iOS to Android/S4 - Am I right to be disappointed?

Morfik

Morfik

Morfik

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30 Dec 2005
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First let me be clear, this isn't a troll post. Yes I've owned plenty of Apple devices previously but have of late become disillusioned with Apple. The iPad 1 was denied iOS6 so I bought an iPad3 only for it to be discontinued after 6 months. I've owned the iPhone 2G, 3G, and 4 but since the 4 there hasn't really been any innovation or improvement so I've looked enviously at the lovely large S3 screens and Android features such as true background apps and widgets.

So last week I got my S4 which I've been using since but I can't help but feel it's half baked, here's my issues:

  • Google Apps for iOS actually feel more polished. Take for example GMail on iOS if you get a long email the app clips it, but provides a "Download Full Message" button to let you view the full thing. In Android you can't actually do this at all, people have complained since 2010 a Google Search reveals but it's never been fixed. Google Maps for iOS has a far better UI etc.
  • The S4 ships with just 9Gb of free space, yet you can no longer move Apps to the SD card so if you download a lot of large apps such as games, you're going to hit that limit no matter how big the SD Card. iOS only used around 4Gb of the advertised storage if I remember right.
  • Lockscreen Widgets / Shortcuts and a Password are two fundamental features of Android. Yet on the S4 you can't have both (yet you can on Stock). If you want any widget at all, you can't have any security enabled. Fair enough iOS doesn't have Widgets at all, but you can't even have a camera shortcut on the S4 with a passcode lock.
  • Chrome for Android is a let down too. The text sizing of forums such as OcUK or even the BBC site is bizarre and looks far worse than Webkit. Some text is randomly twice the size of others for no reason. Also if you browse BBC news Chrome tries to request Flash videos without Flash being officially available, so you can't view stuff in HTML5 like you can in iOS. Chrome iOS may just be a skin for Safari without the better Javascript engine, but it is actually better at rendering pages.
  • Most widgets can't be resized or "shrunk" when you realise that your homescreens become much harder to customise than they should be
  • Android may have pioneered the Notification Centre but iOS actually allows more customisaton of what appears and makes better use of the space available
  • The S4 stutters quite a bit. For a cutting edge quad core phone this is really disappointing. Yes I read you can disable the animations, but why should I have to on the flagship device?

On the plus side, the screen is fantastic, app availability is generally as good in Android as iOS, and the way apps can integrate together properly is better than iOS.

I realise some of these points may seem trivial, but I can't shake the impession that the user experience of iOS just feels so much better...
 
stick a launcher like nova or apex on there, and a custom lockscreen like widgetlocker and you'll find some of your annoyances will go away.

nova/apex allow widget resizing etc, and you can fully customise the desktop. also it runs a bit smoother i find compared to sense on my htc one s.

as for browsers, just use dolphin or something similar, it's great.

also you could use a different email client like k9 or maildroid, both are decent.
 
I tend to feel the same as you regarding most of your points. The general app polish on iOS is quite a lot better which makes the user experience nicer in general. I've seen many people comment that iOS Gmail/Maps is better than the Android version and I'd tend to agree, which is quite hilarious. :p There are also apps that I use that I can't adequately replace on Android, but I can get by without them so it's not a huge issue, but an annoyance all the same.

I'm also not a big widget fan, aside from a few, they're mostly for show rather than being genuinely useful in my experience. In the time it takes an average widget to update I could have just looked manually, or swiped down from the top on iOS where the weather is displayed for example.

The main thing that makes me want an Android phone are the large screens, not really the software itself, and at the moment I can't decide if I want to replace my iPhone 5 with an S4 or HTC One, as for all their good points, there are quite a few bad. :(

Samsung could be to blame for a lot of this though, as the Nexus 4 is generally excellent from a software perspective.
 
You can also root it to move apps to SD. I've got an app on my S3 called GL to SD which moves apps to my SD card. Not sure how optimised it is for the S4 yet, but im sure its only a matter of time.
 
Morfik said:
You can't on the S4, Samsung have disabled it. There's plenty of posts online.



I'll give that a try, not sure why I should have to change launcher for such a basic feature though?
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thats the good part about android.. dont like it? ditch it.. get another launcher, keyboard, lockscreen what ever :)

widgetlocker is quite good! and might just re-enable your passlock..

nova for launcher..

swype for keyboard.. etc etc the possibilities are endless..

check http://mycolorscreen.com/ and you'll see how no android phone looks the same.
 
Sounds to me like you would prefer the htc one for sense V5 instead, far more polished overall especially compared to touchwiz i.e. unified feel throughout, more minimal/less bloated, stock apps work very nicely and the browser is the best for android and doesn't lag at all throughout the software (probably a few micro lags somewhere but from the videos I have seen, certainly not as much as the GS 4)

Plus you get more internal storage.

With sense V5, you can have shortcuts in the dock of your launcher and they appear on the lockscreen and you can use a password etc. but will need to enter it when wanting to use those 4 shortcuts except for the camera app. You can also see live feed i.e. calendar, messages etc. on the lock screen.

Of course as mentioned above, most of your problems can be fixed with 3rd party apps.

sarge78 said:
Isn't the stuttering is down to all the new bloat? (s-health etc)
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Yup plus all the smart stuff running in the background, supposedly turning them off helps.....

EDIT:

probably also down to the software/driver optimisation with the snapdragon chipset as the GS 3 suffered the same problems.
 
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I switched from an iPhone 4 to an S3 last year, and switched back within a month (then subsequently got an iP5) so you're not alone.

I simply don't like the way Android works, and no end of fiddling could get it how I wanted.
 
Robbo said:
Does the S4 actually stutter though, I'd find that to be incredibly annoying and inexcusable! :confused:
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Yup, you can easily see micro stutters throughout the UI in videos on youtube and the majority of reviewers also mention it as well as users on XDA, supposedly turning of all that smart stuff reduces it by quite a bit though.
 
Nexus18 said:
Yup, you can easily see micro stutters throughout the UI in videos on youtube and the majority of reviewers also mention it as well as users on XDA, supposedly turning of all that smart stuff reduces it by quite a bit though.
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Yup there are definitely micro-stutters when I got my S4. I switched off a load of the Samsung transition animations and don't notice any stuttering now. I'd say Samsung haven't optimised Touchwiz for this phone yet.

As someone else that's also moving from iOS to Android for the first time (4 years with iOS!) I'd agree with the difficulty of getting things how I wanted. I spent the weekend and all of Monday evening reading, installing and playing with various launchers, add-ins, themes etc and now have the phone how I imagined it and working how I like.

Took a lot of effort, but I'm glad I did it. I love the flexibility that Android gives but it does come at the price of a certain degree of ease of use.
 
York said:
Yup there are definitely micro-stutters when I got my S4. I switched off a load of the Samsung transition animations and don't notice any stuttering now. I'd say Samsung haven't optimised Touchwiz for this phone yet.

As someone else that's also moving from iOS to Android for the first time (4 years with iOS!) I'd agree with the difficulty of getting things how I wanted. I spent the weekend and all of Monday evening reading, installing and playing with various launchers, add-ins, themes etc and now have the phone how I imagined it and working how I like.

Took a lot of effort, but I'm glad I did it. I love the flexibility that Android gives but it does come at the price of a certain degree of ease of use.
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Yet ? i have a S3 and it still gets redraw issue icons when exiting apps etc, sometime gets very annoying, i have much older phones lower spec never had this redraw issue, you hoping they optimise for s4 ? i wouldnt bet on it
 
Nexus18 said:
Yup, you can easily see micro stutters throughout the UI in videos on youtube and the majority of reviewers also mention it as well as users on XDA, supposedly turning of all that smart stuff reduces it by quite a bit though.
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Well I'm not having that, what a joke. :o
 
If your happy using an operating system which is still primarily the same as its first iteration in 2007 - that's your choice mate. Personally I can't stand the 4 x 4 icon array - reminds me of my kids Leapfrog leap pad lol!

I hate the fact iOS limits applications to whats running in the foreground and 'suspends' the background stuff. It's TOO simple for my liking hence would never have an iphone for personal use after having a 3GS for a grand total of 3 weeks when it came out, and got bored at the lack of customisation options.

Don't get me wrong I have an 4S for work (not out of choice!), and still when using it compared to my S3 think its so dumbed down when it compares to the android operating system. Yes it maybe super smooth slick without a single glitch - but what do you expect from an operating system that's so simple it can't handle more than one thing at a time.....

As for the S4 - i'm sure an updated rom will be heading its way to improve efficiency. It's a bit like the computing game when you get the latest greatest toy - teething issues will get ironed out eventually - price you pay for being an early adopter unfortunately
 
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It can do multiple things at once, it just depends what those things are. I agree that the multitasking methods clearly work in favour of iOS when it comes to smoothness but the HTC One doesn't stutter... (and with the S4's power it's still inexcusable)

It sounds to me like Samsung have loaded it up with rubbish and haven't properly thought it through.
 
I went from Iphone 4S to Samsung GS3 about 5 months ago. I had some doubts for a couple of months but now I'd say I prefer the S3 overall. I'd still consider a future iphone, the 5 just didn't appeal to me (after a 4S) and I don't like the long thin screen.

A few mixed points:

I prefer the notification centrre of Android. I suppose it depends what apps you use but I like how it shows a thumbnail contact picture with some app messages and how you can swipe some away and leave some as a reminder for later.

They IOS keyboard is far better than the Samsung one and still slightly better than swift key

The physical mute switch is missed

I've never really seen the appeal of widgets

My 4S was faster than the S3

Some android apps still look pretty poor

The openness of Andorid is good and I don't even mess with ROMs etc. Just being able to download ringtones and music staright to the phone and being able to send files via Bluetooth again is great. Being able to drag and drop music onto the SD card. It's not so much of an issue now that we all have whatsapp and funny videos are shared via youtube but it's still good to have.

For me, the S3 has its share of little niggles like the odd stutter and the two (so far) web drop-down menus that won't work but that's all they are, niggles.

The iphone (again, for me) has a couple fundamental let downs;

It needs a bigger screen or the option of a bigger model. I've said it before but I still can't see how they think it's worth making two sizes of ipad but only one size of iphone (and I don't really count the 4S and 5 as two sizes). One-handed use is nice and not impossible with the S3 most of the time but the benefits of the bigger screen far outweigh this. I know many iphone fans are against a bigger screen but if they had two sizes like the ipad, everyone is happy I think? It's a bit like buying a TV, you know what size you want before you really start looking. You don't go into the shop wanting a 50" but come out with a 32" because you like the features.

I know it's never going to have an SD slot but they should by now be making a 32 or 64gb model that is comparable in cost to the competition. If I was buying one now, I'd probably end up getting the 16gb, even though I'd want more.
 
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