Android vs. iPhone

A friend gave me an iPhone 5s when my HTC Inspire finally bit the dust. This 5s is my first iPhone and therefore my first chance to compare the two operating systems so this entry is intended to be a loose list of differences, pluses, and minuses I find as I explore the iPhone and either cheer something I could not do before or mourn the loss of something I took for granted. There's no science, testing, or formal comparison in this entry. Just ramblings of a user switching from Android to iPhone.

There are people who swear by Apple products and would not touch a Microsoft (Windows) or Google (Android) product if their life depended on it (well, maybe if their life depended on it, but they'd have serious doubts it would save them). There are people who never touched an Apple product simply because the opportunity never arose. I fall in the later category. I recently was gifted an iPhone 5s by a dear person (son of a friend) when my Android finally became too problematic after six years of reliable dedicated frequent use. I knew how to do everything I needed to do on my old Android and though it had limited memory and poor battery, I adjusted because it did what I wanted it to do.

Now I am learning the iPhone features and so far, the only one jumping out is the talk to text feature because that did not work all the time with my Android (it would not work when I was connected to WiFi for some reason... it was a cutting dge phone ahead of it's time six years ago, but definitely limited by 1Gb memory). Still, I miss the ease of use that came with familiarity. Not faulting the iPhone (yet) as I hope to learn to do most of what I did and am a little excited about learning new tricks my old Android could not do.

To this end (whatever end this may be), I am going to keep two lists in this blog entry. On the left will be the new things I can do that inspire my smile. On the right will be the missing and the flaws, things I used to be able to do that I no longer can do. Hopefully none will be deal breakers for the iPhone for me, but that is why I am keeping track. Part of me already wants to move back to Android. This list will help me see the benefits of the iPhone and let me measure them against the losses.

I think I will start each feature or flaw in the iPhone 5s simply because it is the phone I use at the moment. The Android had many flaws, though some may have been the age as it was at least four years old. Unfair, I know, but whoever said life was fair? :)

Flaws in the iPhone 5s

Serious flaw - No ability to save a draft text message. With Android I was used to tying out a text message anytime and saving it in draft for a more appropriate time for sending (like a late night text I would rather send in the morning or a text I'd rather send when someone got off work). In fact there was the ability to send a text on delay. No such feature in the iPhone.

Possible Dealbreaker - The inability to save a draft text is bad enough, but the suggestion I read online was to type out the text then close the phone. The trouble is, if another text message comes in, the temporarily saved message is gone. That is the first potential dealbreaker I've found in the iPhone 5s. I researched online and found Apple has no phone that saves draft text messages, so while the decision not carved in stone, I may go back to Android when I replace this phone.

to be continued (if I remember)...