I’ve been a lifelong Android user. I’ve owned a few Nexus devices, I’ve owned a OnePlus, and recently I’ve been on the Pixel train. I’ve never owned or used an iPhone extensively. Until this past week.
Borrowed iPhone XR and owned iPad Pro 2020.
I’ve been pretty happy with my Surface Pro for a while. After finding out the iPad mini wasn’t really cutting it for me at the time, I bought into the Surface for some travel purposes. It fatefully showed me through a few multi-week trips, and even became my primary computer for my past few moves. For that it did pretty great. That said the 8GB of RAM and 128GB of slow-ish SSD storage made me look at upgrading casually over the past few months. If I can get the majority of my day-to-day done on a low power machine while keeping the desktop off, why not, after all? But the Surface Pro 7 was expensive in the configuration I wanted, so I threw most of my upgrade ideas aside.
Until a few weeks ago when I was able to demo an entry level 7th generation iPad. Loading up Lightroom I fell in love again! The thing absolutely flew through edits. I shared an album of photos of my partner with her, she liked/commented on the ones she wanted to keep, and I edited them on the fly as she did. Never a hitch, never a slowdown. Couple this with a lot of the changes in iOS since version 11 on the Mini and I legitimately could replace my Surface with an iPad.
So I bought a 256GB 11” iPad Pro 2020 model. Free AirPods (Not keeping them, I’m quite fond of my Sony setup), grabbed the pencil, good to go. This FINALLY feels like a tablet that just gets out of the way and lets you do the stuff you need to do. There’s no lag. Scrolling is completely smooth. Multitasking is basic but fluid. The screen is gorgeous. The pencil actually feels like it’s a natural writing experience. No lag waiting for strokes to show up on screen. No trailing. Just feels good. Keyboard and mouse support is awesome! I’m typing this now at the dining room table with my MX Keys attached to it. Lightroom direct import is basically what it was missing! The photo in this post was imported directly into Lightroom with a USB-C SD card reader, edited, and uploaded.
I was convinced enough by iOS 14 to try an iPhone too, so I borrowed an XR. This wouldn’t be my first choice in device, but it was a pretty good option to see what the walled garden had in store. And it really does just work. With iOS 14 changes I’m able to set default mail and browser clients, and use some basic widgets. The past week with the XR makes me realize that I’m a Google user, not an Android user.
I suppose we should have a pros and cons though…
Pros
Tight app ecosystem - The quality of apps on tablets and phones feels higher.
Exceptional battery life - I could never get 2 days out of an Android device. With similar usage, I’m seeing 2 days with the XR pretty easy. The standby is great.
IOS 14 brings app drawer, default client selection, and widget support! Finally.
All of my favorite Google apps are available on iOS, and in some cases seem to run better?
Parity features. Apple Pay works great on the phone. FaceID is as good or better than the Pixel 4.
Great tablet system, and a smart watch that actually looks worthwhile.
CONS
No USB-C on the iPhone, still. C’mon Apple. I’ve been working so hard to go one-cable.
Control of audio settings leaves a bit to be desired, but is workable.
AAC is the highest Bluetooth codec for audio, but not overly noticeable.
I guess my cons list is pretty minimal. I’m excited to see what the next iPhone release looks like. I haven’t had a new phone for myself in about 2 years, and that seems to be my current upgrade cycle. I wouldn’t mind giving it a change. Whether that’s a 12 Mini, or an 11 Pro, time will tell.