I am currently an IOS user, however, as the title suggests, I wish to switch to android. This is because I would prefer to use free software and not be locked into the apple ecosystem. That being said I am already locked into apple and would like to know how anyone else here has managed the switch.
I for one know I will face problems regarding group chats with friends and family on IOS, I will lose out on iCloud+ features, I will have to buy a replacement for my HomePod, I will need to replace apple home, etc.
How did anyone else here who has made such a switch replace or solve these issues?
Apple’s Messages app is a total dumpster fire. Literally every other chat platform out there has figured it out. Snapchat, Telegram, FB Messenger, WhatsApp, Line, etc., all work just fine across platforms. Only Apple wants it to suck for their users whenever a non-Apple device enters the conversation. I can’t understand why people willingly subject themselves to that misery and still somehow feel smug about their iOS echo chamber. Pathetic.
What are the chances that the decision to make it suck was deliberate? This is apple we’re talking about here, after all.
Probably because most people have iOS devices, atleast in the US. In my group of friends and acquaintances of say 30-40 people I am the only one with an Android phone.
I also work in IT services for small businesses (setting up email, etc.) and rarely come across Android phones. iPhones are everywhere.
So if everyone has iOS in the group chat it’s not really an issue.
Android market share is around ~45%. https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/north-america
Globally, Android is ~70%. https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide
There are regional bubbles for each of course.
pretty sure Snapchat is still not very cross platform, can’t use it on pc
Who is bringing a PC into a discussion about mobile cross platform apps? Many apps have the option, but I don’t think anyone primarily thinks of anything but being able to work across iOS and Android.
Plus it seems once it works outside of Apple’s fortress, it can find a way to work on a non mobile device. It’s kind of in the DNA.
It does matter. Take iMessage. It’s cross platform enough for most people. You can text an Android-using friend and they can text you back. There are annoying limitations, but if you use a Mac, having the same messages available on your computer while you’re sitting at your desk at work is a feature that you may use, and if so, that feature is probably more important to you than whether you can directly share a video clip at full quality versus having to share a link or whatever.
iMessage is the biggest hurdle. I recommend that you ask your friends and family to switch to another messaging app to talk to you to avoid the green bubble frustration. (begrudgingly recommend Signal, though Sup. by the guy who made PixelFed looks interesting and can help grow the Fediverse)
It’s not going to be easy though.
IPhone users have a good reason to not like green bubbles in their group chats, because then their group chat loses functionalities like emojis and the ability to send large images. Or so I’ve heard.
Apple is obviously unwilling to solve that because the lock-in benefits them.
That’s not all, as I currently use an iPhone I can tell you firsthand those are the least of your issues. When in a group chat with android users IOS users can’t add or remove people to or from the chat, iOS users don’t get any of the apple specific features like unsending, thread reply’s, reactions, even embedding things like links doesn’t work. The adding/removing people is the biggest issue however.
I have no experience with this myself, but I heard somewhere that apples protocol for handling messages do not conform to standards and deliberately mishandles media in messages, making images etc lower resolution. I might be wrong though.
Sorta. It’s not that they don’t conform to standards.
It’s that they don’t adopt new standards.
The newest iPhone still handles SMS and MMS the same way the iPhone 3G did back in 2008.
It’s like if Ford refused to add CD players to their cars and insisted you use their proprietary “Ford Media Disk”
And if you don’t like that, fine! It still has a tape player!
iMessage is absolutely an issue, and I don’t think I will overcome it if I make the switch because of how integral it is to my family. I’ve heard of software I can run on a Mac that forwards to my phone. I have an old Mac so does such software still exist and work?
I did this years ago and getting sms disentangled from imessage was a fucking nightmare. I don’t even remember how I finally managed it. Idk if it’s gotten any better, but don’t be surprised if there’s a headache. Good luck!
I’ve had this issue in the past. I had to spend hours on the phone with apple support to get them to manually remove my number from the iMessage database of known numbers. Then you also have to wait for that to sync back to everyone’s devices who has you as a contact. It was awful and still didn’t fix it 100%
If you want to switch specifically for free software, make sure that the phone you’re buying is bootloader-unlockable. The Pixel phones (not from a carrier, but unlocked) are good options.
If not, you will simply be locked into Google’s ecosystem (along with whatever OEM, such as Samsung’s), which isn’t much better than Apple’s.
As for ROMs, I’d recommend either GrapheneOS or DivestOS. Both are free of all Google services by default, and are as FOSS as Android allows for in the modern age.
To deregister iMessage, visit this site: https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/
In the future, I’d look into Linux phones, but as of right now, they are not usable for daily driving IMO. You can also test Linux mobile on most modern Android phones using Halium with a distro like Droidian.
Also check out privacyguides.org for alternatives to proprietary apps/services.
This is indeed my main reason for a switch, so thanks for the recommendations! I really want to try a Linux phone when it’s ready with either phosh or gnome shell mobile (I love libadwaita), but it’s just not there yet for me.
I would definitely recommend trying Droidian (Mobian for Halium) and UBPorts (although UBPorts is less traditional Linux, as it uses Snaps and has an immutable filesystem by default).
Manjaro is also available, but I don’t recommend Manjaro in general due to untimely security updates.
You can use Waydroid as an Android compatibility layer.
Well, first I would like to adress the elephant in the room. Samsung/Google Pixel is not in it’s entirety Android. There are lots of other brands out there, each and every one of them offers different things to different people who ask for different features.
About what you’re asking for, can’t actually help with group chats (the US has a culturally attachment to iMessage, which is locked down to iOS), but for iCloud well, you can have your stuff in google drive, or on a offline drive (most of modern android have otg capabilities), or even selfhosted if that’s your kind of thing.
Seriously, give it a try and see for yourself how mature now is the OS and ofc see if you’re staying ;)
The cultural attachment you speak of is what concerns me the most. I as a person am lucky enough to have a strong enough presence that I could get away with going against the flow, but it would significantly hurt my ability to socially network.
On the note of iCloud, I’m considering buying a Mac mini and putting asahi on it (not because apple because it’s got that sweet M2) and running a nextcloud server.
I’m quite excited to give it a go, might even try some things like lineageOS or /e/os out!
