I’ve been an Android user for pretty much my entire smartphone journey. My first device was a ZTE with an LCD screen that was way smaller than today’s smartphones—probably around 4 inches or so.
Over the years, I’ve owned many Samsung devices. They’re pretty solid overall, though I’d say their build quality falls short compared to iPhones. I wasn’t a fan of OneUI, but thankfully, I found a reliable solution for that: Nova Launcher.
Since early 2024, though, I’ve been using an iPhone 15 Pro, which I got as a gift from my father when I visited him in Austria back in January. The build quality of this phone is top-notch, and its display is arguably the best on the market, in my opinion. The camera? Almost perfect. But that’s where perfection ends.
This is my first time owning an iOS device. At first, I found it odd, then I got used to it and even started liking it. But now? It’s become a bit annoying. So, let me break down what I don’t like about iOS and why Samsung does some things better.
First and foremost—and this one is a dealbreaker for me—is the lack of a "proper back button" like you have on Android phones. On iOS, you’re stuck with swipes and gestures, but they don’t work consistently across apps.
Take Twitter and YouTube, for example: you can swipe right from anywhere on the screen to go back. But that’s not the case with every app. In some, the swipe gesture doesn’t work at all, leaving you no choice but to awkwardly reach for the top-left corner to go back or close a window/tab.
On Android, you can keep pushing the back button as long as you need and even exit an app entirely through "excessive back button pushing," but that’s just not an option on iOS. And it’s not the only thing about iOS that bothers me.
For starters, there’s no separate volume control for notification sounds and ringtones. If you set the volume to max, you’ll have a ridiculously loud ringtone, but notifications will still be barely audible. That sucks.
Speaking of notifications, there’s also no option to turn off the camera shutter sound. On my device, the camera defaults to shooting photos in live mode, which doesn’t make noise. But if I switch to portrait mode, the sound is back.
That said, iOS does shine in some areas. It’s better optimized for standby times, and Apple somehow squeezes impressive battery life out of a relatively small battery. Still, I can’t help but wonder what else they’re stuffing into these devices to make them so heavy and clunky.
Editing text on iOS is also annoying as hell. Sometimes you just need to tap a word to delete a few letters and rewrite, but other times you have to hold and tap awkwardly to navigate within a sentence. It’s so much easier on Android.
On the plus side, after iOS 18, we finally got the ability to arrange icons on the home screen however we want—about time! But then there’s the issue of ringtones. You can’t just download a song and set it as your ringtone, and loading music onto an iPhone from any storage is such a hassle.
So, will I go back to Android when this phone’s time is up? I’m not sure—it depends on what’s on offer. But if OnePlus ever decides to make compact phones, I’d buy one in a heartbeat. I don’t like big-screen smartphones, and in that regard, the iPhone is perfect, packing insane capabilities into a compact design.
What about you? What do you prefer, Android or iOS?
Thanks for your attention,
Adrian