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My dealbreakers:
No proper file management on iPhones.
No sideloading allowed on iPhones.
No playing back local music files without doing the cumbersome syncing through iTunes on iPhones.
No headphone jack, no MicroSD slot, huge storage markups on iPhones.
Firefox with ublock and a normal engine
Newpipe for downloading stuff off YT
OSMand for offline navigation
f-droid for foss software
Rethink to carefully ban everything that doesn't need internet from connecting
a phone with a nice amoled screen and all-day quickcharging battery that costs 180β¬ (motorola g52)
not one ad anywhere
a better question is, why would I want anything else? An iphone seems like a sharp downgrade.
Just fyi: OSMand is available on iOS.
I know, and the last time I saw it it was just complete buggy shit with a different UI and nowhere near feature parity.
And this point is more hardware-related, but I've started to really love my Nothing Phone and its LED lights on the back, which produces amazing photos because the light is much softer than the small flash used by other phones. There isn't a single Apple device with a feature like this. You could probably get a case, but it's nice to have this integrated into the phone.
This guy phones
Apple. I want nothing to do with a closed ecosystem and I loathe how central AppleID is to absolutely everything.
I have fdroid and a few custom apks that wouldn't be available on their store, so those would be hooped as well.
Apple and I have very different notions of what it means to own something.
Apple's walled garden is anti-consumer, anti-developer, and pretty much anti-everyone-but-apple.
It just doesn't make sense to me to use or develop for Apple under those conditions.
A central nervous system
The OS
I'm a developer and android is more friendly to developers, i have more control over my device. I can use any browser without being stuck with Safari. If i don't like my phone i can choose from many more manufacturers without losing my apps and subscriptions.
I think most of all i have problem with Apples culture, their smugness and acting like they invented everything. I don't think I'm their target audience.
Why would I pay more than 3 times more for a Brick, that gives me less freedom to do what I want and doesn't have app support and features I require.
The phones being worse than the ones I prefer to use.
Like, theyβre objectively less functional devices. I canβt pretend the features drops for every new model/OS arenβt just things android has has for years.
I wouldn't buy a car that could only drive on roads approved by the maker, so same goes for phone.
I had an ipad pro and it was an awful experience for me. Lack of customizations I deem normal, lack of real choice, limitations at every step. The walled garden felt hostile to me, the user. I sold it and got a Samsung tablet instead and it's been perfect. The only thing missing is procreate, but I have alternatives that do 99% of what I wanted.
Honestly, just navigating the phone is a giant pain in the ass. I bought my wife an iPad and finding basic settings or locating an app is a nightmare. Any time she needs help with it I feel like I'm pulling teeth.
Actually being the owner of my phone. Apple decides everything for their users and allows them little freedom. I want to be able to put random apps on my phone, including maybe even my own.
Price. Shit's expensive. I now got a Pixel 8 for less than 500 euro's. Before that I had phones around the 300 euro price range.
Their ecosystem. They try to lure you into an everything Apple ecosystem. Stuff like iMessage is horrible for consumers. With an Android phone I have choice of apps, smart watch, earbuds, etc. Apple will always try to force you into buying their fancy but expensive things.
No benefit, there's plenty of cool Android phones.
Etc etc.
File level access to files. I would love to have the option of moving files in folders and connecting it to a PC to drag and drop files.
True multi tasking.
Ability to install apps from other sources.
I've been forced to use iOS for my work phone and it is absolute dog shit... it feels like Android from 10+ years ago. The lack of customization and dumbass work flows drive me crazy every day.
So many screens in different apps. make you reach way to one corner or the other to go back a screen. In Android, back is one motion that can be done anywhere from any edge. And that behaves consistently across every app. In iOS some apps behave differently, even the same app with a different screen will handle the same gesture differently. It's an absolute shit show.
Want to open my app list, I just swipe up from anywhere on my screen. Want my notifications, swipe down from anywhere on my screen. In iOS I have to perfectly hit the top edge and slowly drag it down.
There are plenty of other reasons.
Access to the filesystem. Wtf! Lmao. I download a PDF and can't just open it? I have to basically share it with the app, it's so dumb.
Split screening apps.
Complete lack of customization. The launcher is ass.
Horrible keyboard and the one I like, SwiftKey is completely neutered and lacks the customization of Android. And some apps will use the apple keyboard even though I changed it to use Swiftkey. Again, no consistency.
Messages will pop a notification then when I open the messenger app they are not there. I can read the message in the notification area, but there is a period of time that it doesn't display in the actual app. Lmao. Dog shit.
Many, many other things.
Apps and services dying to backgrounding like the hotspot for one will just stop working after a certain amount of time.
Want to know how I change my brightness in Android? I just slide across the status bar in any app on any screen.
When I want to turn my flashlight on, all I do is hold my power button down for 3 seconds. Don't have to turn my screen on and click anything.
So many things. The settings in iOS are also a joke and the way they are organized, I just hate everything about it. It feels like I'm running Android from 2010 with less customization.
Basically iOS is complete ass.
Plenty of useful apps that cannot run on iOS. Mostly Termux and SDR-related apps (rtl_tcp server, SDR++, SatDump, Welle.io, SDRAngel, Dump1090,...)
I can run full-on desktop in Termux and access it via VNC server. I can also access it via SSH server. I can run a web server, HTTP proxy server, Kiwix server, Navidrome server, Jellyfin server, port-forward using socat. And that's just what I use or tried. In the past there was someone on Reddit running a public BBS server on an Android phone in Termux.
There's likely many other apps I use not available on iOS.
So if I'll be switching to a different platform, maybe PinePhone running Arch Linux with Plasma mobile? Probably only as a secondary phone for now though.
iPhones are too close to feature phones for me. Best thing they can run is probably a browser.
Sideloading apps
Paying x4 times the price for a device
More expensive. Less (no?) emulator support. Inertia. Don't care for apple interfaces or ecosystem much.
Much like many of the iPhone users when you asked the converse question, it's not so much that something is stopping me, but that I have no interest in it. I don't see any benefits that I care about, and it would cost time and money to switch.
Let's pretend for a moment that I did have some desire to switch, perhaps due to some new hardware from Apple or changes to Android I found unpalatable. Here are some things I'd consider major barriers:
That's... basically it, but those are big things and Apple's position on them is so opposite mine that they're risking severe sanctions from the EU to comply with the EU's sideloading regulations in the most useless way they can.
Notification light. Repairability (I can practically op this thing open like the hood of a car). Far cheaper options. Headphone jack. Side loading. Fingerprint sensor. Dedicated shutter and focus button. Non proprietary charger that isn't terrible. Emulators. Firefox plus adblocker. Customisability (least important for me honestly).
I am just happy that I have options. I can do whatever I want with this hardware. I own this device and have complete freedom. I work in repair and I am thoroughly aware of apple's anti-consumer practices and it disgusts me. I could never buy a device from apple out of principle.
It sickens me when I have to tell customers "your totally repairable device is fucked because apple makes it arbitrarily impossible to repair.". It makes me even sadder when they just buy another apple device, rewarding them for their behaviour.
Paying 20% - 40% more for dumbed-down OS that limits what software I can use. I mean literally any one of those alone is a deal breaker. It was never gonna work.
I only use FOSS
I categorically refuse to use anything made by Apple.
I want to own my phone.
Can't put graphene on it, can't sideload apps, can't even organize your home screen in an acceptable manner last I checked which was admittedly long ago, never bought into the hype (which is the only reason to use apple).
Not having a functioning browser. And no, it's not Chrome. Why would you want to use an ads pushing piece of garbage?
Termux
Choosing my own default apps, getting apps from other locations (like F-droid), adblockers. Those are the big ones.
My iPhone experience is a couple of years old now, but my biggest thing has been the flexibility of the home screen in Android. I can modify the home screen and run very convenient widgets for some apps with a 3rd party home screen app.
It got a lot better. Now (or I should say, in a few months) you can place icons wherever you want on the homescreen.
It's so funny that they act like they've reinvented the wheel by introducing a feature Android users had for years.
I used to have an original iPod. It was so buggy getting songs into it. It would freeze up half the time and corrupt its filesystem. I later found out that Apple deliberately made the windows experience buggy to draw more people to buy Macs. That's unforgivable behaviour.
In 2003 (or thereabouts) I was a paying user of an Apple music product. They deliberately broke the way that I used their product, then once someone found a workaround, they broke that, too.
I tried to be their customer, and they kicked me out for not using Windows or MacOS. Now I'm emotionally invested in not giving them any money, ever.
Reason 1: I once owned an ipad, the experience with it was so bad that I stayed away from iphone.
Reason 2: I now have Mac for work. My experience with it is so bad that I'm staying away from iphone.
I don't like Apples attitude. And I want control of my own phone, not just whatever crumbs Apple will allow me.
Preference.