options<\/a>. Not so fast! Unless you’re rooting the phone, you’re out of luck. There are no extensions in Chrome Mobile, and best as I could tell, the next best option was to use a third-party browser with the functionality built in. But doing so negates half the reason of using Chrome and Android\u2014tight integration with service and my desktop Chrome experience. Ads on Android were a huge turn-off.<\/p>\nOther small points: searching the Play Store is worlds better than searching\/using the Apple App Store (though discovery still sucks on both). I liked the soft buttons more than I thought I would, especially the back button (which did exactly what I thought it would do… about 80% of the time). I still feel like there are too many ways to accomplish a task on Android due to its open nature, which hurts usability\u00a0and\u00a0familiarity a bit. There are a couple bugs, like the microphone ceasing to respond sometimes when using Google Now, requiring a restart. Speaking of Google Now, it’s pretty nice. It requires you to unlock the phone for almost anything, more so than Siri, but the superfast fingerprint sensor makes that okay. Virtually any app I needed on Android was available, so there isn’t the “I can’t get that on Android” problem anymore.<\/p>\n
All in all, I’m pretty happy with Android. Besides the ads, which were infuriating, the rest of the platform is solid and there were many areas that I preferred it to iOS. As historically an Apple fan, I would say that Android is leading the way as far as mobile innovation goes right now. Cupertino, start your photocopiers.<\/p>\n
Project Fi, Round 2<\/h2>\nCustomer Experience<\/h3>\n What follows is a highly subjective and mixed experience. One evening I plugged in my phone to charge it up, and went to use it about an hour later. As I grabbed the charging cable to disconnect it, I pretty much burned my fingers as they met with melting plastic, and I now have a charging cable that has been deformed like putty and now has my fingerprint embedded in it. The wall charger, cable, and the base of my phone were all extremely hot and melting. The casing around the charging port on the phone had started to bubble; the game was up. The charger had previously worked fine, and everything was original manufacturer gear.<\/p>\n
The next day I called Project Fi, which, to their credit, never has any hold times, and got a very friendly associate.\u00a0I explained the situation and they said they’d be happy to immediately ship me out a replacement, which would be overnighted. Great! There must have been a communication breakdown, however, because an hour later I got an email which stated that I had to actually go in and order the new phone myself (evidently the rep didn’t\/couldn’t do this themselves), and the email gave directions for ordering a refurbished Nexus 6P instead of a new Nexus 5X. Odd, I thought, but after calling back (phone call #2) to confirm that I had to do this, I went ahead and did so. Because of a mistake on my end, I originally ordered it to the wrong address, couldn’t fix it online, but another call (phone call #3) to Project Fi allowed me to cancel the order, receive a new order email, and order a replacement again, this time to my correct address. My fault, but a little cumbersome to correct.<\/p>\n
“Overnight” really means two business days I guess, because that’s how long it took to actually get the replacement. I tepidly used the phone and charger in the meantime due to necessity, but was worried about it each time in the interim. I opened the new box (which had zero documentation or papering whatsoever), only to find a very obviously refurbished phone attached to cardboard, and a tiny little USB C to traditional USB cord, and no wall charger. I was pretty bummed. Even in spite of the bubbling and melting, my original phone still looked in better physical shape than the refurb replacement, and why wasn’t the main culprit, the wall charger, replaced at all?<\/p>\n
Phone call #4 to Project Fi confirmed that yes, even though this incident occurred within the first 30 days of owning the phone, they ship out refurbs in nearly all cases, and they just seem to have forgotten about the charger. The rep was helpful, and said that I could go on to the Play Store and order a replacement charger and they’d reimburse me, but it was still disappointing. He said that the first rep should have made this clear to me (didn’t happen). To be frank, this really marred my Android experience. Apple would have just given me a new phone, no questions asked, because of the timeframe of the incident. Even though this phone was ordered through Project Fi, there was still a level of abdication of responsibility that was unfortunate.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, still needing to use the phone and not want to burn my hot little hands again, I ordered a new charger (not original to the phone, since they don’t sell it), paid for it, and, not knowing what kind of shipping they would pay for, opted for 3-5 day shipping. Phone call #5 to Project Fi was me explaining the situation again and asking for a refund of $51.22, the cost of the charger and shipping. Oddly enough, the rep said, “I like round numbers, I’m going to reimburse you $52.00.” Ooookay, sure… $0.78 for the trouble, right? \ud83d\ude09 That almost covers the paper, ink, and packaging materials I had to produce to print out my own RMA and shipping labels to send the damaged hardware back in.<\/p>\n
Switching back to iPhone<\/h2>\n To Project Fi’s credit, however, managing your own account is awesomely simple. When it finally came time for me to switch back to my iPhone, I moved on to T-Mobile from Verizon, and didn’t need to make a single call or speak a single time with any “customer retention” department, thank heavens. In fact, you just open up the Project Fi app, tap\u00a0the “Cancel Account” button, answer a couple of quick questions and then get your account number and PIN to port your number to a new provider. The app assures you that you will continue having service until your number porting is complete, and this was indeed the case. Great experience with Project Fi as a cell provider (network was never an issue by the way).<\/p>\n
So why did I switch back? In a word: integration. Because I use other Apple products (MacBooks, Apple TV, etc.), there is a large, tangible benefit\u00a0from using various products all tightly tied\u00a0with each other. Being able to have Messages integrated into both my phone and OS X, for example, is a huge efficiency gain for me, for example. And while I did find and use Pushbullet<\/a> to kind of achieve the same functionality with Android, it just wasn’t quite the same. I could go out and buy a Chromecast and send things to my TV, but I already have an Apple TV and AirPlay works great. Another situational reason is that literally every other member of mine and my wife’s family use iPhones, which means awesome group messaging. Find My Friends is also something that my wife and I use frequently to help each other plan and coordinate, and we lost that on Android.<\/p>\nFit and finish still feels slightly superior in the\u00a0Apple ecosystem, but that is leveling off. Apple is executing better, but Android is innovating more. Apple is still more the consumer-focused company, while Google is still the ad sales company, and that shows through. Android offers more flexibility, but Apple offers better integration. And in my advanced age (almost three decades old now!) my crotchety old self is happier having everything neatly tied up with a bow for me, than needing to research, customize, and tweak every little thing. It still “just works” better in Apple-land.<\/p>\n
Conclusions<\/h2>\n Were I starting fresh and didn’t have the personal pre-existing situational conditions I mentioned above, which platform would I choose? The great answer that I’ve come to is that\u00a0either<\/em> choice would result in a great user experience. Prior to a couple of years ago the clear winner was probably Apple, but Android has certainly caught up in many regards and is even leading\u00a0in some now. And\u00a0despite the unfortunate sob story I related about melting phones, I’m actually still very impressed with Project Fi and the Android platform.<\/p>\nDevelopers, in particular, should be open to experiencing both platforms and learning from each. For example, even if not adapting the look and feel of Material UI, designers and developers would do themselves a big favor by reviewing the\u00a0Material Design<\/a>\u00a0and Motion<\/a> documentation, as it currently does a much better job of laying out mobile design principles than Apple’s HIG. Traditionally iOS-focused developers should also look to Android’s recent innovations in areas like interactive notifications which, to a certain extent, are available on iOS right now, and think how such features could be implemented in their own apps. Familiarity allows for cross-pollination of ideas, and an understanding of different approaches.<\/p>\nAnd now, summary points as bullets:<\/p>\n
\nProject Fi<\/strong>\n\nGreat pricing, great transparency, great self-service management. All other carriers take note!<\/li>\n Support: good interaction, poor execution<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n Android Hardware (specific to Nexus 5X)<\/strong>\n\nSnappy performance and very good build quality led to a great hardware experience<\/li>\n Little things like the placement of the fingerprint sensor and its speed were big wins<\/li>\n Still playing catchup in areas like battery life, high quality components, and not melting<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n Android as a Platform<\/strong>\n\nMaterial Design is a fantastic mobile experience. From better usability thanks to appropriate usage of depth to faster perceived performance courtesy of great and quick animations, it was a pleasure to use<\/li>\n App selection is entirely on par with iOS ecosystem and customization is great<\/li>\n User friendliness lacking in some areas like no rolled-up updates and presenting a very technical interface (I still do not want to have to deal with a filesystem on my mobile device)<\/li>\n Using a platform produced by an ad company results in ads all over the place, degrading the experience<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n Overall<\/strong>\n\nI switched back to iPhone because of the convenience and usability it offers, but general consumers would probably be well-served by either platform these days<\/li>\n Developers should be very familiar with both platforms in order to create the best experiences for their customers and move the field forward<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nThoughts, questions, or comments? Tried the switch yourself? Would love to hear what other people’s experiences have been in this regard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A detailed breakdown of my experience switching from iPhone to Android for a month and a half, from the perspective of a consumer and a mobile developer.<\/p>\n
Continue readingThere and Back Again\u2026An iPhone to Android Story<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1,161],"tags":[363,306,366,367,71,346,364,365],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nThere and Back Again\u2026An iPhone to Android Story - Joshua Lyman.com<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n