[LONG POST] After years of Apple, I'm looking over the fence... and I love what I'm seeing

[Marco Ciccone1]

Hi guys, it's my first post here even if I'm a long time visitor.

I have been using Apple products for the past years. I've owned an iP 4s, 5s, 6 Plus, 6S Plus, MacBook Air, Pro, iPad, Apple TV... and the list goes on with services like Drive, Music and lot of movies bought on iTunes.

Last time I've tried android was the Galaxy S3, pretty bad experience as it was so laggy. Never looked back again until these days...

So yes I'm an Apple user, I think the iPhone is still a good phone, powerful, beautiful design and their customer service is top notch... but... it fails at exciting me anymore. The real thing is that I really love technology... I got excited for Microsoft Hololens, the first Android Wear and now apps con Chrome OS, Daydream and Google Home... So, I decided to give android another go and looking for a used Nexus 6P and use it along with my iPhone and wait until both Apple and Google have their keynotes by October. Then make a call.

Now, I'm already switching back to my old google account so I can move between ecosystems if I want to change devices.

I have few questions though and I hope to find some answers here.

1) How is android stock performance on Nexus 6P? I've read mixed reviews, someone saying it's butter smooth, other saying that they need to reboot the device daily. I'm used to set up my devices and then use them, without worrying about maintenance... something Apple excels at.
2) Lockscreen notifications: can I set up lockscreen notifications only for certain apps? I need only voice and messaging (whatsapp, messenger, etc) popping up on my phone when it's locked.
3) My biggest concern is managing my media. Photos looks fine, but I have a big collection of music I wanna keep, Google Play Music should be fine but I don't wanna stream my collection every time I listen to music - can I download them locally? I assume so.
Movies is another one. I used to buy and watch my movies on my devices and apple tv. I think I can accomplish the same with Chromecast, but I don't know how to manage my collection. Maybe plex (I don't own a media server though)? Or storing them on Google Drive and then streaming through VLC or any other video player?
4) Apps: I don't really use niche apps. Google apps cover 70% of my needs, plus the usual suspects like whatsapp, messenger, linkedin, twitter, facebook, tripadvisor... being mainstream app I assume they are well optimised for both phones and tablets?

edit:
Adding a new one: do you know if there's any way to move my health data from apple health to google fit?

 

[gammerthumbs]

Welcome back to android. I've been a on and off android user like you. Had a old HTC Android phone then the S3 had a bad experience and went to iPhone tried Note 2 went back to iPhone 5 I believe. Saw the ads for the S5 thought I would try it had the phone for almost 2 years when lollipop was making the phone impossible to work with. My wife said she wanted to try it out so we traded phones and I got her iPhone 6 plus. I re entered the Android area because my mother on law had a old iPhone that she dropped and it just stopped working. So I upgraded and she took the iPhone I had which is a very nice solid phone. I gave myself two choices the Nexus phone 6p, 6 or moto droid turbo 2 with a shatter proof screen. My daughter had the droid mini for over four years and she upgraded when the phone simply wouldn't stay charged anymore. I chose the Turbo 2 which I do like very much as it's mostly stock android with the moto features which are nice.

The reason I didn't even consider Samsung because every phone I have had from them just failed me. Not that they don't make good hardware it's the software that fails. My opinion.