- Joined
- Jan 22, 2017
- Messages
- 14,814
- Reaction score
- 22,683
- Location
- U.S.A.
- Gender
- Female
- Political Leaning
- Libertarian - Left
My iPhone 13 Pro recently broke and gave me the perfect opportunity to try switching over. I've made sure over the years to make it so I could switch over as seamlessly as possible if needed. I use a 3rd party password manager instead of Keychain. I use third party cloud storage instead of iCloud. Some things there is no getting around like iMessage but I'm working through it.
I ended up buying a Pixel 8 at Best Buy and plan on using their 2 week return window to see if I can make the switch. There are definitely some big friction points like my car only supporting Apple Car Play for some reason and not being able to iMessage people. iMessage is honestly so much better than anything on Android but supposedly Apple is adding RCS support sometime this year so that would be huge.
I definitely like Android 14 more than iOS. Being able to have Firefox extensions is amazing and I'm a big fan of being able to download stuff from outside the play store. Notifications are managed much better too and getting to use different launchers is nice. Having a proper clipboard and being able to run two apps in split screen puts iOS to shame. I mean iPhone have better processors than most Android phones so there really is no excuse. There is also a BUNCH of AI stuff in Android 14. Some is a bit of a gimmick like using AI to generate a wallpaper but other stuff like Google Assistant being able to wait on hold for your or call and make appointments is amazing. Some of the AI photo editing tools are actually useful too.
Overall it will still be a tough choice. As much as I like Android 14 iPhone hardware is just better and losing access to things like iMessage, Apple Pay (which still seems to have broader support than Google Pay), Apple Car Play, and of course all my App Store purchases is a real pain in the ass.
But I hate the idea of being locked into buying whatever Apple puts out no matter how bad it is. I want to be able to buy the best phone for me whether that's Apple or Android.
Has anyone else made the switch either way and how did it go for you?
I ended up buying a Pixel 8 at Best Buy and plan on using their 2 week return window to see if I can make the switch. There are definitely some big friction points like my car only supporting Apple Car Play for some reason and not being able to iMessage people. iMessage is honestly so much better than anything on Android but supposedly Apple is adding RCS support sometime this year so that would be huge.
I definitely like Android 14 more than iOS. Being able to have Firefox extensions is amazing and I'm a big fan of being able to download stuff from outside the play store. Notifications are managed much better too and getting to use different launchers is nice. Having a proper clipboard and being able to run two apps in split screen puts iOS to shame. I mean iPhone have better processors than most Android phones so there really is no excuse. There is also a BUNCH of AI stuff in Android 14. Some is a bit of a gimmick like using AI to generate a wallpaper but other stuff like Google Assistant being able to wait on hold for your or call and make appointments is amazing. Some of the AI photo editing tools are actually useful too.
Overall it will still be a tough choice. As much as I like Android 14 iPhone hardware is just better and losing access to things like iMessage, Apple Pay (which still seems to have broader support than Google Pay), Apple Car Play, and of course all my App Store purchases is a real pain in the ass.
But I hate the idea of being locked into buying whatever Apple puts out no matter how bad it is. I want to be able to buy the best phone for me whether that's Apple or Android.
Has anyone else made the switch either way and how did it go for you?