[Oanid]

I've been using Android since Google's Nexus One release. Although I enjoy the Android platform, I have huge issues with Google's services strategy and overall consideration for interoperability between their services. There's magic that's missing — magic that exists on Apple's platforms.

Also, the apps that Google does have are pretty terrible. Google Keep is not a strong competitor to Apple's offerings. The UI is terrible, it provides you with a long running list of your notes, labels instead of folders which is a fine option, but I'd rather have both for my workflow. Google Maps is an ad infested mess with more bugs than I can count. I'd be interested in knowing if it's as inconsistent and unreliable on iOS. There are features that straight up just do not work — it's unacceptable.

My biggest annoyance though? Google's love for A/B updates. There have been times where I've had a feature or option exposed to me just to disappear a few months later. I remember reading about new offerings in Google apps that could be accessed by doing x, y, and z. Often times the feature would be unavailable to me because it was "rolling out." I'd spend weeks repeating the steps to see if that new feature was available to me, but nope, it still was not. I eventually lost interest.

I'm not sure what I want to do for my next phone. The benefits of Android outweigh the cons, but on the other hand, maybe it's time for a change to experience what iOS is doing more. If Apple improves how notifications are handled with iOS 16, that might just provide me with the push that I need.

Oh... I also really love Twitter and iOS really seems like the best platform for Twitter. They have Tweetbot which has always been a gold standard, but there's also timeline syncing via iCloud. Mind you to take advantage of that I'd have to get an iPad and a Mac, too. At least the option's there though. Android relied on tweetmarker and when they died it left Android users SOL. Also, the only good third-party Twitter client on Android, Flamingo, is starting to show it's age and is no longer updated.

Ugh. The gaps between Android & Windows are becoming more and more apparent to me. Heck, Windows 11 still doesn't come with a good native calendar app. The default one by Microsoft is not optimized for productivity or even desktop displays. I digress, but still...

Anyways, I'll likely continue living in the Android world as its offerings are more aligned with my views. It's just hard accepting the recent mediocrity as a UX designer.