iPhone
I was seduced by the Dark Side: I got an iPhone XS Max for Christmas.
Mind, it was as much a financial decision as anything else. My wife needed a new phone; like most women, I think she runs it over with her car every few weeks and drop kicks it into a toilet from time to time for good measure. After three years, it looked like it'd survived (barely) a fucking war zone. So she picked out the new iPhone she desired and bade me select what I wanted as a Christmas present. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that Verizon doesn't offer cross-brand discounts for multiple device purchases. That meant I'd have been paying $1,200 straight up for a Galaxy Note 9, whereas we could get a $750 discount if I got an iPhone. So I opted for the 256GB Max.
I must say I'm impressed. Everything is just more streamlined and easier than it is on Android. The advantage of the "walled garden" is obvious in hindsight: the wild-and-free development offered by the open source OS on Android leads to explosive growth, but the apps are often buggy and poorly optimized. For example, Android Auto (an official Google app, no less) was a pain in the ass to get synced with my car, and they released two builds in the last few months that actually increased the number of bugs. It was sluggish, slow to start up, and generally felt unfinished. It worked, but it worked at the 80% threshold, not as a fully functional and polished tool.
By comparison, CarPlay is a breeze. For starters, it's not an app, it's built into iOS 12 -- as it should be, but the open source nature of Android prevents that. Setting it up was a matter of plugging the phone into the USB slot in the console, whereupon Carplay popped up and cheerily announced that it was working. Well, that was easy. Everything is crisp in appearance, well-designed, response is instantaneous, and I don't have to wait 60 seconds after I plug in the phone for it to figure out what the fuck it's supposed to be doing like I did with Android Auto.
While I won't be buying a Mac anytime soon, (I love my PC gaming and that means Windows on a powerhouse custom-built box; emulators are a march too far for me), I will confess the modern iPhone is an impressive piece of hardware. Now that Google Maps (the gold standard for navigation) and the Google Swype keyboard are available on iOS, there's no real reason for me to stay in Droid Land. If Android is ever to win me back, they're going to have to get their shit together. As their very existence depends upon open source, however, I don't see that happening any time soon.
Mind, it was as much a financial decision as anything else. My wife needed a new phone; like most women, I think she runs it over with her car every few weeks and drop kicks it into a toilet from time to time for good measure. After three years, it looked like it'd survived (barely) a fucking war zone. So she picked out the new iPhone she desired and bade me select what I wanted as a Christmas present. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that Verizon doesn't offer cross-brand discounts for multiple device purchases. That meant I'd have been paying $1,200 straight up for a Galaxy Note 9, whereas we could get a $750 discount if I got an iPhone. So I opted for the 256GB Max.
I must say I'm impressed. Everything is just more streamlined and easier than it is on Android. The advantage of the "walled garden" is obvious in hindsight: the wild-and-free development offered by the open source OS on Android leads to explosive growth, but the apps are often buggy and poorly optimized. For example, Android Auto (an official Google app, no less) was a pain in the ass to get synced with my car, and they released two builds in the last few months that actually increased the number of bugs. It was sluggish, slow to start up, and generally felt unfinished. It worked, but it worked at the 80% threshold, not as a fully functional and polished tool.
By comparison, CarPlay is a breeze. For starters, it's not an app, it's built into iOS 12 -- as it should be, but the open source nature of Android prevents that. Setting it up was a matter of plugging the phone into the USB slot in the console, whereupon Carplay popped up and cheerily announced that it was working. Well, that was easy. Everything is crisp in appearance, well-designed, response is instantaneous, and I don't have to wait 60 seconds after I plug in the phone for it to figure out what the fuck it's supposed to be doing like I did with Android Auto.
While I won't be buying a Mac anytime soon, (I love my PC gaming and that means Windows on a powerhouse custom-built box; emulators are a march too far for me), I will confess the modern iPhone is an impressive piece of hardware. Now that Google Maps (the gold standard for navigation) and the Google Swype keyboard are available on iOS, there's no real reason for me to stay in Droid Land. If Android is ever to win me back, they're going to have to get their shit together. As their very existence depends upon open source, however, I don't see that happening any time soon.
posted by Jar(egg)head at 15:14
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