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I toy with the idea every once in awhile. I own a M1 Mac and I actually hate it for various reasons. I've been a mac fanboi (I'm probably an even bigger Linux fanboi) for many years as I feel like I gave me so many of the things I love about Linux/BSD... and it's flat out beautiful. But as many have stated. Over the years, it's ceased to match my workflow. I've always kept plenty of Linux machines around me, so for the past few years, I've been full time on Linux. I do miss getting my text messages on my laptop. I do miss transferring music with ease - but I have to be honest. Using iTunes/Music to transfer music to my iPhone has actually been pretty painful the past few years. When I try to drag and drop, for some odd reason, it just says, "nope".

My issue is, the alternatives are just not as high quality. I looked at ditching my iPhone 12 for a Pixel 4 or a Samsung, and maybe getting the Samsung watch (which I hear can do blood pressure now?). But I've read so many bad reviews. Sadly, one of the biggest things that keeps me on Apple right now is iMessage. We have plenty of Apple products in the household, so I'd never ditch them totally.



iMessage is the ultimate lock-in. Both sides of my family use iMessage, so anyone switching off iPhone becomes the black sheep by splitting off the family thread. And it sucks because it is wholly a political decision by Apple not to add android support.

But besides that, I bought a Pixel 5a for testing of android apps. While the experience is majorly improved over my last android experience...it just feels wrong. Animations are not consistent across apps. Swipe actions sometimes follow your finger, sometimes they don't. I thought widgets would be better...but wow are they ugly out of the box. Yes I am aware you can customize everything, but I really don't want to spend hours figuring all that out when I can just have sane defaults. I feel like looking at screenshots you can say that android and iOS are very similar, but that leaves out the most important part of a touch only device - the interactions with content on screen.


I used to work in mobile web development. Playing with Android devices always felt sub-par. Not to mention, having to support Samsung's web browser was just terrible. I realize Samsung has gone to great lengths to try and make a beautiful experience. And truly, the whole fold-able (while not really my thing) is an advance in an interesting direction.

I did use an Android phone around 2010 (Nexus One) and it was "just okay". This was pre-iMessage. Now it really is annoying to have someone make the chat "go green". "So and so liked your message". I've seen people set up iMessage gateways just to get around this... but it's just not ideal.


> I thought widgets would be better...but wow are they ugly out of the box

Widgets were a big selling point in the earlier days of the Android vs iOS debate, but Google has really left them to rot over the years. Now that iOS has them, it seems like Google might be finally giving them attention again? At the very least, they're getting redesigns, but I don't know if I've heard anything about them addressing the more technical reasons of why they feel so outdated compared to the rest of the platform.


> becomes the black sheep by splitting off the family thread

Worth having a shitter phone just to have the feature of not being on the family thread.


Not everyone has a shitty family.


Not everyone has an amazing family.


I'm probably going to pick up a PinePhone once they're back in stock, if KDE connect works with it then I might be able to finally have the PC/Pager combo I've always dreamed of...


> I do miss getting my text messages on my laptop.

I used to send and receive text messages all the time on Linux. I use email, but it works fine.




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