The Reason I’m Leaving Apple and iOS

Feb 14, 2013

iPhone 4S vs Nexus 4

It has been 5 years since I got my first smartphone. It was an iPhone 3G and it was a gift. That gift started my iJourney and I switched to iPhone 4S after because transferring my data between devices would be seamless. Today, after 5 years, I am leaving the Apple environment and iOS, because I’m sick of it. Here is why…

Why I am sick of Apple

1. Low feature devices at high margins: Apple always does this. Relying on their marketing machine, they know anybody will buy whatever they produce. I am not one of those people though. When I wanted to buy my first tablet computer, iPad mini just came out, but I chose Google’s Nexus 7 because its specs were much better and the price tag was much more reasonable.

2. Non-competitive Hardware: Related to the point I made above, Apple just keeps up with the market standard, and never focuses on great hardware. The only exception to this is their display technology, but for the rest of the hardware they just focus on profits. Just to give you an example, despite the rumors for the past two iPhone releases, Apple has never put NFC in its devices (it is a technology that allows wireless payments, etc) even though almost all other cheap devices had it. Because they think the market is not ready for it yet and they can save more on manufacturing by saving on that hardware and many others, as if they don’t make enough money with those margins (!).

3. Tons of Cash But The Same Story Over and Over: If Apple’s total market value were ranked among country GDP, it would be the 18th largest in the world (Yahoo Finance). With that amount of cash, considering how the company is performing, it is alright. However, man, I see Google which has half the market cap of Apple and then what they are doing to this world. I say it over and over again: Google is a company more than financial motivations. A lot of things they do serves science and well being of society because the company is founded by scientists. And with the money they make from online advertising, they are investing in science. They are building self-driving cars, taking pictures of every street in the world and making it accessible to everyone, they are improving artificial intelligence and augmented reality. Now, Apple, isn’t it time for you to focus more on research? We are okay if you want to make profit off that too. But please, don’t just sit on that cash.

4. Squeezing Every Cent Out of Customers: Despite all the money Apple makes, they still sell apps like iMovie for $5. After seeing the Movie Studio that came with my Nexus 4, I had a great laugh. Apple, why do you need to squeeze the tiny bit of cash out of me when I already paid the premium to buy your device? Not ethical at all.

Why I am sick of iOS

1. Non-Removable Bloatware: There are shit tons of Apple apps that comes with my device which I cannot remove or hide. I don’t even use them, so why is iOS not letting me remove them?

2. Inflexible Operating System: iOS is a very closed OS unlike Android. I understand that Apple wants to keep it that way because of security measures, but at least I should be able to change my default browser, shouldn’t I? Who uses Safari anyways? I have lots of examples for iOS being inflexible and non-customizable, but if I wanted to list them all here, it would take me weeks to do so.

3. Sync or Die: I hated the the dependence on iTunes and syncing my device with my PC from the beginning. You’ve brought all this iCloud shit, so why can’t I just store apps locally on my device, and keep the important app info on the cloud? Android even lets me download apps to my device using the online play store. Isn’t this why cloud is used for? I know you don’t want to suddenly kill iTunes, one of your cash cows, but why not move the entire thing to the web? Do I really need a software for that? Syncing should be only over the air, really, now’s the time for that. You have to kill all this device sync shit, and move your store to the web enabling browser access.

So what I did?

So, I bought one of those highly reviewed Google Nexus 4 phones which is manufactured by LG. At a price of $359, this device offers 4 times the memory of my iPhone 4S (2 times that of iPhone 5), a quad-core processor (iPhone 4S has dual-core), and even without considering the cores the processor is twice as fast (1.5 GHz vs. 0.8 GHz). And despite of all these advances in hardware, still, it has somewhat better battery life. Also, Nexus 4 has better screen resolution (1280×768 vs 960×640) – even better than iPhone 5.

Leave the hardware beside, Android is light years ahead of iOS. And it is an open software. What could you ask more? Now, you can call me a Google fan boy today, but I am never a fan of any company and never will be. I always favor competition and advance in technology. 5 months ago, I praised Blackberry and how they reward developers and make our life easier. But today, I’m not happy with the device they came up with. So, I’m not buying it. Good luck to them catching up Android standards.

And finally, the cost. The device cost me $359 + tax. So, I almost spent no money in switching my devices, because I sold my iPhone pretty much for the same money I spent.

Do I miss my iPhone? The only experience I’ll probably miss is the audio experience in my iPhone. The sound quality was amazing, and that is all. But I have my iPod still, and that is what I’m going to use when I go to gym anyways. For the rest of the time, Nexus 4’s sound quality is pretty good, so I can’t complain.

Goodbye iShit, until you become an entirely new person. For now, I’m sticking with open culture. Google is the one that has it now, so he’s my nigga (for you Pulp Fiction lovers). This is my way of protesting Apple, and if you have a chance, I suggest you show your anger too. Educate them non-tech people, let them know what is good and what is not. So, we can make this a story where always the good wins in the end.

P.S. Click here if you want see a nice, graphically supported and detailed comparison of my old phone (iPhone 4S) and new phone (Nexus 4).

Edit (October 1, 2013): It has been almost 8 months since I wrote this piece; however I haven’t changed my stance since. During this period, Apple has announced iPhone 5S and 5C which contributes to my point about how they sell “low-feature products at high margins”. iPhone 5C is supposedly their attempt to conquer the low-end smartphone market. With the price tag of $549, it doesn’t take a genius to understand that this is claim is not sincere as Apple doesn’t compromise on their high margins. Meanwhile, Google Play store has lowered the price of Nexus 4 16GB to $249 and 8GB to $199. Keep in mind that Nexus 4 has much superior hardware to that of any Apple device on market today. iOS 7 is a well designed mobile OS, but it just represents the switch to “flat design” in the design world – influenced by Windows 8’s Metro Style UI. You have to give it to them though, one thing Apple never does wrong is design. However, iOS 7 today is still a closed platform which doesn’t allow certain level hardware access for apps and outside developers cannot contribute – iOS lacks a “change agent”. Unless that changes, my stance is not likely to change, no matter what is the next iShit.

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