What does it take for this Apple fanatic to switch to Android?

I am an Apple fan. I love my iPhone and Mac. But I’m also a technical writer. I have always followed the latest developments for Android. I have tried some of the flagship phones. My choice to use the iPhone is not a frivolous attempt to buy a trendy phone, but a conscious decision. iPhone meets my needs

With all hubb about the new iPhone 7, I started thinking. Most of Apple’s harshest critics weren’t Apple fans—they never intended to buy the latest iPhone no matter what ports it had. Why do they care so much about a phone that they would never even think about, and more importantly, what would I need , to switch to an android phone?

This is not going to be a cheap article where I joke that I wish my phone didn’t explode. (as funny as it is) or make silly comparisons using a huge number of inexpensive Android phones. Instead, I want to see what Google, Android smartphone makers, and app developers can do to get me, a dedicated Apple fan, on the green side.

Best design across the board

Some Android phones are just fine. I’m a big fan of HTC and Sony, and to a lesser extent Samsung, although I can still appreciate their latest models. But the hardware is only one part of the design. As Steve Jobs said in a New York Times profile in 2003:

Most people make the mistake of thinking that design is what it looks like. People think it’s plywood, that the designers handed this box and said, «Make it look good!» This is not what we think about design. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

Even if the phone looks great when it sits on a table, if the experience doesn’t match, it’s not well designed. This is where Android, as an operating system, falls for me.

Design is obviously subjective, so I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who will disagree with me for good reasons. For me, however, it all comes down to philosophy.

On the iPhone, everything seems to be carefully thought out. Johnny Ive signed every decision. It all matches.

On an Android phone, it seems like the committee has delegated everything…badly. Sometimes there are flashes of glitter (material design looks great in the stock Google apps), and sometimes you have a back button that you don’t know where it will take you, two email apps, a custom ugly sin skin from the manufacturer, and, To top it all off, the user has included this awful wavy font. It looks like eight different designers worked from twelve different assignments.

Hardware and software integration

Whichever way you go, top Android phones run on serious hardware. The Galaxy Note 7 is powered by the latest 2.3GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon processor and 4GB of RAM, while the regular iPhone 7 is powered by Apple’s new A10 Fusion quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM (plus gets 3GB).

With so much raw power to play with high-tech Android phones, they should at least keep up with the latest iPhones in real world speed tests. Instead, even a one-year-old 6S loads apps and performs other day-to-day tasks much faster. The iPhone 7 (not Plus!) loses to the Note 7 in the PhoneBuff test.

When I play with an Android phone, I feel the difference. My 6S is fast and responsive while Android is always a split second behind where I feel it should be. It’s sluggish. I’m sure if I used one for a week or two I would readjust and not notice the slight lag anymore, but that’s not a chance I want to take when I have a great alternative in my pocket.

So how can Android manufacturers fix this? How can they count on their obvious advantage in specification? Well, the simple (but very, very far from simple) answer is that they need to better integrate hardware and software. Apple’s A-series chips are exclusively for iOS, while iOS is exclusively for A-series chips. This is how they can squeeze every ounce of performance out of slower hardware.

Until OEMs and Google start looking for ways to integrate Android with Snapdragon processors in the same way, Apple will win every real-world speed test.

Regular software updates

I updated my iPhone to iOS 10 the day it was released. It was a simple process. The update downloaded overnight so I just had to click To accept enter my passcode and wait half an hour for my phone to do its thing. And just like that, I was on the latest operating system.

Apple stopped supporting the iPhone 4S this year. It received four years of iOS updates (although that may not have been a good thing). On Android with a top smartphone, you’ll be lucky to get the latest version of Android when you buy it. There is almost no hope that you will still receive updates 18 months later, let alone four years. Downloading an update or installing a custom sideload ROM like CyanogenMod to keep your phone safe is not really a reliable solution.

This situation must change. Yes, I know there are many factors at play. but Samsung sells a serious number of phones. They are in an advantageous position with carriers — no other Android maker could close this gap if they threatened to leave if carriers didn’t support regular updates. They just won’t make an Apple-like move.

This is obviously another problem with a simple but incredibly complex solution, but until some manufacturer takes care of making sure summer smartphones are still updated, I’m not likely to buy an Android phone.

Best Third Party Apps

We have already gone into detail about why iOS apps are still better than Android apps. and I agree with everything we mentioned in this article.

I buy apps I have no problem paying a few dollars for a well designed app that does what I need. I’m even happy to buy subscriptions about things that I use regularly. I don’t want to use ad-supported apps quickly put together, and that’s what most of the ones available on Android seem to be.