Member-only story
After 13 Years Using Android, I Just Bought My First iPhone
It’s going better than I expected
In 2008, I bought the very first Android phone ever released in the United States, the T-Mobile G1. Boasting a 3.2-megapixel camera, a 320x480 display, and a slide-out physical keyboard, the G1 was absolutely revolutionary at the time. You could use it to take decent photos, tap out an email, or even watch the then-nascent video app YouTube. For more than a decade, I remained a die-hard Android user, duly upgrading my phone every two years, and embracing the latest tech from Google and Samsung. That was until last month when I shelved my Samsung Galaxy S10 and bought my very first iPhone, the 13 Pro.
For techies, using the more customizable, open-source Android OS is often a badge of honor, like running Ubuntu or understanding XKCD. As a youngish person giving off obvious techie vibes, people were always accosting me in all kinds of random places looking for advice on how to use their iPhones: trains, restaurants, business meetings, even a spa relaxation room. I was always vaguely proud to be able to say “Sorry, I know nothing about Apple devices!” with an apologetic shrug.
Ultimately, it wasn’t a single factor that drove my switch to the world of Apple, but rather a combination of lots of little things. My son has an iPad, and its design and interface didn’t seem too bad. Several of the apps I use for work, like Amazon LIVE, are iOS only. Working with awesome people like Megan Morrone and Kaushik Viswanath as a tech writer, my lack of knowledge about iOS started to feel less like a badge of honor and more like a blind spot. The inability to FaceTime with family members also felt like a lost opportunity.
One of the biggest factors, though, was the iPhone’s stellar camera. As a professional photographer, I’ve found my choice not to use an iPhone increasingly untenable. Hearing from professionals like Jack Hollingsworth, who after a storied 30+ year photographic career ditched his traditional camera to shoot exclusively on the iPhone and never looked back, pushed me over the edge.
