The release of the iPhone 6S couldn't have come at a better time. My Oneplus One had been crippled by a variety of hardware issues, including the commonly cited touchscreen grounding issue that essentially bricked the phone in humid environments, as well as problems with WiFi and USB connectivity. The massive 5.5in screen was great to look at but made one-handed use a chore and wasn't comfortable in my pockets.
Before I go into my initial experiences, I wanted to review the primary reasons I made the jump:
Security:
iOS is more secure than Android. While a non-rooted Android phone is mostly safe from malicious applications, Google can't patch discovered vulnerabilities on most Android phones.
The insistence of major manufacturers and carriers on making their on "flavors" of Android also means those manufacturers are the only ones who can patch phones. Why is this a big deal?
Imagine if a new Windows zero-day exploit was discovered but you couldn't download a patch from Microsoft: rather, you have to wait for HP, Dell, or Lenovo to release their own version of the patch. This is the reality for Android users, who remain vulnerable to discovered threats for an unacceptably long time.
For example, Stagefright was discovered in July 2015 and wasn't patched on the Galaxy S4 for Verizon until late August.
iOS, of course, benefits from Apple's total control over the ecosystem which results in much faster vulnerability patching.
The insistence of major manufacturers and carriers on making their on "flavors" of Android also means those manufacturers are the only ones who can patch phones. Why is this a big deal?
Imagine if a new Windows zero-day exploit was discovered but you couldn't download a patch from Microsoft: rather, you have to wait for HP, Dell, or Lenovo to release their own version of the patch. This is the reality for Android users, who remain vulnerable to discovered threats for an unacceptably long time.
For example, Stagefright was discovered in July 2015 and wasn't patched on the Galaxy S4 for Verizon until late August.
iOS, of course, benefits from Apple's total control over the ecosystem which results in much faster vulnerability patching.
Privacy:
Security and privacy are related. To me, security is concerned with compromise of personal information without user consent, while privacy relates to giving away information with a user's consent, usually through 20 page EULAs that no one reads.
Digital privacy often boils down to business models. Apple is in the business of (primarily) selling phones, and they are very good at doing that: estimates of per-unit profit margins on iPhones are around 70%.
Google, on the other hand, is in the business of selling ads: it gives Android away because the OS gives Google better access to and more information about users. Google has a business incentive to collect data on its users because it makes them more valuable to Google's actual customers: advertisers.
While the personal information Google tracks certainly makes the Android experience better in some ways, it also hurts if you're against the notion of a company (and by extension, the government) knowing the most intimate details of your private life.
Apple, for example, uses public key encryption in iMessage, making it impossible for anyone besides the end users to read the contents of messages. One of the main reasons why similar encryption for Gmail isn't enabled is because Google needs to be able to read your emails to give you targeted ads.
Applications:
iOS often gets new applications and updates before Android. This is ironic because Android has a bigger app store and it technically costs less to develop on Android: the SDK is free while Apple's SDK costs 100 dollars and only runs on Macs.
My mobile developer friends, however, say most companies write for iOS first due to ease of development and profits. Since there's only a few models of iPhones out there, iOS developers don't have to worry about supporting dozens of different hardware configurations as Android developers must.
Furthermore, iPhone users are generally more willing to pay for apps while Android users are accustomed to free, ad-supported apps. This also leads to some low quality apps in the Android Market: for example, the flashlight app that needs network and location access to serve me targeted banner ads.
Support:
With an essential tool like a smartphone, fast customer service is essential, and Apple is well-known for speedy customer service. When my started encountering issues on my Oneplus One months ago, I was stuck: to fix it under warranty, I'd have to send it to China and wait at least 3 weeks for them to ship it back.
This was of course a huge problem: I couldn't be without my phone for 2 days, much less a month, and I didn't have a spare. With an iPhone, however, I can expect to walk into an Apple store for a warranty repair or exchange within a few hours. Android manufactures don't have the luxury of 70% unit margins to provide such class-leading service.
As a college student, spending $800 dollars on a phone (or paying even more over 2 years under a contract) was untenable. So when I finally got a full-time job, I preordered the 64GB iPhone 6S and it came on launch day: I hadn't been this excited for a new piece of tech in a long time.
I'll update this blog tomorrow with my initial setup experience.