I had a Samsung Galaxy S-III (Android) for about 3 years. I really had no reason to change, other than it getting a little out of date. I had never owned an I-anything. When something is that popular, I tend to adopt an admittedly irrational posture against it. Still, curiosity eventually won over. I got a big bonus, and so I said what the hell, I'll try the iPhone.
First I went to the AT&T store, as they are my Wireless Carrier. I was told that they no longer offer discounts on cell phones. So I went to the Apple store in the Domain, here in Austin. (By the way, the Domain is fantastic, I'll post about it in another thread.) The store was only moderately crowded. The sales guy was in his early 20s and he was a like-able guy. He showed me all the options, and I decided to go for broke. I got the iPhone 6s, the bigger one, with 128G of memory. Part of me still can't believe I paid in excess of $1,000 for a cell phone, but the rest of me tells that part to shut the fuck up.
During the conversion process, there is some wait time as files are transferred, etc. During this time, I chatted with the sales guy. He told me some kind of weird things about the store and Apple in general. Things like how all the tables and chairs in the store were made from wood from a forest that Apple owns. The front of the store is pure glass, and he told me that Apple had this glass specially made. I slowly began to realize that iPhone was designed not just to be a technical leader, but to also be a cultural status symbol. While I found that concept a little disturbing, it didn't stop me from buying the phone.
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There are differences, but one must bear in mind that I'm comparing an older Android to a brand new iPhone. One thing I liked better about the Android is that on the virtual keyboard, there is a period (.) key with the alpha letters, so that you don't have to switch to the numerical keyboard when texting, emailing, etc.
The iPhone has Siri, a virtual female entity who can answer simple questions that relieve me of the need to go searching myself. The drawback is that if you ask something a little more fluid or complicated, she'll come back with a list of web sites and say, "Here is what I found." You'll want to take advantage of them quickly because they'll disappear after about 7 seconds.
The music I listen to over the iPhone with the Apple "earbuds" sounds way better than my Android ever did. The bass comes through much better, and you can crank it up louder. I dig the bigger screen. Plus, I like that the iPhone's security is so good, even the top government hackers can't break into it.
My biggest criticism of the iPhone is this. With my Android, I could pull up a file manager or even better, connect it to a computer and see all the files and folders. It becomes like a thumb drive. It's easy to transfer whatever music, ringtones, or videos you want. Not so with with the iPhone. It comes with no file manager, and if you want to transfer music, video, or ringtones, you have to load iTunes on your computer and it will "sync" with the iPhone. Now I get that this is part of the security of the iPhone, but I find it disturbingly reminiscent of the AOL philosophy of "Oh, don't worry about all the technical stuff - we'll dumb it down for you!" Now I've downloaded a file manager called Phone Drive, but it only lets you create new folders, and see them. You still can't see the folders that contain the audio files or ring tones. Amazingly, when I asked veteran iPhone users about it, they just shrugged. It didn't bother them at all.
Still in all, I do like the iPhone. I'm not sorry I bought it. I may ultimately "jail-break" it but that will of course shitcan the security. I might do it anyway.
