And Apple has been increasingly hostile towards anyone who dares use the iPhone like it’s their phone. Not being able to sideload or install whatever app I want, being restricted to Apple Pay, etc. have all done nothing but bother me. The straw that broke this camel’s back? Apple’s changes to the App Store in response to the Digital Markets Act, frankly. Notably, none of the changes apply to the US, where a federal anti-trust suit is ongoing (at least, for now.)

I remembered that the CTO of 37signals David Heinemeier Hansson had Tweeted at some point about a similar thing. So, needing a little bit of a kick in the butt to do something, I wrote an email to David. I detailed the dilemma I was having, along with what I had come up with as potential replacements for the Apple things I rely on, and asked if he had anything to send my way that could be a resource. The guy’s busy as hell–so I did not anticipate a reply. I hit send and decided to take a nap on the couch. Within the hour, I woke up to the Gmail notification sound. He wrote me back.

In short, David strongly encouraged me to follow through on trying something new–in this case, switching away from iOS. He even included a link to a blog post he wrote about it, which I hadn’t seen before. Honestly, it’s really cool that he took the time to write me back at all, and that underscores how much I love email.

So, I’m going to try something new. We are long past the time I should have made this change. But as an experiment: I’m going back to Android for at least the next three months, and I’m replacing the Apple services I use in the meantime. Every so often, we’ll check back in on this experiment and see what I’ve run into. I think it’ll be fun!

Here are my ideas so far, more fleshed out than what I originally sent to David:

• Email/Calendar: I mentioned before that I use iCloud and Gmail (and thus, Google Calendar/Tasks hooked into Apple Calendar). Well, I’ve decided that I’m going to be migrating to HEY. It’s a new take on email–and the last time I actively tried it was 2021/2022. From what I’ve read and seen, there have been a ton of improvements and it seems to work really well on Android.
• Messaging: iMessage will be replaced with RCS, and anyone I know with an iPhone will be encouraged strongly to upgrade to iOS 18 so they’re not only secure with the latest patches, but also have access to this functionality. I don’t really mind iMessage, but I don’t think it’s necessary to my phone’s operation. I’d rather just text you and not think about the protocol anyway–which RCS obviously allows me to do. I’ll also encourage the use of WhatsApp or Signal, with me preferring the latter. Both are more secure than texting and is end-to-end encrypted by default.
• Music: I’ve been using Apple Music for just about a year now in some capacity, but today I ripped out my library and moved it back to Spotify. Spotify’s not perfect, and they really should pay their artists better–but it’s a nicer app on Android than Apple Music is, in my opinion.
• Arcade: I do play a few Arcade games, but I think I can forgo them. Most have alternatives on Google’s Play Pass, which my parents have a yearly subscription to, so I’m just going to play those if I’m feeling a game. With over 700 games in my backlog, having access to the three games on Arcade that I love is not a big deal to me.
• Photos: I store a lot in iCloud Photos, but I can easily migrate into Google Photos. I don’t like that I’d be entrusting my backlog of 15,000 high resolution photos to one big company who could decide tomorrow that the service is no longer worth having, but I haven’t found any decent alternatives yet. Even self-hosted ones.
• Watch: I have had an Apple Watch since 2019… However, I’ve been meaning to (quite literally) deep clean the crap off of it for some time, so I’m going to do that during this break. You have no idea how much builds up on that wearing it every day for five years! Ew.

And that’s what I came up with. Even though I am definitely a little worried about this experiment, I’ve wanted to do it for some time and I’m actually a little excited too. So, let’s wrap this up so I can go port my information over to my Android phone. Wish me luck and stay tuned for more posts on this experiment!

The post Long past time for a change appeared first on Slade Watkins.

After two long years, Apple got the message!

Having spent time with the iOS 18 beta over the summer, I really enjoy my phone now! I love my iPhone 13 Pro Max for a number of reasons. But I’ve also come to realize that RCS may not come to my carrier’s AT&T-based network on iOS until this time next year. This comes down to the way Apple implemented their RCS stuff, really.

At the very least, US Mobile do have RCS working on their Verizon-based network. So we have that. Unfortunately, I am stuck with the AT&T network option due to coverage in our area and the places I travel to with frequency…

Nothing against US Mobile, of course! The ball is squarely in AT&T and Apple’s courts on this one. On AT&T’s part, their generic bundle is terrible and needs to get updated. On Apple’s part, they need to let US Mobile have their own carrier bundle. It’s a whole thing.

I didn’t want to bring it up, but as of me writing this, MMS group messaging is STILL completely busted on Dark Star. I consider this to be a mandatory feature–and since RCS isn’t here to save that, it’s not ideal! I blame AT&T–not US Mobile–for the subpar experience. It’s AT&T’s generic bundle: they need to fix it.

Anyway, silver lining: This is something US Mobile is working on for Dark Star (their AT&T-based network) first before the other two networks, at least. Frankly, I believe them when they say they’re trying to get this out the door soon! But… I’ve always been someone who doesn’t like sticking with something that isn’t going to work for me now, on the promise of something else happening in the future. And I don’t know if I can stick it out. Maybe I’m being cynical, but I don’t trust Apple to let them have a bundle.

Look, I’ve been pulling back from most “normal” social media use. I don’t post on Twitter, or anything really, as much as I used to. These days I prefer making good old fashioned phone calls, sending texts, or using Snapchat to communicate with the friends I have. I won’t get into the details of my own mental health, but I do mention this because it is informing my decision.

Snapchat is… a mess on Android, and it has been for many years now. While it is getting better, the iOS app is more stable and has a far more usable app overall. That’s a win for iOS, and a major concern if I were to decide to swap my eSIM over to my Pixel right now.

So, the wins for iOS mostly stop there. I don’t really care about iMessage anymore–it’s cool, but RCS offers high quality media and that’s all I really cared for. Stickers are a nice bonus, but I don’t consider those important. Apple Pay isn’t something I use, none of my friends use it either. We all use Venmo. So, who cares?

Realistically, nobody actually cares. Use whatever phone you want, when you want to use it…just make sure you or the people you know are on iOS 18 and turn RCS on if they can, PLEASE! Let’s at least fix the group chats and horrid videos… as for me, well, I’ll decide eventually.

Maybe…

The post The Sixth Android vs iOS Dilemma This Year appeared first on Slade Watkins.

Who knows.

Why I currently daily an Android phone

I’ve been an Android user for a very long time. I’ve had Motorola, Huawei (for a brief time), and Google phones as my primary phone for ages. I really only obtained an iPhone in high school because we had iPads, and I had a Mac at home, so it just made sense for file transfers (AirDrop). Now, I really only regularly use a Mac. My iPad just sits on my nightstand now that I have a Pixel Tablet.

Truth is, my parents are deep in the Google ecosystem, and as you’ll see: a lot of my life revolves around currently or effectively Android-exclusive features like the replacement for SMS and MMS, Rich Communication Services (better known as RCS). I’m not entirely sure if I could easily leave the Google ecosystem. Although… the iOS version of Snapchat would be nice to have again.

The iPhones I have, themselves

Okay, so, I have a couple options that I somehow have to pick one of.

I am currently running the iOS 18 betas on both of the iPhones I have, which are the 11 in Green and 12 in Product Red. I probably need 5G support on my main line to be “prioritized,” as it’s currently through US Mobile’s Warp (Verizon) network. So that’s pushing me towards the 12, which certainly has a prettier screen, but my 11 has so much storage.

That said, I haven’t noticed a difference, and frankly, I’ll be swapping to their Dark Star (AT&T) network when that becomes available anyway. (I’m glad they got this off the ground under a year after I wrote a blog post about it.)

I’m really not sure which device of the two I’d pick to drive daily, if I were to switch back to iPhone. I suppose I could always drive myself and Adam mad and just keep carrying two phones. Just… both of them would be iPhones, and I’m not sure how much sense that’d make!

RCS and International Texting

RCS is a necessity for me. My family and most of my friends have Android phones, and our group chats are all RCS (with the common Discord server exception, of course.) However, it seems like MVNOs don’t have RCS on the betas yet, nor does there appear to be any indication that they’ll support it.

I have an international phone plan, so I’m not too worried about any charges there. And for most international folks, we’re all on WhatsApp or Snapchat now anyway. No matter which way you look at it: this is a non-factor now, which is great!

Apps situation

Because I’ve been with Android for God knows how long now, I’ve amassed a great amount of paid apps and subscriptions which are all tied to my Google Play account. I’m not going to buy or subscribe to those again on the Apple App Store if I already have them on Android.

Similarly, because of my time in high school, I do have some app purchases on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, but not nearly as many as I have on Android. It makes this really hard for me, since I use a lot of them every day, even a decade later.

Apple Music is what I use for music these days, because Spotify sucks. Not worried about that at all. It’s literally everything else.

Google and Apple’s track records

Apple has been known to give the middle finger towards things they don’t like, Google is known for their less than stellar promise-keeping record for keeping services around (RIP Google One VPN), and honestly: I’m losing faith in both companies. This kind of factors into my indecision a fair bit. I guess I don’t know which of the two evils I’m okay with putting my support behind.

Cameras

I take a lot of pictures. Like I’ve mentioned, I’m a very frequent user of Snapchat and it’s my primary way of communicating with friends outside of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Camera quality is important to me, and honestly, no matter which phone I pick (Pixel or iPhone), I’m going to end up with a great camera system.

It boils down to operating system and how the apps I use to take photos interact with said camera system. A point for the iPhone is that apps seem to hook right in the best, whilst even high end Android phones struggle.

Conclusion

So that’s everything. At the end of the day, I’m conflicted. I love Android but I guess I’m also ready for a change, Snapchat on Android (even high-end phones like my Pixel or the Samsung Galaxy S23s) is terrible, and that’s how I communicate with basically everybody I know.

What do you all think? Let me know. I’m having a hard time making a decision…

The post Should iSwitch Back to iPhone? appeared first on Slade Watkins.

Over the past day, some users could not get certain big websites to load when VPN by Google (on the Pixel 7-8a) or the soon-to-be-deprecated VPN by Google One was enabled. In the latter case, the issue applied to all form factors (Android, iOS, Mac, and PC). 

Apparently, disabling the VPN fixes the issue. I wasn’t able to replicate this issue on the Google One VPN, nor the Pixel VPN as my Pixel 6 does not support the new “app” for some probably stupid reason.

The post The Pixel/Google One VPN is making some things unusable appeared first on Slade Watkins.

This news comes after Google announced they’d be killing off the Google One VPN (but keeping it around for Pixel 7 and later users, but not Pixel 6 for some reason…) It feels wrong to do this to their paying customers, but unfortunately, it is all too normal for Google.

RELATED: I’ve written about the company’s reputation & Pixel update promise(s) before, which you can read here.

Google needs to understand that Google One needs perks to be successful. I’m saying this as a Google One subscriber. My family pays a pretty penny for increased storage and benefits because we’re Google users. We use Pixels, Google TV, Nest Minis, etc. and we’re very deep in the Google ecosystem. And we have been for years.

Personally, I believe Google “One” should include the best of Google services in one package, similar to Apple One. Google needs to increase One’s worth, in both senses of the term! That’s my take.

The post Google, I’m Sorry, But Google One *Needs* Perks appeared first on Slade Watkins.

“While VPN by Google One is going away next month, the company will continue to offer a virtual private network for Pixel owners. Ahead of that, the service is now called ‘Pixel VPN by Google.’ […]

That new version shown in those screenshots is not yet available, so Pixel 8+ owners should also expect an update. Meanwhile, VPN by Google One is installed on a 7 Pro running Android 14 QPR3 Beta 2.2, but there’s an account error when attempting to enable it.

We’re presumably waiting for that app or stable system update.”

Check out the article to see the screenshots of the app listing on the Play Store.

Listen, I personally believe they should enable this feature on Pixel 6 and later, and even Pixel Tablet. It’s possible for them to do, and frankly, they should. Especially with how they’re marketing the service to users.

That’s just my take, though.

The post Google’s Rolling Out “Pixel VPN” App, But I Think They Should Enable It on Pixel 6 and Later appeared first on Slade Watkins.

There’s no excuse.

I don’t know how Google has managed to fail so spectacularly at literally anything they do. The fact that Samsung is way ahead of Google on Android updates and feature releases that lay underneath One UI is a kick in the balls for Google. Samsung are a third-party that builds on top of Android Open Source Project (AOSP) code, they have no reason to be so far ahead of Google. I cannot understate how bad this is for Google as a company.

They have no credibility. They consistently shut down services with no recourse and little notice. If they want to fix this problem, I think they need to get aggressive and do the following two things:

1. Google must match software and hardware support for the Pixel 6 and 7 series, as well as the Fold and Tablet, to that of the Pixel 8. 7 years total, across the board, from the original launch date. They need to prove their commitment to their Tensor hardware and software experiences, this is how they do that. I’m not saying they need to bring every feature (that’s certainly not feasible), but if some Pixel 8 features can run on Pixel 7, there’s no reason they can’t run on Pixel Tablet or even Pixel 6 depending on complexity.
   • Pixel 6 has barely received any new features besides OS updates since launching in October 2021. It is planned to be barred from feature updates in October 2024. That is unacceptable.
2. With Android 15, non-Tensor Pixel devices will be unsupported on Google’s own flavor of Android (“stock” as it’s commonly called). This is the perfect opportunity to reimagine feature drops. Put more in there for those on older devices! Keep them alive and kicking. Not forever, but at least until the end of their limited shelf life. Less e-waste is a great thing for the environment, you know!

Google has a bit of a reputation problem. I don’t know if they have a team in charge of killing services or something, but it seems to happen a lot, and there’s a graveyard dedicated to them at this point.

I hold Rick Osterloh and Dave Burke, who essentially lead Pixel and Android respectively, in high regard. They’re awesome to the Android community and always have been! But, they need to get on their A-game if they want to restore their reputation. Articles like this one from Android Authority, which accuses Google of breaking their promises, shouldn’t be cropping up. It’s time to take control and do right by their consumers and community.

The post Google Needs to Get It Together and Fix Their Reputation appeared first on Slade Watkins.

The post Pixel Fold Gets “Circle to Search” appeared first on Slade Watkins.

Honestly, they look pretty good, although the battery icon needs some love (it doesn’t look amazing.) They’re not enabled by default, but Mishaal was able to get them enabled manually for his article.

I wish I could enable them now, honestly… I strongly prefer segmented icons, and I feel that’s a place where Apple and Samsung have always done it better.

The post Google Might (Finally) Be Redesigning Android’s Status Bar Icons appeared first on Slade Watkins.

The biggest reason is that developers are going to stop trusting them soon enough. Frankly, Apple is becoming the very thing they sought to destroy almost forty some-odd years ago. The fact that they’re becoming more and more litigious is enough evidence, to be honest.

The company is simply on a power trip, fueled by a hunger for control and dominance over every industry in which they take part, even if that means costing themselves a significant amount of goodwill among their vast community of developers and enthusiasts. At least Microsoft’s former CEO Steve Ballmer understood that developers mean everything to a thriving platform. That said, Ballmer was controversial as a CEO, and most of that reputation is his own fault.

Every move the company has made, from RCS support and beyond (especially recently), has been done in a way that is nothing short of malicious compliance. Developers from across the industry, including several third-party developer alums, have come together and spoken out against these moves. Whether it’s independently, or through the Coalition for App Fairness, or through some other alliance.

Spotify, for example, is a member of the Coalition whose CEO was incredibly vocal against the proposed DMA rules set forth by Apple. They released another letter to the European Commission on Apple’s “lack of DMA compliance” just last week. Apple responded, with an incredibly anger-filled press release on Monday:

“Today, Spotify has a 56 percent share of Europe’s music streaming market — more than double their closest competitor’s — and pays Apple nothing for the services that have helped make them one of the most recognizable brands in the world. A large part of their success is due to the App Store, along with all the tools and technology that Spotify uses to build, update, and share their app with Apple users around the world.”

Keep in mind, the EU recently fined them €1.84 billion EURO ($2 billion USD) as a result of the anti-trust litigation between them, Spotify, and this is just a result of their distaste in their loss. The fact of the matter is–the Apple beast has become too powerful. We, the consumers, have given them this power–and we’re the only ones who can seize it once more.

Google isn’t exactly a saint either, to be clear. They’ve had their own myriad of bullshit and muddy bodies of antitrust and litigation of all sorts that would take ages to wade through. However–Android has, and will continue to be, an open platform in both source and user choice for as long as the Android Open Source Project exists and smartphone manufacturers (who aren’t Apple) continue making phones.

For Apple to succeed in interfacing with developers in the long-term–beyond their evangelists and most dedicated users who have zero understanding of how Android, Windows, or Linux works–they must stop alienating them and being so disrespectful when given constructive feedback. I’m not sure why their knee-jerk reaction is to play the victim card so much, especially when I’m sure they have a million other cards to play, but they continue to choose it.

For sympathy? Probably.

I believe it’s time for us iOS users to rebel in the only way Apple has given us the ability to do: take our business elsewhere. The grass is certainly greener on the other side of the wall. Even DHH, a well-known lover AND critic of Apple (being an Apple evangelist for a long ass time–perhaps 99% of my life–will do that), has switched to Android and Windows and has no reason to leave for a while.

Wild that we’ve gotten here. I’m doing the same thing, too–plotting my course out of the “ecosystem.” Perhaps it is that time. If Apple has a sincere change of heart, sure, but I don’t think developers are going to stick around for long with their attitude lately. Without developers, a platform is nothing. Without COMPETITION, a developer is nothing. If Apple truly is seeking to destroy both, iOS may as well be deemed irrelevant now.

Unless you want to eventually be stuck without any third-party apps in the future… I’d start looking at your options and plotting your exit plan. Samsung Galaxy S is probably the closest choice, but Google Pixel has a great line, too. That’s my take.

The post It Might Be Time For Us to Break Free from Apple’s “Ecosystem” appeared first on Slade Watkins.