I wish my Apple friends would stop shaming me on Android

Source: Andrew Myrick / Android Central

I don’t know about you, but most of the people in my extended circle are iPhone users, including pretty much all of my family and a lot of my closest friends. Some of them are adamant, Apple until they died, Steve Jobs stepped on types of water, but most of them just picked a phone and an operating system and stuck to it because it works.

This is what most of us do because it is easy and comfortable. I totally understand, and it’s a perfectly legitimate choice for anyone. But after reading an article by Mike Sorrentino on CNET earlier this week about his experience with switching mobile operating systems, I recalled an underlying angst that I have felt since I started using the mobile operating systems. Android phones as the main devices. My Apple “family” looks at me a little differently now. I don’t mean to say that they are downright rude or offensive, but there is certainly an air of superiority in their questions or comments about my daily wearing choices.

Unlike CNET’s Sorrentino, I’m approaching this from a slightly different angle. While it has moved from Android to iOS, I have moved from iOS to Android. My colleague Michael Hicks has a great series of posts about his experience with the newer switch from iOS to Android. While he does a fantastic job of highlighting the fun new experiences he has discovered, I have no doubt that he too has encountered the not so subtle eye roll and even the utter disregard that many iPhone users have it for Android fans. And you know what? It sucks. It is unfair. And I’m sick of it.

Demystify Common Android Reviews by iOS Users

No platform, service, or device is perfect, but from what I’ve heard from iOS cheerleaders, both directly and indirectly, you would think Android was and always has been a citizen of. second class. This is simply not the case.

Design and build quality

One of the first Android reviews I remember hearing from friends and family was that Android phones were cheap, poorly built pieces of crap. This is undoubtedly true of some Android phones, but in my experience it doesn’t reflect the reality of the smartphone landscape.

Some of the best and most innovative designs and technologies are coming first, or exclusively, to Android phones.

Many (indeed most) of the highest quality, premium, and best-built smartphones are, in fact, Android phones. Technologies like AMOLED displays, high refresh rates, biometric scanning, and even foldable screens have made their debut or have long been exclusive to Android phones. And while there is no shortage of good, inexpensive Android phones, most of the best Android phones are as high end as any iPhone you’ll find.

And while the prevalence of repairable phones has declined over the years, the simple fact is that DIY enthusiasts and those who want to extend the useful life of their phones have more options to do so in the Android ecosystem. In fact, some of the most active people and companies in these efforts are Android users.

Security and confidentiality

The next hit on Android that I’ve heard over and over is that it’s not a secure platform and if you really care about privacy, you should avoid it at all costs. But, as my colleague Alex Dobie recently wrote, it’s a bunch of BS.

Some of the most secure phones you can buy run Android, including Google’s Pixel and Samsung’s Galaxy devices. To be clear, security and privacy aren’t the same things, but if you’re worried about being hacked or having your data stolen, it’s just as likely to happen on an iPhone as it is on an Android device. Most Security leaks happen when an app or game developer or third-party hardware manufacturers themselves are compromised, and not because of malicious code suddenly appearing on your phone.

Android users have more control than ever over their personal data, including the ability to ditch Google altogether.

Google’s apps and services do collect a ton of your personal data, but you also have great control over the data held through your Google account. For example, you can manually or automatically delete items such as your search history or your map movements from Google’s servers at any time. Google is also incorporating even more privacy controls in Android 12, to help users better understand and manage the apps that attempt to access their data.

And if that wasn’t enough, you can go a step further and install another Android based operating system on your phone like / e / OS, which doesn’t send any data to Google and lets you know which apps are trying to collect. what data, so you can decide whether the tradeoff is worth it for you or not.

Integrations, apps and features

IOS enthusiasts often like to point out how essential iMessage and Facetime are to their digital lives, and it’s not hard to see why. These apps come preloaded on every Apple device and they interact perfectly. But as confusing as Google’s messaging app strategy is, there are a ton of great messaging apps on Android that “just work.” Google Messages continues to improve and now supports end-to-end encryption between Messages users (much like iOS), and you can use it in any web browser or Chromebook. I’ve even been successful enough to convince most of my friends and family to use an alternative messaging platform like Signal or Telegram, so that iMessage doesn’t exclude me from their circles.

Facetime is coming to Android (and Windows) with iOS 15, and while it’s not necessarily the same experience as an iPhone, it opens up new ways to connect with Android and iOS users, and it can’t be. that good.

IPhones can integrate easily with Macs and iPads, but so can Android phones with Windows PCs and Chromebooks.

Finally, my Apple friends love to talk about how their iPhones work seamlessly with their Macs and iPads, but a lot of those same people don’t realize how good using an Android phone with a Windows PC is. Even before the inclusion of Android apps in Windows 11, PC users could take advantage of robust services like Microsoft’s Your Phone app or Samsung’s increasingly proficient Dex setup. And the Phone Hub feature is something I use every day on my Chromebooks to manage notifications and incoming messages from my Android devices.

Let’s learn to be together, not the same

As if it wasn’t obvious from my career choice and my employer, I’m a tech nerd. I love to experiment with all kinds of operating systems, platforms, and devices. I have no problem going back and forth between Android and iOS or between Chrome OS, macOS, or Windows, but I recognize that I am in a unique position to do so. For reasons of inertia, preference, or privilege, most people tend to stick with what they know and do not venture to the other side of the digital barrier. I have no resentment towards those who have chosen the technology that is right for them and meets their needs. You do you.

If you are an Apple fan, that’s great me too! Apple makes some of the best tech in the world, and there’s a reason it’s a leader in every category it comes in. The two platforms influence and push each other regularly to improve themselves, and sometimes they flatly copy each other’s best features. I just want my friends and family who love Apple to realize that using Android (or Linux, or Windows, etc.) is a valid, legitimate, thoughtful, and reasonable choice and that we are not “settling” or being misguided. We can do anything you do as well, and in some cases even better.

One of the things I love most about Android is that it is made up of a vibrant and diverse ecosystem of developers, device makers, and users. So let’s celebrate this technological diversity as it should be in our everyday life.

Have a good Sunday and I’ll see you next week.

– Jeramy