My journey from Android to iPhone has been interesting so far. I have narrowed down the things that have made me fall in love with the iPhone 13 Pro, yet I have also dug into the things that have frustrated me with Android.
But ever since I moved about five months ago, I’ve been waiting to go back to a flagship Android phone. I write after all this on a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3, I really like Google Pixel 6 Pro, recently took a deep dive into the Oppo Find X5 Pro and now gives the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra a spin. In fact, I had thought that the latter would make me change my SIM card right away as it has a Note-like design which I love.
But that has not happened. And I’ve worked hard to figure out why. Of course, I love the size and feel of the iPhone 13 Pro, but I also own great phones. And its cameras are amazing, but I love the look of Google Pixel 6 Pro’s images.
Then it hit me in one word: consequence.
No matter what I do with the iPhone 13 Pro, it’s the same top-tier experience over and over again.
This is not something I have come across with Android phones; Before you rush into the comments to call me an iSheep or an Apple fanboy, I’ve been using – and still use – a suite of Android phones for years.
The Pixel 6 Pro’s fingerprint scanner is not only slow, but rather inconsistent. The phone can also be picky about holding on to a mobile connection, and there are often software issues.
Tag Pixel 6 Pro. It’s a great device that’s full of cool features, but the experience of using it over the last few months has been pretty skewed. The fingerprint scanner is not only slow but is also quite inconsistent. I’ve found that sticking to a mobile connection can be tricky, and there are often software biases and interruptions. That’s not enough to make me reject Google’s latest flagship. But for comparison, I do not think I have encountered any bugs in iOS where everything is consistently loaded quickly and the 120Hz refresh rate adapts in a way where I do not really notice it.
The same goes for the camera experience with the iPhone 13 Pro. No matter what mode or camera I use, the photo results are consistently amazing. Of course, an image on the Galaxy S22 Ultra can provide a 10-out-of-10 image. But it does not always deliver it, despite the fact that it is without a doubt a candidate for the top spot on our list of best camera phones.
iPhone 13 Pro does not always deliver winning photos, but shot after shot it will consistently serve 9 out of 10 photos. And I would happily swap the occasional excellent image for consistently beautiful images time and time again.
I also found that if you take the time to really frame a picture, the iPhone 13 Pro really works with you, whereas the Android phones I’ve been using lately are not so willing to get that picture. I want.
And when it comes to video, the iPhone 13 Pro is consistently the king of delivering amazing footage no matter the situation.
It will come as no surprise to anyone that Apple’s built-in ocean access to the app and ecosystem also provides a consistent, albeit a limited, experience. Android apps and the Google Play Store have gotten a lot better at this, but Apple still has the benefit.
And it’s far easier to use a basic Apple Watch SE with an iPhone, and it provides a more consistent, portable technical experience compared to my good but boring Fossil Carlyle Gen 5 smartwatch. Pairing AirPods Pro with an iPhone is stupidly simple, and using AirPlay is without a doubt easier than Android equivalents.
Even the things that annoy me about the iPhone 13 Pro and iOS 15, such as Face ID, which refuses to recognize me when I lie on my side in a dark room, are consistent. And that means you can deal with these annoyances in a consistent way. I have a memory move to reject Face ID and tap my lock screen PIN. However, Apple’s insistence on using the Lightning port instead of USB-C is consistently annoying.
This level of consistency makes the iPhone 13 Pro feel like a wonderfully frictionless device to use. Everything I do on the phone is hassle-free, and I rarely feel like iOS is trying to impose itself; I’m still completely uninterested in Siri.
And just as much as I hate using the tired and messy phrase that Apple fans have left behind, the iPhone really seems “just.”
Granted, Samsung is getting better at delivering a smartphone experience and an ecosystem that constantly feels great. But until it equips all the S-Series phones with the same chips, instead of having Snapdragon or Exynos silicon for different regions, I can not see that it offers the same consistent as Apple smartphones.
So it’s because of this consistency that I can see myself sticking to the iPhone 13 Pro until the fall, when we should see something like the Google Pixel 7 and of course the iPhone 14.