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shacklesburst · 5 years

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Comparison: Samsung Galaxy S10e (and previous Android experience) vs. iPhone 11 Pro

[epistemic status: largely subjective experiences]

I’ve been an Android user since smartphones came into being, across a variety of phones from different manufacturers. Due to a new employer I am now required to carry an iPhone and use it at least for some work related tasks (calls, email, calendar, some internal organizational tools). Currently I’m using both phones mentioned above in parallel. I’ve tried very hard to switch most of my private phone usage over to the iPhone as well, just to lessen the burden of lugging along two phones all the time, with notifications for different things. This has gone on for more than three months and I’m far enough along in the switching process that I take my Samsung with me, but don’t actually use it for anything anymore. So with this experience under the belt, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on this perennial culture war. As the Android usage differs quite a bit between manufacturers, the software comparison is necessarily mostly between the S10 Android and iOS 13.

Pros of the iPhone compared to the Samsung

The battery lasts me a long time. I’ve gone two days, traveling, pretty heavy usage (mostly tumblr, browsing, some youtube) without recharging. Most days I come back home after an 8-10 hour work day with above 75% charge remaining. My Samsung needs to be charged every night and a day without usage (other than switching networks) oftentimes leaves me below 50% in the evening.

Manufacturing quality. It’s a very well made phone with no gaps between the screen or back and the sides.

FaceID. It works quite well and negates the need to place a finger somewhere. If you’re using biometrics to unlock your phone anyways, a system like FaceID probably beats fingerprint auth in the long run. Both can be beaten, so it’s important to be able to quickly deactivate them, a feature which Apple provides.

Software and security updates. Apple being their own software supply chain, iOS is updated pretty regularly. (This is the main reason why iPhones are more common in the corporate environment.)

Cons of the iPhone compared to the Samsung

Notifications. The same notifications on both phones are easy and extremely quick to reach, interact with and dismiss on the Samsung. The notifications view on the iPhone is hard to reach, almost worse than useless, needing multiple gestures to dismiss a single notification and simply not worth it. I’ve resigned myself to checking important apps manually.

The notch. The S10e punch hole camera has proven to be a much better concept than I’d have ever thought before. The notch very is noticeable and feels like a lot of lost space in comparison. I’d even go so far to prefer a larger bezel if Apple can’t commit to an actual bezel-less design.

The lack of more useful gesture control. My Samsung emulates three buttons by measuring from where on the lower edge I swipe up. The simplicity of having a general “back” button beats almost anything. Navigating through iOS is considerably harder, with “back” button like controls usually in the corners and most often in the upper left corner of the screen, which is farthest away from your thumb, the primary control of every phone for more than 10 years now. I have no idea what Apple is thinking here, but this design is such a catastrophic failure in UX that it would be an immediate deal breaker for me if I had to pay for this.

The camera. When I read reviews on the internet, the iPhone cameras are usually complimented as some of the best phone cameras available. Much of it comes down to the software interface and the included corrections, but for me, compared to the S10e, the cameras are average at best. I was blown away by the wide angle lens on the Samsung and especially the fish eye correction applied to the photo. I mean, I’m not a big phone photographer anyways, so it doesn’t take away much from me, but I’d never describe the pictures from that camera as anything more than “alright”.

The settings system. Settings in general are sparse. Deciding defaults for yourself is mostly prevented by Apple’s micromanagement of how their users are supposed to use their phones. It’s frustratingly useless.

Call quality. You’d think that should be the least of a user’s worries today. The amount of botched calls I’ve had during three months dwarfs my past ten years of Android smartphone experience.

Wifi tethering. Essentially random disconnects all the time. The quick settings screen is not configurable, so it takes one more click to set up than it needs to.

The Lightning port. I’ve just managed to make the switch to USB type C completely. Now, granted, I mostly load my phones wirelessly, but Apple’s resistance to standards is just laughable at this point. The quality of their cables (which probably sell for some 500% profit margin) is much worse than their phone product itself.

The keyboard. Other keyboards are installable, but they’re pressed to conform with how Apple thinks keyboards should work. Gboard doesn’t even have a setting to activate long press for symbols.

Why is there no way to close all background apps in one go?!

Neutral

Size. The iPhone is a smidgen bigger than the Samsung. I like my phones pretty small, so I’m happy there’s at least the Pro option for Apple users.

Physical weight. The iPhone is noticeably heavier than the Samsung, but that’s probably down to a bigger battery.

Complete integration within the Apple ecosystem would likely be preferable. Our work laptops are standard Lenovos though, so I can’t take advantage of that through no fault of Apple’s.

Apple Pay. Neither worse nor better than Google Pay.

Conclusion

If I had the choice, I’d take any Android’s customizable interface any day of the week. Even with botched manufacturer additions and differences in usage across manufacturers and versions, an Android phone is usually salvageable and can be used in a productive manner.

On the other hand, I’ve really tried to get into the Apple system of doing things, but, overall, I think most of their design choices are laughably bad, especially for power users (which make up a large part of their user base, I’d say). Now, I have no choice but to try to arrange myself with those facts. And I do see that the iPhone might have at least some redeeming qualities like mentioned above in the pros list.

But in the end, it cannot be said in any less certain terms: Apple’s phone product is just plain bad. Not “for the price”. Not “in certain ways”. Just overall. It is frustrating to use, even more so than a Windows machine, which, I think, says quite a lot. I’m not too hot on any phone manufacturer, to be honest. But Apple is the only one that’s managed to replace “stoic indifference” with “outright hatred” in my heart. And I know there’s a fan base there that will likely stick to Apple whatever they do. But I simply can’t imagine this will hold up forever. At some point, people will have to move away from this failed product, and with that, hopefully companies as well. There are better status signifiers to lug around. The day can’t come soon enough.

#culture wars #mine #this is an apple hateblog

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