I always buy a new $200-ish Android phone every 4 years. The huge benefit is that I don't have to stress my $2000 phone breaking. Repairs are way cheaper. Also FOSS apps are cool and good. I guess posher friends than me have gotten used to the iOS ecosystem. I'm not gonna give them a hard time for it, but it's an expensive addiction.

Fyi you can save images to your files instead of the camera roll. That way you get more traditional file management (eg you can make a meme folder and save images to it).

Idk if I agree about the apps, most apps are nicer on iphone imo, mainly because developers seem to care more about iphones. But there are some gems on Android.

The ad blockers suck on iphones, and side loading sucks as well. Hoping the eu regulations put an end to that shit.

I think a lot of your issues come from not being used to it. At this point both platforms are so similar that outside of the side loading issues they're basically the same.

The notifications also suck and there is no notification channels like in Android so either turn all notifications off or get spammed.

The customization is also bare minimum and there are no launchers I could use like Niagara which change the way one uses their phone.

but ur messages are blue!

I mean they're the ultimate normie phones because they're so fixed and easy to pick up. So I think you either go all in on the ecosystem or you get a different phone. Apple can suck my ass no doubt but none of this is a secret lol.

It sounds like you bought the wrong phone

I have been considering switching to Apple and this post helped me, thank you 🙂

Yeah, I had to switch to iOS recently, for reasons that I won't get into, and it blows.

People say the UI on these things is preferable, but you can't even reorganize your homescreen without having to solve a list ordering puzzle. And the settings app is a maze; good luck figuring out which of the three password pages the thing you want is on. And you can't install real Firefox so you can't have a real ad blocker.

100% agree. I've had one over a year now for work and I really do not understand why people will defend these things like they're personally offended.

I have yet to find a single function that's better than my android

Windows phone 8 will always be superior I will die on this hill

You probably could have done some research beforehand and learned all of this before wasting your time and money just to be aggravated.

I switched iOS to Android and in general preferred the user experience on iOS out of the box, but the inability to load what you want to load is a non starter. I know the blue text thing is a meme as well but I did lose a couple of group chats which unfortunately has value. Hopefully regulators address this.

https://github.com/paulmillr/encrypted-dns
pick one that has adblocking, also better privacy
(AdGuard, Blah, Mullvad, PubHole)
https://libredns.gr also has an iOS profile for blocking ads

these also can be added to android dns for no resource no install no root adblocking and privacy

Blah, PubHole, Libre - all independent and support openNIC domains regular dns does not
AdGuard, Mullvad - corporate, in theory should have better uptimes so usually recommend for normies but using the above three for years and never had issues, ymmv

Idk why anyone would want better functionality from a smartphone because i personally hate having it be the center of my tech life.

I dont want put someone’s spaghetti code on my phone, i dealt with enough of that when you could jailbreak these things. That experience sucked. Nothing worked well together, and the novelty of it wore off.

The ads suck, but every app is just it own browser to a webapp, so the ad blockers feel like barricading a freestanding door.

The camera is awful for stills, i carry a point-and-shoot most of the time anyway because i cant turn off the processing i loathe so much.

I never use airdrop because my experience has been there’s always one wonder app in the ecosystem that doesnt work for me.

Android’s os looks miserable to navigate, but being able to load someone else’s poorly designed, thought up, and/or implemented navigation browser is a nonstarter.

iOS sucks

All smartphones are trash

Android and iOS are both trash; both are built for data harvesting, but none of them are private. Can we stop with the "my team is better" BS, your simping for billion-dollar conglomerates; I thought y'all were better than this.

iOS is pretty

Some things that might help you:

Idk what blocker you’re using, but you want a dns adblocker. If you want to figure it out yourself go ahead, but if you’d prefer a recommendation I can do that too.

When you’re in your photos app you can tap select in the upper right hand corner, kind of half tap and drag to select a bunch of them, then add to album using the bottom left button.

You can choose what pictures get backed up to iCloud. There’s only like 5gb or something on it by default, so you’ll probably want to.

If you’re not using iCloud for phone backups then make manual backups. You will be unhappy if you need backup and don’t have one.

I took the Android leap from Apple about six years ago and never looked back. Androids are superior in almost every way when it comes to privacy and customization

Apple stopped being innovative around the time Steve Jobs died; each update is just more ways to spy and spam you with a slightly better camera. I will say iPhones are very user friendly, so there is like a 20 min learning curve converting from Apple to Android.

Also not sure where you are getting your phone plan, but there's only 3 tower providers in the US now. Verizon, At&t, and T-Mobile. I'd avoid any of those as a carrier because they tend to overcharge.

Low cost carriers still operate service under 1 of those 3 company's towers, so you'll still get the same service but at a cheaper price. I use Boost Mobile, $50 a month with no hidden fees, month-to-month and somehow the price hasn't gone up in five years.