“I have had an Apple iPhone since 2008,” Greg Muender writes for Medium. “s a 3x startup guy, my iPhone has been crucial to my productivity. Oh iPhone, building Qwake would be nearly impossible without you as my trusty companion.”
“I had no intention of jumping ship to Android until recently,” Muender writes. “I had been scarred from a brief stint with an Android on an extra cell phone a few years ago, but I concluded that by now it was a capable platform even former iOS users could appreciate.”
“Let me be clear that I found nothing in particluar wrong with the Android device. (Except maybe the keyboard, that really was a pain.) Simply put, it lacked the magic that Apple products are known for,” Muender writes. “Robust and capable, yes, refined and simple, no. It’s hard to quantify what magic is, but I can decidedly say that Apple has much more of it.”
Muender writes, “I don’t want to consistently feel like there is more to do on my phone. I’m busy enough in my life, and having my phone as a constant, instead of a variable, is worth sacrificing the flexibility that Android devices provide. Like never before I have an immense appreciation for the amazing and unparalleled products that Apple builds. As I’m writing this, I’m boxing up my HTC One to send back to Amazon and will be preordering my iPhone 5S on September 20.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Ed Oest” for the heads up.]
Thats longer than most Android iHating Trolls. They usually last 32 seconds with their GF…. err I meant days and with the Android… lol
Kind of seems like he didn’t give the new phone a chance.
Having said that, I had an s3 for a week (wanted a large screen), went back to my iphone 4 because of the consistent lack of fit and finish of android.
It’s all about Android. A phone can’t be “premium” if its OS is commodity Android.
The difference will become even more apparent, as Apple transitions to 64-bit with iOS 7 and A7, and the Android platform lags further behind.
It’s not a PRE-order for iPhone 5S on 9/20. It’s an order. No doubt we will have to wait for delivery though….
Or you could run out to your local Apple Store, Best Buy, Target or Walmart and get it day one.
George Carlin are we? They are all orders, it’s a pre-order only when you have filled out an order but haven’t yet submitted it, it is pre the order.
Unless we are into quantum physics
Shell Shock
I don’t really want a larger screen. At all. So if Apple does offer a larger screen phone I hope they’ll keep the 4″ screen alive.
Apple’s competitors went for the big screens because they had no other way of differentiating their phone, and a side by side comparison would almost always lead to an Apple sale. So they had to do something to grab the users attention, and when software and actual features couldn’t hold up they only had option.
2014 will be the year of the larger iPhone. Who knows Apple may even come out with TWO larger sizes. I think at the very least a 4.7-5″ model. I might be intrigued to see if that would work for me but like others my 4″ iP5 seems to be just dandy. I spend the quality time on a much preferred larger portable screen with my iPad and soon iPad Mini RD.
“secrete”? Really? That’s a nasty image if there ever was one!
I agree. What kind of movies is this guy watching?
Coming very soon to place close to you, An iPad minimini! half the size of an iPad mini, half the size bigger than an iPhone 5s!!!
ps BLN I’m lovin your posts! Proven by how many likes you are getting!!!
I agree a choice should have been offered at least a year ago. Sometimes Apple is too bloody minded about such things.
I also agree about a basic file structure simply an easy way to store and view/manipulate files would work so that you can as you say save and send things more flexibly through email or iCloud even if its tied to a simple pdf style app. I get really fed up with having to send links all the time to my Mac.
Equally a decent screen grab would stop me pulling my hair out for similar reasons, a grab and insert into an organised file would be fantastic, given up searching for one that works as I want, despite visualising such an app years ago and stopped working on it cos I presumed someone already offered something similar, if they do I cant find it. Anyway these 2 things would stop me leaving my Mac on in case I need to do something that I simply cant do on an iPhone or even my iPad easily or at all. You do get the feeling Apple is scared to make it too capable so holds back on certain abilities, theres danger in that attitude when others do offer it.
You seem to have a size problem. Hmmm. Wonder why?
I hope apple doesn’t go stupid crazy with screen size like android has. It is only a matter of time before the market starts moving back to pocketable size phones as the norm. Look at laptops, there was a time when everyone was racing to make the biggest screen laptop 17″, 18″, 20″. Until people started realizing that this greatly affected the main usefulness of a laptop, it’s portability, and now 13″ is the most popular. If I have to carry a bag with me just to carry my phone then I have drastically reduced the main beneficial characteristic of a mobile handheld computing device.
Yeah, it would be cool to have a 32″ iPhone strapped to the side of your head – ghetto-blaster style!
I honestly don’t get the fascination with larger phones. I understand some find a larger screen easier to read or easier to hit the buttons in the UI. Seriously though, they look ridiculous!
Well ya hit the three main food groups………
“I”, “me” and “should”. Good work.
I could’nt even last five minutes with an Android phone.
Junky OS and junky hardware.
1-Android is not one phone- it is an OS and many are sold with layers of OEM or TelCo Bullshit layered on top. The HTC One is available in a number of different setups- including an unlocked version without bloatware/shovelware from Google. Saying Android when he used one version of one phone is like hating an iPod Nano and dissing all iPods.
2- Unlike OEM iOS, any number of keyboards are available. Did the author even do a little homework before claiming buyer’s remorse?
3- My new Nexus 4 is going strong and the only iOS apps I would install if I could is iTunes and Podcast. The only 3rd party iOS app I miss is Good Reader. Most of the rest are all here.
4-The Nexus 4 has a larger-although not huge- screen. It is appreciated. Maybe you still have the eyes of a 20 year old, but we are not all so lucky.
I’m not too happy with the article, but I think his point about the keyboard is fair. Why should you have to spend one second customizing the keyboard? There is an optimal configuration that will work for 99% of the people using it. That should be the default, and if people want to screw with it, let them.
It’s never correct to say, “Yeah, that function sucks, but they give you a way to fix it!” The function shouldn’t suck in the first place. That’s one thing that Apple gets that almost no other consumer electronic company seems to understand. Instead, they just dump customization options all over you and expect you to do all the work they should have done themselves.
——RM
Henry Ford famously said give them any color they want as long as it is black. Eventually, sticking with one size fits all cost Ford massive market share to Sloan’s GM that lasted for decades.
You’re analogizing the iOS keyboard to a car? It would make more sense to analogize it to the steering wheel. Ford eventually had to release different models of cars, but I’m pretty sure the steering wheel was more or less the same on each. Customers weren’t provided with 5 different steering wheels and told to figure it out on their own.
——RM
Bathing for 37 hours in the stupid pool.
People who don’t carry a purse don’t want a bigger phone. How big is YOUR purse?
And when Apple offers a 2nd choice (a larger screen) these naysayers here will shut up and nod like zombies.
Good you like the 4″. I want a 4.5 or 5″. No reason there can’t be both.
The main problem with the large screen size, and the only reason we don’t have one, is that there is a very small potential addressable market for that. In the Android world, those large-screen devices aren’t really that popular. Manufacturers are essentially forced to make them, since iPhone pretty much eats up the devices of the same size, but what’s typical for all these large-screen phones is that they tend to get discounted very rapidly after introduction (the “BOGO” offers, where they are discounted by $100 or even more), indicating tepid demand.
Apple does NOT address negligible demands. Unless the device is likely to represent at least 15-20% of the lineup, it simply isn’t considered.
Now, I’m sure if Apple released a 5-inch iPhone it would essentially kill the Android competition in that screen size. However, I would be surprised if its share of the iPhone market were any better than the large-screen Android phones were in the Android market.
Those large-screen phones might be popular in the fantasy world you inhabit, BLN, but in the real world I live in, I can honestly say that of the people I see using proper smartphones, probably ninety percent use iPhones, the rest a variety of Samsung, HTC and LG. While spending two days recently in London, one of the world’s greatest tourist attractions, I watched what people were using in the streets, on the Tube, around the tourist haunts, and most had iPhones, surprising numbers of tourists use iPads for taking photos, but large screen phones were very, very scarce; I maybe saw two.
These are ordinary people, using the devices that most suit their everyday lives, and they, quite clearly, use smartphones with smaller screens.
You can argue all you like, I know what I see being used by thousands of people going about their daily business.
Predrag is correct: Try researching the sales figures on large screen Android phones. They’re very low volume, which means the engineering and production headaches do not make sense for so few sales.
@BLN, the iPad Mini can be configured to be used as a VoiP phone, which would immediately address your larger screen issue. The late Steve Jobs made it clear that larger screen sizes would be detrimental to the appeal – and the usability – of the iPhone. My cousin predicted when the iPad debuted that men’s fashions would change to include larger pockets. That’s already happened in healthcare services.
I also agree battery life is an ongoing concern. Supposedly Apple has addressed this with the new model coming out on Friday. We’ll see.
The writer of this article is obviously a click-whore. A comparison article isn’t bad but it should be full of facts and not this “unexplained magic” nonsense. Fundamental questions aren’t answered like, what gives iOS the edge and why, what iOS/android brings on the table and the other one doesn’t. The whole article is just an opinion that is no use to anyone.
I’ll get downvoted, but I have to agree with you. A 37-hour “test drive” is a joke. That’s not long enough to get over the awkward feeling you get when you switch from something familiar.
Hell, way back when I switched from my classic iPod to an iPod touch, I had a feeling of buyer’s remorse that lasted for days. I missed my click wheel and worried that I’d wasted my money. Then I started downloading apps and it dawned on me just how awesome the thing was. If I’d crapped out at a day and a half, I never would have become an iOS nut.
I don’t think I could be happy with an Android phone, but if I did give it a try, I’d set a minimum of a month before I quit.
——RM
“Ok cool but when will the iPhone get a bigger screen?”
The same moment that your IQ increases to the point that you are able to comprehend that that’s not necessary.
Never. 😎
More than ever, I am convinced that Android users break down into two groups:
1 – Cheapo users who just want the most inexpensive smartphone they can get their hands on and aren’t really interested in using the smartphone functions very often.
2 – Complete tech nerds, techno-hipsters who derive their personal worth by how thoroughly they can customize and hack their hardware. The types who run Linux on their desktops. The kind who have to have better specs on their phone than their friends.
In other words, the extreme low and the extreme high. Apple seems to appeal to everyone else.
——RM
‘Back to my iPhone: I lasted 37 hours on Android’
What took him so long?
BLN, you’re getting very tiresome, we’ve been hearing that same boring refrain for what seems like an eternity.
Dull, duller, dullest. It’s the same damn thing over and over again, like a vinyl record that’s skipping in a worn groove, repeating one phrase repeatedly.
We know your obsession, it’s practical tattooed into our collection psyche by now.
For the love of God, give it a rest!
when you buy an Apple product you get a finished Rembrandt, when you get an Android you get a box of cheap crayons and an (incomplete) instruction booklet.
Ok I can settle this. How many times has someone it the Siri key when aiming for the “123” key? Keyboard ( width of iPhone needs to be just alittle bit larger…. 4.2″?
Fuck you, you stupid assdumb moron. You write an article that says “boy, i am one dumb fucker’, and you want us to somehow think better of you. You are a dumb fuck for ever leaving the iPhone. Dont ever write another kissass article, just go flip some fuckburgers.
Part of the “magic” is the screen size. It feels right when you hold it where the other phones feel awkward, big, weird, dumb.
If want a larger screen get a ipad mini.
Everyone could use longer battery life. Android devices don’t have the battery life iphones do.
There already is a notification light. Its the flash.
Doesn’t iOS7 allow email attahments?
I’ve never once looked at my iphone and thought that wanted a larger cellphone screen. I have a 4 and can see that taking it to the edge could be nice but the size of the phone is large enough. The attraction to all apple products is simplicity that doesn’t overshadow what you try to do on a daily basis and the quality of construction is second to none.
A bigger screen doesn’t have anything to do with “lagging behind.” A bigger screen is a bigger screen, and that’s it.
Could you explain how a bigger screen “increases your productivity?” It’s a phone, which means that it’s primary purpose is making calls. If it does that, then it’s going everything that it’s supposed to do.
The iPhone are perfectly sized for what they are: phones. It fits perfectly in the hand, and you don’t need two hands to use it (which I see very often in the case of Samsung’s Galaxy phones. Most users don’t even seem aware that they’re doing it).
Now, if I wanted larger, I would get an iPad or iPad mini because I don’t see the purpose in a large phone.
And in reference to your wish list, why should Apple do what it appears the majority of their user base wants? As I said, I don’t want a larger phone. It’s silly and makes no sense, especially if I feel the need to put it in my pants pocket.
“Longer battery life” is relative. How do you use your phone? From what I have seen this is more based upon how the user uses the phone, more than anything else. This was a common complaint of someone I used to work with, till you consider all the downloading and games that he tended to play.
Not sure what you mean by “notification light.”
Your last point seems a bit bizarre. To attach actual files wouldn’t your device have to have storage space to download them? And if that’s the case, wouldn’t you potentially be opening up your device (sandboxed or not) to all sorts of viruses and other malware?
And the last I heard, Android had enough such problems just dealing with apps designed to do harm; if they follow your suggestion – I have no idea. iOS does everything that I need – then Android (of whatever flavor) is a greater mess than its users are letting on.
I’m downvoting every one of your stupid comments.