As you guys may know...I finally have an iOS device to toy around with, dissect the system and learn things. (Haven't had an iOS device since my 2nd gen iPod touch) Sadly its been entirely too long since I've been a multi device, multi os owner and having this iPhone has reminded me of how fun it is. The best thing about having the phone, which I always, always promote when it comes to having multiple devices. Is the fact that its still a phone, now my actual sprint number isn't on it, and I basically use it feeding off of my androids hotspot, but with Google's services the phone still possesses the ability to make calls via the hangouts app. I'll get into that more later in the article though.
First off, the iOS ecosystem. Placed on top of the retina display the iOS 7 system is actually quite beautiful. I remember when I first laid eyes on it and I disagreed with the color schemes (mainly because I like darker colors in general) but the lighter theme of iOS 7 is actually clean. It would be pretty cool to change the options without jail breaking? But for the most part it honestly is easy on the eyes. Having 2 devices. One being android, and the other being iOS definitely has its upsides. With the majority of cult iOS users making such a big deal out of the whole, green bubble, blue bubble appearance in their texts having the iMessage option is very fun tbh. Using iOS in general gives a sense of exclusivity that you truly don't receive with android. Honestly its just the fact that iOS is close sources, and you'll only receive these experiences on an apple branded device. Where on android you have multiple options to experience the system, with multiple customizations.
Now let me speak on the problems that truly arise when using iOS. First off the lack of accessible flash memory is such a drag. If you wanted to pull music, or videos that I've saved within a 3rd party cloud like dropbox I can only stream them within the dropbox app. I can't save and play them in the default media apps on the device. Which is a drag. Second is the caching system? Or lack thereof I mean. There are certain apps that cache and you go "eh" then there are certain apps you'd wish cached data. For example Google play music. (Since I have my subscription to there streaming service there wasn't a huge need for iTunes radio)...The app doesn't cache data, unless you store the track you're playing, where on android you have both options to either cache or store the tracks. It becomes a bit bothersome because that means all tracks will always stream and use data, unless of course you store them. But, if you're only on an 8gb iPhone...well thats self explanatory... Now iTunes radio, there's no large need to dive into it. It operates like your favorite radio streaming services I.E. Pandora, and spotify. With the abilities to of course purchase the tracks as they play if you like... There is one thing that iTunes radio does that I like, it keeps a record of past songs you've listened to. So say you had it playing, maybe through some speakers and weren't near your phone when it played, just open up your history scroll to the song you missed and purchase it, if you want to of course. I'm a music junky so honestly I use a couple of different apps and then open up Google play music and sync the tracks within my library.
Keep in mind that this is just a run of the mill iPhone 4 so sadly I couldn't test siri. We'll bypass that for now. Let's move on to iMessage. I finally understand the hype between the whole, blue and green bubble fiasco. There is a true sense of exclusivity within the iMessage community and them not texting anyone who doesn't show up blue. Its refreshing to be apart of the cult honestly. Thing is, at times iMessage seems slow, as far as sending photos and videos (once again it may just be the fact I am on an iPhone 4). When compared to other messaging services such as bbm and Google hangouts, which of course are now both cross platform. It seems to be a full cult following at this point. Google hangouts offers video chat just as iMessage does with facetime. Speaking of Facetime it truly does offer unrivaled video clarity, I mean I've used oovoo, hangouts, Skype, fringer and a few other video services but Facetime? Definitely tops them all. Even though it also has its buffering and connection issues at times, which once again may be because I'm on an older iPhone.
There are things that are great with iOS, but there are also things that are stressful. Screen size, lack of ram just to name a couple. The thing that I can commend iOS on is the development of their once exclusive apps, or apps that originally began on iOS. Those apps are of the highest development and most stable. I honestly love twitter for iOS its 10x better than twitter for android (even though I don't use Twitter for android). Instagram is lovely, vine runs smooth. In general social apps on iOS are great where some apps on android aren't as great, unless you venture into third party development where apps are lovely. Now, when it comes to 3rd party app development on iOS, most apps need to be purchased. This is such a drawback because a lot of the apps that you would need to pay for on iOS, can most likely be found for free on android. And not even in the play store but also on developer websites such as xda developers. I understand the reasons to use iOS, I also now understand why people would prefer it over android. There is a true sense of stability with close sourced systems that you cannot receive with open source. Would I ever switch to iOS? Of course not, only if I were forced to by a company. I enjoy using iOS though it is a fun system and I look forward to jail breaking it soon.
