Thoughts: Owning an iPhone
Yesterday marked a major milestones in the history of my gadgetry-owning life: I got an iPhone! An iPhone 6S and to be more technical, I received it as part of an office-wide upgrade from the Blackberry Classic. Regardless I was super excited prior, during, and even now as I have never used/played with one for extended duration.
After all these (10) years of seeing its many iterations and countless friends fawning over theirs, I can finally join the movement…#iphonelife! My immediate goal is to familiarize myself with iOS and its many intricacies. And then maybe try to program something on the platform.
Having used the iPhone 6S extensively for a day and a myriad of Android devices for 8–9 years (I started with Nokia’s Symbian), I am very impressed by 2 matters on iOS/iPhone:
- Quality of Apps. I’ve read about this on many occasions but until using Trello and Instagram side-by-side, it’s very obvious that the iOS apps are superior to the Android ones. My sampling size is small so far but especially for the former, the difference is significant. The iOS version of Trello is faster, has more features, and overall feels more fluid than the Android counterpart. While on one hand this makes me giddy about moving to iPhone for my personal phone one day, it also seems perplexing for such as wide gap. Particularly when Android dominates the market (80%) compared to iOS (20%).
- Intuitiveness. This is my first ever Apple device and the comment could be iOS-specific but I quickly learned how to navigate around iOS and even some of its more advanced features (e.g. control center, custom notifications). Being an Android user probably helped immensely, though I’m still surprised at how I figured it out without specific training. Sure the home button takes getting used to, along with a lack of a “Back” or “Open Apps” buttons ala Android. The point is I can now understand how iOS devices are popular with kids, elders, or people without prior significant technology exposure.
- Fluidity and Attention to Detail. I’m a fan of Google’s Material UI and the general direction of moving towards a flatter, cleaner-looking user interfaces. But Apple seems to take a step beyond just a functional design and added minute details (e.g. app close transitions) that is, for lack of a better term, eye candy. This not only differenciates iOS but I suspect these are intentional on which Apple spent considerable design and psychological resources. Overall the effect is that iOS feels fluid and consistent…not always the case on Android to my frustration.
Anyhow this turned out to be more on iOS rather than the iPhone 6S hardware. Altogether I’m impressed so far, so just wanted to share some quick observations.
