Two years ago, I decided to get rid of my iPhone X. It was intentional as I wanted to do without the iPhone for a while as an experiment. I got my first iPhone back in 2011, and for 7 years, I made the iPhone my primary device. From iPhone 3g, iPhone 3gs, iPhone 4s, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7 Plus, down to iPhone X, I became some sort of a power user over the years.
Jailbreak was a piece of cake even though I later lost interest in this as time went on. All through my years as an iPhone user, there was always a secondary Android device I barely used housing my second SIM card. However, in 2018, I decided to do away with the iPhone altogether and I had my reasons.
The iPhone became kind of overrated
Truth be told, I’ve always felt like the iPhone was overrated. Yeah, I know the camera’s great, the operating system is smooth, the security is tight, the build is awesome, blah, blah, blah. But come on, it’s pretty obvious Apple’s beautiful walled garden is a prison not meant for everyone. Remember when you couldn’t even choose a local file on your phone as an email attachment? I understand things are changing with iOS as Apple is trying to open up its operating system to catch up with Android, the fact still remains that Android OS makes life a lot easier. Remember this is coming from a long-time iPhone user.
Talking about the camera, I now take fewer photos than I used to. I can’t specifically say I miss the iPhone camera. What I have on the Galaxy Note 9 works great: a variable aperture that helps greatly in low light, manual camera controls without a third-party app, great picture quality, and more. Besides, the narrative that cameras on Android devices are inferior to what Apple puts on the iPhone is stale. This is no longer the case.
Concerning security, it might be true that Android sucked back in the days of Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Icecream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, and the rest of those old versions. Android OS has improved in all spheres over the years. I have no antivirus installed, and I haven’t had any security issues with Android for years.
As it stands, it appears that the iPhone is actually overrated.
The transition wasn’t exactly smooth, though
I won’t lie, I missed iOS at first. As someone who was deep into Apple’s ecosystem, I was used to how every device interacted. I missed typing on the Apple TV with my iPhone. I missed Handoff and the whole continuity feature as a whole. I mean, working on your iPhone and transferring the same task to your MacBook was actually pretty smooth. However, I had already made the resolution to ditch the iPhone.
As someone who moves files around a lot between my mobile device and computer, AirDrop was a feature I always used. Switching to Android posed a major problem as Bluetooth file transfer wasn’t going to cut it due to its terrible speed. I solved this by downloading AirDroid as a replacement.
As for Notes, I switched to Google Keep as a replacement. Google Photos had always been my go-to photo backup app and I had no problem on this front.
Still going back to the iPhone?
It’s a possibility. I don’t hate the iPhone. I might still go back, but it’s definitely not in my plans at this time. As a matter of fact, I haven’t even changed my Samsung device for two years now. I even think I’m done changing phones every year.
To be clear, I still use the iPad mainly for gaming, my kids still use iPads, I still use the MacBook for work, an Apple TV still sits in the living room, and I’m still very much within the Apple ecosystem. The only thing I got rid of was the iPhone and the Apple Watch.
Staying without the iPhone for two straight years taught me an important lesson: you won’t die if you switch to Android.
