Slightly over a year ago, I finally made the leap to Android after having one of the various models of the iPhone starting in 2008.
The years leading up to the switch were filled with frustration and disappointment, as the company I used to love kept making side steps and poor decisions at the consumers’ expenses.
Now that I have been writing this blog and have been preaching the word of Android to my friends and family, I receive the same question over and over again: Why do you hate Apple?
Before I start the story of my fallout with Apple, I want to get one thing out of the way quickly. I do not hate Apple. I am not even mad with them; I am just disappointed; and while I have my gripes about the new Macs which could make an entire blog post alone, my issues mainly come down to the iPhone.
Strap in. This is going to be a long one.
The Fall: A Broken Operating System
During Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in 2013, I watched with anticipation as the rumored overhaul of iOS was finally being revealed. I was expecting a brand new homescreen that finally brought the operating system into modern day, with more understated colors, flat icons and something to do with the pages and pages of apps that I had been building up over the years. What I ended up getting was the same stale homescreen with colors that looked as though a five-year-old changed the palette at the last minute.
I turned to my girlfriend with disbelief and asked if she was seeing the same reveal I was.
Her graphic design nature pointed out the strong points of the new look, but overall we were both left disappointed. Why was Apple changing away from the clean, understated looks from iOS 6 before to an overstated “Look at me!” color palette that is so bright, you have to squint?
I used to be obsessed with anything Apple did, so when they released the betas for the developer program, a membership to which I asked for as a birthday present the year before, I installed the developer builds hoping to find some kind of diamond in the rough. A few weeks passed, and more and more beta software was released; but each time none of the bugs had been fixed from the one before.
Upon the final iOS 7 release, none of the issues before were fixed. Apple released its broken operating system to the world. Apps crashed left and right, my phone would restart randomly for no reason and my phone would constantly die anywhere between 30 to 50 percent battery left. The last issue became my biggest pet peeve of all because the only way to get it back on would be plugging it in and making the battery realize it had juice. Even though the phone would have all of that battery life left, I would be unable to turn it back on. I cannot stress how frustrating it was.
Despite where I stand with Android and Apple now, I still stand by the fact that an iPhone with all of these problems was better than the top of the line Android device at that time. I had used Android phones in the gaps between waiting for a new iPhone to come out and the experience was genuinely terrible.
My workaround to all of the problems was to jailbreak my phone because I had read that there were different apps and tweaks that I could install to fix everything. At that point I had swapped out my phone with Apple because they assumed it was defective.
Three swaps later and I was done trying to fix the problems through Apple. My warranty at that point was already expired so I figured there was nothing to lose. Jailbreaking worked and I fixed all of the problems I had, something a user should never have to resort to. Until 2012, jailbreaking was an illegal act, and the fact that installing formerly illegal software fixed my phone that I bought legally from a reputable company is appalling.
iOS 7 began my falling out with the company that I used to defend every moment I had the chance.
Side rant: It also opened the can of worms that made people with little idea of what Android was say “Ew, now my phone looks like an Android.” No it did not. It never did.
iOS 8 was no better. Before I get into the operating system’s problems I need to talk about how large the install file was. Anyone who wanted to install iOS 8 had to clear over four gigabytes of space on their hard drive. I probably do not have to explain to you why, in an era of 16 gigabyte phone capacity, clearing a quarter of the phone’s storage is a chore. Because of the problem, I still know people to this day who are still on iOS 7.
In the long run, iOS 7 was the better choice. Apps crash a staggering amount on iOS 8 compared to the already broken previous operating system. The OS was so broken, that Apple took the entire year to make sure iOS 9 fixes all of the problems created by iOS 7 and 8.
Give me some RAM already
I cannot blame all of the problems on a broken operating system. Much of the blame is left up to the fact that every iPhone has only one gigabyte of RAM.
An entire bloated operating system and apps had to run on the tiny bit of memory. Even casual puzzle games require a good bit of memory to run off of and single gigabyte does not cut it. The argument can be made that the iPhone still only does one thing at a time, but it does not change the fact that apps have become more and more demanding on phones. Rumor has it that Apple is finally giving the iPhone 6S two gigabytes of RAM which is better, but the Note 5 I have in my pocket has four gigabytes of RAM. Apple has been cutting corners at the expense of consumers.
Sixteen Gigabytes of Storage? Really?
The base model of the iPhone still has 16 gigabytes of storage, running an operating system that started at four gigabytes. Users are only left with 12 gigabytes to install what they actually want installed. Apple gave the excuse that things are moving to the cloud so 16 gigabytes is fine for the basic user. Regardless of how they spin it, 16 GBs is not good by any measure. For a company that touts how good the pictures you take will be on the phone, they barely give you any space to take them.
The main issue with the 16 GBs is the base model works for very few people. Thirty-two GBs is the standard base model on other manufacturers and I personally have a 32GB phone — it works. For people like me, someone (most people) who needs more than 16 gigabytes is required to pay an extra $100 for the 64 gigabyte model. That lines Apple’s pockets even more.
Apple Watch and Its Unnecessary App
When Apple announced the Apple Watch, I was one of the many tuning in to see the future unfold before us with another groundbreaking device.
While I had not owned an iPhone for a few months at that point, I was legitimately excited. Apple was finally going to start innovating again, something that stopped cold turkey after Steve Jobs passed away.
But again, I was disappointed with the reveal.
Perhaps I had my hopes set too high and I wanted a reason to finally own a smartwatch. The Watch I saw looked like an unfinished project that had to be rushed out to keep up with the competition. That feeling still looms in me a year later as the Watch that can cost anywhere from $349 to $17,000 still can hardly function on its own. WatchOS 2 is still in the making and until it is released, the Watch cannot run apps by itself. The Watch is incomplete because it relies on another expensive piece of hardware before it can even do anything at all, include running apps. You can save some music to it for runs, but besides that, you better have your phone near.
In all honesty, the Apple Watch is fine if it’s the only choice you have for a smartwatch.
The issue is that it does not do anything new and is playing catchup to all of the Android Wear watches that came years prior. Apple used to be known as a company that kicked the door in on new ideas and the Watch signifies how dry the well is for original ideas at Apple.
Android Wear devices do the same things the Apple Watch does at a cheaper price, something that should play a factor when Google finally adds iOS support to those devices soon. Will it, though? Probably not. Apple could put any device out and have it sell like hot cakes.
My biggest problem with the Apple Watch has nothing to do with the device at all. Rather it is the choice that Apple made to put a Watch app on every single iPhone user’s home screen.
That decision makes me angrier than anything because they made an executive decision to tell consumers, “Well now you have the app on your phone. Might as well buy the watch.”
Apps such as Newsstand or Passbook are fine because they do not require the consumer to purchase anything to use it. Users can make their own passes to put into the Passbook app and there are free trials for magazines in Newsstand. The Apple Watch app, which is no more than switches if you have the watch (which could have easily put into the settings app), is even worse if you do not because it is a never ending loop of Watch ads. Don’t like the app? Too bad, you can’t delete it. That brings me to my final point.
Walled Garden Not Eden Anymore?
When I bought my first iPhone, one of the most attractive features on the platform was the security of Apple’s walled garden. If you are not familiar with the term, “walled garden” means that Apple has curated a certain group of apps and services that consumers can use while being unable to install apps and services outside of the walled garden. The garden was and still is one of the biggest argument Android fans had against Apple and one of the biggest reasons people used to jailbreak their phones.
The argument against it is, “If I buy something, why wouldn’t I be allowed to use it as I wish?” The argument is fair and I agree to an extent, but installing unapproved things can be bad and wreck your device.
When I was 14 years old in 2008, I could rest easy knowing my iPhone 2G would never get a virus because Apple combed through submitted apps to make sure every app in the App Store would be safe.
More recently, Apple has been using its power to smother the competition to push its own products. The Pebble, arguably the smartwatch that started this entire wearable revolution, recently launched a successor to the watch that was formerly the most successful Kickstarter project of all time.
The Pebble Time smashed its goals quickly as people preordered the smartwatch. The original Pebble had no issues getting to consumers and the app was approved without a hitch, but now that the Apple Watch is around, the Time hit a roadblock along the way.
Nearly a month before the pre-order units shipped out to consumers, Pebble submitted its app to Apple for approval. A month goes by and still the company waited with bated breath as consumers were receiving its Pebble Times without any way of connecting it to their iPhones. The day that the watches started to arrive, Apple approved the app.
The company requested an expedited submission process which Apple rejected. Apple was asserting its dominance by bullying the smaller company, something a company that used to ask people to “think different” and tried to foster creativity would never have done under Steve Jobs.
The iPhone is Not Pretty Anymore
My final issue with the iPhone is that it is not pretty anymore.
Apple was a company that pushed the boundaries for design in the realm of consumer electronics. For the longest time, the iPhone stood as the bar of what a nice phone could look like. Competing manufacturers worked for years to make its devices look good while fostering the functionality that the iPhone could achieve. The iPhone 5 is still one of the nicest looking phones ever made and it shows that it was the final phone Jobs worked on.
In recent interviews, Jonathan Ive has announced that he “is tired” and has taken a more directive stance in design over a hands on position. The days that Jobs and Ive would sit in a room to design individual app icons are over and what we are left with is an unattractive OS and phone.
The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are simply not physically attractive. There are two antenna bands lining the device that stick out like a sore thumb, something Jobs would have never allowed. The 6S and 6S Plus launching next month should have the same design as its predecessors, but I am holding out hope that the iPhone 7 will look nicer. Building a big phone that looks nice is no easy task. I simply wish Apple would have taken more time to design a nicer phone.
It’s Over, I promise.
This was a long answer to a very short question, but it is all inclusive of the various reasons I do not prefer Apple products anymore. I do not hate them, its products simply do not suit me anymore.
If you read this far, thank you for reading. See you next week.