Apple refuses to integrate RCS into iMessage despite Google publicly calling it out and inviting it to do so. Apple is not incentivized to do so since they enjoy the iMessage ecosystem lock-in. Google is further ahead than Samsung, and allows you to use RCS with their stock Messages app. Personally, I use Signal with all my friends and family which works on both iOS and Android.

Let’s go through your example features…

• Face ID: This is available in the latest Google Pixel models via Face Unlock. No it’s not as good as iOS, but you also have the fingerprint reader as an additional option with Pixel, which you don’t have on iOS. As someone who experiences Winter, I’m glad to not have to show my face to unlock my phone when I’m bundled up or skiing with a helmet/goggles on. Easier to just take a glove off for a hot second to unlock the phone.

• iMessage: This is blue bubble envy, and it’s pretty slick I can’t lie. Again, I’ve been beneficial to have my friends use Signal, but if all your friends are using iMessage it can be annoying. This is a problem of Apple’s own making, however, and I wouldn’t reward them (on principle) for sustaining the issue despite options being available.

• Home Screen UX: Not sure how Android doesn’t win this one hands down. Home screen customization is way behind Android, and even with the latest changes in the latest versions of iOS, it’s still behind.

• Battery Life: I don’t find my Pixel 7 to suffer from poor or even remotely poor battery life at all. There are Android phones like the Asus Zenphone 10 that are crushing even the best iPhone on battery life. It’s easily a two-day phone, and they do it all in a compact package.

• Extended Software Support: Again, it’s all in who you choose to buy from if you value long term support. Samsung gives four years of OS and five years of security updates for its phones. Google gives three years of OS updates and five years of security updates on its phones. Not quite as good as iOS, but not worth spending a bunch extra for an iPhone.

Ultimately though, it’s Apple’s hostile approach to allowing users to repair their own products that has me staying away from purchasing their phones. Not just in the build process, but in their unwillingness to sell component level replacement parts of any kind to independent repair shops. And their support for killing right-to-repair legislation.

Apple is a walled garden and because of it I will not touch their products. Stuff tends to be over priced too.

Do not use face ID on phones other than Apple and maybe Samsung as most are easily spoofed.

A phone is a throw away device so my opinion is buy the cheapest one that does what you need.

Just one person’s opinion, but I switched to an Apple phone last year after several years using top of the line Android devices, and I’ve been really happy with it. The features are all rock solid, and their particular brand of walled garden is one that I don’t tend to mind much.

I owned an iPod touch and an iPad and I’ll never buy in to the Apple ecosystem again.

Update after update the devices got slower and slower until they were unusuable. With no way to roll back (at the time, not sure if that still holds) the only solution was to buy a new device.

I have yet to have that happen with any of my other devices. Android phones, tablets, Linux machines, Windows machines, game consoles, or Roku boxes.

There are a lot of answers running the gamut.

The bottom line is, as it has always been: you use the technology that works for you. iOS isn’t better or worse than Android, and vice versa. Both OSes are valid, and it’s the individual’s choice as to what works best for them. I would be miserable with an Android device. I happen to get great value from my Apple devices - especially when there is trade-in value and the devices get recycled.

I personally don’t think it’s productive to “tribalize" the two OSes. They are developed to completely different designs and strategies. Android is basically designed for a wide range of manufacturers, each having their own needs and wants, which includes frequent sales cycles. Apple has always, ALWAYS, been a hardware manufacturer first, and any software they develop is intended to enhance the user’s experience of the hardware in a very measured and structured way. Android (and PC) is aimed for mass market distribution. Apple has always been premium boutique. Hell, one big reason the iPhone was originally released by Apple because the existing cell phone market refused to support the Mac platform: essentially the iPhone was the “premium add-on” to the Mac experience. But Apple also has a slower sales cycle - releasing yearly, sure, but with the understanding that every year someone will want an upgrade, not every year everyone will want an upgrade. My last iPhone went 5 hardware versions before I upgraded, or about 3 years, and I average 3-5 years on small devices, and 5-7 years on desktop).

Every user’s experience is personal, and anecdotal, even mine. So I ask: what do YOU want in a phone? What you YOU want your phone’s OS to do? Make a decision matrix and list all the pros and cons of each phone. Which ends up with the most pros? How many of the cons are show stoppers? If Android matches best, by an Android phone. It’s fine.

In my case is because the stuff I buy has to be mine. It’s a matter of principle. I root and degoogle all my phones and install custom ROMs on them (and FOSS apps from external stores, such as fdroid). I couldn’t deApple an iPhone, so it’d kind of limited for me. Plus, frankly speaking, I couldn’t care less about RCSi/Message, it’s not like there aren’t enough messaging options out there.

I just really dislike the interface, I have both an Android (personal phone) and an iPhone (work phone) and I find the iPhone frustrating and annoying to use. But that’s probably just me.

My issues with apple are mostly around repair. Cost of first party repairs and active fighting against user or third party repairs.

My iPhone got some water damage, and now faceid doesn’t work. Because it’s water damage, they won’t even do the “faceid repair” for like $200, they’ll only replace the device for $550. Like most parts on the phone it’s paired to the phone, so it’s impossible to salvage a part and do the repair myself.

So I’m here with no faceid for like a year because I don’t want to pay them that much for the repair (might as well get a new phone at that point) and I don’t want to buy a new iPhone and reward apple for this bs.

If I do buy another iPhone eventually, I might just give in though and play their fucking game fully and just buy the applecare. Just fully go in on the fact that I’m subscribing to the iPhone experience, not actually owning anything.

In my family, everyone else has an iPhone and I have Samsung S23. So I can maybe give both perspectives. If you just want a phone to be a phone, it’s hard to go wrong with an iPhone. It’s always the best default choice. That being said, I personally can’t go back to an iPhone. Lots of people recommend Google devices because of the “stock” Android experience but I greatly prefer the interface, integration, and customization of Samsung devices.

Anyway, in no particular order why I like Android/Samsung:

1. The ability to just copy movie and TV shows files onto the device and play them with VLC. This is a must for me for travel. iOS is still a pain in the ass for this.
2. In screen finger-print reader and face unlock (both are useful)
3. Ability to cast a Dex desktop to my TV with one click for showing off content
4. Customized gesture navigation (swipe up middle - home, swipe up right - back, swipe up left - apps) – full screen is available no button bar
5. THE BACK BUTTON – every time I use an iPhone I hate hate hate the lack of a back button
6. Browsers with ad block
7. Customized YouTube with ad blocking (revanced)
8. Customized notification icon bar – hide icons that are always on (bluetooth, etc), battery percentage no icon.
9. Separate profile for Work and Personal – my employer has control only of the work profile and can’t remote wipe my entire phone.
10. Custom home screen apps (I use Nova 7)
11. USB-C – one single charger for all my devices (phone, laptop, tablet, buds, etc).
12. Ability to wirelessly charge my watch and my ear buds using the back of the phone (this is great for travel)
13. Open source console emulators

I can probably think of more but that’s a good start.

For many years I used Android phones and enjoyed the customization, roms, rooting, and tinkering. Now, I don’t have time for messing around and just want something that will text and take pictures. Made the switch to Apple about 4 years ago. For a while I was travelling for work and gone for extended periods of time so Facetime was nice for connecting with people close to me. Yes, I know there are other apps.

Now my home is all Siri’ed up so I feel locked in, and I have a Macbook for work. I sometimes debate going back and running a privacy rom but my current setup is fine for my threat model. The only thing that fucking sucks is the price, other than that everything just seems “fine”. I am not too picky though. :)

The only thing keeping me from switching to an Apple device is ads on youtube. You can get a modded youtube app on Iphone but it takes way more work compared to an android. If you don’t have a mac, file transfer is also a pain on windows machines.

On the other hand, Apple UX really is great. If you prefer UX over customizability, I don’t see why you wouldn’t go for an Iphone.

Just use what you want and works best for you. You don’t need validation from strangers online that you made the right choice. 🤷

Lack of serviceability is a big one.

Walled gardens are another.

I have major issues with both. I bought the device, I should be able to repair it. It shouldn’t intentionally not work with other ecosystems that use standard protocols either. I should be able to integrate my device with standards the rest of the world uses.

Pretty much you buy apple devices, you are essentially an expensive renter renting a really strong internal ecosystem that purposefully forces you into buying more of that ecosystem and not working outside of it.

Apple is the “you will own nothing and like it” of phones. You are told how to use your phone, whatyou can and cannot use your phone for, when you can use your phone, etc. The interface is horrible and by trying to make everything so simple it makes it hard as heck to do almost anything more difficult than connecting to wifi. Try using Control D DNS to block ads on an iphone sometimes, PITA. I control my experience on Android from what ROM i use (Lineage), the fact i run no google apps package, the DNS i use, to where exactly i put my icons on my homescreen and how said homescreen behaves.

I moved to iOS able a year ago after being a diehard Samsung fan. I have a long list of pros to switching. The parental controls if you have kids are way beyond Android. That’s really the reason we switched.

The only real con I can give you from a user perspective is the swipe typing is atrocious on every keyboard. I can’t express how much I hate typing on my phone. It makes bad corrections so often it’s pretty much impossible for me to post typo free posts of any length, and it goes back and changes the word before the one you’re typing so you check that the right word is there and nice on and when you look again later after you post, you find it switched the right word to the wrong one. But if you don’t swipe, you won’t notice.