Apple in Androidland
Nov 1-Nov 10, 2015.
Apple has a much talked about Move to iOS app on GooglePlay (the Android Store) to help you switch easily from and Android to an iPhone. But I couldn’t spot a similar Move to Android app in the Apple’s AppStore.
So when I found myself moving to Android, I decided to make a record of the obstacles I faced and how I got around them. Switchers from iPhone to the Xiaomi Mi may be limited. But the broad issues of moving from an iPhone apply to all Android phones. Especially if you are the finicky type!
Anyway, I am a long time Apple user, with a good chunk of my life linked to the Apple ecosystem. From work files, personal documents, family photos and videos, a vast collection of music, scores of ebooks, to tons of Mac software and iOS apps. It is a safe world, relatively free from the virus and malware that plague the windows system. And convenient too, with all my files seamlessly available across all my devices.
But… money changes everything. My iPhone 5 suffered an untimely seizure and gave up the ghost, or rather its display. Just 2 years old, and not a scratch on it. Replacing it with an iPhone 6S base model would cost around $1000 (Rs 62,000) in India, and is way out of my budget. (Read more about why I switched here).
So I got myself a Xiaomi Mi4i, a $150 (Rs 10,000) Android pitched against the iPhone 6. Naturally, the Mi4i is the closest copy of the iPhone in terms of hardware and UI (user interface software).
Leaving the safety of Apple’s walled gardens was a a bit daunting. But life must go on. I had been using my old iPhone 4 as a temporary phone but it just doesn’t work. My plan is to live in a kind of halfway world, a dual existence with Apple and Android. The Mi4i will initially take over mobile duties, while my iPad will stand in for the other activities of my late, lamented iPhone 5, till I get comfortable with the Android.
So let’s go ahead, one step at a time.
For the record, I will be using my Mac and Mi during the migration process. For the techy geeks, I’m on iMac running OSX 10.11 (El Capitan) and Mi4i on MIUI 7.0.3 (Android 5.0.2/Lollipop) with iPad on iOS 9.1, and Mi Band on I don’t know what.
iMessage
First, I need to deactivate iMessage, the free messaging service between iPhones. If not, I won’t be able to receive messages from other iPhones sent to my phone number. The messages will queue up on the iMessage server waiting for my iPhone to come back online. iMessage is linked to my phone number and is definitely not going to work on the Android Mi.
I start by going to my iPhone’s settings, and turn off iMessage. After the iMessage deactivation is complete, I take out my SIM from the iPhone 4. To complete the iMessage deactivation, I replace the SIM with my spare prepaid SIM. I then turn on the iPhone 4, and get a message that iMessage is now linked to my new number. As iMessage is linked to my emails, I can still access it on my iPad, iMac as well as the iPhone 4. The only difference is iMessage is now linked to a different phone number.
Well, that little bit of continuity is reassuring as I can continue to message my iPhone contacts for free, provided I am near one of my Apple devices. I can get their replies too. But if they try to send a message directly to my phone, it’s going to be an ordinary paid text message.
That was a bit like cutting my umbilical cord to Apple, but it’s also exciting as I’m really curious about the world of Android.
Hardware
Putting the SIM in the Mi is the first step. The SIM card slot looks exactly like an iPhone’s, down to the SIM tool. I put in the card and turn the Mi on. The look and feel of the home page is comfortingly similar to an iPhone. The Mi’s surprisingly high contrast screen is readable even in bright sunlight, and that 441 ppi screen actually looks better than my iPhone. That’s a good start.
Storage
The 16Gb of the Mi4i won’t hold much, and it doesn’t have an SD card slot. But unlike an iPhone, the Mi can use my portable USB. I connect my tiny OTG (on-the-go) adapter and my 16GB flash disk. A few clicks later, my phone storage has gone from 16 to 32 GB, for a total of less than $4 (Rs 210)!
Yes, it’s two more things to carry, but for the price, it’s a no brainer.
A word of caution. Don’t put them in your pocket. They did survive a trip through my washing machine. But I wouldn’t recommend you try it.
Battery
My iPhone 5 had to be charged twice a day, as it would run out of gas by afternoon or early evening. So a power bank was essential if I had to go out during the day. For the same usage, the Mi just about gets me through the whole day. It’s around 10–20% by bedtime when I plug it in for the night. Things change when I start really using the phone. Like when I plugged in the Mi Band, and turned on the bluetooth, and went jogging with GPS tracking on, the battery was at 50% by noon. The Mi4i battery may have twice the capacity of my old iPhone 5 but the Android OS isn’t as efficient.
Mi Band
I ordered the Mi Band for $12 (Rs 799) during the Diwali sale at the online Mi Store. It tracks activities, notifies me about calls, monitors my sleep, and vibrates me awake from bed. Doesn’t do much else but then, the basic Apple watch costs $467 (Rs 30,100) in India. The Mi price makes experimenting with wearables possible. That would not be part of this blog, I guess.
Mi In-Ear earphones
All iPhones come with a headset with mic but Mi doesn’t. I guess it needs to keep down costs to hold its price.
The ‘Mi In-Ear earphones basic’ is usually unavailable in the Mi Store but comes on and off for sale at a price of $5 (Rs 299). I’m tempted. But I already have a couple of spare headsets. The problem is my iPhone headset’s volume control doesn’t work on the Mi.
But there’s a catch with the $5 Mi in-ear earphones basic. It has no volume control. If you want volume control and mic, you need to go for the full version, ‘Mi In-Ear earphones’ which costs $ 15 (Rs 999). That’s still not too bad as it looks good but I don’t know how it sounds.
Mi Cloud
I see what Mi is doing here. They are trying to get me to buy into the whole Mi experience using price as the hook, and it’s definitely working.
The Mi Cloud uses my Mi Account’s 5GB online space to automatically back up my apps, photos, contacts, calendar, call log, notes, browser bookmarks, messages. Mi even has free messaging between Mi phones. And there is a one year warranty on accidental damage if you buy the phone on the Mi site. Sounds familiar?
Accessories
Tempered glass has become standard protection, and I get one as well as an armor case. The armor case is tough and protects well but it adds a good bit of bulk, and the buttons become a bit of a squeeze.
The irony dawns on me. The Mi’s svelte looks were what attracted me to it in the first place. Now I have an ugly, heavy phone. The solution is obvious though a bit hard to swallow. I must compromise on protection.
So I get one of the aluminium bumper cases, and put the armor case in cold storage. Protection is a lot less as the back is exposed and there’s no lip over the screen. But the phone retains its slim profile and doesn’t weigh down my pocket. Some day I will regret not being practical.
Software
I don’t know who is in charge of Mi software design, but whoever it is, definitely knows his onions. Yes, it’s similar to Apple in so many ways that I’m surprised he still has his pants. But I recall an artist saying, if you don’t have a style, then copy a master till you get good at it, and then go on to develop your own. We’ll have to wait and see about that last part.
The Nexus UI is decent but it doesn’t turn me on like iOS does. The MiUI7 has the same effect. The look and feel is incredibly fresh and clean, the menus flow smoothly, the stock icons feel delectable… In fact, I sometimes just turn on the phone to enjoy the simple pleasure of looking and interacting with it. Until now, only iPhones used to make me feel like that.
The Themes app on Mi allows me to customise the whole phone, completely changing the look, including colours, backgrounds, and icons in one go. I try them, and go with a theme with a dark chocolate color background.
While in settings, I spot a neat feature where I can turn on the phone with a double tap on the screen (Settings > Additional Settings > Display). I begin to see why Android fans rave about customability. You can pick and choose the controls you want for apps and hardware, even at the base system level.
Point to note. This can be an issue for the technically challenged.
Apps
Quite a few of my favorite iOS apps seemed to be missing on the Playstore, and not just the ones made by Apple. Like Letterpress, a word game I sometimes play. I also have to re-buy Android versions of apps I own on iOS.
My default mode in apps is ‘free.’ In any case, I don’t intend to spend on apps till I get a feel of the lay of the land. When I do buy an app, it’s usually because it’s essential or there is no alternative or the price is reasonable. And sometimes if I feel the developer could do with some encouragement.
Security
My biggest worry is security. So let’s tackle that. My password app in iOS is 1Password. It’s on the Playstore, and I install it. The app informs me I’m on a trial premium version but I can’t figure out what is free and what is not. Will know when the trial period runs out.
To get my passwords on the Mi, I go back to my iPad, and sync 1Password to Dropbox (instead of the default iCloud on iOS). I then sign into the app on my Mi, sync with Dropbox, and a few minutes later, all my passwords are on my Android. A huge relief, as it’s impossible to keep track of the many passwords and user names of my online existence.
Next is an Antivirus, as I keep hearing about malware on the Android Store. I check online and notice that Amazon’s Android Appstore is giving away some freebies including AVG Antivirus Pro. Have to jump through some hoops to get it. You first need to download the Amazon Underground app. Since the app is from outside the Google’s official Playstore, you need to go to configure your phone to allow it to be installed. So I googled this up, and got some directions.
Surprise! The setting wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Seems the settings are different on my Mi. This is one way Android and iOS are dissimilar. The phone OS itself differs from Android to Android, unlike Apple where it’s more or less consistent across all iOS devices.
But a bit of searching around in my Mi’s Settings and I locate it: Settings > Privacy > and Device admin > Unknown Sources, and then ‘Allow installation of apps from unknown sources.’
But the Amazon app’s dropdown menu still doesn’t show any option for Apps and Games. So I change my country to US (from India). Apps and Games magically appear. I download and instal AVG pro. Again, I can’t really tell how the pro version differs from the base app. I scan my phone, and am happy to see all is well.
There’s one other security related app that I need. A VPN that will allow VOIP calls that are illegal in UAE, a place I visit every now and then. I use Tunnelbear on iOS as it’s remarkably ease to set up and use. GooglePlay has the app, and down it comes.
My phone now has a basic level of protection.
Adblockers
Mobile ads can be a pain. There are the ones that cover the full page, and won’t close even when you click the miniscule x. Even worse, there was an app that once sent a video ad down my 3G connection, eating up 20–30MB of my data.
So I have been dying to try out the recently launched iOS 9 ad blockers. But in typical Apple style, it wouldn’t work on my two year old iPhone 5. You have to have iPhone 6 or newer. Planned obsolescence at work, as usual.
I was thrilled to see the Adblock Plus browser on Google Play. But I recall reading that it can block ads even within apps. I google it, and sure enough, their website offers Adblock for Android. I download it, as well as the Adblock Plus browser from the Google Play.
The Adblock browser. Installing it is easy, and it works on both the phone and wifi networks. I search for a popular news website that’s usually swamped in intrusive ads. The ads are definitely reduced, especially the big ugly ones that cover the full screen. The page also seems to load faster. The browser settings offers an option to allow Acceptable Ads (on by default) to encourage advertisers to behave sensibly. It’s more or less the equivalent of the Safari adblocker in iOS.
Adblock for Android. This is a bit more complex to get working. It instructs me to go to Settings > Wifi > My wifi > Proxy, and then set proxy to manual on port on 2020, and change host to localhost. The other settings are similar to the browser, and then it says Adblock is enabled
Configuring the wifi would imply the full AdBlock version blocks only ads that come over wifi. So it may not work on a phone data network.
I download a news app to test the adblock. A neat and tidy banner that doesn’t flash is the only one that’s visible. The Adblocker seems to be doing its job. I next download Album Art, a music app. It still has banners across the top and bottom. But they go away when I click them. Not sure how effective Adblock for Android is because the block filters would constantly need to be updated to identify ads.
The downside is that on my Mi, the initial connection to a known wi-fi seems to sometimes be an issue. You have to fiddle around with the Adblock app, and the phone wifi setting.
So why do I put up with this headache? Well, my data usage is less than 25% of what it was last month.
We may be onto something big here!
Contacts
My communication apps are my next priority. I need my contacts for that. My iPhone was set to sync with gmail so I connect my Google account, and sync email and contacts.
Ouch! The contacts list come out in a real mess on the Mi contacts app.
Some contacts have duplicated themselves, my groups have disappeared, and there are a whole set of contacts consisting solely of email IDs that I must have once upon a time emailed in Gmail. Duh!
Since Google is the culprit, the best way to sort this out seemed to me to sign in to google contacts on my desktop, merge the duplicates, delete the email only contacts, and recreate my groups. Easier said than done!
Google has two contact systems in its desktop browser version. The new one is the default. While the old system fixes things which the new system is still unable to handle. Between the two systems, I cleaned up the 500+ contacts to a manageable 300, set up favourites by clicking on the star, and finally created my basic groups. A couple of hours later, I was done.
There is some weird logic at work at Google though. I imported a contact but when I check the contact list, it‘s missing! But if I search, I can find it. Found a workaround though. I just starred the contact, and it lost its disappearing superpowers, and decided to stick around in my favourites list.
Surprisingly, Google doesn’t seem to have its own contact app in Googleplay. So I used the Mi app. Again, it’s designed pretty good but contacts are not organised like in my iPhone. You click on contacts app, and find the usual long scrolldown list. To view your favourites, you scroll up to the top. Groups is just above favourites, and can be accessed with another click.
Next, I download and install Viber. A pop-up asks for a long list of permissions, and I casually click okay, the way I do on my iPhone.
Big mistake! All my labour in manually cleaning up the contacts is gone in a flash. The whole list is again a mess.
I put on my Sherlock Holmes hat, and click on one of the newly arrived contacts, using the Mi contact app. I click edit, scroll down to the the bottom of the list, and there it is. Under the heading, ‘Imported from,’ it says Viber.
Seems like I gave Viber permission to modify my contacts, and it gleefully proceeded to wreak havoc.
Rather than figuring out how to clean up the mess, I just uninstall Viber, and the contact list magically cleans itself up. I then reinstall Viber, and this time I go through the permissions list, and deny it permission to ‘Modify Contacts.’ All is well, this time around. I then repeat the process with WhatsApp and Skype, and everything goes smoothly.
I ignore the social apps like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for now as I can do without their constant twitterings.
But I do download Facebook Lite. Will be useful in a data crunch as there are lots of places in India where the network speed drops to 2G. I can’t recall seeing this lite version on iOS.
Come to think of it, the Android developers should look at my experience with contacts. Something like this would make potential switchers to Android think twice. I mean the least they could do is ensure that an app’s default cannot be ‘Allow contacts to be modified.’
Anyway, I’m finally done with contacts. Hoo boy!
Finance
Next on my list are my finance related apps. I go ahead and install my bank apps, followed by expense app Toshl, my ISP’s app, and Convertbee for currency conversions. This last is a simple and neat little app with no frills. Some of these Android apps are up there.
What’s missing? Mint, my favorite iOS finance app is on GooglePlay but says it’s not available in my region (India). Pity, it synced all my bank accounts elegantly, even if it wouldn’t show the Indian currency.
Still, this section went like a breeze.
Productivity
I set up the Mi email app. It’s neat and clean, and worth trying out. But I also install the familiar Gmail app that comes with the OS. I click on Settings > Accounts > All > Google > myemail@gmail.com. Here it shows 16 things my Gmail a/c can sync to. I select what I need.
I have a second Gmail a/c that I use for work. It has contacts of prospects and other work related people. I definitely don’t need these to come into my phone and mess up contacts like Viber did. So when I do connect that account, I will have to make sure it only syncs email and googledocs.
That line of thought leads me install the three google office apps, and download a PDF reader to round off the list.
The phone also came with a WPS office app and a scanner app. I must try them out.
A few news apps like Flipboard, and dictionary.com, round off things.
The down side. I just discovered that I can’t access my documents on Apple’s iCloud via icloud.com. Androids not welcome. The only workaround I can think of is sharing iWork files via gmail, and opening and saving in gmail as a google doc. May work, or may not. Will cross that bridge when I get to it.
Photography
The Mi4i camera has some decent specs but that don’t mean much. It shoots fine when the light is good, doesn’t lag, but it does have some hiccups.
The selfie camera. It has a wide angle to get in more faces, a timer to avoid the camera shake, a few live filters, and even an option to set picture quality from the shoot screen.
The rear camera. The Mi camera app is different from my iPhone app so it will take some time to to figure out how to use it. Its manual mode is quite interesting. I can change lighting, white balance, ISO, and focus on far or near objects. You can set it to guess the age of the shootee but it missed mine by a wide margin. A work-in-progress feature?
The video camera. I recorded a race but the system launcher crashed when I tried to replay the video, and the file vanished. I assume it didn’t save. I make a note to test out the video camera and find option as the next video might be an important one.
Using the camera is easy. You can catch a quick shot in three actions. Just turn on the home screen, swipe to the left to access the camera, and click the onscreen button (or the volume button) to snap the photo. It focuses pretty fast even if light is not too good.
Apps. I take a quick look at the camera apps in GooglePlay, and spot familiar names like VSCO, and many unfamiliar ones. I snap up Snapseed, the Google camera app, Google Photos, and VSCO. I try the Google camera app but am not too happy with its button covering too much of the screen.
Edit functions are limited in the camera app which is also the Mi Gallery app. Like you can increase contrast, but not brightness. I know not why.
Google’s Photos app is a bit smarter. It just connects you to Snapseed, which was one of my favorite edit apps even before Google took over the company.
A bit of learning. On my iPhone 5, the live image is closer in video mode but further away in photo mode. Used to make me curious if it was to do with HD but I never got around to confirming it. On the Mi, I set the both photo and video image quality to HD. After which, the live image remained constant in both photo and video modes. Confirmed.
Overall, I found the Mi camera easy to use though the app has a bit of a learning curve. Not fully there though. Like the video playback crash, the camera hung a couple of times when I tried to see an HDR pix I just shot.
Music
My iTunes song downloads are in AAC format that don’t seem to work by default on the Android. Needs a little fiddling to transfer it from my Mac.
I go to iTunes and open a playlist I wish to transfer. I select all the songs, and drag them into a new folder on my desktop. I then fire up my favorite converter on my Mac, Media Converter, check if it’s set to convert to MP3, and set a default folder for converted songs. I drag in the AAC songs, and the converter does its thing. I repeat till I have around 200 songs including mp3 ones from iTunes.
Second issue. Song names of songs pulled from iTunes now have weird numbers in front. The files will play but it looks sloppy. It must go.
I start my ‘Name Changer’ app, choose the ‘remove characters’ function, drag in the files, and knock off the preceding numbers. Looks so much better.
Next, I plug in my Mi into the Mac. The Android File Transfer app automatically opens, and I drag and drop the songs into the Mi’s music folder. They transfer successfully in a few minutes.
I am done with the Mac.
I go to the Mi and open Google’s music app, Play Music. The songs appear but quite a few of them have lost their album art. Possibly during the conversion. I go to the Album Art app and it fixes this though I have to do some of them manually.
Lyrics? MusicMatch is on the Playstore. I download and set it up.
Finally, I get VLC as it can handle many formats.
My music is good to go, but where’s my running app?
Running
Runtastic Pro has my stats, and I find it going for free at the Amazon Android Appstore Sale. Not sure what the Pro features are, but I’ll take it.
I sign in to Runtastic, and my stats come down. The app’s look is a bit different from my iPhone app with a lock button at the bottom. Took me a few seconds to realize at the end of my run, that I have to tap on the lock button, and then tap the Stop button. But it makes sense. Swipes don’t work as my finger is all sweaty at the end of a run. Wonder if the app comes with a widget like the iPhone version. Let me check it out.
Widgets
Hmm… Widgets on the Mi seem to work differently than on iOS. Apps in iOS have a widget related to their function, embedded in the notification pull down shade. Like Runtastic has a pause/stop button there. The number of widgets you can add is also sort of unlimited as it’s a scroll down page.
On the Mi, you pinch the home screen and a menu pops up at the bottom of the screen. You can move apps, change wallpaper, change effects and there it is, add widgets.
The new widgets seem to go only onto the home screen which has a limit of eight widgets. But the homescreen already has eight widgets. So you have to get rid of one if you want to add a new one. Alternatively, you can add more home pages to display your additional widgets.
I thought those things on the home screen were app icons, but it seems they are widgets. Like you can choose the preset clock widget from a set of five clock widgets. It seems to be using the Android OS widget system.
Overall, I find the iOS widget system to be far more handy which is ironic considering widgets first appeared on Android. But then, the MIUI is designed more like iOS with even the standard Android app drawer missing. Or maybe Mi hasn’t prioritised widgets, and may get around to it in time.
Notifications
As usual, Mi allows you to customise this. I can set sounds, and notification light, and colors for notification lights. If you have two or more messages, pinch them open in the notification shade to check them out without actually going into the app. Can’t reply from the notification shade though.
There’s one bug that really bugged me. I am a member of a few Whatsapp groups but I don’t need to see every single message as and when it arrives. In iOS, I can mute and turn off all notifications from a Whatsapp group. On the Mi, I can mute Groups, but the messages would still show on the lock screen. I finally figured out that I had missed a trick. While muting a group, I get a choice of for how long I want to mute the Group. Lurking quietly at the bottom is a ‘show notifications’ box that is ticked by default. I deselect it, click ok… and I’m finally free from those pesky notifications.
Conclusion
A few issues remain like my notes from my iPhone, access to my iCloud docs, ebooks, and my often used iPhone only apps. However these are still available on my iPad 3. For now, any way as it’s aging too.
Aside from these, the Mi is now fully functional. With most of my basic apps in place, there’s still over 5GB free space left of the original 16GB. That’s good enough to shoot photos or videos and experiment with apps.
So my conclusion is yes, I think the Mi4i can stand in for my iPhone 5.
I do worry about the durability of the Mi. Were corners cut to keep the price down? I’m aware of complaints about servicing, overheating, etc.
One of my friends had his Mi Redmi crash on him, a month after he bought it. He handed it over to the Mi service centre. It took two months before they were able to source the part and fix the phone. He wasn’t too happy with the service either. To Mi’s credit, it was done free of cost.
Despite this, I bought the Mi instead of going with more reputed Android brands. I’m not too sure exactly why. Maybe a mix of reasons. The Apple like approach. The classic clean looks. The price. The Mi ecosystem. My own unhealthy appetite for risk. My liking for the underdog. My curiosity. Or maybe it was just a gut feel backed by the price which meant less risk, which in turn contradicts what I stated above. But life is full of contradictions, no?
As of now, I have no regrets. But time like money, can change everything.
Wait a minute, my Whatsapp just tinged. Well, folks, you can add ‘wife’ to that list of life changing factors: my better half just went to the Apple Store and bought a 6S Plus. Seems the 64GB model costs $300 (Rs 20000) less in UAE. Bit like going up to a fat kid on a salad diet, and sticking a chocolate cake under his nose. Never mind, that’s another blog…
