Google gave out the HTC Evo at I/O in 2010, which was what got me to switch to Android.

At the time, it had a much bigger screen than an iPhone and gave you more control over the device. It could play Flash games/apps, and let you use the apps/keyboards/etc you wanted without a company's blessing.

Apple is a lot more open now than they used to be, in ways that might have driven power users to Android before.

They are, but I'll not be fully convinced until there's a Graphene OS equivalent for iOS.

I'm curious, how would you say they're more open these days? I've always resisted iOS since I can't do the most basic thing on it which is install software independent of the manufacturer saying I can. If that changes I'd be interested, but do you think Apple is moving in that direction?

The thing that made me switch, funny enough, is the 'budget phone' category. The Moto G line and low-end Pixel line completely abandoned the "small, 200-300 dollar phone" segment. And so I got a brand new iphone SE for $200. Havent gone back, and probably wont at this point now that I've moved over and use the family plan for apple one etc.

Your comment seems out of date. There's no $200-300 iPhone anymore. iPhone 16e is the cheapest model I think? That's $600usd? But there are in fact $200-300 Moto phones still and new ones every year, with decent specs for the price and fairly close to stock Android OS. No, they dont have 6 or 7 year of OS upgrades, but that was never a realistic option in the budget Android phone market anyway. It would be unfair and inaccurate to Moto "abandoned" that low end market.

The Samsung A5x line usually goes towards 300 dollar/euro pretty quickly and e.g. the A56 get 6 years of updates. The Pixel 8a is currently 369 Euro in my country and has a long update cycle.

I bought an a25 in 200$

These show as $270 new https://swappa.com/listings/apple-iphone-se-3rd-gen-2022?car...

Just for reference, last year my friend bought a new Xiaomi 13T for $35 more (so +13%), which destroys this phone by every metric except synthetic CPU benchmarks. Apple really is heavily overpriced.

https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=11410&idPhone...

(Prices listed by GSMArena have no relation to reality for both models.)

The catch being that's a phone from 2022. Sure, if that's acceptable. I was just referring to current models rather than models from multiple years ago

It outperforms samsung A5x series handily, has better battery life, better carrier support, has full warranty from apple, including same-day in-store service. Who cares what year it is from?

I like circular face on my Garmin Venu. Almost all their watches are round and circle'ish UI flow is used a lot in their OS.

Yeah, I agree. I have a Pixel Watch 3 and generally like the circular form factor. I wish they did more with it at times, but I feel like that's kinda what I'm seeing from the previews in the OP blog post

Funnily enough the first smartwatch that was interesting to me was a round watch, so I got the Pixel watch. I don't mind having the UI not being as usable (debatable), but I much rather have a nice looking watch, more like a classic watch. That's like, your and my opinion, everyone has their preferences.

Storytime: my partner used to be a long time Samsung fan. She had the phone, tablet, headphones and watch and probably more gear that I don't even know about. Then she moved to Canada with me. Because of how poor the QA in their ecosystem is, after an update her latest-model Samsung watch couldn't pair with her one-year-old model Samsung phone, which severely diminished its usefulness (this was a heavily reported issue at the time). So we went to a mall and entered a store with big SAMSUNG logos everywhere, and were told to go skip rocks. They would not even touch the devices with the same logos they had on their shirts, because both the phone and the watch were bought in a different country.

There was an Apple store in that mall as well, so we walked in and asked "if we buy an apple product here, and there is an issue with it while we are in a different country, would they help us in an Apple store there". The answer was "well yeah of course why wouldn't they" with a "what's the catch" tone and raised eyebrow.

Needless to say she is now fully switched over. Even after two years, she gets delighted every now and then by how smooth the experience is. I recall many "LOL Samsung could never" events.

My current Pixel 6 is my last android phone due to the UX issues that keep piling up with every single update. Last one I noticed: Turning on bedtime mode is now double (2) the clicks it used to be.

I purchased a phone in a European country without an official Apple Store, so I bought it from a "Premium Authorized Apple Retailer." After one year, the phone broke. While in a different country, I visited an Apple Store to have it repaired under warranty. However, they informed me that I needed to return to the original store where I purchased it to activate the warranty.

My experience with Apple doesn't sound so different from yours.

Yes, in some European countries Apple doesn't have physical stores and relies on official partners for retail for physical stores. In some of these countries, you can still shop online on the official Apple store for that country. Major down side is you can't get Apple care at all.

The difference is my partner didn't buy her gadgets from a retailer. It was all from physical Samsung stores and under extended warranty. It sounds like an oversight on the retailers side that they didn't 'activate' your warranty for some reason.

But yeah, official stores and Apple Care not being available is a major downside, which is why I'm waiting until Im back to Canada to get an iPhone (it's also quite a bit cheaper on that side of the Atlantic).

One limitation I know of with Apple Care is that if you need to replace your device under warranty, they will need to mail it to you from the country of purchase, but you will get a temporary device while you wait for that. Samsung would never...

Here's a counterpoint: Apple has no official presence in my country and if you have any problems with their products, you will be told to go pound sand. This is in spite of them being significantly more expensive than in countries like the US (where they already cost at a premium).

On the other hand, a guy I know well bought a mid-tier consumer Samsung SSD in China a few years ago (970 Evo IIRC), run it into the ground doing video encoding pretty much non-stop, contacted the official Samsung retailer in our country asking for a replacement, and they seemed happy to accommodate him.

YMMV. From my point of view, Korean companies seem much more customer-oriented overall.

My fave issue is Android as the moment is when I try the Gemini app is automatically changes the default assistant app to Gemini. And since Gemini isn't an assistant app, it doesn't work for that :/

But on your topic, my partner has an iPhone and they disable all kinds of features and then wonder why nothing works smoothly. They have a Mac, and airpods, and still don't have anything working together effectively. Just through simple self sabotage

Still on Android.

All the Apple gear I use belongs to my employer.

You should listen to some Apple development podcasts, grass is not so green on the other side.

There are also plenty of unfinished things, some of them have turned into memes by now.

> So many people I work with (in tech) were on Android for years, and all eventually switched to iOS.

There is a curious demographic of people that worked closely on/with Android in the early years that have a particularly extreme allergy to it today.

Sundar gets a lot of deserved stick, but Andy Rubin was no saint when it came to guiding development either, as demonstrated by the memory holed Skyhook fiasco. ( https://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/536913/google-android-sk... ) JBQ resigning from the AOSP really was the sign that true believers in the Android ecosystem are simply suckers.

It is such a missed opportunity it's unbelievable. iOS shouldn't be in contention at all.

> and all eventually switched to iOS

Maybe because the bugs were known from Android.

Yesterday i had to search, why the photos i took 1 minute ago are only visible on the (i)phone but not on the folder shared with the PC.