This year is sizing up to be one of the best years for mobile technology with some huge drops from the top smartphone providers having already took place. With the jaw-dropping Galaxy S10 and other smartphones hitting the market, is it time to switch from iPhone to Android?
In Episode 2 of the State of Tech Podcast I give you my 10 Reasons to Choose Android over iPhone in 2019. Let’s jump into it!
View all State of Tech Podcast Episodes: https://tech.jeradhill.com/podcast/
Listen to the previous episode: https://tech.jeradhill.com/samsung-galaxy-s10-announcement-s01e01/
Product Links:
Samsung Galaxy S10 Phones: https://jer.fyi/galaxys10
Google Pixel 3 XL: https://jer.fyi/pixel3xl
iPhone XS Max: https://jer.fyi/iphonexsmax
Videos:
My Top 2 Smartphones of 2018: Watch on Youtube
Podcast Transcript
Hey, what’s up? It’s Jerad with state of tech. And today we’re going to talk about 10 reasons why you would choose android over an iPhone. Now I’m doing this in both video and podcast form because I wanted to talk to those that are watching on youtube about our new podcast, the state of tech podcast, where we’re talking a little bit more in depth than we do in these videos, of course. And the videos. I always try to be as quick as possible, even though a lot of times my videos end up being a little bit longer than maybe some people would want them to be. But in the podcast we can have more of a conversation. And I liked that ability in podcasts. And it’s been a long time since I’ve had a podcast and haven’t had a podcast for state of tech before. I had a podcast when state of tech was called daily app show. So let’s dive into 10 reasons why you would choose android over iPhone in 2019. Of course this is going to be a real interesting year or device manufacturers, uh, and the different things that we’re going to get. And some of our smartphones, you know, uh, the Samsung Galaxy s 10 line of phones was just announced and though they are really trying to position themselves as a direct competitor with apple, there are a lot of other android phones out there too that are fantastic, that have really neat features, uh, that, that make them unique,
unique. So the first thing is really the device options. The device options are a lot more broad when it comes to android. Then with the iPhone every year, so far the iPhone really just is a new version of a phone. Ah, that’s a little bit of an upgrade from the previous year. There aren’t really too many new features. Uh, apple really hasn’t been pushing the envelope too much lately with their phones. Whereas with android you have a lot of different manufacturers trying to differentiate themselves, trying to make a name for themselves, even with some of them. And so you get a lot of uniqueness, a lot of different features, things that you might not have expected. And that’s what I really like about technology. I love seeing advancements. I love having a new device come out and being wowed by it and thinking to myself like, wow, I really, I really want to try that.
And the iPhone just hasn’t really been that phone for me for a lot of years. And it’s Kinda sad. Apple’s definitely been playing it safe and the woes that they’re having with device sales. I mean, I don’t blame them at all or the market at all for deciding not to be as excited about apple as they were in the past. So with android this year specifically, where you’re going to see a lot of really different things happening, you know, people weren’t super excited about the notch on the phones. You know, Samsung bypass that altogether by not doing a notch last year and doing a laser cutout and being one of the first ones to market, not the first, but one of the first ones to market with a laser cutout for the front facing camera. Um, so it’s going to be really interesting to see what phone manufacturers do this year, but I guarantee you we’re going to see a lot more variation with android than we are with iPhone.
Whether the iPhone decides to go another year with a notch or they do the laser cutouts. I really feel that the iPhone will have laser cut outs for the cameras this year because how could they not when Samsung has already done it and Samsung is already making a better argument to go android then the iPhone is making to stay iPhone this year. So, uh, I’m, I’m excited to see what this year brings the years starting out really strong with the Samsung s10 line of phones. And if you, if you haven’t really checked those out yet, make sure to check out the links in the description below. Of course, those phones are available for preorder right now and we’ll start arriving shortly after on or after March 8th of this year. You had a lot of other manufacturers are going to come out with cool things. We have five g coming, uh, with faster connection here in the u s and probably some other parts of the world as well.
And so we’re going to see that move made on android before we see that on iPhone. So kind of a compelling thing. There is just the device options, uh, the technologies and stuff like that. Lately we see more movement in technology on android than we do on the iPhone. So number two is the unique wearables. There are so many more options when it comes to wearables on Android, then there is on the iPhone and yes, you can make the argument that a lot of those devices are cross platform. You can use them on an iPhone, for example, wear os when Google moved android wear or Wear OS by Google, they’re positioning it so that you can use these devices on an iPhone and you, and you really can, I mean, there’s some, some limits to the functionality. For example, you can’t use a speech to text to respond to text messages when you’re, you’re Wear OS smartwatch is connected to an iPhone.
Um, and of course you’re limited to the apps that are available as native apps on the Wear OS platform as opposed to a any APP that can also be on a, uh, on a smartwatch, see there’s some limitations there when you try to use that device on an iPhone. But nonetheless, uh, that there’s, there’s still so many more options when it comes to the styling. When it comes to individual features, there’s, there’s a wide range of difference. Not to mention the fact that most of them are priced cheaper than what you would get an apple watch for. Um, but when you look at Wear OS by Google on an android phone, you see some really good connectivity there. Of course there’s a lot of apps that are available not only native to the platform, but also that can work with the smartwatches. Um, and, and while you can easily say that there is less features within the smartwatch, then there might be on an, on an apple watch because the APP, the Apple Watch is seen some kind of interesting things over the last couple of years.
Like, uh, improvements to the heart rate monitor, the ECG, stuff like that. These android device manufacturers are starting to look at some of those features, uh, and in the wearable space on android is going to be interesting this year because there’s even more rumors now of Google producing a Pixel Watch. Um, there’s gotta be some movement there. There hasn’t been a lot of movement and maybe the last two years with where o s but what has stuck is that there are unique watches that actually look like watches, um, that kind of blend the, uh, the line between, is that a standard wristwatch or is it a, uh, a smartwatch? And I like that. I like having a device that kind of blends in. That doesn’t mean that you can’t tell is a piece of technology from a distance. Apple has always kind of done that with their devices.
They want their devices to look a certain way so that are unique. And so when somebody sees it from a distance, they know it’s an apple watch or they know it’s an iPhone or they know it’s a Mac book pro or something like that. And while I understand that that’s important, uh, for marketing purposes, there’s the cool factor of like, oh yeah, that’s an apple watch or he has an apple watch or whatever. But when you want something that just kind of, uh, has utility of course because it’s a smartwatch but blends in and actually just looks good with, you know, say what you’re wearing or um, you’re definitely gonna get that with a uh, android wear with a wearable smartwatch because you can get a watch that looks more like a watch. Whereas an Apple Watch, the only thing you’re going to be able to do is spend more money on, on bands for the Apple Watch, apple watch bands and even then on android and I’m showing you a, the tick watch s two right now.
Um, so I’ll make sure to link down in description for those of you listening to the podcast, the show notes, we’ll have a link to this, but a lot of the android smartwatches have standard size watch bands that you can just pop off and replace, which means you’re not going to have to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on an apple smart watch band. Uh, which really is, is just overpriced. There are a lot of watch bands out there. Um, uh, tons of watch bands out there that you can just easily attach to a Wear OS watch, you’ve got watch manufacturers like fossil and diesel and Movado and all of these different watch brands from the cheap to the luxury making smartwatches that have the look and the feel of the, uh, the stand, the style of watch that they’ve produced for years while giving the utility of a smartwatch.
So you definitely don’t get that per say with, with the Apple Watch, I’m, all you’re getting is different finishes and different watch bands for your money. So number three is the headphone Jack is still available on some android phones. Not all of them. I have the pixel three XL right here. It does not have a, uh, uh, a headphone Jack. But Samsung, the s 10 phones here in 2019 still have headphone jacks. There are other phones still coming out with headphone jacks and there is still good reasons to use a headphone Jack. Now, um, I like to use a headphone Jack when I’m using ear buds, like a headphone ear buds. You just really can’t get good earbuds that are Bluetooth. Probably the closest thing are the airpods by apple. But if I really want to rock out and listen to some music loudly, I can’t use them.
I have to use some earbuds that plug in. And then what’s the alternative there? Well, it’s bigger headphones and I have my, my sone noise canceling headphones, which are absolutely amazing and they sound great over Bluetooth, but they’re also much bigger over ear headphones and they have big batteries in them, in big speakers. And so the, the, it’s not as big of an issue there to, uh, to be able to plug in through a headphone Jack. Uh, when you have bigger headphones like that, but for ear buds, it’s just you get better audio quality. If you have a decent pair of headphones that you can plug in through a headphone Jack. If you drive a vehicle like I do, that’s, it’s not an old vehicle, but it doesn’t have Bluetooth audio in it. Uh, the alternative is you either plug into the ox cable Jack with it, like with a cable, um, and you need a Dongle to plug into your phone, but then you can’t charge your phone.
And when I’m in my vehicle, I like to be able to charge my phone. I’m here. Only alternative is to use some sort of a Bluetooth device that you plug in to the Ox Jack of your phone, and then your phone connects to that Bluetooth device. Now that’s what I’m doing in my truck. And while it’s an, it’s a, uh, while it works, it’s not the best experience because when my truck turns off, the Bluetooth device doesn’t turn off. So I have to press a button on the Bluetooth device to deactivate it. Otherwise, if I stay within a small radius of my vehicle and I get a phone call, it tries to connect me to the Bluetooth device in my truck and I can’t hear my phone call until I realize that it’s still connected to the Bluetooth device. So it’s not a perfect experience. It is better than nothing at all.
And I do like being able to use that Bluetooth device in my truck and be able to charge my phone still. But you know, it’s, it’s not a perfect experience plugging in with a headphone Jack. Sometimes it’s just easier. And, uh, for those of you that are wondering about that Bluetooth device that I use, I’ll make sure to link to it in the description below or in the show notes of the podcast. And, um, I also have a video that I put together talking about how I make any headphones wireless and really it’s talking about using this Bluetooth device and I’ll link to those videos below as well, so you can check those out. Um, but sometimes a headphone Jack is still just better to have a, it’s not a deal breaker necessarily. And I do imagine headphone jacks going away eventually, but if it’s important to you in 2019, uh, even for the last couple of years, you’re, you’re going to have to go with an android phone number for the fingerprint scanner.
Uh, I absolutely still love a fingerprint scanner. Face id on an iPhone is okay, but by the time you pull your phone out of your pocket, hold it up in front of your face and wait for it to unlock, you’ve wasted some time. Whereas with an android phone, like for example, the Pixel three here with the fingerprint scanner right on the back, when I’m pulling my phone out of my pocket, resting my finger on that spot, the phone has been unlocked by the time it gets up to my face and it’s ready to be used. That’s just better overall. Uh, I think a better overall experience than face Id. While I think face id is something that people talked about, an apple, you know, got that job accomplished by coming out with something that works pretty good when most of the phone manufacturers that were using some sort of retinal scanner a, it wasn’t a very good experience.
Um, you know, on an android you’re getting a better experience I think with fingerprint scanners as long as they’re placed properly. Now this year with uh, in screen the fingerprint scanners, I think that’s going to be interesting because now you don’t even have to worry too much about where your thumb placement is. Um, as long as your thumb is on the front of your screen, when you pull the phone out of your pocket or when it’s on the way up to your face, your phone’s going to be unlocked by the time that it gets there. And so fingerprint scanners to me still are better than the retinal scanners and the facial recognition scanners. Um, I just like a fingerprint scanner better. And if you are on the same page as me there, then I think that, um, android is the choice for you because you have to buy a pretty old iPhone these days to get a fingerprint scanner.
Um, now number five is Google assistant and Google assistant is amazing. It’s way better to me than Siri. A way, way better than Bixby on the Samsung phone. And so Google assistant has just become a better experience because when you ask Google assistant things or when you’re trying to have a conversation with Google Assistant to get information, it’s a better overall experience then than Siri. When you ask Siri something, you then have to usually ask it again. The conversation flow doesn’t work out too well. And that’s if Siri even figures out what you’re trying to say in the first place, whereas Google assistant is much better at that. And conversational search is a much better experience as well with um, the, the Google assistant than it is with Siri on your phone with Bixby on Samsung phone. But nonetheless, um, on most android phones, of course you can make a Google assistant your default if it isn’t.
And even on the iPhone you can use Google assistant. It just takes a few taps and it isn’t as baked in of an experience on the pixel phones. Um, the last two versions I believe of the Pixel phone, you can just squeeze the phone and then it’s going to activate Google assistant, which I absolutely love. Um, because now I don’t have to use those verbal cues to start, uh, the Google assistant or Siri or any of the others. Of course on a Samsung phone there’s the Bixby button, which is similar to squeezing the phone. You just have to tap the button and it opens up Bixby. But for me, I like being able to just squeeze the phone, have it activate Google assistant. Um, or of course I have a Google assistant devices around my house. Um, and, and those devices, it makes it very easy to start and stop music to ask it questions to set timers and do all those things.
They’re there. I think it kind of Google assistant gets a little more consistent with the other assistants out there when you start looking at the physical devices. But as far as the utility and the functionality of the assistance, you’re getting much better information in a much better experience out of Google Assistant. Then you are the other ones. Whenever I use Siri, it’s always saying, I don’t know how to help you with that or I haven’t figured that out yet or whatever. Whereas Google assistant always has an answer for me, are always has a website to point me to at the very least, which is useful to me. Number six is the APP drawer. Now I absolutely love the APP drawer on android phones. The APP drawer has been around forever. It keeps those apps off of the home screen and I like, you know, you know we, we like to customize our phones, we want to use a background on our phone and with a whole bunch of icons over the top, you can’t even see the background.
So what’s the point in having a background? You might as well just have a solid color. It doesn’t do you any good unless you can actually see the image. And so I absolutely love having the APP drawer because I can keep most of my apps in the APP drawer, uh, and only put the ones on the main screen on the home screen that I need to access, uh, as very often. And sometimes I just have them all cleared off completely and have a completely clear home so I can see the image. So I could change out that image from time to time. Uh, not have as many distractions on the home screen. So when I unlock my phone, I don’t have folders full of apps staring me at the fe in the face with little numbers saying, you need to pay attention to me. I don’t want those distractions.
And so keeping my apps in an APP drawer where I have to just, uh, one quick easy swipe gesture to get to, um, uh, is, is much better, uh, in my opinion than having all of those apps stuck on your home screen. Number seven is better notifications. Now, android has had better notifications because they were the first ones to do the notifications. The iPhone use to have swiped down notifications or notifications that would pop up on the screen. Android has always had better notifications, uh, even when iPhone started adding in notifications, just the process of getting through those notifications, swiping them away, uh, pulling down on one of them are swiping down on one of them to see more information. Um, the customization of those notifications individually, all of that stuff is much better on android than it is on the iPhone. I don’t like the way they look on the iPhone.
I don’t like the way they perform on the iPhone. Um, it’s just not as good of an experience on the iPhone as it is on android. So if you find yourself using notifications, often if you’re on an iPhone and you’re frustrated by notifications because they just don’t work that well and are hard to maneuver and use that, I highly recommend that you try android because android notifications have only gotten better and better with every iteration of the device. And then of course if you use multiple android devices, those notification staying in sync across different devices. I know that kind of works on a ios between the notifications on maybe say your iPhone, your Ipad, your apple watch and whatnot, but it’s not a perfect experience. I’m, I’m constantly having seen the same notifications on my iPad and my iPhone and my apple watch. Whereas you don’t get that problem when you’re on android because they all stay in sync.
And number eight is launchers. Being able to customize your phone is a huge selling point for android on an iPhone. Your phone and it’s experience is going to be very similar to everybody else’s. The only difference is that your icons may be placed in a little bit different order than somebody else’s, but on Android, even if you have the same phone as someone else, you can install a launcher and completely customize that phone and give it a unique experience just uh, to you and, and even hone in that experience and make it useful based on what you find important. There are a lot of different launchers out there. I’m actually going to link to my two favorite ones down in the description and the show notes here so that you can check those out. But if you want to customize with unique widgets that didn’t come native to your phone, uh, with uh, a better organizational structure for your folders or moving, having an, an APP, a grid off in the corner, like so many different things that you can do with a launcher that you can’t do with a native, um, like the native way that a phone is even on android.
And so if you want to give your phone a unique custom look and feel, you can do that with a launcher. If you’re getting a little tired of the way that your phone looks and feels and you want to freshen it up, use a launch or maybe you don’t even need to buy a new phone yet, try a launcher first and give it kind of a, a refreshed experience. Launchers definitely give you the ability to customize and change the functionality of your phone without having to buy a whole new phone, which is kind of what you would end up having to do on an iPhone. Especially if you’re going from an older iPhone and you don’t get those software updates anymore. But the iPhone’s experience has been pretty much the same for a lot of years. And uh, you know, it would take a lot. It would, it would, it would ruffle a lot of feathers for apple to switch that up and to really change the experience of the iPhone because people are so used to the way an iPhone is.
So number nine is expandable storage and USB connectivity. Android phones, you can, a lot of them, you could put a micro SD card in there for a very cheap price and expand the storage. Makes it easy for uh, backing up and copying stuff onto your phone and off of your phone. You just pop out that SD card and put it in your computer. Of course, with USB connectivity working really well, plug a USB cable into your computer and your phone. And you can easily access all of the stuff that’s on the native storage of your phone and the micro SD card of your phone. Um, so the process there is just much better. I do think that native storage, so the storage that’s built into your phone is a little bit better than the micro SD card when you put one in your android phone.
But it’s, the price is just undeniable. When you’re going to spend a couple extra hundred dollars to get more storage on your android phone, you can spend $50 and get 128 gigs of additional storage on your phone, which is just amazing and it makes it easy for getting things on and off of your phone because on the iPhone they are still forcing you to use iTunes to copy stuff directly to your phone. Whereas of course, I guess if you, if you spend a bunch of money and buy an iCloud sus subscription and you have a Mac, you can make it a little bit easier there, but it’s still not the best process. Um, the best process is being able to plug your phone into your computer and, and quickly copies stuff. Uh, because even using things over the air, like using Wifi and stuff like that, it’s a slower process.
Um, and then of course the fastest is just, you know, maybe you want to put 50 or 60 gigs worth of music and movies on your phone, take out that micro SD card, put it in your computer, copy it all over and you’re done in minutes. It’s easy. It’s a simple process and you only get that on android. So number 10 is going to have to do with the Google apps. Uh, not only native apps that come on, a lot of the android phones, but also Google apps that you can install and run on the phone. A lot of them just seem to work better and the experiences overall better, uh, from Google apps like Google drive, Google docs, Google sheets and all of that stuff. Being able to share between different APPS, being able to use that, the share sheet on android that is better than the share sheet on Ios.
Um, so you can, you can move things between different apps. That process is just better on android. Um, the functionality and in some of those apps though is very good on Ios when the APP is available is just a better experience on android for example, when somebody requests a use of a file that’s in your Google drive, it’s just an easier, a little bit faster process on android when you are moving something from one app to another, that sharing process seems to be a little bit better. Um, and I don’t necessarily know why that is. I don’t know if it’s android or if it’s just doing that on Ios is such a pain in the butt that most people don’t. Most developers don’t do it or don’t do it well, but the process on android is just much better of moving between apps. I also think that those default apps like the calendar and some of the default Google apps, even though Samsung typically brings their own calendar app and their own mail app, the, the way that those Google apps work on an android phone is a little bit better.
Uh, kind of having a single sign on, as long as you add your Google account, you’re automatically able to switch between your user accounts and all of those apps. Whereas on Iphone, a lot of times you’re signing into each app individually, sometimes not. But most of the time signing into each Google app individually, which is kind of a pain in the butt. Um, so that kind of stinks. A, if you use Google chrome, the uniformity between sharing your passwords between the different apps, the Google Apps, all will share your passwords. Whereas on Ios, you know, you know, it’s going to share them in with safari and the key chain, but that’s not going to move out to other apps in that process. Kind of breaks down a little bit. Um, it’s getting better, but it’s still not the best. So if you use a lot of Google apps, the experience on androids going to be a lot better.
And then of course, if you jump between apps a lot, I think the experience on Android is a little bit better there. Um, because you can actually store your files on the device and a find-able way as well, uh, which you can’t really do that easily on an iPhone or an iPad. Of course you have your iCloud folders and whatnot, but it’s just not as good. It’s not like a what you would expect on a computer where you have a, a physical folder on the device where those files exist. You can make that happen on android. Uh, for some odd reason, the ios devices just aren’t really allowing for that. So that’s my 10 reasons why you would choose android over an iPhone in 2019. Of course, there are a lot of devices that are going to come out this year. We haven’t seen what apple is going to do yet.
They may have something up their sleeve. I’m not holding my breath anymore, but you just never know. If you’re thinking about going the other direction, of course I want to talk about maybe there’s 10 reasons why you would choose the iPhone over android and 2019. So make sure to be on the lookout for that video and that podcast. Uh, so if you are new to the podcast, make sure to subscribe. If you’re watching this on youtube and you haven’t checked out the podcast longer, conversations like this are I think, much better in podcast form because you can just listen and go about your day. I know I like conversations in
podcast form. I liked my videos to be shorter, so make sure to check out the state of tech podcast. If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel here on youtube if you want updates whenever we put out new videos. A thank you so much for being here today and uh, if you haven’t yet, make sure to go check out the podcast and I hope to see you back here in the next one. Thanks again.
