From iOS to Android - Leaving the Walled Garden

As some readers of this blog may have noticed, I recently switched back to using Android after nearly a decade of running a purely Apple-based tech setup. For nearly the entire preceding decade, my choice of technology had been dominated by my experiences during my three and a half years as an employee of the Cupertino-based fruit flingers. However, for the last two years, iOS and the iPhone have felt strangely stale, and when foldable phones started getting more traction, first with Motorola’s reboots of its famous RAZR line, an then with Samsung’s Z Flip and Z Fold lines, the time seemed right to return to the Android fold. And yes, that pun was intentional.

This wouldn’t be my first rodeo, mind you. My first two real smartphones had been Android devices, the Motorola Milestone and Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S, as had been my first tablet, the ASUS EeePad Slider, the latter carrying me through my first year as a part of the Church of the Disciples of St. Jobs, and very much a device I still miss for its design finesse. However, my experience back then had been somewhat mixed. But that was ten years ago, and now, in 2023, how would the return to Android shape up for a recovering Apple addict?

From the Motorola Milestone...

...via the Asus EeePad Slider...

...to the SonyEriccson Xperia Arc S, I had quite a bit experience with Android in its early days.

Well, to get the inevitable skewering out of the way first, for most everyday tasks, it will matter diddly squat whether you use an iPhone or an Android phone. Both platforms have matured to a level where they are basically identical from a usability point of view. Everyday tasks are just as easily handled in both ecosystems and even Apple’s supposed advantage in privacy is not as clear-cut as it would seem, at least if the disclosures during the recent high-profile court cases are anything to go by. On this front, neither platform has any major advantages or disadvantages.

With that out of the way, and two nearly identical angry mobs heading my way with copious amounts of torches and pitchforks at their disposal, let’s have a bit of a closer look. Please be aware that these are my impressions after a little over two months in the Android world and as such, they are very much open to change as the novelty continues to wear off.

Aesthetics

The iOS look has always been cleaner than Android's appearance, sometimes too clean.

At first glance, this is very much a win for Apple. iOS in general is a lot “cleaner”. The interface and menu appear less cluttered than their Android counterpart. Especially the status bar at the upper edge of the display tends to quickly get cluttered with notifications and icons, an issue that existed even back on my old Xperia Arc S. Having said that, this clean appearance can often tip over into feeling sterile, especially when you’re setting up your device from new. By comparison, Android devices, even right out of the box, have a lot more „character“ in my eyes. And yes, that goes even for Samsung‘s utterly soulless OneUI interface which they have grafted on top of Android. And it’s not just the icons and app layout, but even little touches such as having the colours of the wallpaper reflected throughout the interface, adapting dynamically to day or night mode. It just ties everything together in a way you really don’t get on iOS. Oh, and apologies for using iPad images to illustrate iOS in this post, while preparing the pictures I noticed that I'd never really taken many photos of my iPhone, or screenshots for that matter.

Usability

As mentioned in the introduction, the difference between iOS and Android is pretty marginal, and for most everyday uses, the two platforms can be used interchangeably. All major apps you’d need for 99% of use cases are available on both platforms, and core functionality is pretty similar at this point as well. If you’re a long-term user of one ecosystem, your muscle memory might trip you up for the first few weeks after the change, but that’s a minor issue. The one major differentiator is the availability and functionality of widgets.

Yes, iOS and iPadOS have widgets now as well, but the experience is still somewhat lacking in my experience.

Now, before you get those pitchforks back out, yes, I know, iOS recently introduced widgets as well. However, Android has been built around them from day one, and this functionality has matured along with the rest of the OS. Apple by comparison only started introducing widgets with iOS 14 back in 2020, with iPadOS following one year later in 2021. And honestly, you can feel the difference in everyday use. I can get a lot more done with the widgets on my Z Flip 5 than I could on my last two iPhones. It really is that much of a difference.

Modularity

This is by far Android’s strongest point, while also being its biggest curse. Google designed it from the start as a massively customisable system. Indeed, one of its early selling points for device manufacturers was that they could adapt Android to their needs, which unfortunately also resulted in the fragmented Android landscape we have today. As I wrote in my review of the Galaxy Watch 6, the good news about Android is that everything is modular. The bad news is that everything is modular. Now, to be fair, Google has tried in recent years to rein in the massive proliferation of Android varieties, separating a number of core components into modules that are now updated via the Google Play Store, circumventing hardware manufacturers and their often flippant approach to software updates and questionable UI changes. Looking at you, Samsung OneUI! And for the most part, it has succeeded, with quite a few system components now being updated via the Play Store.

However, this modularity goes beyond mere system components. Don’t like the default gallery app? Download another. Need a better text messaging app? Download another? Animated wallpapers? Just download it. Even the Phone app itself, the core component of, you know, a smart”phone” can be replaced by a third-party app, though for me personally, this was one of the few customisations I walked back on, given that Google’s Phone app apparently doesn’t support “flip to accept call”, a key selling point of a flip phone. Beyond that though, one of the first things I did after getting my Galaxy Flip 5 was to replace as many stock Samsung apps with their third party counterparts, mostly from Google directly.

Google Play Store

Which segues nicely into my points about the Google Play Store. Gosh, it’s almost like I planned this out beforehand… Anyway, this is one of the more painful areas of comparison. Don’t get me wrong, the app selection on the Google Play Store is just as eye wateringly immense as it is on the Apple Store. However, for a long time, the store has also been one of Android’s greatest weak spots. Even back in my first Android era, the store was littered with rip-offs, scam apps and outdated rubbish. Now to be fair, the iOS App Store is no longer the safe haven from these scammers it once was, but the problem on the Play Store is on a whole other level. Now granted, Android is far more widespread than iOS, so it is naturally a bigger “market” if you will for scammers, but I also believe that at least part of the reason for this problem is Android’s prevalence in developing or threshold countries, as well as places where digital literacy and awareness are still lacking.

And it’s not as if the Store app itself is sunshine and roses either. Coming from Apple, the Play Store seems poorly laid out, cluttered and chaotic, and seemingly bereft of any curation or monitoring. The type of “app browsing” looking for something interesting that I used to do during my iPhone days is pretty much impossible in the Play Store. I get that Apple’s “Walled Garden” can sometimes feel overbearing, but this sometimes parochial approach does also have some clear advantages.

And now, on from the painful to the downright torturous…

Software Updates

Yeah, this one really stings. One of the things that helped drive me away from Android back in the early 2010s, apart from the generous employee discounts at Apple, was the absolutely atrocious update situation for Android devices. If you were lucky, your phone manufacturer would throw out one, maybe two platform updates for your device. After that, you were on your own. Security updates? Don’t be silly! This happened to me more than once. My Motorola Milestone, Asus EeePad Slider and Sony Ericcson Xperia Arc S all suffered this fate, being effectively abandoned by their manufacturer after little more than a year on the market, something that left this blogger fuming more than once!

To be fair, Google has tried to address this issue. As mentioned above, some core system components have been moved to the Google Play Store to avoid being held hostage by device manufacturers. In addition, Google has apparently also started to force manufacturers to ensure that they push out a minimum number of security updates for their devices, and many manufacturers promise several years of platform updates as well, with Samsung promising four years of platform updates and five years of security updates for my Galaxy Flip 5. 

However, just because a manufacturer promises or has been mandated to provide a certain level of updates, that doesn’t mean that they’ll make it easy, or that it will be a quick affair. When Android 14 was released in autumn 2024, Samsung was quick to point out that the Flip 5 was going to get OneUI 6, Samsung’s flavour of Android 14. However, the timeline for this release was clear as mud, and it took several weeks of waiting past the actual release date for my device to get the update. Meanwhile, Motorola seems to be up to its old shenanigans with their RAZR line-up of flip phones, which according to multiple user reports, seem to have already come to the end of their update cycles. To be honest, that makes me glad that my carrier didn’t offer the RAZR when I renewed my contract with them last year. 

Conclusion

Okay, I’ve exhausted my Notion notes for this post, so the rest is just going to be some stream-of-consciousness writing from me, sorry, not sorry! Still with me? Good. Where do I stand at the end of this comparison? Well, I haven’t regretted my move to Android, if that’s what you’re wondering. In fact, I really enjoy being back in the Android sphere, at least with regards to my phone and watch. The transition was far easier than I would have expected, and the user experience is actually pretty similar. I honestly feel like the iOS/Android rivalry is hopelessly overblown, as both platforms very clearly have strengths and weaknesses. What’s more, with modern cloud services, getting all the important stuff from one ecosystem to another is no longer the seemingly insurmountable task it once was. So yeah, leaving the Walled Garden was definitely the right decision as far as I’m concerned. Plus, I can always move back if Android should go down the drain.