This is a dilemma I’ve had with myself for a few weeks, and for those unfamiliar, it’s a debate I’ve had (and tried) many times. There’s a lot of moving parts here–so I figured I’d throw this together and put everything in one place. Perhaps with the comments, I can make a committment one way or another?

Who knows.

Why I currently daily an Android phone

I’ve been an Android user for a very long time. I’ve had Motorola, Huawei (for a brief time), and Google phones as my primary phone for ages. I really only obtained an iPhone in high school because we had iPads, and I had a Mac at home, so it just made sense for file transfers (AirDrop). Now, I really only regularly use a Mac. My iPad just sits on my nightstand now that I have a Pixel Tablet.

Truth is, my parents are deep in the Google ecosystem, and as you’ll see: a lot of my life revolves around currently or effectively Android-exclusive features like the replacement for SMS and MMS, Rich Communication Services (better known as RCS). I’m not entirely sure if I could easily leave the Google ecosystem. Although… the iOS version of Snapchat would be nice to have again.

The iPhones I have, themselves

Okay, so, I have a couple options that I somehow have to pick one of.

I am currently running the iOS 18 betas on both of the iPhones I have, which are the 11 in Green and 12 in Product Red. I probably need 5G support on my main line to be “prioritized,” as it’s currently through US Mobile’s Warp (Verizon) network. So that’s pushing me towards the 12, which certainly has a prettier screen, but my 11 has so much storage.

That said, I haven’t noticed a difference, and frankly, I’ll be swapping to their Dark Star (AT&T) network when that becomes available anyway. (I’m glad they got this off the ground under a year after I wrote a blog post about it.)

I’m really not sure which device of the two I’d pick to drive daily, if I were to switch back to iPhone. I suppose I could always drive myself and Adam mad and just keep carrying two phones. Just… both of them would be iPhones, and I’m not sure how much sense that’d make!

RCS and International Texting

RCS is a necessity for me. My family and most of my friends have Android phones, and our group chats are all RCS (with the common Discord server exception, of course.) However, it seems like MVNOs don’t have RCS on the betas yet, nor does there appear to be any indication that they’ll support it.

I have an international phone plan, so I’m not too worried about any charges there. And for most international folks, we’re all on WhatsApp or Snapchat now anyway. No matter which way you look at it: this is a non-factor now, which is great!

Apps situation

Because I’ve been with Android for God knows how long now, I’ve amassed a great amount of paid apps and subscriptions which are all tied to my Google Play account. I’m not going to buy or subscribe to those again on the Apple App Store if I already have them on Android.

Similarly, because of my time in high school, I do have some app purchases on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, but not nearly as many as I have on Android. It makes this really hard for me, since I use a lot of them every day, even a decade later.

Apple Music is what I use for music these days, because Spotify sucks. Not worried about that at all. It’s literally everything else.

Google and Apple’s track records

Apple has been known to give the middle finger towards things they don’t like, Google is known for their less than stellar promise-keeping record for keeping services around (RIP Google One VPN), and honestly: I’m losing faith in both companies. This kind of factors into my indecision a fair bit. I guess I don’t know which of the two evils I’m okay with putting my support behind.

Cameras

I take a lot of pictures. Like I’ve mentioned, I’m a very frequent user of Snapchat and it’s my primary way of communicating with friends outside of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Camera quality is important to me, and honestly, no matter which phone I pick (Pixel or iPhone), I’m going to end up with a great camera system.

It boils down to operating system and how the apps I use to take photos interact with said camera system. A point for the iPhone is that apps seem to hook right in the best, whilst even high end Android phones struggle.

Conclusion

So that’s everything. At the end of the day, I’m conflicted. I love Android but I guess I’m also ready for a change, Snapchat on Android (even high-end phones like my Pixel or the Samsung Galaxy S23s) is terrible, and that’s how I communicate with basically everybody I know.

What do you all think? Let me know. I’m having a hard time making a decision…