Over the past few years, I have mentioned a few times that I have never used an iPhone as my daily driver before. Yeah, 17 years into the iPhone’s lifecycle, I have not owned and used one myself. Then I think my colleague, John, got tired of my constant complaints and he lent me his iPhone. His old iPhone 13 Pro.
I thought – since I’m already going to use this iPhone as my daily driver, why not make a video about the entire journey and share it with you? Watching the video form of this will be much better, though.
In this video, I’ll be sharing 3 good and 3 not-so-good aspects of iOS, and there will be one neutral point at the end that I think perfectly embodies my opinion about iOS.
The entire narrative of this video will be from the perspective of a first-time iPhone user who is switching over from a Samsung phone – so there will be a few comparisons between the two.
Now, since the phone I’m using is the iPhone 13 Pro and it’s considered “old” at this point, I’m not going to talk about the phone itself – as in the camera or battery life.
Good #1 – Ecosystem
The first obvious big strength of iOS – actually any Apple device for that matter, is the ecosystem.
From the moment I booted up the phone, I had to go through the setup process like any other phone. Since I am also using an iPad Air, I can skip a lot of the hassle of logging into my accounts thanks to the ecosystem feature that Apple has. It’s interesting to see them implementing these creative ideas as a way to pair the devices before I even log into my accounts.
Oh – since I am a MacBook Pro user, I also got to experience another part of the ecosystem too. When I got a call on the iPhone, my MacBook Pro was ringing as well. That means I wouldn’t miss a call even when I’m totally focused on my work.
I can also manage the iPhone either wirelessly or wired via the MacBook Pro’s Finder – their file manager directly, without installing any other applications. I mean, it’s quite unfortunate that we can’t do much with it other than to sync stuff or copy files into certain apps but hey, it’s an option.
I also tried using iMessage and it opened my eyes to why it is such a hot debate when it comes to the blue text bubble. iMessage is technically Telegram but works directly and natively on all of your Apple devices. It’s a simple, straightforward app and just works. Plus, Apple’s emphasis on privacy gives us peace of mind.
Now, I’m not supporting iMessage to be the reason to switch over to iPhones because Telegram exists, and it’s free. But if the service is free – then I guess our data is the product? Hmmmmm…
Not-so-good #1 – Notifications
When I continued using the iPhone, I found out one big problem – the notifications. Arghhhhh, this is just painful. The notification system is horrible in two ways. Firstly, the iconic notification bar in iPhones is as annoying as ever as it sorts everything chronologically. And for whatever reason, they grouped the notifications we received while in Do Not Disturb. This is just clunky.
Secondly, by default, all notifications received will cause the screen to light up. It’s annoying since I get many notifications a day and there is no easy way to disable this other than to flip the phone around.
Instead, we’ll have to head into the settings and disable this lock screen notification menu for every single app. Yes, every single app, one by one.
When we install a new app, we’ll have to disable this manually for that new app too. Such a fun thing to do, am I right? Come on, just give us a button to disable this lock screen notification for all apps permanently.
Good #2 – Hardware/software integration
But after that, the more I use this phone, the more I like it. Some people will also argue that this notch is ugly. I agree. The new Dynamic Island is also ugly. But I think Apple’s reason to have that notch there is justifiable – and that’s because of Face ID.
I think Face ID is just far superior to all under-display fingerprint scanners. It’s faster, more accurate, and more reliable. If I am wearing glasses or even a mask, FaceID works too.
And amazingly, the software integration on iOS is amazing – way beyond my expectations, to be honest. I already love apps like Samsung Wallet and have used it daily for like 5 years now, but adding my cards to Samsung Wallet had to be done in a very manual way – I had to either use NFC, take a picture, or manually type in my card details to link it.
On iOS, when I installed MAE app – which is the app of the bank that I use, it immediately tells me that I can add my credit cards into Apple Wallet by just tapping a few buttons. It’s seamless and super easy to do.
The same goes for flight tickets too. John told me that for our most recent flight to Taipei via EVA Air, he used his iPhone to check in the flight and it gave him the option to add the boarding ticket into Apple Wallet. Samsung, on the other hand, only supports Korean Air, and Emirates for now.
Certain apps also take advantage of iPhone’s hardware – like Facebook, I think this app utilizes the hardware in many interesting ways. For example, when we share a post, instead of having just a toast notification, it’ll have a tiny vibration. I think that’s an excellent way to make use of the hardware and provide information via haptics.
Not-so-good #2- Personalization
However, personalization is definitely not a strong point for iOS. I wanted to reuse my ringtone from my previous phone and I thought that would be simple, right? Turns out – no. And I gave up.
Apparently, I can’t just transfer some audio file and tell it to use it as a ringtone. Instead, I had to import the audio to GarageBand and then export it out again and tell the phone to use it as a ringtone.
No wonder so many people are still using that default ringtone to the point that it became a meme.
Another feature that I want to do with the phone is some sort of automation. Since I am someone who takes heavy advantage of Samsung’s Modes and Routines, I want to do the same for the iPhone’s Shortcuts too.
And boy, let me tell you how unreliable this is. The automation options available here are already very limited, yet I can’t set it to do simple things like changing the phone to lock into landscape orientation when I open up YouTube, for example.
Well, fine. One task that I want to do is to launch the HoYoLab app so I can claim the daily reward. I do this on my phone because I’m forgetful. I have this shortcut on my Samsung phone, so I configured the same thing on the iPhone and went about my day.
Then two days passed. That’s when I realized that Apple’s automation is basically nonexistent. It just never works – unless I am using the phone while the automation is triggered. That just defeats the purpose of whatever automation I want it to do.
Good #3 – Smoothness
But I have to admit – both iOS and iPadOS – are very smooth. I had zero hiccups, and there were no lags or stutters. Everything is smooth like WD40 on a screw. Animations are also consistent and it flows nicely every time I swiped.
Despite the iPhone 13 Pro being a 2-year-old phone at this point in time, I played Genshin Impact on it and I gotta say – the experience is still magnificent. It has better graphics with higher resolution textures and smoother gameplay despite being an old chip. That’s the wonder of optimization.
And yet with an old chip and tinier battery, the iPhone 13 Pro still manages to last throughout a full day with just a single charge. Honestly, I’m impressed by its battery life.
Not-so-good #3 – Keyboards. All of them.
However, when I tried to type something on the iPhone, I immediately get an anxiety attack. One of the objectively worst aspects of iPhones – iPads included – is this – the keyboard. No, not just this keyboard – but every single keyboard that is available on iOS. All of them suck hard like a black hole.
I downloaded Gboard at first, assuming that it would be the same as the Android version – but no, I realized that Apple’s version is completely different. There are way too many missing features like clipboard management. The keyboard also behaves very differently while swipe-typing.
Then, I gave up and just used the default iOS keyboard. But this is also weak and problematic. Autocorrection is way too aggressive, and while it doesn’t look like there are alternate keys like the degree unicode, we can tap and hold for them to show up. Yeah, there is no UI indication for this – so it’s up to us to discover this by accident. And I found the degree unicode by holding the number zero button.
Text selection is also a problem. On Android, I can double-tap anywhere within the text field and then tap on Select All to have everything copied.
On iOS, double-tapping gave me some irrelevant options. I asked John about it and he told me that we have to press on the cursor instead. Since when does the UI tell us to do that?
Embodiment of iPhones – Simplicity
Now, the last point that happens to be neutral is the simplicity of iOS. I think it’s a double-edged sword here.
Okay, hear me out. The allure of iPhones in its simplicity. Simplicity is good if you just want to take the phone and immediately use it. However, that simple interface might not be the best one for your particular usage.
I have the opinion here – it seems like Apple’s design mantra is that they think they know what’s best for the users, hence they keep things as simple as possible and also take control away from the user. Hence the lack of customizations on iOS. That’s also why the keyboards suck, and the App Library is a mess. Seriously, finding any app in the App Library menu is just impossible unless you know what’s the name of that app and just use the search functionality.
But back to the topic at hand – there is no one-size-fits-all interface. That’s why personalization exists and why it is so important. Everyone has a different way of doing the same thing, so let us pick how we want it to be.
Also, I still think having a universal back button or gesture on Android devices is just superior. For iPhones, they never had this universal back button. It’s always up to the app manufacturers to implement this into their apps. And that basically became an annoying inconsistency.
Apple’s way of a back button is either swiping from the left or swiping down. Sometimes, these gestures don’t work – and we have to tap the close or cancel or back button that’s located on either the top left or the top right of the menu. You see what’s the problem here?
Let me give you a few examples. Telegram’s back button is on the top left side, but we can also swipe from the left to dismiss.
Apple’s own Journal app has the “done” button on the top right corner, but we can swipe down to dismiss it.
Twitter’s community notes also has the “cancel” button on the top right, but we cannot swipe to dismiss it.
Oh – particularly with Facebook, if I didn’t press the “see translation” button with pinpoint accuracy, then I’ll accidentally trigger the “more options” menu. Then my muscle memory says swipe down to dismiss this menu – but this menu doesn’t have that feature implemented but instead will select whatever option my finger stopped at. Seriously, what gives?
That universal back button is something that I took for granted on Android. I never found this to be a problem until I started using iOS. Having a universal back button or gesture is just objectively better.
It’s just little things like this that make me furious while using iOS.
Will I switch to the iPhone?
So the final question is – will I switch over to an iPhone? Actually, I will.
Certain apps make use of the hardware and software features to the point that it just feels so much better. As what I mentioned earlier, Facebook’s vibration when something is shared successfully and MAE’s integration with Apple Wallet makes everything just feels so smooth.
But there are also problems with iOS that just infuriate me. Notifications are still a mess, not having a universal back button causes a lot of UI inconsistency, the App Library is unusable, and all the keyboards available just plain suck because Apple doesn’t allow them to have more features.
To me, as a reviewer, I think having an iPhone with me means that I can have a more holistic opinion about phones. I mean, a lot of people will say that if they’re paying top dollar for a phone, they’ll only consider an iPhone. Now I have a better understanding of why.
Where to buy the new iPhones instead? It’s a better choice since you get USB-C (Affiliate links)
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