?) or something similar.
15. iPhone also has more hardware accessories. Stuff like the Parrot Drone and such first had only iP support which is irrelevant now but even today some of them like RC cars etc are only iPhone supported. There are more examples like fitness bands, medical devices, certain kickstarter projects etc, end up being iphone exclusive.
After using multiple OSes I've realised that no one is perfect and you will have to sacrifice some to gain some, so it all boils down to personal choice. Sometimes even Symbian feels better, you have removable storage and you can install apps on SD cards, it has a call recorder, it has a log of how many messages/calls made, it has a log of each call, you can organise messages into folders, it had wifi tethering years before Android/iOS, torrent etc
So these are just random things I noticed. Maybe the list will grow as I keep using my phone more. I hope that sums up a peaceful transition from a droid to an apple.
Good day
Last edited:
