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Having been on Android for over a decade, I just got my first iPhone! What should I know?
So far I have been having a surprisingly easy time learning iOS. It is incredibly intuitive! Though to be fair, my friend who has always been on iOS said the same thing about Android when she switched.
There are so many things that are basically identical on the two operating systems. But I am sure I am missing out on a lot of things that my iPhone 13 can do that my Samsung A50 could not do.
So far I'm really loving the switch, everything feels smooth. But I am very accepting of any tips and tricks that anyone might have up their sleeves! đ
this is probably true with Android, but you can long-press the spacebar to move the caret from side to side.
Check out Ordinary Puzzles. Its a fun puzzle game that isn't too difficult.
Not OP, but as a recent iOS convert, thank you SO much for this tip! Iâve hated having to fat finger caret positioning within the text itself for a long time now and am thrilled to know that there is a better way.
I shit you not -- this trick went through boomer circles first a while ago and we're all late to learning it. :) We can never tell them.
Confirming that this works on Android 12, at least.
Yeah, this was a key selling point of Swype for Android like eight years ago. Good stuff!
Thanks for the game suggestion -- I've had my iPhone for a long time, but never saw that one. I like puzzles like that which don't require a lot of time investment, but can keep you occupied during those otherwise wasted moments.
its perfect for that. Also get Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection. Both are open source and don't have any sort of cost or upgrades. Get them from the app store, but here are the main pages for them.
Those are great! Not overly flashy, right to the point... I like it!
its hard to find good FOSS games. I'm not all Stallman or anything, but I also don't want a bunch of ads or 'rewards' or whatever -- just give me the puzzle. :)
If you find any others, let me know. I'm always on the hunt for new puzzle games. With Tatham's collection, I mostly play Galaxies, Cube, Guess, Inertia, Net, Pearl, Singles, Untangle, and Flood.
quick edit: for galaxies and some others, go into the custom options to make the board bigger once you get the hang of it. The default settings are a little too easy after a few rounds.
Galaxies is great, that was one of the early ones that I discovered while playing with the collection. I'm working through your favorites list now, Perl is probably my second favorite so far. Untangle and Net are nice, but not quite as stimulating.
I like Net at 14x22 -- which is about as much as my fingers can handle on this phone. Puzzles also has Sudoku, I believe, but I never got into that. I should, though. But I also want to get into Go.
Wow thank you for that spacebar one! I kept selecting all the text and fumbling around
Make sure you go through accessibility settings. Apple's accessibility support is bar none the best in the industry and there are some stuff in there anyone can take advantage of.
I too have recently switched to an iPhone 13 from iPhone SE (1st gen) and the change in screen size was drastic. I had to use the phone with both of my hands, which I disliked quite a bit, but I came across the back tap settings in accessibility. It's pretty customizable but I set it up so that when I double tap on the back of the phone I activate reachability (I'm aware of the default way, it was just wonky for me), and when I triple tap I get the control center. It made it a lot easier for me to use the phone with a single hand.
I use the triple click home (iPhone SE 2020) accessibility shortcut to toggle the reduce white point at night -- even at lowest brightness and dark mode I find my phone to be a bit too bright for my liking, so the reduced white point makes it much better.
Whoa, I didn't know about the white point setting! I must have overlooked. This will help my eyes when I use my phone at night. Thank you for pointing it out.
On the App Store, scroll down to the âApp Privacyâ section for things youâre interested in downloading. It gives a granular breakdown for different categories on what is collected, and youâd be surprised at how many apps take everything including contact info, search history, and location data.
Also, if youâre using Apple Music, you can use alternate frontend apps to browse your library and play music. I use both Albums and Marvis Pro. Albums is good for listening straight through an album (hence the title), and I use Marvis Pro for individual songs, playlists, and library browsing because I like the interface. The secret sauce for me is that even though each app technically plays music through the main Apple Music app, each one holds your âspotâ on what youâre listening to independently. Thus, if Iâm halfway through something on Albums but decide to play a few songs off of a playlist on Marvis Pro, when I return to Albums itâll still be stopped where I left off (and vice versa).
Also, AdGuard is a very good ad-blocker for Safari.
I use Spotify, I'll see if it works with that too! I've come to dislike their app.
And thank you for linking me to an ad-blocker! I was actually worried it wouldn't be possible to block ads on iOS (not sure why I thought so)
FYI those apps will not work with Spotify. They only work with Apple Music. I would highly recommend giving the free trial a go and maybe switch from Spotify to Apple Music.
What bothered me the most early on with iOS was the lack of ability to organise the Home Screen, as well as the poorer (imo) autocorrect.
AirPods are really good, I used those on Android and on iOS theyâre even better.
In terms of accessories I love the iPhone wallet (card holder). Carries up to three standard size cards.
Why not just load those cards into the digital wallet?
Because two of them are my ID (French and Belgian eIDs) which Iâm legally required to carry and the third one is a NFC transport pass which isnât, to my knowledge, loadable onto a digital wallet
Also, at least here in the US, not everywhere accepts Apple Pay (I mean, we're way behind on payment tech so not surprising). I have all my cards in my digital wallet, but I also carry a debit card, a credit card, and my driver's license in my MagSafe wallet.
Not all retailers accept Apple Pay yet
If youâre using a Mac or iPad as well, the shared clipboard is very nice. You can also have a tab open on either device, and then open that link on any other device. In the iPhone you have to use the app switcher for that.
FaceID for passwords and app access works really well. I always fought my fingerprint reader on my last android.
The sleep settings for do not disturb are also great.
The notification granularity is a blessing and a curse, but you can adjust notifications for the lock screen, app icons on the home screen for a given app.
Apple Maps (in the US) is hilariously more useful than Google Maps for navigation. I never thought I'd see the day, but it's like Google wants to lose marketshare here.
There's a lot of power in the automation through Shortcuts. I'm not an expert on them but there are cool examples online.
I never set up my Google wallet, but I did setup my apple wallet and use it for concert tickets and airline travel and it's been flawless.
There are definitely things I miss about the android OS that the iPhone just doesn't have or can't do, but the tradeoffs are more or less even. Good luck!
It's a bit of a tangent, but I honestly do not understand why people lease phones. Since high school I've bought my phones outright (at $50, $150, $300, and most recently $450) and each has lasted for several years, with the exception of the Pixel 3A I yeeted off a balcony by accident a week after the warranty ran out. Along with my Ting service, I end up paying less than $200 per year. What are the benefits? Am I missing out?
This is a great breakdown, thank you! It sounds like the main benefits are that you get AppleCare (which seem to be an upgraded warranty program, like Preferred Care for Pixel devices?) and a new device every year.
I can definitely see how that would make sense, especially with ACP. I still shudder a bit at the idea of paying half a grand every year for a phone, but I'm glad it works for you!
I use Apple Maps for Austin to and from DFW pretty often and it's decent. I generally just use it because I don't like Google, but I think it's generally on par with Google Maps.
Reroutes for traffic are okay, but a little delayed IMO. For example, some times it won't notify me that taking Loop 340 in Waco will be faster than 35, but if I pull up the full-route view in the CarPlay app it'll show it as a faster option. I do get less info about stuff on the road, but I think maybe that's because Google can use Waze's data where people tend to be pretty active about reports compared to Apple Maps, where people presumably aren't.
My favorite thing by far is that Apple Maps will show/tell you, like you said, information about lights, stop signs, etc. which can be really helpful when trying to find where to turn in a place you've never been before.
The siri widget is kind of neat. It uses "mAchIne LeARnINg" to learn what apps you use at what times and shows them. The widget is almost indistinguishable from the normal array of apps on the home screen. Not for everyone, some people prefer muscle memory.
If you tap on the area next to the notch, it'll automatically scroll to the top.
Consider other parts of the ecosystem. Apple Watch is really good.
There's a number of neat features that are in accessibility, which can be useful to everyone. There's a option to be able to tap the back of your phone as a virtual button, for instance.
Swipe from left to right is usually, although not always, a gesture that does what the "back" button on Android does.
I think Live photos is genuinely a really cool feature (it basically records a short video before and after the picture, and when you view the photo it'll show the video. Kinda Harry Potter photo-ish. Really neat for things like, say, a toast). I'd leave it on or turn it on for a bit to give it a shot.
Ha, I love my Siri widget just because it'll tell me to pull up the Maps route to places I've only been to a few times but at roughly the same time and day of the week. For example, I got Cabo Bob's (kind of like an Austin-based Chipotle) for dinner two or three Monday's in a row, and Siri was suggesting it as a location to go to.
iOS has a "magnifier" app that is incredibly useful for spying into hard-to-see spaces. It even has a control for the light so you can see in recessed spaces and filters that help if you're dealing with odd lighting or have issues with color perception.
There's also a measurement app, but YMMV when it comes to accuracy. I think it's supposed to be much better on models with LIDAR (including your 13).
As others have mentioned, integration with other Apple products is unparalleled, and it's particularly great if you have a Mac.
You can disable sending (blue) text messages with your phone number in iMessage and set it to whatever email you want. Even if someone uses your number, you'll always reply with your email if you set it to do that. It's pretty cool if you don't want to share your number with everyone but still may want to text them.
Not a iPhone user but I'm decently familiar with iOS. When I first started learning my way around it, it took me way too long to realize that swiping down on a key will quickly type its secondary character, much like pressing and holding the key on most Android keyboards. Great for quick access to punctuation.
I always thought this was iPad only! i'll be giving it a try on my spare phone now :D
Don't try doing things in non-Apple ways. Use iTunes, subscribe to iCloud, and get a Mac if you don't have one. Surrender yourself completely to the notion that you must adapt to the iPhone and not the opposite. Don't fight, be water.
Or be like me. Use Windows on your computer and Spotify, Google Maps, etc. on your iPhone. No complaints.
There's iTunes for Windows right? I assume it's okay. Problem is trying to bipass Apple completely and doing things the Android way, like, for example, treating internal storage as something you actually own.
There still is iTunes for windows, although it's not well maintained (fun fact - iTunes doesn't exist for macs anymore). It's not really that important anymore because phones are to a much greater extent independent computing devices. Very few people have a reason to actually connect their phone to their computers (other than developers, of course). Music? Streaming. Video? Streaming. Moving photos off? Cloud. Backups? Cloud. Installing apps? App store.
It's more a difference in philosophy in how filesystems are scoped. If you were to run a Linux distro, and exclusively install flatpaks, for instance, you'd have similar restrictions to an iPhone. And while that is a tradeoff, there are benefits - there's a reason why flatpaks are increasingly popular.
Sure. I actually do wish to transfer files over cable quite often, but most people have no such needs.
You don't have to use subscription services for those things, it's just that, iPhone or not, most people do these days. The economics are, in the end, good for people, especially for music - as a pretty basic music listener, as I'd imagine most people are, the access to essentially all music, new and old, is a lot of value, and I definitely do not miss buying CDs, albums on iTunes, or praying for the radio to play songs you like.
But you don't have. Just get something like https://apps.apple.com/us/app/foobar2000/id1072807669 foobar, which can both sync with itunes, or just put your music on a cloud storage service and then import it to foobar. Is that a subscription? Not necessarily, there's more than enough free storaged offered by Google and Microsoft to cover musical needs, although Apple itself is quite stingy. I'm sure there is a way to do it with a cable but I wouldn't know, haven't done that in a long time.
Also, the best way definitely is to just run a Plex server with your media on it. You can download media for offline viewing in the clients.
It doesn't require a subscription â you can buy a lifetime Plex pass outright for ~$90 on sale. Of course, it's a hard bargain when free alternatives exist, but personally I find plex/plexamp great for managing my music library, so personally I think it's worth the cost.
As @stu2b50 said - there's no reason to even have iTunes on my Windows computer. I carry a USB drive on my keychain for every-day-carry portable storage.