The Halo Fell Away

I've been an iOS user for years. The halo of products that kept me locked into the ecosystem has fallen away one by one. The iPad stopped being my computer ages ago, then the Apple Watch got replaced by a Garmin for running. What's left is a phone running an operating system I don't find useful or particularly user-friendly any more.

The design language has become genuinely user-hostile. Everything blurs into everything else, you can't tell what's interactive and what isn't, and the lack of clear boundaries makes the whole interface feel like it's melting. It's not just bad design, it's actively inaccessible. Android phones feel faster and more fluid by comparison. I think that's linked to iOS becoming increasingly weighed down by these visual effects that serve no purpose beyond looking pretty in marketing materials. Animations are smoother on Android, transitions make sense, and the interface actually tells you what you can do with it.

When I pick up an Android phone now, it does what I expect from a modern device without making me work for it. The AI integration actually functions properly, the customisation isn't just cosmetic nonsense, and the whole experience feels like it's designed around getting things done rather than protecting Apple's ecosystem. Android is miles ahead in the ways that matter for something that's with me all day, every day.

Apps make the operating system, and Apple has become increasingly hostile towards developers. The constant rule changes, the arbitrary rejections, the way they squeeze every penny out of people trying to make a living building software for their platform. You can feel it in the apps themselves - developers are tired of fighting Apple, and that shows up in what gets built and what doesn't. There are still some gaps in my workflow on Android, mainly writing apps, but Android is good enough now to make me want to overcome these things rather than stick with iOS out of habit.

The Privacy Exchange

The privacy conversation is where this gets interesting. Do I give up privacy things by using Android? Of course I do. But let's be honest about what's actually happening here. Google already knows everything about me through search, email, and maps - has done for years. Pretending iOS is protecting me from that feels like theatre at this point, a performance we're all supposed to participate in where we pretend Apple's walled garden is keeping us safe from the big bad internet.

The trade-off used to weigh differently for me. Privacy mattered more when it felt like there was actually something concrete to protect, when the principle wasn't just abstract but tied to real things in my life. Now it's just something I'm supposed to care about in exchange for a service that doesn't work properly. You give up some level of privacy and in return you get something genuinely helpful. With Android you get Gemini that's built into everything Google does - it's fast, it's reliable, it actually answers questions instead of punting them to ChatGPT and waiting forever for a response that's probably wrong anyway. Siri is useless by comparison.

Apple keeps talking about on-device intelligence, which sounds fantastic until you realise the result is an assistant that can't actually assist anyone with anything. The privacy is great, I'm sure, but what's the point if the thing doesn't work? I'm not saying privacy doesn't matter, it does, and I'm not comfortable with how much data these companies hoover up. But the balance has shifted for me and the thing I'm supposed to be protecting doesn't feel worth protecting any more when the cost is a phone that barely functions as a modern device should.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have an iPhone, it's my job to use both, but the practical reality is I want a device that does what I need it to do. Right now that's Android, and I've made my peace with that compromise.