Almost three years ago, I dropped my Google Pixel 4a from a motorcycle, damaging the display. Google has no official stores or service centers in Nepal and it was virtually impossible to get the replacement parts. I searched for it even in India and had no luck. I knew finding a replacement would take time and it was time for me to find a provisional cheap phone for the time being.

I obviously didn't want to cash out on a temporary phone but I also wanted a phone with a good camera. The best option for me at the time was to get a used older iPhone model. Eventually I bought a used iPhone Xs (64GB) for around NPR 30k (USD $240 at the time) which was surprisingly in really good condition. Sellers are notorious for claiming "not even a single scratch" but this time it was actually true!

After having used both platforms for a considerable amount of time, I think I'm in a good position to offer a fair assessment of them. So here are a few pros and cons from personal experience.

Disclaimer

I'm fully aware that I'm reflecting on my experience with a rather old iPhone, but most of the things on the list below are software related and I'm still on the latest iOS version.

On the flip side, Android users might argue this isn't a fair comparison since I'm comparing a mid-range Android phone with a flagship iPhone. But again the list is mostly software related, and I was using stock Android.

I also don't own a mac to fully benefit from the Apple ecosystem, but it's on it's way...

Pros

  • Software updates. It's 2024 2025 and I'm still receiving major version upgrades albeit this is probably the last one.

  • Hardware

    • Incredibly reliable camera. The camera's video quality is probably one of the major factors that'll keep me from switching back to Android. Pixel's camera was comparable to iPhone's but when it came to video, iPhone ran circles around Android.

    • Speakers

    • 3D touch

    • Premium feel, good display and all of that ...

  • Airdrop. It's so convenient and fast to transfer photos.

  • Swipe down and search.

    This is something that grew on me. I wasn't a fan initially. My frequent apps are on the homepage but for seldom used apps it's so much easier to swipe down and just search for it. I rarely swipe right of the homepage to find an app. I just search for it.

    And this is a pattern in throughout iOS.

  • Link previews on a pop up on browser. This is one my favorites. I like how homogenous the browsing experience is no matter which app you're on. I can just hard press on a link and a tab pops up. So handy!

  • Focus modes. I'm sure Android has something similar by now or maybe it always did. But iOS actually made me want to setup focus modes. I have two Focus modes - work and sleep that activate on a schedule.

  • Do not disturb mode - I can't quite recall exactly what it was on Pixel - but DND didn't really feel like DND because you'd still get notifications (don't quote me on this one)

  • Silent button - A physical button to activate Silent mode. I love this! Although it's easy to forget to switch it off.

  • I like that the files app has native SMB support.

  • Beautiful fonts and coherent UI experience. As a Linux user, a consistent UI is something that really stands out to me because you rarely experience that in the Linux world.

  • Privacy

    • Fine grained permissions for apps. I especially like that you can selectively allow which photos an app can access instead of allowing it your entire gallery or nothing at all. Also, you can select if you want to provide precise or imprecise location permission to apps but I think Android also has this maybe...

    • Sign in with apple allows me to regsiter with a unique pseudonymous email address.

  • FaceTime and iMessage are also pretty cool.

I am aware that apps are generally better built on iOS, but I haven't personally experienced that.

Cons

Based on your usage/experience you might probably not experience some of these.

  • No access to file system. Major major bummer! I couldn't copy over all my mp3s like I could on Android. The hack to overcome this was to use "Documents" app and then transfer those mp3s to it and then use it as the music player 😐. No thanks!

    This isn't a problem for me anymore as I now have a self hosted music server and there are some really good free open source iOS music players that work with it.

  • Custom photos picker.

    I don't use iCloud because all my photos were already in a Google Photos (I've moved to Immich now). iOS doesn't allow using these 3rd party apps to pick files for upload. You need to download it and then select it from the Photos app.

  • Auto rotation.

    This isn't about the screen auto rotation lock - or the Portait orientation lock. I'm especially talking about deciding video rotation when you have auto rotation disabled.

    Android is really smart when it comes to rotating your screen based on your phones rotation. If you rotate your phone to the right, the video is rotated to the right. If you then rotate to the left, a small button pops up that'll change the screen's rotation to the left.

    iOS, on the other hand, is so freaking dumb!! When I'm in my bed watching YouTube and go full screen, it rotates the screen in the wrong direction. Dude my phone is turned towards the right, why the heck is the video rotated towards left? Now I need to flip my phone.

  • Keyboard

    • Worst auto completion by far! Keyboards on android not only have extremely good auto suggestions but can also remember custom words which is really handy when you use english letters for Nepali words.

    • Hard to place a cursor in the middle of a word. You need to slide the cursor.

    • Copy / Paste / Select All are atrocious!

  • Ecosystem

    • Premium ecosystem. Apps that were free on android were behind paywall on App Store. This isn't really on iOS thing but if people are gonna boast about the ecosystem it's fair to mention all aspects of it. Example: I used to heavily use Syncthing to sync files between my computer and phone (like music and ebooks).

      This isn't a problem for me anymore as now I have NAS (network attached storage) that I can connect to from the Files app. And now, I also don't mind paying for apps.

    • As a self hoster I use a lot of open source applications. And I've noticed that usually these softwares do not have an ios app but they almost always do have an android as they can simply distribute the APK.

    • You also miss out on the hacker culture of Android where you can try out lots of APKs that are not in the PlayStore. Example: Cracked Spotify.

  • Application call logs in the phone call logs.

    Why the heck are my Messenger and Telegram call logs mixed in with my phone's call history? I honestly don't get this. Hate it when I need to call someone and I tap the call history and Telegram pops up!

  • Background activites

    iOS has a really strict and biased policy against 3rd party apps when it comes to background activity. On android, Google Photos or Immich can sync your gallery in background but iOS doesn't allow that. You have to keep your apps open to upload your photos.

    On the same note, the native Mail is so slow to sync emails.

  • Can't force quit apps. Oh this makes me furious!

    Hate it when I open Files app and then it resumes from the last directory I visited (even after restarts). What makes me really mad is when the last location I opened was a remote file server and if it can't connect to the remote server it just freezes. And yup I can't force quit it. Restarting the phone doesn't help either.

  • Setting default apps for URLs.

    I used to use a 3rd party app (Apollo) for reddit and clicking a reddit link would not open in that app. It always opens up in browser. Ugh! On Android you can configure this.

  • Can't decline calls sometimes - there's just no decline button - WTF! I'm sure there's a setting somewhere to enable this but the fact that I need to configure this in the first place is kinda wild!

  • Nit picks

    • Notifications. I remember hating this a lot when I first started using iOS but honestly it's fine now.

    • Battery. I know I can't really complain about the battery after using a used 5 year old model but still the battery really really sucks.

    • I can't edit a number from my call history before I call it. Android has a pretty handy "Edit and call" feature.

    • All the settings are in the settings app! Need to configure camera? Go to settings -> apps -> Camera.

    • Alarm. On Android when you setup an alarm it tells you exactly when it's gonna go off. i.e. if you set an alarm for 6am tomorrow at 10pm today, a small popup notifies you that the alarm's gonna go off in 8 hours. It's a small touch but really helpful to be extra sure that you setup the alarm at the correct time.

    • The weather app has a nice UI but the location search is really poor. Four out of five locations I search for - I can't find them.

Removed recent improvements

Some of the cons that I've decided to remove from the list because they have been fixed in newer iOS / iPhone upates.

  • Doesn't suggest contact as I type the number. Really ? I need to type in the entire 10 digits before you show me if it's in my contact? This comes handy when you get an sms for a missed call and it just shows the number.

  • Thunderbolt port. Type-C all the way!

  • FaceID as a rider. Face id works on masks and helmets on newer iPhones.

I'm not going to mention Siri in here because I don't really use it and I also didn't really use Google Assistant.