And your suggestion is using iCloud Mail instead of Gmail?

As for Safari, I'm sure he gave it a chance. I did too. However, I use Chrome on all my other devies and I love Chrome's tab and bookmark sync.

Google Voice Search absolutely destroys Siri when asking questions, unit convertions etc.

Safari has a pretty powerful bookmark sync as well, if you've set up iCloud correctly. All my bookmarks are synced across devices. I can also look up what tabs are open on other devices (provided the same user is logged in). With that in mind, I actually find it more powerful than Chrome's, and it's quite handy when juggling multiple machines for whatever reason (but I end up using Chrome 95% of the time anyway because of UI preference, and a better dev tool experience). I do prefer the Chrome iOS UI as well, but since Apple has concerns about letting people have access to JIT compilation, I stick with Safari on iOS.

Definitely prefer gmail, though.

Bookmark/tab sync is not the reason I use Chrome. I use Chrome on all my other devices and I want my bookmarks/tabs to sync with my phone as well. This is why I can't use Safari on iOS.

Gmail works perfectly fine on iOS.

and for Chrome, you can use Xmarks to sync bookmarks. I use both Safari and Chrome on the desktop, and the bookmarks are in sync completely, which makes them in sync with my iPad.

It doesn't work perfectly fine because it has no sync. iOS apps cannot do background tasks. I receive a new mail, I read half the mail in my notification, but when I tap the notification, I have to wait 10 seconds for the mail to be downloaded. For someone who switched from Android, it makes me feel like I went back in time to to Windows 95 and Outlook Express.

So, no. I disagree. Gmail (at least the app) works horrible on iOS. Likewise, Google Maps and most other Google services are worse on iOS, while with Android everything just works after logging into Google.

Author here. I've used the stock Mail App for months and I've been trying to use Reminders for at least as long. The Apple software just isn't as good.

What is the Android equivalent for Reminders?

Nothing.

It's amazing that Android still does not come with a note taking and reminder app.

Did the OP just get an iPhone? Sounds like he's had one a while and over time has started using more and more Google apps because he finds they work better for what he does. He's not alone, Google's apps are some of the most popular iOS apps.

I too use Chrome/Google Maps/Gmail instead of Apple's offerings, not because I didn't give Apple's kit a chance, but because Apple's apps are simply bad.