I've switched to iOS

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3 min read

I always wanted to get an iPhone. It used to be a great phone than the rest. But Android has caught up and closed the gap now. There are better/on-par phones available now for far less price.

I don't believe that iPhone is a signaling/status symbol anymore. I wanted to get an iPhone mainly because of some emotional attachment I have to their products. I am a big fan of Steve Jobs. He was one of those few people that influenced my life and personality a lot. I watched him first at his Stanford commencement speech and was obsessed with Jobs and Apple products well before I can afford one.

I must have watched the first iPhone introduction video a thousand times to see the presentation and the technology all coming together to make one great product. I've used iPhones/Macbooks at work from time to time and always loved them. But, they weren't as tinkerer friendly as Android. So with some reservations about the flexibility, I decided to bite the bullet and bought the iPhone 14.

I'm surprised the iOS has become better at customization/flexibility than the last time I used it. For example, we can now do the following things

  • Set up a 3rd party keyboard as default (such as Gboard, or Swiftkey). I don't like the Apple keyboard, now trying Nintype and Swiftkey. Let me know if there is a better keyboard that you used.

  • Remove Apple music, books, maps and any Apple apps that I don't need. We can't do this even on Android for all its flexibility, Manufacturers still have their crap added.

  • Have widgets on the home and lock screens.

  • Use the Dvorak layout on the iOS standard keyboard (iirc, wasn't possible before).

  • Bitwarden (password manager) works much better and faster than android.

  • The ability to scan any pic in the camera/editor and extract text. Though this is possible in google Lens, the iOS camera has this built-in.

  • The clipboard and open tabs sync between mobile and MacBook.

Few things I miss from Android

  • Full-screen gesture navigations of MIUI.

  • Syncthing support - iPhone just broke my workflow for Obsidian and I had to set up iCloud sync to make it work. I tried a paid client called Mobius but had to uninstall it mainly because iOS won't let background activity run for long.

  • My Bose headphone is not switching well between the MacBook and iPhone.

  • Battery backup is not as good as Android. But I believe this will be improved after a few days of usage.

  • The contact app is a bit weirdly sorted, can't put my finger on what is it but it is not intuitive.

  • The dialer does not support fuzzy search like I can type numbers to search contact names.

Despite the minor issues, I love the UI, OS and the camera of the iPhone. Spotify seems to sound a lot better on the iPhone. (Probably because I was using a budget android phone before).

Let me know if you have any must have apps for iOS that I should try. Overall it is a great device and I don't regret the decision of switching, at least not yet.