Considering switch from Android to Iphone: some questions

[garfieldthecat]

I am hoping this is the right forum for my questions. I have been using Android for the last 6 years, but a series of issues (namely 5 and 6 below) with my last phone (Sony Z3) are prompting me to consider switching to an iphone.

Can you please help me understand a few points? I appreciate some things may well have changed since the last time I used an Iphone (a company-provided 3GS) and this is precisely why I am asking for clarifications here.
Please note: I have zero interest whatsoever in entering into flames ? I am merely trying to get some answers to determine if an Iphone can meet my requirements; I fully appreciate that some of the points which are important to me may be totally irrelevant to other people, of course.

1) Push email. My email is with www.fastmail.net, not with gmail. In the past, iphones did not support imap idle. Do they now? Even if they still don?t, I should be able to get push email with fastmail?s own app: https://blog.fastmail.com/2015/07/17/push-email-now-available-in-ios-mail/ Incidentally, I quite never understood Apple?s claim that imap idle causes battery drain; I had older Androids lasting up to 2 days with imap idle on.

2) Widgets. The fact that the Iphone 3gs didn?t support widgets was a big driver in my decision not to buy an Iphone as my personal phone. I understand Iphones now have widgets, but how similar/different to Android are they? The main thing I am interested in is having a summary of my calendar appointments (from my gmail calendar), to-do list (I currently use Remember the Milk but can switch to another app) and weather forecast on my home screen. Do iphones now support this? If they don?t, what would be the closest I could get with an iphone? Also, do widgets refresh continuously or only when you tap/open them?

3) Backing up apps and restoring data. How would this work on an iphone? With Android, it used to be the case that you had to be rooted to backup the data and settings of your apps. There are now apps (Helios) which let you backup data even without being rooted, but, most importantly, many apps let you export and restore settings. How about iphones? How easy is it to backup and restore? Note I will not be jailbreaking the phone (because of the warranty, but mostly because I need to install Good to connect to my work email, which doesn?t work with rooted/jailbroken phones).

4) External storage. I hate the fact that iphones do not support external microsd cards as I have > 130 GBs of music + watch movies on flights. Do iphones at least support any kind of USB OTG storage? Is it possible to connect something like a thumb drive with movies on it and play the movies from the iphone? This would be convenient on a flight, for example.

5) Wakelocks. One of my most common issue with Android over the years is with apps misbehaving and causing partial wakelocks, i.e. apps waking up the phone from its idle status thus draining battery. Sometimes it was because of a setting I had chosen (too frequent updates on a weather app) but more often than not it was just apps going nuts for no apparent reason. Identifying these issues on Android is a huge pain: you typically need to be rooted and, even then, you typically identify the service (e.g. Google?s location services) but finding the app which called it (a weather app? Or another of the 200 apps I have installed?) is often almost impossible, leaving you with no choice but to reset the phone, wiping everything and wasting at least a few hours restoring all apps settings etc. Does anything similar exist with iOS? If I have installed an app which misbehaves, or if I have set the wrong settings, how easy is it to identify this app with IOS, without resetting the whole phone?

6) Google play store stuck on ?download pending?. This is another issue which has caused me lots of grief with Android, and I?m not the only one. Every now and then the play store (the system through which you search for and install apps) goes nuts and doesn?t let you download anything any more, remaining stuck at ?download pending?. Sometimes clearing the cache of the google apps helps, some other times it does not. I have had to reset my Sony Z3 3 times over the last 10 days because of these last 2 issues, and I?ll have to do it yet once more today. Is anything comparable known to happen with Iphones?

7) App folders. I have lots of apps. With an iphone, what would be the best way to sort them into folders / categories? I don?t want to scroll through my list of 100+ apps: I want to have them grouped into ?internet?, ?maps?, ?news?, etc. With Android I do this with Folder Organizer - Customize your Android Home

8) Possibly the hardest question: what else would you recommend I should keep in mind? What are the key pros/ cons / differences vs Androids? Can you think of some issues I am unlikely to encounter with Iphones and, conversely, some problems which are more common on Iphones than on Androids?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Wybrem]

Hello there and welcome.

Here are my two cents on this. iSwitched to the iPhone just recently, but i own other Apple products as well. I'm a BlackBerry vet and have used one for the past 7 years. I've tried Android for 15 minutes and noticed instantly that it was way to slow and buggy and even ugly for me in the past. Even today's Android phones are sluggy and just slow. As you can tell I hate Android, so my opinion may be biased in your eyes.

1): I don't know, sorry. My business emails work just fine.

2): We have widgets, just not on the home screen. If the default widgets don't satisfy you, you can get or buy new widgets in the App Store. I find the widgets in iOS rather useless, nothing like Android AT ALL.

3): We've iCloud for that. Your phone uploads an backup of itself to iCloud every 24 hours, you can chose to include media like pictures and videos in this process. Additionally you can manually backup your phone on your Mac or PC via iTunes. You can automate this process.

4): We have iCloud for that as well, you can store up to 1TB of data on iCloud. Additionally there are memory cases and mini thumb-drives out there.

5): In the settings you can easily see what apps uses how much battery when and how: (in use) or (when idle). You're also able to see how much internet it uses, and adjust your privacy settings accordingly to prevent it from running in the background for instance. (see screenshot 1.)

6): While the iPhone is arguably much better than any Android phone out there in terms of stability, reliability, design and support--it does have some bugs for some people. I've never encountered anything like you said here tho.

7): You can create folders on your home screen and place the apps inside there. You can name the folders as you please. Additionally you can use Spotlight to search for apps.

8): You are likely to find out that it's Apple's way or nothing at all. Forget about customizing your phone--if you care about that anyway. For me there are no benefits in Android, so my opinion may be a little biased but I believe that iPhone is more stable, secure and easier to use. The phones are supported and updated way longer than Android phones thus making iPhones cheaper in the long run.

ScreenShot 1.:

 

[comiken205]

I came from 7 years of Android last December. I was apprehensive but after getting into iOS I don't plan on going back. The hardest thing to adjust for me is the loss of customization and the back button. But I am used to it and it works well for me.

The biggest improvement from Android, other than the lack of lag on iOS, is the hardware. The iPhone feels premium and from I have heard, lasts a lot longer than Android devices. My Note 4 was full of lag within 10 months of buying.

I bought an iPad Mini and the way both of my devices sync with each is what sealed the deal for me.

If you make the jump you won't regret it.

 

[garfieldthecat]

2): We have widgets, just not on the home screen. If the default widgets don't satisfy you, you can get or buy new widgets in the App Store. I find the widgets in iOS rather useless, nothing like Android AT ALL

I see - thanks for the honest answer.

3): We've iCloud for that. Your phone uploads an backup of itself to iCloud every 24 hours, you can chose to include media like pictures and videos in this process. Additionally you can manually backup your phone on your Mac or PC via iTunes. You can automate this process.

To be clear, do these back ups include app settings? On iOS, is it common for apps to let you export settings to a separate file?

4): We have iCloud for that as well, you can store up to 1TB of data on iCloud. Additionally there are memory cases and mini thumb-drives out there.

Icloud doesn't help when I'm flying but I have found OTG drives which can: Apple OTG Flash Drives for iPhones & iPads | MyMemory

5): In the settings you can easily see what apps uses how much battery when and how: (in use) or (when idle). You're also able to see how much internet it uses, and adjust your privacy settings accordingly to prevent it from running in the background for instance. (see screenshot 1.)

Android has this, too, but my gripe with Android's implementation is that it often doesn't identify the app calling a service. If an app is calling the location services too often, you'll see "google play services" (used for locating the phone) in the list of apps consuming a lot of juice, but you won't know which app is calling it more than it should. Would I have the same problem with iOS, or would the iphone tell me which app is calling the location services (or whatever underlying process/service)?

7): You can create folders on your home screen and place the apps inside there. You can name the folders as you please. Additionally you can use Spotlight to search for apps.

Thanks. Is there a way to create a backup of these folders, i.e. to save this classification so that, if I have to reset the phone or move to another iphone, I don't have to redo it manually? Alternatively, is there an app for that?

8): You are likely to find out that it's Apple's way or nothing at all. Forget about customizing your phone--if you care about that anyway. For me there are no benefits in Android, so my opinion may be a little biased but I believe that iPhone is more stable, secure and easier to use. The phones are supported and updated way longer than Android phones thus making iPhones cheaper in the long run.

I can live with less customisation if it means a more stable phone. I will be asking the same question on Android forums to hear the opinion of people who made the opposite switch.

 

[garfieldthecat]

I came from 7 years of Android last December. I was apprehensive but after getting into iOS I don't plan on going back. The hardest thing to adjust for me is the loss of customization and the back button. But I am used to it and it works well for me.

The biggest improvement from Android, other than the lack of lag on iOS, is the hardware. The iPhone feels premium and from I have heard, lasts a lot longer than Android devices. My Note 4 was full of lag within 10 months of buying.

I bought an iPad Mini and the way both of my devices sync with each is what sealed the deal for me.

If you make the jump you won't regret it.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. However, this kind of feedback is not particularly useful to me because it doesn't address the very specific points I raised; after all, I am quite sure I'd find people willing to say the same about how happy they are after switching from iphone to Android, because these things are so subjective, and everyone's needs/preferences/etc are so different.

 

[comiken205]

Thank you for taking the time to reply. However, this kind of feedback is not particularly useful to me because it doesn't address the very specific points I raised; after all, I am quite sure I'd find people willing to say the same about how happy they are after switching from iphone to Android, because these things are so subjective, and everyone's needs/preferences/etc are so different.

My apologies, but Wybrem pretty much answered the way I would have. I should have said that in my original comment and stated "in addition" and added my reply.

 

[garfieldthecat]

The biggest improvement from Android, other than the lack of lag on iOS, is the hardware.

Well, I don't think iphones are necessarily more powerful than flagship Android phones; my hope is not so much that hardware will be 'better', but that, since there are only a limited number of iphone models available, vs thousands of different Androids, each with different hardware, it should be easier to have come up with an OS and apps that are more stable, if it were only because the number of hardware combinations on which to test the software is so much more limited.

 

[libra89]

To be clear, do these back ups include app settings? On iOS, is it common for apps to let you export settings to a separate file?

Thanks. Is there a way to create a backup of these folders, i.e. to save this classification so that, if I have to reset the phone or move to another iphone, I don't have to redo it manually? Alternatively, is there an app for that?

For reference, I quoted your responses to Wybrem for questions 3 and 7, which I will help to answer.

Yes it does for your first question. I'm not sure about the settings thing though. When you backup, you have two choices. You can just back up everything (including 3rd party apps) or just backup without the 3rd party apps.

The folders you create are also included as part of the backup! I have to say that I am the most impressed with how iOS does backups in comparison to Windows Mobile and Android. Literally everything is backed up. When I switched from my 5s to my SE, everything was perfectly in place. All I had to do was confirm my password for certain apps for security purposes! Easiest switch ever.

 

[garfieldthecat]

[...]
Yes it does for your first question. I'm not sure about the settings thing though. When you backup, you have two choices. You can just back up everything (including 3rd party apps) or just backup without the 3rd party apps.
[...]

Well, it seems that Apple's backup is much better than Android's, from what you are saying.
The big cons I see are lack of microsd and lack of proper widgets. I'll have to make a call on that.
Could you recommend a more technical subforum, or maybe a more technical forum elsewhere (e.g. something similar to xda forum for Androids) where I might ask some more about the technicalities of the wakelock, battery usage tracking, etc?

Thanks

 

[metllicamilitia]

Well, it seems that Apple's backup is much better than Android's, from what you are saying.
The big cons I see are lack of microsd and lack of proper widgets. I'll have to make a call on that.
Could you recommend a more technical subforum, or maybe a more technical forum elsewhere (e.g. something similar to xda forum for Androids) where I might ask some more about the technicalities of the wakelock, battery usage tracking, etc?

Thanks

Last I was there, XDA had an iPhone section. I have never seen an iPhone wake the phone up from the lock screen. Ever. Especially when it has a security lock on it. The screen may turn on for notifications though, if you have that setting enabled. Battery tracking is as simple as going to battery under savings and you can see what's been eating away at your battery the most in the both the past 24 hours and the past 7 days.

 

[libra89]

Well, it seems that Apple's backup is much better than Android's, from what you are saying.
The big cons I see are lack of microsd and lack of proper widgets. I'll have to make a call on that.
Could you recommend a more technical subforum, or maybe a more technical forum elsewhere (e.g. something similar to xda forum for Androids) where I might ask some more about the technicalities of the wakelock, battery usage tracking, etc?

Thanks

Yep, it is better.
I'm not sure of any such forums, sorry.

 

[garfieldthecat]

Last I was there, XDA had an iPhone section. I have never seen an iPhone wake the phone up from the lock screen

I'm not talking about turning on the screen, I am talking about waking up the phone from its idle (asleep) state, in which it consumes very little battery, to a state where the CPU starts running to perform some task. This is called a 'partial wakelock' in Android; a common problem in Android is an app misbehaving, keeping the CPU running, preventing it from going to sleep and therefore draining the battery. An example could be a weather app waking up the phone to update the forecast, but without turning on the screen.
Is this unheard of in iOS? Can this be tracked without jailbreaking the iphone? In Android, since KitKat you need root. Or is it better to ask these questions on a more technical forum like XDA?

Battery tracking is as simple as going to battery under savings and you can see what's been eating away at your battery the most in the both the past 24 hours and the past 7 days.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. However, it seems I am really struggling to make my question understood. Yes, Android has the same feature, however I find it close to useless because it tells you the process, not the app which called it. A relatively common instance may be 'google play services' draining the battery; in you trackl battery usage in Android you'll see: screen x%, wifi y%, chrome x%, google play services 40%, etc. It does not tell you WHICH app called google play services and therefore that piece of information is absolutely useless in identifying which app is causing the battery drain.
Could the same problem happen with iOS? Yes? No because it tells you which app called which process? Don't know - better to ask elsewhere?

Thanks!

 

[metllicamilitia]

I'm not talking about turning on the screen, I am talking about waking up the phone from its idle (asleep) state, in which it consumes very little battery, to a state where the CPU starts running to perform some task. This is called a 'partial wakelock' in Android; a common problem in Android is an app misbehaving, keeping the CPU running, preventing it from going to sleep and therefore draining the battery. An example could be a weather app waking up the phone to update the forecast, but without turning on the screen.
Is this unheard of in iOS? Can this be tracked without jailbreaking the iphone? In Android, since KitKat you need root. Or is it better to ask these questions on a more technical forum like XDA?


Thank you for taking the time to reply. However, it seems I am really struggling to make my question understood. Yes, Android has the same feature, however I find it close to useless because it tells you the process, not the app which called it. A relatively common instance may be 'google play services' draining the battery; in you trackl battery usage in Android you'll see: screen x%, wifi y%, chrome x%, google play services 40%, etc. It does not tell you WHICH app called google play services and therefore that piece of information is absolutely useless in identifying which app is causing the battery drain.
Could the same problem happen with iOS? Yes? No because it tells you which app called which process? Don't know - better to ask elsewhere?

Thanks!

Like I said I've never seen or heard of an app unlocking the phone. As far as background processes go, you can choose by app if you want background app refresh on, with that setting on it would allow the app to run processes minimally in the background to have a faster refresh when opening the app.

The battery tracking on iOS is opposite what you're used to. You can see what's apps are using how much battery life and screen time, however you can't see what processes they are using.

 

[garfieldthecat]

Like I said I've never seen or heard of an app unlocking the phone.

Sorry for being thick, but what do you mean by 'unlocking' in this context? I am not following.

As far as background processes go, you can choose by app if you want background app refresh on, with that setting on it would allow the app to run processes minimally in the background to have a faster refresh when opening the app.

Let's take a step back, please. How does iOS' multitasking work compared to Android's?
One of my biggest issues with Android is that apps keep starting in the background even if you don't want them to. Pro-Android talibans tell me I shouldn't worry my pretty little head about it because Android knows best, and knows when to close unneeded apps. If an app misbehaves, it's because it was poorly coded and it's the app's fault, not the OS' - they say. I don't agree with this because I have more than once found cases of apps I didn't want running waking up the phone, consuming data and battery, etc. Are you telling me this cannot happen in iOS? Does iOS let users control precisely which apps run in the background, unlike Android? If that's the case, that might well be the biggest selling point for me. However, if that's the case I would have expected better battery life results from tests comparisons etc.

The battery tracking on iOS is opposite what you're used to. You can see what's apps are using how much battery life and screen time, however you can't see what processes they are using.

Super! Thanks!

 

[metllicamilitia]

Sorry for being thick, but what do you mean by 'unlocking' in this context? I am not following.

Let's take a step back, please. How does iOS' multitasking work compared to Android's?
One of my biggest issues with Android is that apps keep starting in the background even if you don't want them to. Pro-Android talibans tell me I shouldn't worry my pretty little head about it because Android knows best, and knows when to close unneeded apps. If an app misbehaves, it's because it was poorly coded and it's the app's fault, not the OS' - they say. I don't agree with this because I have more than once found cases of apps I didn't want running waking up the phone, consuming data and battery, etc. Are you telling me this cannot happen in iOS? Does iOS let users control precisely which apps run in the background, unlike Android? If that's the case, that might well be the biggest selling point for me. However, if that's the case I would have expected better battery life results from tests comparisons etc.
Super! Thanks!

In this context, it means taking your phone from screen off and locked to the home screen.

Multitasking depends on which device you're on really. On iPhone it's pretty simple and easy to switch between your open apps. On the 6s and 6s Plus you can force touch on the left side of the screen to switch, or same as every iPhone you can double click the home button to bring up the fast app switcher. On iPad though, you have a couple tiers. The iPad Mini allows you run two apps simultaneously as long as it supported, however one app takes up much less space. The larger iPads on the other hand allow more versatility in multitasking. The larger iPads have an extra multitasking feature that the Mini's don't have, and I can't remember what it is.

Another thing to note is that iOS is built to have apps always open. Unless it's the Facebook app, or another app that's draining your battery, there's no need to shut down apps.

 

[Wybrem]

Let's take a step back, please. How does iOS' multitasking work compared to Android's?
...One of my biggest issues...comparisons etc.....

Hello again mate.

You can prevent apps from starting or running in the background at all. iOS is all about privacy and security. I'll provide here two screenshots of what I mean. Let's take Whatsapp for example. If I don't want this app to run or start in the background I simply slide the "Background App Refresh" to the left (screenshot 1).

Screenshot 1/2:


Screenshot 2/2:


Hopefully this helps a bit.

 

[garfieldthecat]

Hello again mate.

You can prevent apps from starting or running in the background at all. iOS is all about privacy and security. I'll provide here two screenshots of what I mean. Let's take Whatsapp for example. If I don't want this app to run or start in the background I simply slide the "Background App Refresh" to the left

Thank you! This is a feature I would really love to see in Android.
My impression is that this doesn't necessarily translate into longer battery life (it doesn't seem that iphones last substantially longer than Androids), but I would find it super useful to prevent the issues I have had with Android, when some mysterious app or process misbehaves and starts firing the CPU and draining the battery for no apparent reason.

 

[Wybrem]

Thank you! This is a feature I would really love to see in Android.
My impression is that this doesn't necessarily translate into longer battery life (it doesn't seem that iphones last substantially longer than Androids), but I would find it super useful to prevent the issues I have had with Android, when some mysterious app or process misbehaves and starts firing the CPU and draining the battery for no apparent reason.

While iOS is a LOT more efficient, we do have smaller batteries. So ye in real life usage you're gaining 0 from that efficiency. If anything I think some Androids last longer like my mate's Huawei Mate 8 or something, it has 5000mah battery.

 

[garfieldthecat]

One more point: is the iphone storage accessible like a removable hard drive if I connect it to my PC (I have a PC and won't be moving to a Mac)? Or is it only accessible through Itunes? Can I only store music and videos, or any file? Are there file managers to navigate and manage all the files and folders?

How does sync work? When I had an ipod, I remember hating the fact that, if it was synced to my PC with itunes, I couldn't connect it to another PC to add/remove/copy songs, or I'd lose the sync; in the end I used Media Monkey rather than Itunes because of this. Has this changed, or do Iphones work in a similar way? If the approach hasn't changed, do you know of alternative software for PCs instead of itunes?

Thanks

 

[Nogitsune Micah]

You should most definitely switch from android to iOS. Such a better operating system.

I am a dual windows 10 mobile and iPhone user. My iPhone replaced the nexus I had and I find widgets crap TBH but I prefer apples implementation of them.