First things first. I am not an Apple fanboy. I’ve been using smartphones for almost a decade now and I’ve owned exactly 1 Symbian, 4 Androids and 2 iPhones. I had always wanted to buy an iPhone ever since I saw the first iPhone ad, back in 2007. Come on, who didn’t, at that time? But iPhones were something most people could only dream about, at least in India. Just a handful of people were able to afford it. I started my smartphone journey with a Nokia 5230 smartphone in 2011. It had 3G internet, an app store, a great music player for my offline collection, a decent camera, and all this at a very affordable price. It also had dedicated apps for Email, Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp and Maps. I was a freshman in college and these features were all that I ever needed on a smartphone. In the next couple of years, Android adoption took off in a major way. Everyone had an Android smartphone, irrespective of the price point. I upgraded to an HTC One and then a Samsung Galaxy smartphone. I loved the Android experience. Play Store had an app for literally everything. G Suite and other Google apps became mainstream on mobile devices. Phones got better literally by the week. With bigger screens, better cameras, faster browsing, longer battery life and smoother social media experience, there was nothing to complain.

My first iPhone

Still, my obsession with the iPhone never faded. That coupled with the fact that no one I knew had an iPhone, I thought it would be a great status symbol. And as if iPhones were already not irresistible enough, Apple had launched their iPhones in Gold color option, the previous year. iPhones were still a lot expensive. With all the money I had saved up from my recent full-time summer internship, I went ahead and bought the iPhone 5s (Gold, 16 GB) in early 2015. My enthusiasm was over the moon. I finally had an iPhone for myself, after 8 years of fantasizing about it. The iPhone didn’t do anything better, but it still made me extremely satisfied. You can, in short, say that the shiny metal body and the flawless Apple logo were more than enough for me to justify the expensive purchase. The 4-inch screen size was a downgrade from my bigger Android phones, but hey, Steve Jobs said right… that no one would want to buy a phone with a bigger screen. After all, your thumb only goes… from here… to here!

I ditched my first iPhone for an Android

Once the initial excitement around the new phone subsided, I quickly realized what a terrible mistake I’ve made. And the next 2 years were a complete nightmare. I was not in it for the Apple ecosystem, believe me. I’ve never once used FaceTime, iMessage or AirDrop, not even until today. So, I could do everything I did on the iPhone on an Android as well. And my iPhone 5s sucked at every single thing. Camera was good, I’ll give you that. But with the 16GB variant, I quickly found myself having to delete photos or apps every time before the phone would allow me to click a photo. Also, smartphones were all about apps, right? Even my Symbian phone back in 2011 had all the social media apps. Here I was, living in 2015 and even all the daily essential apps like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Gmail were just Safari bookmarks to their mobile website, because I didn’t have any free device storage! Buying the 16GB version was the stupidest decision of my life. But partially I hold Apple accountable too, for selling the 32 GB version at such a premium and not allowing expandable memory. Thankfully, now the iPhones start from the 64GB variant.

Now coming to the issues that can’t be blamed entirely on me. Firstly, the screen size was too damn small for all the exciting things that were happening in the world of apps. Even Apple went ahead and released a 4.7 and a 5.5-inch iPhone models to play catch up! The battery backup sucked big time. If I ever forgot to carry my lightening charger to work, I had to just roam around with a dead phone in my pocket all day. I even had to take the crowded Mumbai local trains to get around the city because I can’t book an Uber! The iOS was so restrictive that transferring files with the PCs and Androids was such a huge pain. Finally, the lack of dual sim got to me with the launch of Reliance Jio in India, offering mobile data at <$1 per GB in 2016, i.e. 1/5th of the price compared to other network operators. I didn’t even have much money to upgrade my smartphone. Still, I was done with this perpetual everyday struggle to just live a normal life. One fine day, I just walked into a nearby mobile store and asked them for a mid-range Android phone. I ended up buying a Moto G5 Plus and put the purchase entirely on my credit card. And after activating the new phone, I felt exactly like Andy Dufresne after his iconic escape from the Shawshank prison!

#ios #apple #tech #smartphones #iphone