Android and iOS are very, very different operating systems. While functionally they do all the same things, the way the two systems work in practice couldn’t be further apart. From gesture support to customization, there is definitely a learning curve when you switch from one operating system to another. If you want to switch to an iPhone, there are a few things that might really annoy you about switching from Android to iOS.
1. Notification management is annoying
Apple has made some notable improvements to iOS notifications over the past couple of years, but they aren’t on par with Android notifications. Similar app notifications will be bundled together, but you can still get multiple banners for a single app (and they aren’t always in chronological order). Luckily, there is a way to fix that.
Managing notifications isn’t as intuitive as it could be. In Android, you can adjust what types of notifications you get within the app itself. However, on iOS, users have to navigate to settings and scroll to the bottom to find the app and adjust notifications from there. It’s something the community frequently complains about.
It isn’t as bad as it used to be, but if you aren’t studious your lock screen can quickly become a cluttered mess.
2. Google apps aren’t as intuitive on iOS
If you use Google’s productivity suite, you will likely have a bad time using them on iOS. The apps don’t feel intuitive, even though they look and feel exactly like their Android counterparts. That’s because Google apps like Docs and Sheets are emulating the Android versions.
As such, they feel out of place on iOS, and they lack the same design fundamentals that similar apps on the platform have. That should all be changing in the near future, though. Google is working on making its apps feel more native to iOS by bringing them in line with platform fundamentals.
As it stands, Google apps feel odd on iOS. Certain features like triple tapping to highlight a whole paragraph are missing from Docs. Sheets on iOS doesn’t let you create forms, charts, or tables. That’s especially annoying considering you can do most of those things on the Android counterpart.
It’s really limiting, and the same is true of Google Drive. On Android, you can view documents in the Drive app, but not on iOS. It’s going to reroute you to the Google Docs app, which sometimes doesn’t properly load the document.
It’s all very frustrating. Google apps are incredibly popular on the platform, though, despite these shortfalls. Hopefully Google’s forthcoming redesign will help alleviate some of these issues.
3. Layout customization is limited on iOS
iOS doesn’t have the same customization features as Android, and it’s much harder to personalize your home screen on iOS. Customization is a high priority for many users, whether that’s adding widgets, changing app icons, or even just putting apps where you want them.
Let’s start with that last point. Apple pushes every app to the first available slot on the screen. That means all your apps will float to the top and snap to the left.
This can quickly lead to a cluttered and incomprehensible interface. For the longest time, you were either stuck with creating multiple homepage screens to organize apps or create folders, which were — frankly — ugly to look at. The App Library fixed this issue when it was first introduced in iOS 14.
iOS limits widgets in the exact same way, which is utterly frustrating. The only way to maximize the use of widgets is to fill your screen with them, and it can lead to layouts that are just overwhelming to look at.
And then there are the app icons. Sure, iOS introduced a way where you can technically change the icon images, but it’s more of a workaround than an actual feature. You can use the Shortcuts app and use a custom icon to create a shortcut to an app. But clicking on it opens Shortcuts and then the app. It’s an extra step when they could just support third-party app icons.
Changing app icons on Android is still a process, but it feels less like a workaround. You will have to download a launcher like Nova that supports changing icon images. Then you can tinker in the settings and customize how you want the icon to appear. It is probably about the same amount of work as the Shortcuts solution on iOS, but it also gives you more genuine control over the look and feel of your phone.
Try to buy a book on the Kindle app. You will quickly realize that the app won’t let you. In fact, you can’t buy much of anything from any app that doesn’t use the Apple payment processor. That’s probably because of Apple’s draconian cuts on in-app purchases, and most companies and developers have just opted out of it entirely. It makes for an abysmal experience if you are used to online shopping via your phone.
The state of mobile payments on Apple products has improved recently, thanks in no small part to the Epic vs Apple lawsuit (a case Apple eventually won). Now, many apps pay no processing fees, but developers have still been slow to update their payment options even with the adjustment.
In the Kindle app, for example, you can browse books and add them to your wishlist, but there is no Buy button. iOS makes you go to the Amazon app to process payments.
Buying a book from a third-party retailer — or anything, for that matter — is easier on Android, and there are far fewer hoops to jump through.
5. No screen mirroring Netflix
Netflix and Apple have had a big beef for a long time, and that’s unfortunately blown up in iOS users’ faces. Netflix doesn’t support the protocol for AirPlay, which means one of Apple’s most convenient features is utterly useless on the most popular streaming service.
So switching to iOS from Android can kind of be a pain, but a lot of this is subjective too. You can even make iOS look and feel more like Android with the right tinkering. If you want to know more about switching to iOS, we have a guide to make the process less painful. You can also read more about the one pain point that holds a lot of users back from switching to iPhone.
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