Some of you may know that I was once a Guide here on AF which I enjoyed. In October of last year I decided to give the Iphone 5 a try. When I did that I felt that I probably shouldn't be a Guide any longer and PM'ed good ol Steven to say I was going to take a break from being a Guide for a while. Here is my 6 months of Iphone life update.
What made me swap you ask?
The Galaxy Nexus and Android did. First and foremost I had horrible luck with the GNex. I know a lot of people out there look at their GNex as the best phone they've ever had. However as we all know everyone's mileage
differs and personally for me it was the worst PoS i've ever owned. I also think the majority rules on the side of people not having the best time with the GNex. For me it was a combination of HORRIBLE SIGNAL which made
the VERY BAD BATTERY LIFE EVEN WORSE. I should clarify that my GNex was the VZW variant. I should also clarify that the GNex wasn't my first Android device. I cut my teeth on the DX which I also got on launch day and rooted and rom'd it as well as my wife's incredible. Before you start the comments of "dang trophy you should've rooted it". I did that. In fact I was the first in line at my local VZW store the day they came out. I went straight home, helped maintain the All Things Root forum that day and rooted and unlocked mine from day one. I tried several Roms and Kernels. NOTHING EVER MADE IT WORK AS A PHONE FIRST. Sure the battery life would get a little better, but that is it. It got to where everytime I mentioned something about battery life the answer was always " well turn this off well turn that off, turn location services off, turn LTE off if you don't need it blah blah blah"....Folks i'm sorry to tell you but that should not be the solution to battery life. My problems aside from the GNex were growing frustrations of Android in general. Why can't the Android team ever give firm dates for updates, meaning Android versions not dates it will arrive on devices? Why so many small incremental updates? What happened to making an update worth it? It was at this time that I realized I needed a break from it all......enter the Iphone 5.
I had already bought my wife one, because lets face it, the Iphones are more user friendly out of the box. I bought mine in October from my local Apple store. Black 64gb version for VZW. I should also note that I
already had other Apple products. Ipad, MBA, MBP, ipod. My first impressions of the I5 was ..."wow it fits in my pocket now" "hey i can reach the corner of the screen with my thumb when holding it with one hand and I don't have a fear of dropping it" and best of all. ....WOW THIS BATTERY LAST FOREVER.
Read this carefully....I did not turn one thing off besides bluetooth.. I never turn LTE off, I never turn ANY location services off for any apps and I leave wifi on constantly even if i'm not going to be in range of a wifi spot for hours at a time. First full day on a full charge it reached 26 hours on one charge. Yes I said 26 hours. Mind you that was including new phone-itis when everyone plays with a phone non stop when you first get it. I will try and fast forward the rest of this.
Pros:
Battery Life
Being unlocked and a frequent international traveler I have bought pre paid Nano Sims and popped it in and it worked like a champ
Signal
Form Factor
I didn't have to screw around with rooting and romming in order for it to be a phone
APP QUALITY
I STILL HAVE GOOGLE MAPS FOR NAVIGATION
Cons:
It was and still is hard for me to type on the smaller keyboard
Sometimes I do miss the bigger screen
non standard cable for charging
not being able to easily put it in silent mode. You only have ringer or vibrate unless you manually put it in "do not disturb" mode.
So there are things that I miss with Android. However the positives for me out weigh the positives and negatives that I had with the GNex. I can't stress battery life enough. Has my device slowed down over time? Sure but it's still smoother than my GNex was. Has my battery life decreased over time? Sure but I still easily stomp the GNex battery life in a mudhole. Some may say "why didn't you just try another device on Android"? My answer is because I needed a break because of all the frustration in general. Some of you will say " well I've never had a problem with any of my devices or my GNex is awesome and i get 20 hours on a charge easily"..ok that is fine if it works for you. I'm talking about my experience with it. Since making the move one thing that does frustrate me is this. The constant bashing on both sides of the fence. I know it will always happen and is entertaining at times but honestly if you have never used the other sides device for yourself for an extended period of time then you really don't know what you're talking about when you say " oh apple is stupid" "oh Android is better" "or I don't like the way Apple does this". It doesn't matter what you're friend told you about his experience with whichever device in question. It doesn't matter what you read on a blog site about some writer didn't like Apple or Android for this reason. It matters about personal experience and that is it. So have an open mind people. Make comments based on facts not rumors and ignorant thinking. If you tell me that the Iphone sucks because of whatever reason, the first thing I want to ask is " have you ever used one for more than a few weeks"? Most people probably say no to that. ...Face Palm.
The future for me. I do want to get back into the Android hobby, but not in a phone. I'm waiting on the Nexus 7 refresh and then i'll be back in the game to some extent. I AM looking forward to the IOS7 update. The Good thing with Apple is you KNOW they will push a major update every fall. Oh yeah guess what??....They update the phones when they want and VZW DOESN'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE UPDATE PROCESS!!!!!!. Some of you will say well they stole features from Android and put them in IOS7. Ok so what? I don't care where they came from. I leave you with this.....
Have an open mind, Use whatever product works best for you no matter the brand. Be willing to give each side a chance.
What made me swap you ask?
The Galaxy Nexus and Android did. First and foremost I had horrible luck with the GNex. I know a lot of people out there look at their GNex as the best phone they've ever had. However as we all know everyone's mileage
differs and personally for me it was the worst PoS i've ever owned. I also think the majority rules on the side of people not having the best time with the GNex. For me it was a combination of HORRIBLE SIGNAL which made
the VERY BAD BATTERY LIFE EVEN WORSE. I should clarify that my GNex was the VZW variant. I should also clarify that the GNex wasn't my first Android device. I cut my teeth on the DX which I also got on launch day and rooted and rom'd it as well as my wife's incredible. Before you start the comments of "dang trophy you should've rooted it". I did that. In fact I was the first in line at my local VZW store the day they came out. I went straight home, helped maintain the All Things Root forum that day and rooted and unlocked mine from day one. I tried several Roms and Kernels. NOTHING EVER MADE IT WORK AS A PHONE FIRST. Sure the battery life would get a little better, but that is it. It got to where everytime I mentioned something about battery life the answer was always " well turn this off well turn that off, turn location services off, turn LTE off if you don't need it blah blah blah"....Folks i'm sorry to tell you but that should not be the solution to battery life. My problems aside from the GNex were growing frustrations of Android in general. Why can't the Android team ever give firm dates for updates, meaning Android versions not dates it will arrive on devices? Why so many small incremental updates? What happened to making an update worth it? It was at this time that I realized I needed a break from it all......enter the Iphone 5.
I had already bought my wife one, because lets face it, the Iphones are more user friendly out of the box. I bought mine in October from my local Apple store. Black 64gb version for VZW. I should also note that I
already had other Apple products. Ipad, MBA, MBP, ipod. My first impressions of the I5 was ..."wow it fits in my pocket now" "hey i can reach the corner of the screen with my thumb when holding it with one hand and I don't have a fear of dropping it" and best of all. ....WOW THIS BATTERY LAST FOREVER.
Read this carefully....I did not turn one thing off besides bluetooth.. I never turn LTE off, I never turn ANY location services off for any apps and I leave wifi on constantly even if i'm not going to be in range of a wifi spot for hours at a time. First full day on a full charge it reached 26 hours on one charge. Yes I said 26 hours. Mind you that was including new phone-itis when everyone plays with a phone non stop when you first get it. I will try and fast forward the rest of this.
Pros:
Battery Life
Being unlocked and a frequent international traveler I have bought pre paid Nano Sims and popped it in and it worked like a champ
Signal
Form Factor
I didn't have to screw around with rooting and romming in order for it to be a phone
APP QUALITY
I STILL HAVE GOOGLE MAPS FOR NAVIGATION
Cons:
It was and still is hard for me to type on the smaller keyboard
Sometimes I do miss the bigger screen
non standard cable for charging
not being able to easily put it in silent mode. You only have ringer or vibrate unless you manually put it in "do not disturb" mode.
So there are things that I miss with Android. However the positives for me out weigh the positives and negatives that I had with the GNex. I can't stress battery life enough. Has my device slowed down over time? Sure but it's still smoother than my GNex was. Has my battery life decreased over time? Sure but I still easily stomp the GNex battery life in a mudhole. Some may say "why didn't you just try another device on Android"? My answer is because I needed a break because of all the frustration in general. Some of you will say " well I've never had a problem with any of my devices or my GNex is awesome and i get 20 hours on a charge easily"..ok that is fine if it works for you. I'm talking about my experience with it. Since making the move one thing that does frustrate me is this. The constant bashing on both sides of the fence. I know it will always happen and is entertaining at times but honestly if you have never used the other sides device for yourself for an extended period of time then you really don't know what you're talking about when you say " oh apple is stupid" "oh Android is better" "or I don't like the way Apple does this". It doesn't matter what you're friend told you about his experience with whichever device in question. It doesn't matter what you read on a blog site about some writer didn't like Apple or Android for this reason. It matters about personal experience and that is it. So have an open mind people. Make comments based on facts not rumors and ignorant thinking. If you tell me that the Iphone sucks because of whatever reason, the first thing I want to ask is " have you ever used one for more than a few weeks"? Most people probably say no to that. ...Face Palm.
The future for me. I do want to get back into the Android hobby, but not in a phone. I'm waiting on the Nexus 7 refresh and then i'll be back in the game to some extent. I AM looking forward to the IOS7 update. The Good thing with Apple is you KNOW they will push a major update every fall. Oh yeah guess what??....They update the phones when they want and VZW DOESN'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE UPDATE PROCESS!!!!!!. Some of you will say well they stole features from Android and put them in IOS7. Ok so what? I don't care where they came from. I leave you with this.....
Have an open mind, Use whatever product works best for you no matter the brand. Be willing to give each side a chance.
