iPhone User Thinking Of Making The Jump

[arterio]

I'm thinking of making the change from the iPhone 4 to the HTC One X. I'm just tired of having to jailbreak my iPhone in order for me to be happy with it. And it's not like I do anything crazy with it, I just load a few Cydia tweaks. Lockinfo so I can read emails and SMS messages, and view weather info from my lock screen. Browser changer because I can't stand Mobile Safari. Multifl0w for better task switching. SBSettings for quick toggles, and biteSMS for a more feature rich SMS app. That's it.

Based on the WWDC event tomorrow and what Apple has in store for iOS 6 as far as addressing the things I listed above, I may stick around till the fall and get the new iPhone. But if what Apple has to offer isn't that impressive or game changing (at this point Apple is feeling stale to me) then I might make the jump to Android and the HTC One X.

So here's some questions that I'd appreciate if ex-iPhone users could answer.

1. What do you miss from iOS / Apple that you don't / can't get from Android?
2. What's the biggest change or adjustment you had to get used to when switching from iOS to Android?
3. As far as apps go, have you noticed anything that is missing and what is the quality of the apps you're finding in the PlayStore?
4. Do you have any regrets after your switch to Android?

I'm 2 years into my 3 year contract with Rogers here in Canada. My iPhone 4 is having a discoloration issue on the screen that is caused by excessive heat from something on the logic board. So replacing the LCD and digitizer isn't going to solve it because eventually it'll come back on the new one. Apple is telling me they won't replace it because it's out of warranty, but they'll sell me a refurb unit for $180.

At that price I can do a hardware upgrade to the HTC One X and get what is looking like a better phone. The only thing is I'd have to renew my contract for another 3 years, and that's what scares me a little. I don't know Android. I don't know if I'll be happy with Android, and I don't want to be locked to an Android device for 3 years if I'm not happy with it.

 

[woodydog]

I got the 3gs on launch day then the 4s on launch day. I jail broke for about the same stuff as you. I got hox on launch day and haven't looked back. Sold my 4s for 400. You can do almost everything on stock Android as you can on jailbroke iphone

Sent from my HTC One X using Android Central Forums

 

[rejovinated]

Recently switch to the hox from an iphone 4, 4 days ago, so I am still fairly new to android. So far its going "okay," I suppose I am really use to iOS but I can adjust myself to get use to android.

Hardware components are obviously different. The 4.7" screen is amazing and beautiful to look at! It'd be kind of hard going back to 3.5" after using this for awhile. The camera is superb with many settings you can adjust, taking pictures is fast and easy along with its video capabilities. The thing I miss from the iphone is the dedicated silent/vibrate switch and would be great if the charging dock was at the bottom rather than the left side of the phone.

Software takes getting use to after using iOS since the 3G came out..But it is fairly easy to navigate and understand ICS. Here are some stuff I need to get use to..

The thing I miss is how you can't pull down settings from the status bar (such as SBSettings). This is stock htc ICS, and I have not explored into rooting or whatever just yet (not even possible yet with current version 1.85).
I also miss double tapping the home button to toggle rotate screen on/off and the music controls anywhere in an app.
The screen doesn't wake up when you get a text...Why? I don't have the slightest clue. So you have to manually press the power button every time.
AND THE BIGGEST ONE OF ALL is that the battery life on this is complete garbage (compared to iphone). Sure the screen is a lot bigger and all but come on..I get roughly 10 hours from a full charge to say 5%...Since I am still new to this phone, I'm sure there are ways to help battery life, but iphone had great battery life out the box.

Although I do miss the iphone, I have to give an android more time to get use to. I still have 26 days till I can return it but really have no plans on doing so. Still can't wait to see what this next gen iphone has to offer!

 

[timberga]

Except battery life on the 4/4S went to crap with iOS 5. Not sure what you were doing exactly on your iphone that landed you excellent battery life, but it hasn't been good since iOS 4.

 

[woodydog]

Yeah I get way better battery life on hox over iPhone 4s

Sent from my HTC One X using Android Central Forums

 

[rejovinated]

Except battery life on the 4/4S went to crap with iOS 5. Not sure what you were doing exactly on your iphone that landed you excellent battery life, but it hasn't been good since iOS 4.

I did remember hearing that the 4S had battery issues, but my iphone 4 had no problems on iOS 4 or 5. I could go through a day without having to worry about it. Of course it relates to the 3.5" screen and 3G vs 4.7" and 4G LTE..
Still would be great to go through the day with the HOX

 

[rdxhd]

I came from a iPhone 4 and I can say that the battery life for the HOX is really good. I am a moderate user that gets about +100 emails a day for work, tons of meeting reminders, 20-25 min of call time, and about 1.5-2hours of screen time and I get about 16 hours of battery life. What I like about the HOX the most is the productivity lock screen from HTC. I can see my emails and appointments without having to unlock the phone. To put it in perspective with my iPhone 4 I went 16 hours and had about 30-20% battery left. I am not in an LTE area. I visited NYC earlier this month and the battery was hit by about 2 hours due to LTE network.

 

[gdbjr]

You will have to get used to charging your phone more. I found that my iphone 4s battery lasted longer then the HTC One X, or any android I have ever had. On my iphone I charged it only going to and from work, about 70 minutes total a day. I have to charge my One X at work and again when I get home and overnight.

You will also have to get used to dealing with fragmentation in the play store for apps. Just because there is a good game out for android, doesn't mean you will be able to run it on your phone. Especially a new phone like the One X. Usually they get updated eventually, but not always.

You can almost always find a app for android that you had on your iPhone, but it make not look at pretty. And sometime you find something better looking, but that is rare.

The biggest thing I miss is tap to go to the top in any iphone app. There is nothing in android that does it and it drives me crazy to have to scroll all the way back to the top.

But either way you can go wrong. Both are great platforms and each have pluses and minuses.

 

[rdxhd]

The biggest thing I miss is tap to go to the top in any iphone app. There is nothing in android that does it and it drives me crazy to have to scroll all the way back to the top.

I totally agree!! I was trying to think what I miss most and this is it. I do like that Dolphin HD allow me to have draw gestures and one of them is to go back to the top but it is still a two step process instead of one.

 

[BrianDigital]

To the op, go on YouTube and look for iPhone vs. Android : the truth. It is a great video mini series and give you an idea of what's going g to be different. I do however tell most iPhone converts you should really try a nexus phone first due to it being a vanilla experience

Sent from my Iconia A500 using Tapatalk 2

 

[arterio]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I went across the street to my local electronics bigbox store and they had a working demo that I messed around with for 20 minutes or so. Checked out the pros and cons that everyone mentioned and I've read. I like the phone. Feels good in my hand. I have longer fingers so the 4.7" screen isn't too big for me, but it is on the limits of my finger reach for sure. Speaking of the screen, WOW! Gorgeous is all I have to say. Awesome colors, vividness, and saturation. The whites are white, not blue like a lot of the other Android screens I've seen, and when reviewers say it looks like the display is floating on the glass, it's true.

The bugs and things people were talking about that they didn't like, I didn't really notice. The only one I was able to duplicate was the multitasking (or not) bug where it reloads certain apps after they've been backgrounded. This is most apparent with the web browser, be it the stock on, Chrome, or Firefox (which I installed on it ). If you background the browser, then open another app, then go to the home screen, hit the task switcher button and select the browser, it comes up, but then refreshes the page.

The iPhone used to do this for a while to. It's not a massive inconvenience for me. I'm on WiFi most of the times, and the times I'd be on cellular, I know there is a great LTE network here in Vancouver so I don't mind waiting 1/2 a second if the page reloads.

Anyways, my mind has been made up. If iOS 6 has some decent offerings tomorrow, and the potential for some neat things to be incorporated into the new iPhone are hinted at, then I may hold off. But if what iOS 6 brings to the table is not that significant, I'm going to upgrade to the HOX.

 

[beeg612]

To the OP:

I am recent convert. This past weekend, in fact. Like you, I spent years jailbreaking my iPhone and actually loved it having it set up exactly how I wanted with all the tweaks my heart desired. But, there was the lack of stability. A couple of months ago, it became almost unbearable and over the weekend the phone finally crapped out. Thankfully, I'd been doing research on switching to Android and got the One X. So far, it's great and I can do almost everything I could on my jailbroken iPhone, I'd say about 98%, but that other 2% is just tweaks that I'm sure I can live without.

I'll sum it up like this: a jailbroken iPhone is great and you can do anything you want to it but you don't have the stability of the stock OS. With a stock Android you can do nearly anything and have the stability of the stock OS.

Getting used to the bigger screen takes a bit of time but the screen is beautiful. I think you'll be happy if you make the switch. Good luck in your decision!

 

[anthonycr]

To the OP:

I am recent convert. This past weekend, in fact. Like you, I spent years jailbreaking my iPhone and actually loved it having it set up exactly how I wanted with all the tweaks my heart desired. But, there was the lack of stability. A couple of months ago, it became almost unbearable and over the weekend the phone finally crapped out. Thankfully, I'd been doing research on switching to Android and got the One X. So far, it's great and I can do almost everything I could on my jailbroken iPhone, I'd say about 98%, but that other 2% is just tweaks that I'm sure I can live without.

I'll sum it up like this: a jailbroken iPhone is great and you can do anything you want to it but you don't have the stability of the stock OS. With a stock Android you can do nearly anything and have the stability of the stock OS.

Getting used to the bigger screen takes a bit of time but the screen is beautiful. I think you'll be happy if you make the switch. Good luck in your decision!

You say that there's 2% that isn't there in the stock HOX that there is in a jail broken iPhone and I believe you, but just wait till you root your HOX and your phone will be able to do 200% of what your iPhone could. Plus, there's no instability with rooting as opposed to jail breaking because root is just a permission that gets granted, while jailbreak is a program that has to run over top the os.

 

[beeg612]

You say that there's 2% that isn't there in the stock HOX that there is in a jail broken iPhone and I believe you, but just wait till you root your HOX and your phone will be able to do 200% of what your iPhone could. Plus, there's no instability with rooting as opposed to jail breaking because root is just a permission that gets granted, while jailbreak is a program that has to run over top the os.

Haha! That's kind of why I've been thinking of making the switch for some time. I'm glad I did. Thanks for the info.

 

[gdbjr]

You say that there's 2% that isn't there in the stock HOX that there is in a jail broken iPhone and I believe you, but just wait till you root your HOX and your phone will be able to do 200% of what your iPhone could. Plus, there's no instability with rooting as opposed to jail breaking because root is just a permission that gets granted, while jailbreak is a program that has to run over top the os.

I have to disagree. I had a tweak on my iphone that with a simply tap of the top bar it pulled up a twitter app that let me tweet from the homescreen and with a button to allow me to tweet my currently playing music track. I have yet to find that on android.

Also can't find a replacement for the tap to return to the top, instead of scrolling the entire way up.

Admittedly these are minor things, but to say that you can do everything on a android that you can on a iphone is slightly misleading to someone wanting to convert. I think the 98% is accurate.

But a jailbroken iphone is unstable compared to a non-jailbroken one or a rooted android. Thati s 1000% true.

 

[ATPhoto75]

Former devoted iCultist now converted to appreciate more in life...

Here's my review...

 

[arterio]

So I watched the blogcast of the WWDC event this morning. Apple unveiled iOS 6, and I gotta be honest... it didn't blow me away. The big changes from my perspective:

• Siri location services outside the US
• Siri on the iPad
• New Maps app with turn by turn, Siri & Yelp integration
• Improved call handling when recieving a call

Those are the only things that stood out to me and would actually make a different in the use of my phone. Though I never used the Maps app on the iPhone, so I could honestly care less about that. I do have a new iPad so getting Siri on there will be nice, and I could see myself using that frequently. And the new call handling feature, not really a selling point.

I'm going to think about it for a few days and then decide if I'm going to break up with Apple and try out the One X. I've literally watched just about every review and comparison video of the One X that's out there, including those for the SIII and I'm sold on the phone. I've handled it in person at a couple of stores and got to play with it for about 20 minutes testing out things people were mentioning (good and bad) and it seems comfortable. It'll definitely be a huge change if I go to it though.

Did anyone else check out the WWDC event and what were your thoughts on what iOS 6 is bringing to the table.

 

[rdxhd]

Did you see this article? iOS 6 vs. Ice Cream Sandwich: The Ultimate Comparison

 

[lucidlyseen]

Did anyone else check out the WWDC event and what were your thoughts on what iOS 6 is bringing to the table.

this is not an us vs them reply (I own 3rd gen iPad and I'm typing this on a 27" iMac) but I was an iPhone user and bought the One X.

The main reason why I left apple (iPhone) was screen size and I was just plain bored with iOS. Today's WWDC in my opinion, brought nothing new to the table. The iPhone should of had turn by turn a LONG time ago, but they are playing catch up again there.

Siri? Eh, over rated, over marketed, under used.

Apple should be blowing the doors off of their UI and mixing it up big time to keep users around. When I fired up my One X, the amount of customizing I could do stock out of the box felt so damn good.

 

[arterio]

Thanks for the feed back you two. That iOS6 vs ICS article was interesting. Pretty much summed up my lack of enthusiasm for iOS6, and lucidlyseen basically said what I've felt for a little while now. That the iOS experience is boring, and that they've been playing catch up for a little while now, if I had to guess, about 2 years when it comes to the OS and it's features.