Why I (angrily) left Android for iOS
Short story: Broken promises and clusterf*** of software update from multiple phones vendors left me no choice but throw in the towel.
Long story:
I am a tech-savvy guy and I used to change platform for multiple times. I truly believe that no one should get locked in only a single platform or ecosystem. And for nearly half-decades (or 500 years in Trump’s era), I am a loyal fan of Android. I do believe in flexibility and how smartphones should work — a handheld computer. Android always gives me this aspect which iOS never will delivers this.
However, I decided yesterday to ditched my BlackBerry Priv for Apple iPhone SE for a reason: I gave up with Android’s software update.
Don’t get me wrong, the whole principle of Android is still attractive to me. The idea of handheld computer with powerful customization is what I agree at the foundation. Android gets this right, I have no doubt.
But it is a software update process that left me no choice: I have to say goodbye to my old green robot.
Previously, software updates were never my concern. I use a phone as it is — expect no updates at all. However, when I was starting to use Android I expected for updates to include more features. At that time, I use Samsung’s Galaxy Mini and the very first Galaxy Tab — no any of then get further beyond Gingerbread.
I was not serious that much at that time. Software updates were just adding features to my phone. A bit of heartbroken but not that fatal.
However, when I started to working with a more serious and sensitive research topics, such as the history of Thai Politics and the genesis of the hybrid Thai state, I am getting more serious about this. I am more demanding that updates, particularly security updates, should delivers on time right before exploits will be in the wild. I have to protect my work as rigorous as possible. I do not want to spend my life in jail, particularly with lese-majeste.
That’s when I decided to change my primary phone from BlackBerry Z10 to Galaxy Note 4. But in the mid-2016, I decided to changed to BlackBerry Priv because of Samsung’s delay responses to “Stagefreight” exploit. That was an awful response from a big company to their top-of-the-line phones.
I changed to the BlackBerry Priv because of their promises on security and updates delivery — which they did quite well. Hardware wise, however, the phone is very hot to use. The BlackBerry-hardened Android also runs with poor performance. There is only a way to improve this: new version of software update, particularly new OS.
Yet, the BlackBerry Priv (and DTEK too) users were left in a frustrating situation: BlackBerry never gives a clear answer when the Nougat will arrive to their phones. I was waiting patiently, just a glimpse of hope. When the KeyOne launched, I have a hope that BlackBerry will release Nougat to the older phones — that never happens.
You probably ask me, what’s the point of getting Nougat or Oreo for the Priv (and DTEK)? In short, it will provides more security, optimization, and new power-saving features which will be useful to everyone. I don’t expect any breakthrough features for my phone. What I expected was improvements. Without fingerprint scanner is fine but without great software optimization is something that I am not comfortable with.
BlackBerry is probably a good software company that delivers a great security updates to your phone. But for the newer version, they are just completely silent to their users.
When I reflected to myself how my experience of using Android phones compared to the iOS for the last 5 years, I found that my very first iPhone, the iPhone 3GS, got an update quite far ahead of its expected lifetime. My second iPhone, iPhone 5s, still got an update to the upcoming latest version of iOS without delay. Meanwhile, my last primary Android phone is still at the Marshmallow when the Oreo launched. This is pretty insane.
At this point, you would probably ask: why don’t you go with the Pixel or Google’s phones? Well, I am living in Thailand and these phones were never make an official arrival here — available only via grey market. Therefore, if there is a problem, I have to deal with importers and send the phone back to the states by myself. I don’t think that it is an ideal condition.
Therefore, I gave up. I fed up. No matter how much I love Android, I cannot deal with the broken system of updates. Therefore, I decided to left for the certainty.
If Android wants to win my heart (and users like me) again, they have to fix the software update issue. Unfortunately, I don’t think they will ever come up with a concrete, realistic solution for thousand years.
It’s too much for me to bear. Goodbye Android.
