Live data from Hacker News

I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

dogsnog.blog

31–40 of 482 posts

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm crossing my fingers that "the time is right" for Android, especially on a Google device.

Maybe they've improved their OS and features, but as far as I know their revenue model is still advertising based.

Anyone know if you can still get a high quality Android experience without being a slave to Google? Obviously things like Google Now are only particularly useful if you submit to Google, but other than that, what can be expected? Can I root it and disable all the bullshit?

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#32
post #30
post #16

After 7 years Android user across three phones, I decided to try iPhone. Now 2 years in, on my 2nd, and never going back. Android tends to slowly slide into glitch land and demands you throw away your phone far more aggressively than iPhones do. The 911-crash on Android was the last straw. That's when you call 911, and the phone crashes instead of, you know, calling for help. iPhone might not be latest and greatest.…

My experience exactly. I always said bad things about iPhone. Hay it is closed, it has fewer options, worse hardware than top Android phones, etc.. It was the time during which I fiddled with the phone much, installed Ubuntu on Android phone, etc.. But then my last Nexus started to glitch like any other Android top phone after 1 year of use. I was so irritated by it that I said well I will try iPhone now. It was abou…

>>Also, I can disable every notification/spam per app

You can do this on Android as well

>> Nexus started to glitch like any other Android top phone after 1 year of use ... 6 month ago and I could not be more happy. I have phone that just works, never glitched

hmmm, Anyone else see a issue with these 2 statements?

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#33
post #23

I was an an android user for many years but switched to an iPhone about 10 months ago. I have three complaints with android which will stop me going back again: 1. It demands my attention too much. Updates, problems, weirdness, random crashes. 2. I don’t trust any android handset vendor to look after me. I’ve had a handset abandoned by the vendor before I’d even bought it despite assurances otherwise. A promise is wo…

1. Buy a flagship phone. My S7 hasn't crashed once since I got it over a year ago. 2. Buy a flagship phone (or get better laws? Pretty sure EU has laws against that sort of behavior). 3. Disable the 2 or 3 settings in Google Maps that make your phone ask those nosy questions [a].

[a] https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/161704/turn-off-...

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#34
post #30
post #16

After 7 years Android user across three phones, I decided to try iPhone. Now 2 years in, on my 2nd, and never going back. Android tends to slowly slide into glitch land and demands you throw away your phone far more aggressively than iPhones do. The 911-crash on Android was the last straw. That's when you call 911, and the phone crashes instead of, you know, calling for help. iPhone might not be latest and greatest.…

My experience exactly. I always said bad things about iPhone. Hay it is closed, it has fewer options, worse hardware than top Android phones, etc.. It was the time during which I fiddled with the phone much, installed Ubuntu on Android phone, etc.. But then my last Nexus started to glitch like any other Android top phone after 1 year of use. I was so irritated by it that I said well I will try iPhone now. It was abou…

What Android phone were you using? I have a Pixel 2 XL and no idea what you're talking about regarding glitchiness or animation stutter. I previously had a Note 4 for maybe 3 or 4 years and only had problems with it when I needed to replace the battery

You can also disable notifications per app on Android.

I think a high end Android phone is going to be very similar to an iPhone. Personally, I like the Pixel's camera better, I think it has a better touch id to unlock, the voice assistant is much better, and there is a better integration with Google maps in my experience. All that, plus I can root my phone if I need to.

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#35
post #16

After 7 years Android user across three phones, I decided to try iPhone. Now 2 years in, on my 2nd, and never going back. Android tends to slowly slide into glitch land and demands you throw away your phone far more aggressively than iPhones do. The 911-crash on Android was the last straw. That's when you call 911, and the phone crashes instead of, you know, calling for help. iPhone might not be latest and greatest.…

I think sometimes it's a grass-is-greener situation. I had an iPhone bug where the camera/gallery would just crash on startup or basically anytime I had to do anything camera related. I eventually fixed it (after months of trying) by connecting to a PC with a 3rd party app, navigating the file system, and deleting a bunch of thumbnail cache files.

I had plenty of problems answering phone calls on my iPhone -- it would be glitchy and unresponsive and I'd miss calls.

Even more annoying about the iPhone is the always growing "Other" space on the phone. I was constantly short on disk space with no way of knowing what the cause was or how to clean it up.

The bluetooth stack would crash every week disconnecting all my bluetooth devices temporarily. Very annoying when you have a smartwatch.

My wife's iPhone screen doesn't turn off after she uses Siri sometimes -- it'll just say on all night long.

The entire iPhone 6 (non-S) line was total garbage. Tons of people bought these and had nothing but problems.

My point isn't so much to rag on iPhones -- they're actually really solid devices -- and I highly recommend them to non-technical users pretty much exclusively. They are hands down better than the vast majority of Android devices.

But I switched from iPhone to Android on this last cycle and couldn't be happier -- this article covers much of what's good about it. But I love the flexibility and a lot of little touches that iOS devices don't have. And I think all devices have different problems. My Android phone is not glitch free either.

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#36
post #33
post #23

I was an an android user for many years but switched to an iPhone about 10 months ago. I have three complaints with android which will stop me going back again: 1. It demands my attention too much. Updates, problems, weirdness, random crashes. 2. I don’t trust any android handset vendor to look after me. I’ve had a handset abandoned by the vendor before I’d even bought it despite assurances otherwise. A promise is wo…

1. Buy a flagship phone. My S7 hasn't crashed once since I got it over a year ago. 2. Buy a flagship phone (or get better laws? Pretty sure EU has laws against that sort of behavior). 3. Disable the 2 or 3 settings in Google Maps that make your phone ask those nosy questions [a]. [a] https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/161704/turn-off-...

1. I had a flagship from Samsung. It’s google’s Estate that is buggy as hell.

2. I’m in the UK. Forget it. We have good laws. Law should be a last resort but would have to be first call to get anything useful out.

3. And the 9,000,000 other places it does the same thing.

Honestly the last straw was when I was sitting down having a shit and it asked me to rate the public toilet and suggested taking a photo. So I did and for 6 months there was a picture of my excrement and a review on the Internet.

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#37

I used to make Android phones and I stopped using our own product after having been a hardcore Android user from the beginning. Had the first Android device that came out, rooted and rooted and rooted after that and built lots of apps for various companies until I got into building the actual OS. The reason I stopped using our Android product at that time was because of the spyware. I even built a nice backend to hos…

There are some alternatives already. They may not be 100% painless, but they generally don't have the spyware problem.

From the top of my head:

- Jolla https://jolla.com/ only shares the drivers with Android - Replicant https://www.replicant.us/ only shares AOSP with Android, making this community project reputable in my eyes - Librem 5 https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ will share nothing with Android when it comes

The two issues with those is lesser hardware and app selection, but this is what happens to the third contender in the current situation.

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#38

I've switched for a month while traveling and I agree with the author, some additional points: - The phone is too smart. E.g. it transforms your voice messages into text messages which is magic but also pings you after you visit something "Hey, wanna rate the store you just visited?" "Hey, you took pictures of this place today, wanna share them?". - The pictures are outstanding, particularly in low light. The portrai…

[deleted]

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#39

I've switched for a month while traveling and I agree with the author, some additional points: - The phone is too smart. E.g. it transforms your voice messages into text messages which is magic but also pings you after you visit something "Hey, wanna rate the store you just visited?" "Hey, you took pictures of this place today, wanna share them?". - The pictures are outstanding, particularly in low light. The portrai…

The smart notifications you are mentioning are from Google Maps. You can disable them individually by going to Settings -> Apps -> Maps-> Notifications and then unchecking everything under "Your contributions". But I agree they are anoying.

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#40
post #16

After 7 years Android user across three phones, I decided to try iPhone. Now 2 years in, on my 2nd, and never going back. Android tends to slowly slide into glitch land and demands you throw away your phone far more aggressively than iPhones do. The 911-crash on Android was the last straw. That's when you call 911, and the phone crashes instead of, you know, calling for help. iPhone might not be latest and greatest.…

I think sometimes it's a grass-is-greener situation. I had an iPhone bug where the camera/gallery would just crash on startup or basically anytime I had to do anything camera related. I eventually fixed it (after months of trying) by connecting to a PC with a 3rd party app, navigating the file system, and deleting a bunch of thumbnail cache files. I had plenty of problems answering phone calls on my iPhone -- it woul…

I have beefs with my iPhone and iPad but not those.

1. Nagging for Apple paid services

2. Gestures changing every month and becoming increasingly complicated with small variations doing different things, inconsistent experience between iPad and iPhone

3. Audio jack

4. Anything that involves editing is a catastrophe. Selecting an element of a table on a web page or trying to copy the text of a link (not the url) is nearly impossible.

5. Auto correct introducing more errors than it corrects.

6. iTunes on Windows which is still the only way to sync my music to the iPhone is just completely broken.

Which is why I am tempted to move. I can see some candidates for an iPhone replacement but the iPad Pro 10.5 doesn’t seem to have any competitor (large-ish screen with high refresh rate).

Post reply on HN