When did you switch?

[edubfromktown]

I totally forgot that when Apple "free 5GB" no longer backed up my iPhone (no text messages or photos) due to including an IOS image in the free data allocation, I said NFW and went to Android

I opened multiple tickets with iPhone support and complained profusely back then. Also said they'd be in for a class action lawsuit at some point!

Apple hit with class action lawsuit over iCloud's 5GB limit - 9to5Mac

A newly-proposed class action lawsuit alleges that Apple has “marked up its iCloud prices to the point where the service...

9to5mac.com

 

[ofarlig]

Isn’t it the same with most Android phones? The Samsung I had last wouldn’t even back up every setting and a factory restore meant having to reset a lot of things again.

 

[edubfromktown]

Isn’t it the same with most Android phones? The Samsung I had last wouldn’t even back up every setting and a factory restore meant having to reset a lot of things again.

Nope Google "One"offers free 15 GB, that only includes what you select and no Android OS image.

Google One app now offers free phone backup and storage manager features

Google One’s phone backup feature is now free for all Google users. The new Google One app also comes with a new storage manager tool to allow users to view and manage their files ...

www.androidcentral.com

Samsung offers free temporary cloud backup as well.

Between the two, there is no need to pay a subscription fee for Apple's antiquated 5GB offering that is now 50+% consumed by a stock iOS image.

 

[ofarlig]

Nope Google "One"offers free 15 GB, that only includes what you select and no Android OS image.

Google One app now offers free phone backup and storage manager features

Google One’s phone backup feature is now free for all Google users. The new Google One app also comes with a new storage manager tool to allow users to view and manage their files ...

www.androidcentral.com

Samsung offers free temporary cloud backup as well.

Between the two, there is no need to pay a subscription fee for Apple's antiquated 5GB offering that is now 50+% consumed by a stock iOS image.

Yeah but as I said I cannot choose where to backup my Samsung phone completely, last time I checked I couldn’t even completely back it up either.

And I don’t really see a problem with Apples backup solution, in practice it is free to backup your devices. I got a phone and 2 iPads backed up and I am below 4 GB for backups. If you want to use it for other things as well it might cost you though but that is unrelated to the backups, but I guess you can fault Apple for not providing both free storage and free backups since you have to choose.

 

[magicman32]

I'm old school. When I did last have an iPhone in 2017 before it got "stale" for me I always plugged into my MacBook and did a hard copy back-up.

I still do that for my 2018 iPad Pro. I always did like that better than Androids solution.

Google's back-up solution works well enough for me getting back my apps and texts. Really all I care about. Photos and videos sit well enough in Google Photos though I only have about 30GB left in my 200GB bucket.

 

[Klyster]

Downloading Smart Switch on my PC

FAQ for Samsung Mobile Device. Find more about Downloading Smart Switch on my PC' with Samsung Support.

www.samsung.com

If you want to keep a physical image of your Samsung, use smartswitch for PC or Mac.
Then your limit is your Hard drive rather than some cloud account, great for those with a ton of data, and I think from memory, you decide what data is kept of not.
I might be wrong here, but I recall the phone being transferred to a Samsung device gets backed up too.

smart-switch

Samsung Care is here to help. Get started, find helpful content and resources, and do more with your Samsung products.

www.samsung.com

 

[treacher]

I've dabbled here and there.

 

[twdawson]

I am now 100% pixel user for my phone from last week as I sold my iPhone and Apple Watch.

Selling the iPad very soon so I will not be a member of the cult anymore and leaving the walled garden.

Deleted everything from iCloud and now have everything backed up on external hard drives.

 

[JohnRckr]

I could see myself getting rid of iPhone, for more of less same reasons as someone here already posted. But I recently bought my first MacBook Pro and absolutely love it. For me, it is better than any Windows laptop I ever had or ever tried or seen. But iPhone is a different story. I got 15PM now and I have to say that iPhones are really boring. That's why I am thinking of switching to Android, but I'm a bit afraid since I got MacBook already..

 

[jamezr]

Yeah but as I said I cannot choose where to backup my Samsung phone completely, last time I checked I couldn’t even completely back it up either.

And I don’t really see a problem with Apples backup solution, in practice it is free to backup your devices. I got a phone and 2 iPads backed up and I am below 4 GB for backups. If you want to use it for other things as well it might cost you though but that is unrelated to the backups, but I guess you can fault Apple for not providing both free storage and free backups since you have to choose.

Not true.....You can decide where to back up Samsung phones. I can back up My S24U to Google Drive, Samsung Cloud, local PC. Heck I can even back up or restore from an external USB drive and not need WIFI or cell reception.

 

[jamezr]

Downloading Smart Switch on my PC

FAQ for Samsung Mobile Device. Find more about Downloading Smart Switch on my PC' with Samsung Support.

www.samsung.com

If you want to keep a physical image of your Samsung, use smartswitch for PC or Mac.
Then your limit is your Hard drive rather than some cloud account, great for those with a ton of data, and I think from memory, you decide what data is kept of not.
I might be wrong here, but I recall the phone being transferred to a Samsung device gets backed up too.

smart-switch

Samsung Care is here to help. Get started, find helpful content and resources, and do more with your Samsung products.

www.samsung.com

Local back up is a very good option. Plus your data is encrypted using your Samsung account.

 

[ofarlig]

Not true.....You can decide where to back up Samsung phones. I can back up My S24U to Google Drive, Samsung Cloud, local PC. Heck I can even back up or restore from an external USB drive and not need WIFI or cell reception.

Last time I backed up to Google and had to restore it didn’t restore all my settings to the state it was when I did the backup so it seems it isn’t a complete backup done there.

iOS can backup to your computer and such as well so it seems we are talking about cloud solutions here.

 

[Sami13496]

I switched in 2013 when I finally got fed up with Android’s lagfest, and hardware and UI’s designed by engineers.

 

[jamezr]

Last time I backed up to Google and had to restore it didn’t restore all my settings to the state it was when I did the backup so it seems it isn’t a complete backup done there.

iOS can backup to your computer and such as well so it seems we are talking about cloud solutions here.

There are just more options on Android for less money. Oh and add Microsoft One Drive to the mix as well. That is another cloud option for Android.

 

[Fille84]

Have had many androids over the years but haven't really used one as a main phone since Galaxy S7 or something. Always prefered Android but imessage kept me using iphone up until almost a year ago now when I just thought f*** it, I'm gonna use what I prefer and switched to Android and used bluebubbles.

 

[edubfromktown]

Last time I backed up to Google and had to restore it didn’t restore all my settings to the state it was when I did the backup so it seems it isn’t a complete backup done there.

iOS can backup to your computer and such as well so it seems we are talking about cloud solutions here.

I've done 3 Android restores from Google One free tier backup to different devices in the past few years and all were successful.

Samsung makes it easy to create a local backup via the Smart Swtich app in addition to offering free no limit temporary (1 month) cloud backup. Plus, I use Google's free 15 GB to backup everything other than photos.

Restores from iCloud can get hosed too.

A friend got his wife a new iPhone and traded in her old one. They did a cloud restore with a "Genius" while still at the Apple store...

Restore went along fine and completed "successfully"...

Friend's wife discovered the next day that a number of her contacts were missing along with other gaps in the restored data. Her old phone was long gone.

Kinda sucked because she is a therapist and lost client contact information and other important data that should have been backed up in multiple places for sure!

I do not rely solely on cloud backups, ever. My phone has nothing that critical on it, and I still use 3-2-1 backup strategy.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I think I already would have switched if I could get a "small" phone again on Android side

I'm so frustrated that anything smaller than an iPhone 13 Mini seems to simply "not exist" -- anywhere

I'm probably really in the minority, but I care about the form factor above most everything else (within reason -- I don't want some 7 year old "thing" just to be small)

 

[ofarlig]

I've done 3 Android restores from Google One free tier backup to different devices in the past few years and all were successful.

Samsung makes it easy to create a local backup via the Smart Swtich app in addition to offering free no limit temporary (1 month) cloud backup. Plus, I use Google's free 15 GB to backup everything other than photos.

Restores from iCloud can get hosed too.

A friend got his wife a new iPhone and traded in her old one. They did a cloud restore with a "Genius" while still at the Apple store...

Restore went along fine and completed "successfully"...

Friend's wife discovered the next day that a number of her contacts were missing along with other gaps in the restored data. Her old phone was long gone.

Kinda sucked because she is a therapist and lost client contact information and other important data that should have been backed up in multiple places for sure!

I do not rely solely on cloud backups, ever. My phone has nothing that critical on it, and I still use 3-2-1 backup strategy.

There’s a difference in things going wrong and things not just being backed up as standard, the Google one just didn’t back up all the settings done on my Samsung phone. Maybe the Google backup doesn‘t know about all the Samsung specific settings to know how to back them up? A backup created of the phone should be a carbon copy so you could switch out the phone without even knowing it was a new one.

 

[edubfromktown]

There’s a difference in things going wrong and things not just being backed up as standard, the Google one just didn’t back up all the settings done on my Samsung phone. Maybe the Google backup doesn‘t know about all the Samsung specific settings to know how to back them up? A backup created of the phone should be a carbon copy so you could switch out the phone without even knowing it was a new one.

I just restored my 23+ data to S24+ few weeks ago using Google One backed up data and had no issues.

I also had local Samsung backup via Smart Swtich and temporary Samsung backup as well.

Prior to this, I restored my OnePlus 8T data from Google One backup to S23+ and again had no problems.

 

[ofarlig]

I just restored my 23+ data to S24+ few weeks ago using Google One backed up data and had no issues.

I also had local Samsung backup via Smart Swtich and temporary Samsung backup as well.

Prior to this, I restored my OnePlus 8T data from Google One backup to S23+ and again had no problems.

As in every setting for everything restored from a Google One backup? If so they must have changed things recently because last I did it there were multiple settings I had changed on my Samsung device that was not restored. Like forcing different aspect ratios for certain apps on the inner screen on my Fold and so on.

 

[edubfromktown]

As in every setting for everything restored from a Google One backup? If so they must have changed things recently because last I did it there were multiple settings I had changed on my Samsung device that was not restored. Like forcing different aspect ratios for certain apps on the inner screen on my Fold and so on.

Some settings were different because the hardware is not the same. Beyond that, I did not deep dive into it.

Try a Smart Switch restore to see if that does a better job. If that doesn't restore every single setting to your specifications, then I suggest you open a support ticket.

 

[twdawson]

I am now fully out of the apple walled garden. I downloaded all my music through iTunes and transferred all files from iCloud to an external SSD..

Put all the music on to the pixel and it has been really good so far. I bought the pixel 7a as it was cheap to make sure I would stick with the android side of things and the next phone I get will probably be some higher end pixel.

The only problem is found is that the default music player is YouTube music which I hate so purchased an app called Poweramp which I find is really good as It has a ton of settings to configure it how you want.

Screen shot below but don't judge me on the style of music.

 

[burgman]

I am now 100% pixel user for my phone from last week as I sold my iPhone and Apple Watch.

Selling the iPad very soon so I will not be a member of the cult anymore and leaving the walled garden.

Deleted everything from iCloud and now have everything backed up on external hard drives.

Bonus points using for two bumper sticker silliness in one sentence.

 

[Technerd108]

I just recently made the switch not just to Android but away from Apple altogether. I have been a multi platform user for years and had maintained two platforms for years but it just wasn't affordable anymore so I had to make a choice. Since I am not going to switch my phone it doesn't really leave me a lot of options unless I want a hobbled system on my own hardware.

So I decided to just go all in and sell off my Mac and iPad and give my air pod pros to my son.

It was not an easy or flippant choice but one carefully considered. I still like Apple gear and will probably get it again at some point. However, making Apple my primary system again will need Apple to make some changes in the way their devices work with non Apple branded devices. If that ever happens then I would be tempted. But at least for now I have a much better experience with Windows, Android, Linux and Chrome OS.

 

[bousozoku]

I think I already would have switched if I could get a "small" phone again on Android side

I'm so frustrated that anything smaller than an iPhone 13 Mini seems to simply "not exist" -- anywhere

I'm probably really in the minority, but I care about the form factor above most everything else (within reason -- I don't want some 7 year old "thing" just to be small)

My first Android phone was an LG Optimus S and was so tiny it was difficult to type. I replaced it with an iPhone 4S, which was also tiny but somewhat bigger. Eventually, I moved to the iPhone 6, which at 4.7 inches seemed huge. A couple of years ago, I got a OnePlus 8T with 2400x1080 display. That was huge. I now have a Pixel 6a, which might as well be 7 years old, and my 2022 iPhone SE.

If Apple or anyone else would be in the mood to make 5.5 inch phones, I would be happy, even if I have to wear the magnifiers to read it.