And I transitioned to Apple iPhone from Android smartphone

Few years ago, I used to be the anti-fanboy of Apple. I used to hate everything that Apple does and ridicule those who use Apple product, especially the iPhone. Since Apple moved to Intel chips for Macs and since Apple started reducing the ‘Apple Tax’, I started having more interest in following Apple and from being someone who used to hate Apple, I changed into a neutral/unbiased person. I still ridicule few products of Apple and I still hate Apple criticizing other companies/brands/products, even if the company is alive because of these brands, even if the company is copying some ideas/features from other brands. Last weekend, I did what is unthinkable (from my friends and family member’s perspective). I purchased an iPhone. This post is not about why I purchased the iPhone, you can find that reasoning in this page. In this post, I am going to talk about how I made the transition.

D-Day

I never thought that there will be a day in life when I turn into a full fledged Apple user (Apple computer and Apple phone). If time travel was invented, the 2000s me would time travel to this year and choke me to death. The big dilemma was “Should I go and get the phone from Apple Store or should I place an order online flipkart/amazon etc?”. If I purchase online, I will save 4k but they are not authorized resellers and there is a decent chance of getting iPhone without warranty (not that it will be a problem as it will be replaced immediately by the e-tailer). In the end I decided to go with Apple Store as that will give me peace of mind. Before heading to the Apple Store, I went to Sangeetha mobiles and they shocked me. Price of iPhone 6 at Sangeetha is 5k more than the price at Apple Store. No wonder why the Apple section of the store was filled with dust. I also checked the HTC One M9+, Xperia Z3, Samsung Galaxy S6 phones and felt that I made the right decision in picking the iPhone 6.

Having decided on where to buy the phone, I headed to Apple Store in Forum Mall (Bangalore) and tried all color variants of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. iPhone 6 Plus felt big (though my current phone is Mi3). Purchased the iPhone 6 64GB space grey edition and ‘uniq‘ case by ‘bodycon‘. Due to lack of stock of ‘tempered glass protector’, I had to order one on eBay.

Reinforcements

1. Belkin 2-port car charger as my current car charger does not have a detachable cable and has microUSB connector.
2. OnePlus power bank. with 80%+ efficiency, this can power my phone multiple times. I may even go through a work week without connecting phone and power bank to power socket.
3. Nillkin CPE+ tempered glass with anti-bluelight filter (regret big time for buying this as the display looking bluish in direct sunglight. The screen guard works as expected when not in broad daylight)

Amazing Airtel

After purchasing the iPhone, I walked in to Airtel store to get a new Nano SIM card as iPhone cannot take microSIM card.

Stepped in to Airtel outlet, requested for a nano SIM card and in few minutes time, I walked out with a new nano SIM card. Inserted the same into iphone, called my wife waiting at forum using my mi3 and the call dropped. The nano SIM is activated in minutes and my iPhone was ready for use. I was pleasantly surprised. It’s like you recharge your Tata Sky connection and the TV feed comes in in a matter if seconds. Kudos to Airtel for this superfast response.

The best part is that LTE, for which I was waiting for a long time to  use, is enabled. I quickly finished the initial setup and was desperate to reach home to perform the full set up and customization. I have heightened fear of losing my phone and as a result, I am now more aware of those around me and am gripping my phone a bit tight.

After using the phone for more than an hour, I understood one thing. This is how a uniform construction should be. No wonder the world hails Apple  for its crating of iDevices. Like Giri said “many talk about their unibody deign but this one is the best. I cannot feel any edges or roughness anywhere. This is perfect”

<<<finished initial setup, transfer of data, contacts, music, photos etc over the weekend. I had to manually transfer data as the ‘copy my data’ that Apple suggested to use to transfer data from Android to iOS did not work. >>>

Week 1

I configured the finger print reader to detect mine and my wife’s finger prints.  No more shouting out the pattern or the complex passwords that I use to lock the phone. All she has to do is use her fingerprint. I did miss the ‘back’ and ‘menu’ keys and like many who moved from Android to iOS, I tried to hit those bottom corners. Going to settings menu to configure ‘settings’ for each application is bit of a headache but definitely is not something that can create headache. I had this constant fear of losing this phone while on road (phone snatching is a constant headache in my locatlity) and this was the main reason why I purchased the space grey iPhone and a rear cover that completely hides the phone. Due to these, from 3rd person point of view, this phone just looks like another phone. But, I do hold the phone a bit more tight whenever I see someone coming too close to me. This is something that I never had with my other phones (heard about horror stories of those who paid lot of money to buy flagship phones and lost them withing a week or two).

It did take a few days time for me to get used to. The first problem was to get over the lack of keys at the bottom (back and menu buttons).

What did I like?

1. The application quality is definitely better. I thought that Apple fans exaggerated when they talked about better quality apps on iOS. It is, in fact true that the apps on iOS are cleaner, faster and the UI is uniform.
2. After few days, I checked the open tabs in a browser and there were more than three dozen tabs open. Yet, there was absoltely no sign of lag from browser or other applications. The memory management is absolutely top class.
3. Fingerprint unlock.
4. Continuity. I tried to take some phone calls using my Mac Mini running OS X Yosemite and it did work (voice clarity was less as the mic was a bit far from my seating position, which need to be adjusted). I could open somethin on my mac safari and then continue the same on my phone. This is a major time saver
5. For a start, the stock Twitter application is perfect. Wish it was like this on Android
6. Superb audio output (using in-ear headphones).
7. Would you believe that this phone has just ~1800mAh battery? I do get 20-24 hour battery back up and coupled with OnePlus power bank (this one has 80%+ efficiency), I dont have to think of connecting my phone to a wall charger for 4-5 days.
8. Touch screen quality is, as expected, much better than that on my previous phones (like mi3, gs3 etc)
9. Mute button

What I did not like much
1. iTunes application dependency
2. Siri’s accuracy goes down the drain when connected to car’s bluetooth audio
3. On Android, as I type name in ‘dialer app’ as T9 input, the names are llisted. This saves lot of time when compared to iOS’s way of opening dialer, click on ‘contacts’ and do a search.
4. Camera’s low light performance is average.

What I hate
1. Stock keyboard replaces swiftkey as default keyboard every now and then. May have to live with this one.

2. Normal USB cables will not work. If I lose the lightning connector, I have to buy one immediately (so purchased an extra connector)

3. Apple Maps do not have traffic warnings for India and Google Maps is very buggy. Decided to use Waze instead.

4. Back button in apps is on top left corner. this should be moved to bottom bar given the size of the display now. Apple has provided a gesture for this. Do a soft double tap on home button and the display shrinks to the lower half of display.

5. Sharing between applications is primitive. This is one thing that I have to live with.

By the end of the week, I got used to iOS and got to terms with the flaws in the phone and iOS. I had configured the phone to backup photos to iCloud, enabled WI-Fi sync with iTunes in computer, finalized on home screen setup so that the most used apps are placed at the right position. Xiaomi Mi3 is changed into media consumption device for reading magazines (Magzter), news etc. The transition was over. I did miss the freedom of sharing data between apps in Android but hey, when we win something by moving to another smartphone ecosystem, we get to lose something. I do hope that I get to keep the phone for 2-3 years, unlike my past phones which I had to ditch due to lack of updates after a year.

With iOS8.x, Apple had made their smartphone OS worthy of use, worthy for someone who loved Android to shift to iOS. The transition was not as hard as I thought it would be. Main reason for this is that I do not use many widgets and MIUI helped me shift to iOS without much of a headache. In case I need a bit more freedom, I can jailbreak my phone and open the phone to amazing world of Cydia but given how I was using Android for past year, jailbreaking my iPhone is highly unlikely.

To be continued……