I’ve always appreciated the flexibility of Android. Over the years, I’ve switched between Android and iPhone, and back to Android, and I’ve noticed consistent issues within the iPhone experience that ultimately led me back to Android. A recent Reddit post from u/Pucky22, who switched from a Pixel 7 to an iPhone 16 Pro, echoes many of my own experiences. The post provides a detailed look at the pros and cons of switching to iPhone after being a long-time Android user. Here’s a breakdown of the user’s observations, and my own perspective.

Analyzing “The Good”

Pucky22 highlighting several positive aspects of the iPhone 16 Pro:

Hardware Quality: A really nice piece of hardware. Beautiful, solid, and feels great in hand. The Pro model is a good size—big but not too bulky.

Screen: Looks fantastic. No complaints.

Camera & Video: Takes excellent shots, and from all accounts, the video quality is top-tier.

Dynamic Island: First time hearing about it, but it’s actually pretty cool. Having sports scores and music controls right there is surprisingly useful.

Software Touches: Some effects and animations are really smooth—like when scanning a document, it isolates the background and seamlessly moves it into the corner.

CarPlay: This surprised me. When catching up on notifications, it gives a natural-language summary of missed messages, which is really nice.

The Apple Maps navigation voice and style is very natural and smooth—I actually prefer it to Google Maps. I guess the days of being navigated into a lake are over for Apple Maps!

Grouped Notifications: While I still think Android does notifications better, Apple’s grouping and summarization of same-app notifications is intelligently designed and useful.

FaceID: When you’re holding the phone, FaceID works perfectly—fast and accurate. However, if the phone is sitting on a desk or table, FaceID often won’t pick up your face unless you awkwardly lean over it. A fingerprint reader would be a really nice option in those situations.

Standby Mode: Standby mode at night, with the bedside alarm clock in red, was actually very nice and well-designed. It’s subtle but easy to read at night without being harsh on the eyes. Also, the default iPhone alarm tone is exceptionally pleasing—way better than the jarring tones I’m used to on Android.

GenMoji Seems Fun: I didn’t even try it once, but I bet it’s cool for those who are into that sort of thing.

Pucky22 praised the iPhone’s hardware, display, and camera, and found features like Dynamic Island and CarPlay’s notification summaries to be surprisingly useful. They also noted the smooth software animations, improved Apple Maps, and well-designed Standby Mode. All of those to which I also share the same sentiment.

Analyzing “The Bad”

However, the user’s experience wasn’t entirely positive. The user encountered several significant issues with iOS.

These aren’t new complaints about iOS, but for someone using it as a main device, they are massive hurdles.

The Keyboard is Borderline Unusable. Whether using the stock keyboard or Gboard on iOS, the experience is awful. So many typos, wrong key presses—it’s just bad. The Gboard on my old Pixel 7 was 1000x more accurate and faster to type on. It has been consistently infuriating. I had no idea just how much better the Android keyboard was.

Notifications = Anxiety Machine. iPhone is aggressive with notifications—way more than I was used to. On Android, you can easily choose which notifications for a given app should be silent or not, right from the notification itself—just a quick tap and done. On iPhone, it’s a much more laborious process, requiring you to dig into settings manually for each app. This makes it way harder to fine-tune notifications to be useful instead of overwhelming.

Speaking of Settings… Why is there a whole app called “Settings” instead of just swiping down and tapping an icon to adjust things quickly? Having to navigate through an app for simple things like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth is an unnecessary step.

No App Drawer. This is insane. Instead of a clean app drawer, you have to either search for apps (which is fine but not intuitive) or look through Apple’s pre-made categories in the App Library. The grouping seems neat at first glance but ends up being a wild choice in actual use. Why do I have to rely on Apple to decide where my apps go?

CarPlay Layout is a Mess. Apple Maps is actually pretty solid now—natural-sounding navigation, accurate directions—but the overall CarPlay interface is clunky compared to Android Auto.If you use Google Maps on CarPlay (without a car screen, just on your phone), you can only get in-app media controls for Spotify or Apple Music—not YouTube Music. Why??

iMessage is Seriously Underwhelming. I was expecting more. RCS on Android does the same thing (minus the blue bubble “exclusivity”), so the fact that Apple has built an entire bullying ecosystem around this feels ridiculous. WhatsApp does all of this and works across devices.

No iMessage on a PC? This was a shock. I use a PC for work, and I was stunned to realize that iMessage has no web or Windows version. With Google Messages, WhatsApp, or basically any other modern messaging platform, I could just open a browser and continue conversations while working. With iPhone? Nope. Either use a Mac or be stuck switching between my phone and computer constantly.

Transferring Old Messages From Android Was a Nightmare. This was infuriating. There’s no native way to do it, so I had to try a third-party, expensive app—and even that still didn’t work.

Homescreen Organization is a Disaster. On Android, I can place apps and widgets where I want—maybe I have a family photo as my wallpaper and don’t want anything covering faces. On iPhone? Move one app and the whole homescreen shifts like a chaotic game of Tetris. If you try to put an app in a folder, it’s like chasing a toddler at bedtime. Just… why?

Pucky22’s experience highlights the strengths and weaknesses of switching to iOS from Android, and mirrors my own experiences. Even to the point where when the last time I owned an iPhone 12 last year was to communicate with my church team through iMessage. Since Apple enabled RCS on iOS 18, I was able to completely be unreliant on the iPhone and ultimately sell it. While the hardware and some software features are impressive, iOS has significant usability issues. It’s also worth noting that the premium Android smartphone market is much stronger now than it once was. Companies like Google, Samsung, OnePlus, and Motorola have really stepped up, offering compelling alternatives in the high-end segment. So now when people ask me why I no longer use an iPhone. I’ll share with them this blog post because it’s a lofty question that deservant of a lofty answer.