My 1st experience with an iPhone

[Buzz99]

I feel your pain with your list of cons, namely the huge icons. It can be easily overcome through jailbreak tweaks. Same with custom ringtones. Shame that Apple restricts or makes it cumbersome to change such basic features. Here's my home screen/folder view (sorry for huge images, posting from my phone)

Tweak names are

Five Icon Dock

Five-Column SpringBoard

FolderEnhancer

 

 

Sorry but those overlapping icons at the buttom are not the best I've seen...

[TDT]

I figured Android would have those features by now ;).

Actually they were there long before Apple "invented" them ;)

[ndoggfromhell]

Ringtones with the iPhone are actually pretty simple.  You clip a song with audacity, you bring it into iTunes, you convert it to mp4 (I think that's the extension) and then bring that file into iTunes.  You can then sync it to the iPhone and you it as a custom ringtone (I've done a bunch... google is your friend) 

 

Everything else with the iPhone I prefer over the droids I've used.  The screen size doesn't bother me, I prefer a phone that's small enough to fit in my pocket.  Battery life is also a lot better than the three phones I had prior.  My roommate got the Galaxy S5 and she can't get through a day on a single charge.  I can go two days without worrying too much.  My issue with android in general is that the phones only last about a year and they stop updating them.  Apple seems to care more about their customers and support their devices for 3 or 4 years.  Also, updating from one iPhone to another is pretty seamless.  Just backup and restore... no dealing with 3rd party apps that copy some things, but not everything.

[Brony]

Pros:

- even at his age, the 4S works beautiful, even with iOS 7 on it. No lag, no delay, nothing.

 

Are you comparing a cleaner cellphone with a cellphone with several apps installed? (and it is not specific to iphone)  A new broom sweeps clean.

 

However, if you are happy with it then good for you.

[:B: Rex]

Pros:

- even at his age, the 4S works beautiful, even with iOS 7 on it. No lag, no delay, nothing.

- battery - I worked the damn thing for a day and a half, with wi-fi and 3G and some games, calls, sms, etc., and the battery was still at around 13% when I plugged in the charger

i loved my 4s with ios6 until apple forced me to upgrade to ios7

 

my 4s became super laggy, always having to wait for things to load

the battery life went way down. i now lose 50% power overnight not even using the phone

basically the iphone is junk now and because of how ignorant apple is i now have a windows phone

never again will i use apple products

[TAZMINATOR]

i loved my 4s with ios6 until apple forced me to upgrade to ios7

 

 What? I wasn't forced to upgrade to version 7. I have had version 6 for long time.

 

Then I have wiped and installed iOS 7 on mine and plan to trade it in for new one soon.

 

 

the battery life went way down. i now lose 50% power overnight not even using the phone

 

The battery life is great on iOS 7.  Lasts 3 to 4 days.

 

Maybe you installed junk apps that drain the battery... or slow your device down.

 

 

my iPod touch (2nd generation) lasts 2 months on battery.

[:B: Rex]

the phone worked fine before the upgrade. no lag no battery problems

after the upgrade the phone was crap. no apps were added

 

yes i wasnt "forced" to upgrade but apple putting a upgrade popup on screen almost every time you used the phone was annoying, then my gf one day saw it and "ill do you a favor" and upgrade even tho i never wanted it.

plus not being able to downgrade made it worse

 

i guess my point is apple should have never tried to upgrade the older phones as they cannot handle ugly ios7

[tsupersonic]

The battery life is great on iOS 7.  Lasts 3 to 4 days.

 

Maybe you installed junk apps that drain the battery... or slow your device down.

 

 

my iPod touch (2nd generation) lasts 2 months on battery.

Such a generic statement... Everyone uses their phone differently. I switched from Android to iOS (not by choice), and with my 5S, I have not seen such bad battery life since the Galaxy Nexus days. It is just absolutely pathetic - with push email, maybe a short phone call or two per day, and 100-150/texts per day, I can't get through the whole day, not even close. I'm lucky if I get to 5pm. I bought a battery case which provides an additional 1500 mAH and that helps me get through the day. 

 

My iPod Touch (latest gen.) lasts 2 days at best. Battery life was far better on iOS 6 with the same use case. Apple makes a decent device, but for a phone with such a small screen and a relatively small battery and a very controlled ecosystem, I expected much better battery life. With my Android devices like the Nexus 5 or the HTC One (M7), I was far better off in regards to battery.

[JJ_]

 

I feel your pain with your list of cons, namely the huge icons. It can be easily overcome through jailbreak tweaks. Same with custom ringtones. Shame that Apple restricts or makes it cumbersome to change such basic features. Here's my home screen/folder view (sorry for huge images, posting from my phone)

<pics snipped>

Tweak names are

Five Icon Dock

Five-Column SpringBoard

FolderEnhancer

 

 

Sorry but those overlapping icons at the buttom are not the best I've seen...

 

 

 

Decided to tweak things and changed the dock tweak to another which was a little more generous with icon spacing. Rolling with the above 2 themes, not sure which one I'll set on

[Zoom7000]

First of all, I want everyone to know that I'm no MS/Apple/Google fan, so I'll never be biased in any way in my opinions. I love to try and test things, from OS'es to smartphones  and tablets and so on...even cars :)

 

Anyway, up until 2 days ago, I had experienced everything in terms of OS (Windows - every damn version up to 8.1, OSX - Hackintosh, Linux - many distros, finally settled on eOS) and almost everything from the smartphone world. That is, Android and Windows Phone. Never had an Apple product, never thought I would. But I decided to get one, just to be at peace that I tried everything and I can get an honest opinion after.

 

So I got a 4S for a good deal, with iOS 7.0.6 on it, neverlocked, black, 16GB, etc. The first thing that I wanted to do was to jailbreak it, since I'm addicted to tweaking, rooting, flashing, etc. Like I said in another thread here, it didn't work, because the OS was updated OTA and evasion's tool doesn't work with this. So I've given up and upgraded to 7.1.1, since (hopefully) a jailbreak for this is around the corner.

 

I'll get right to the pros and cons with iOS and the iPhone, in my opinion:

 

Pros:

- even at his age, the 4S works beautiful, even with iOS 7 on it. No lag, no delay, nothing.

- the screen

- maybe some would consider it a disadvantage, but for me it's a +: its weight. It feels very solid in my hand, and I prefer that to a plastic phone anyday

- battery - I worked the damn thing for a day and a half, with wi-fi and 3G and some games, calls, sms, etc., and the battery was still at around 13% when I plugged in the charger

- Safari - I can't believe how fast this browser loads pages. Compared to Chrome and other browsers on Android, it's freakin' amazing

 

Cons:

- HUGE icons for this screen size. I've read that when you jailbreak the iphone, you can resize the damn icons, but why on earth didn't Apple give us the choice by default?!

- ugly address book. Compared to Android, it's like Notepad vs. Word. It's just a list of names. That's it. I know it's all eye-candy, but I would've loved to have it like on Android, with big photos and stuff. I got an app from AppStore, Contacts+, that looks just like I want, but it should've been on default...

- no custom ringtones - this is obvious, and I did managed to get some ringtones on it using iTools, but come on...why restrict this????

- can't change the default web browser - at least I don't know how

- UGLY sms app - again, a list with names. And again, I'm comparing with Android.

- no shortcuts for direct dial/direct sms - I know there's a way, a complicated one, to add contact shortcuts to home screen, but I'll never bother

 

And that's about it, at least for now. But let me add something: I've noticed this since I've bought my Windows Phone, and the iPhone confirms it - it's a HUGE difference when you build a OS for a handful of hardware configurations as opposed to an open-source OS like Android, with its fragmentation. This device is quite slow by today's standards, yet it performs amazingly with iOS 7 on it. I can't say the same about, for example, Samsung i9000 (Galaxy S), one of my former smartphones with a similar hardware configuration. There's a huge difference.

Also, the apps are different too. I used Top Eleven, for example, a soccer mananger game, on Android, and I installed it on this iPhone too, since it's multiplatform. Big difference! Not the UI, that's almost the same on both platforms, but the performance on iOS is a LOT better than on Android on a similar hardware config.

 

In the end, like I said, I'm waiting for that jailbreak, so if any of you get some news about it before I do, please post it here. :)

I'm an iOS user all the way. I've had the odd fling with Android here and there but just don't enjoy the user experience anywhere near as much as I do with iOS.

 

First things first, it's very unlikely that you'll get a jailbreak for iOS 7.1.1. The hackers are most likely gonna save those exploits for when iOS 8 is released in September/October. The change from iOS 6 to 7 did have quite a few ups and downs for me. I do miss some of the skeuomorphism. Not all of it, but some of it. E.g. The Notes app now looks seriously plain and dull, whereas the iOS 6 notebook look was quite fun and trendy. I'm not a complete fan of minimalism, but it seems to be the way everyone is going, Google, Microsoft etc.

 

The rumoured new screen sizes for the next iPhone should make the icons look better.

 

I've never seen any real need for changing the browser as Safari has done everything I need it to and on my very aging iPhone 4, Chrome is just sluggish by comparison.

 

Custom ringtones can be done, but not on the device on the fly (unless you purchase them from iTunes). If you want a truly custom tone, you'll have to do a bit of manipulation with iTunes on the Mac/PC.

 

iOS 8 will introduce a lot more new features, like shortcuts for your favourite contacts from the multitask screen. And Safari is getting an even better boost to bring it up to Chrome standard when it comes to features.

 

A lot of what you've mentioned can be achieved by jailbreaking, but there is unlikely to be an option for you until iOS 8 is released.

[TDT]

First things first, it's very unlikely that you'll get a jailbreak for iOS 7.1.1. The hackers are most likely gonna save those exploits for when iOS 8 is released in September/October. 

Yeah, I fear that too, unfortunately. When I bought this phone, it was on 7.0.6, but upgrade OTA, as I found out when I tried to jailbreak it. So I upgraded to 7.1.1, I couldn't do anything about the jailbreak anyway, so... 

 

I'm still hoping that someone will release at least a semi-tethered jb before ios8. We'll see :)

[Shadrack]

Such a generic statement... Everyone uses their phone differently. I switched from Android to iOS (not by choice), and with my 5S, I have not seen such bad battery life since the Galaxy Nexus days. It is just absolutely pathetic - with push email, maybe a short phone call or two per day, and 100-150/texts per day, I can't get through the whole day, not even close. I'm lucky if I get to 5pm. I bought a battery case which provides an additional 1500 mAH and that helps me get through the day. 

 

My iPod Touch (latest gen.) lasts 2 days at best. Battery life was far better on iOS 6 with the same use case. Apple makes a decent device, but for a phone with such a small screen and a relatively small battery and a very controlled ecosystem, I expected much better battery life. With my Android devices like the Nexus 5 or the HTC One (M7), I was far better off in regards to battery.

 

How long you make it on your phone is definitely up to you and how you use it.  Phone calls on lousy signals can be especially taxing to the battery.  In my normal day, I have an excellent cell signal, and have WiFi connections at home and work (so the only time I'm using cell data is inbetween mostly).  Obviously my battery life in these conditions is phenomenal.  Whenever I travel, however, I find myself searching for outlets and don't think I can make through the day without charging my iPhone.  I depend on my phone a lot more when I travel and often WiFi is not available so all data is coming from cell.

 

Something else to consider is that your battery may be "shot".  A great way people regularly ruin their phone batteries is by charging it while it is hot.  For example, having a holder that is attached to your windshield in your car (such that the holder and phone is in direct sunlight) and charging the phone while using GPS (another heat producing activity).  If you charge your battery while it is hot you can potentially permanently damage its ability to hold its rated charge.

[Astra.Xtreme]

I get excellent battery life on my 5S, so there must be more to the story.  I can easily get through a weekend with quite a bit of usage and still have a decent amount of charge left.

[Open Minded]

Ringtones with the iPhone are actually pretty simple.  You clip a song with audacity, you bring it into iTunes, you convert it to mp4 (I think that's the extension) and then bring that file into iTunes.  You can then sync it to the iPhone and you it as a custom ringtone (I've done a bunch... google is your friend) 

 

All that for ONE ringtone?  That's a lot of time if you're doing multiple files.

 

I just plug the phone into my computer via USB and copy/paste the file I want to use into the ringtones folder.  Same for notifications.  Takes about 5 seconds a song at most.

[TAZMINATOR]

I get excellent battery life on my 5S, so there must be more to the story.  I can easily get through a weekend with quite a bit of usage and still have a decent amount of charge left.

 

Yeah I got excellent battery life on mine. I was impressed. I am on battery level at 100% for more than 4 hours since I unplugged it from the charger.

 

I just checked the status... it is still at 100%   :D

[Shadrack]

All that for ONE ringtone?  That's a lot of time if you're doing multiple files.

 

I just plug the phone into my computer via USB and copy/paste the file I want to use into the ringtones folder.  Same for notifications.  Takes about 5 seconds a song at most.

 

Oh gee whiz.  If you have the ringtone ready to go then you just drag and drop it on the iPhone in iTunes.  If there are a lot of them, you drag and drop the whole lot.  Ringtones on any smartphone is a trivial task these days.  His explanation was how to format a track for a ring tone by clipping it to the part you actually want.  If you want the whole bloody track as the ringtone then you can do that, easily.

 

Where does iOS have the advantage?  On Backups.  Now if you have 100s of ringtones each individually assigned to each of your contacts with different vibration patterns for a phone call or a text or whatever, the backup preserves all of that.  If your phone crashes or you upgrade to a new iphone, all of that work will not need to be repeated just restored form the backup.  On Android your backup preserves your Wallpaper settings and that is about it.  Google's backup on Android is absolutely useless unless you get all hacky with it...yippee!.

[Open Minded]

Oh gee whiz.  If you have the ringtone ready to go then you just drag and drop it on the iPhone in iTunes.  If there are a lot of them, you drag and drop the whole lot.  Ringtones on any smartphone is a trivial task these days.  His explanation was how to format a track for a ring tone by clipping it to the part you actually want.  If you want the whole bloody track as the ringtone then you can do that, easily.

 

Where does iOS have the advantage?  On Backups.  Now if you have 100s of ringtones each individually assigned to each of your contacts with different vibration patterns for a phone call or a text or whatever, the backup preserves all of that.  If your phone crashes or you upgrade to a new iphone, all of that work will not need to be repeated just restored form the backup.  On Android your backup preserves your Wallpaper settings and that is about it.  Google's backup on Android is absolutely useless unless you get all hacky with it...yippee!.

 

I don't have to format music or tones. 

 

Nandroid backup for my phone that I can keep on my computer without anyone else having my data on the cloud.  Yes, I'm one of those.  This is all personal preference though as there's advantages to both.  If I get a new phone, I just sign into the Play Store and my apps get downloaded automatically.  And has far as hacky... like jailbreaking to rename icons?  Is that hacky?  ;-)

 

Not tying to say one's better than the other, one just suits my needs better.  That's all.  I did at one point own an iPhone so it's not like I count out Apple without at least trying their product first.  Honestly, I'd love to regularly swap between all three major platforms if I had the time/money to invest in at least three phones every two years.  A guy can dream, right?

[Astra.Xtreme]

I don't have to format music or tones. 

 

Nandroid backup for my phone that I can keep on my computer without anyone else having my data on the cloud.  Yes, I'm one of those.  This is all personal preference though as there's advantages to both.  If I get a new phone, I just sign into the Play Store and my apps get downloaded automatically.  And has far as hacky... like jailbreaking to rename icons?  Is that hacky?  ;-)

 

Not tying to say one's better than the other, one just suits my needs better.  That's all.  I did at one point own an iPhone so it's not like I count out Apple without at least trying their product first.  Honestly, I'd love to regularly swap between all three major platforms if I had the time/money to invest in at least three phones every two years.  A guy can dream, right?

iPhone backups can be saved locally as well.  I think that's the default option in iTunes anyway.

[tsupersonic]

How long you make it on your phone is definitely up to you and how you use it.  Phone calls on lousy signals can be especially taxing to the battery.  In my normal day, I have an excellent cell signal, and have WiFi connections at home and work (so the only time I'm using cell data is inbetween mostly).  Obviously my battery life in these conditions is phenomenal.  Whenever I travel, however, I find myself searching for outlets and don't think I can make through the day without charging my iPhone.  I depend on my phone a lot more when I travel and often WiFi is not available so all data is coming from cell.

 

Something else to consider is that your battery may be "shot".  A great way people regularly ruin their phone batteries is by charging it while it is hot.  For example, having a holder that is attached to your windshield in your car (such that the holder and phone is in direct sunlight) and charging the phone while using GPS (another heat producing activity).  If you charge your battery while it is hot you can potentially permanently damage its ability to hold its rated charge.

 

I have 4 and 5 bars at work and home, which is the majority of where my time is spent. I consider that to be great/excellent reception. I only make one or two calls a day (some days no calls at all), and they are very short. I generally offload (video) calls on my desktop through Skype or Google Hangouts. Much more convenient + video...I doubt my battery is shot, these are just observations between two iDevices running on the same OS. Phone is taken well care of, never exposed to direct sun in car. It rests in a ventilated compartment. From my experience, this is one of the worst smartphones I've ever used in regards to battery life.

 

Oh gee whiz.  If you have the ringtone ready to go then you just drag and drop it on the iPhone in iTunes.  If there are a lot of them, you drag and drop the whole lot.  Ringtones on any smartphone is a trivial task these days.  His explanation was how to format a track for a ring tone by clipping it to the part you actually want.  If you want the whole bloody track as the ringtone then you can do that, easily.

 

Where does iOS have the advantage?  On Backups.  Now if you have 100s of ringtones each individually assigned to each of your contacts with different vibration patterns for a phone call or a text or whatever, the backup preserves all of that.  If your phone crashes or you upgrade to a new iphone, all of that work will not need to be repeated just restored form the backup.  On Android your backup preserves your Wallpaper settings and that is about it.  Google's backup on Android is absolutely useless unless you get all hacky with it...yippee!.

Android also restores apps that you had installed, but I agree iOS backups are superior than Android's backups at the current state.

[Shadrack]

I don't have to format music or tones. 

 

You rename the .m4a file extension to .m4r and the iPhone will use it as a ringtone :rolleyes:

 

 

 

Nandroid backup for my phone that I can keep on my computer without anyone else having my data on the cloud.  Yes, I'm one of those.  This is all personal preference though as there's advantages to both.  If I get a new phone, I just sign into the Play Store and my apps get downloaded automatically.  And has far as hacky... like jailbreaking to rename icons?  Is that hacky?  ;-)

 

Question: Will it restore the ringtones you set for your contacts?  About the only backup solution that comes close to iOS through iTunes or iCloud is to use TitaniumBackup and the only way to get that functioning properly (last I used it) is to root your phone.  Changing icons and the names of icons is purely cosmetic... getting hacky with that compared to backing up your device..just not even in the same league to draw a comparison.

 

iTunes stores backups locally.....

 

Edit: Oh wait, Nandroid is the "image" backup, right?  Do you have that setup to run everyday or do you have to actively make a backup?  Does it require root access to do any meaningful backup task? My backup happens every night over wifi when i plug my phone into my charger.

[Open Minded]

You rename the .m4a file extension to .m4r and the iPhone will use it as a ringtone :rolleyes:

 

 

 

 

Question: Will it restore the ringtones you set for your contacts?  About the only backup solution that comes close to iOS through iTunes or iCloud is to use TitaniumBackup and the only way to get that functioning properly (last I used it) is to root your phone.  Changing icons and the names of icons is purely cosmetic... getting hacky with that compared to backing up your device..just not even in the same league to draw a comparison.

 

iTunes stores backups locally.....

 

Edit: Oh wait, Nandroid is the "image" backup, right?  Do you have that setup to run everyday or do you have to actively make a backup?  Does it require root access to do any meaningful backup task? My backup happens every night over wifi when i plug my phone into my charger.

 

I don't have to change any extension to make a sound file play.  That might just be a Samsung thing though as I haven't used other Androids nearly as much as my Captivate or my GS 4.

 

 

Yes, Nandroid is an image.  I can install other ROMs and swap between them without the use of a computer.  I backup the image to my computer just in case. 

 

I have an older version of TWRP (custom recovery, kind of like a BIOS) so I have to backup manually.  I'm not sure if the newer versions do this. 

 

Sometimes you need root to do this but that depends on the phone.  Normally on phones with an unlocked bootloader you load the recovery before root.  At least that's been my experience.

[Shadrack]

I don't have to change any extension to make a sound file play.  That might just be a Samsung thing though as I haven't used other Androids nearly as much as my Captivate or my GS 4.

 

Ok.  You win.  Its easier on Android to use any song file as a ring tone because you don't have to change the file extension so that the phone (and in the case of an iPhone, iTunes) uniquely identifies the file as a ringtone.  But having to change the file extension (which, come on...its pretty dang trivial task) is a far cry from your initial reaction to the subject:

 

 

 

All that for ONE ringtone?  That's a lot of time if you're doing multiple files.

Yes, Nandroid is an image.  I can install other ROMs and swap between them without the use of a computer.  I backup the image to my computer just in case. 

 

 

So when you upgrade to a new phone, you just fire up Nandroid and all your settings, apps, files (etc.) are restored from your previous phone, right ?

[Open Minded]

So when you upgrade to a new phone, you just fire up Nandroid and all your settings, apps, files (etc.) are restored from your previous phone, right ?

 

 

 

No. A Nandroid image is just like taking a image of your hard drive in your computer.  It will only work with a device of the exact same specs so pretty much the same phone in this case.  When you do restore from that image, everything is exactly the same as it was.  Everything. 

 

As far as buying a new phone, some prefer to transfer their contacts/phone data to Google and have them place the contacts in the list when you first sign in to the Play Store.  I do not.  I backup my contacts to my SIM card and also to the contact backup (can't remember the file extension off-hand) then copy that file to my computer in case I lost my phone.  How you go about backups with Android really depends on what phone you have and what you prefer, as I can do a Samsung backup/restore as well.  Do you want to go the cloud route or do everything locally?  I choose local.  Keep in mind that's just the way I like to do things and I do see the ease in Apple's approach no doubt.

 

Edit:  There's also apps that backup your text message history as well.  I choose not to use that.  Again, personal preference.

[ndoggfromhell]

All that for ONE ringtone?  That's a lot of time if you're doing multiple files.

 

I just plug the phone into my computer via USB and copy/paste the file I want to use into the ringtones folder.  Same for notifications.  Takes about 5 seconds a song at most.

 

Well the time consuming part is actually clipping the part of the song I want as a ringtone... a step you seem to be skipping.  The rest is maybe 10 whole seconds... which isn't painful.  during my painful days of using android I would use an app called "ring droid" that did decent making ringtone/notifcations/alarms. 

[TDT]

So IT IS possible. Looks like a 7.1.1 jailbreak would not be the only option.