After using Android since around 2010 getting a midrange iPhone around 18 or so months ago was almost a revelation for me, so no, it is clearly not all marketing spin.
(Why? Even on a Note II or S7 Edge something as trivial as opening the camera would have me waiting. On my iPhone XR pressing the camera button brings up the camera more or less instantaneously. And there are also a number of small conveniences that are hard to really pinpoint like actually understanding when it is in my pocket and then not turn on and burn out my battery.)
Battery lasts all day (and it's 4 years old). Doesn't turn on when it's in my pocket.
These anecdotal "I switched to x and its waaay better" things always reek of bias.
That a 2017 phone is slower than a 2018 phone is obvious - plus you'd need to reset the s7 to factory defaults for fair(er) comparison.
I do support on iPhones (not an Apple employee) and I've never experienced the the vaunted "this is so much better" moment.
Lucky you.
> These anecdotal "I switched to x and its waaay better" things always reek of bias.
Well, here I am. I don't think I touched an apple product from 2012 to summer 2018 because I disliked OS X so intensely. So not exactly the biggest Apple fan.
> That a 2017 phone is slower than a 2018 phone is obvious - plus you'd need to reset the s7 to factory defaults for fair(er) comparison.
I talk about normal steady state usage after a month or two. My iPhone is still smooth. My Androids were hardly ever smooth even shortly after installation. YMMW. If it works for you, more power to you.
Edit: I know Android devices can be good. My Samsung S II was amazing for its time.
If you want to see how much value there is in Apple's phones, look at the used phone market. The competition isn't even close and iphones hold their value much better than the vast majority of android phones.
I've used apple products too, but it sounds to me like the differences in quality are deeply exaggerated. I happen to like android mostly because I have access to the filesystem and like to tinker with settings (and I like using my headphone jack).
As far as aftermarket value, I'm not convinced the used marked is completely rational... Or rather, there are plenty of confounding factors that make that a poor argument for which phone is built better.
That said, if there was a decent Linux phone, I’d hop on it, warts and all. Pinephone or Librem are getting close.
To be fair, transitioning from any phone around the S7 era to an iPhone XR bought in 2020 would probably give you the same feeling of revelation.
The longest I've held on to a phone was the iPhone 7 Plus for ~4 years, but even after 2 and a 1/2 years it was starting to show it's age. By the time I got rid of it, a charge would last me a little over half a day from moderate use.
(asking for an Xperia owner)
And yes, as far as I remember Xperia was good, it just failed physically (later realized it was my fault as I used it as alarm clock and ended up applying force to the charging cable each morning.) Also they lost me as a customer when they included Amazon ads in a OS upgrade.
Maybe it was a bad time for Apple, but it was almost traumatic for me. They really did just use marketing to sell phones.
Consistently Apple have been the leaders in all of the above. Even now, superior chip, camera, battery life, pixel density... it's hard to find better.
I've used Pixels since they became a thing and Apple iPhones. Other than quirky App Store bugs the quality issues almost always occur on the Pixel phones. ("Ok google" just stopping, gestures just stopping, ringing phone not responding to touch etc).
The os annoyance was the relentless "type in your apple id password", and multiple times per week updates. A few users have spun the narrative that updates are good, but these were annoying and didn't have any front facing benefits. No widgets really sucked, it was regressive not to have my next alarm time on my home screen.
Finally Apple maps sucked, the podcast app was buggy, I'd hit play and nothing would happen. I'd then hit play a few times and nothing would happen. Then finally something would happen. I can't remember other software bugs, it's been years.
Sure these might be fixed today, but I wonder what other things are bad today. I have ad blocking and a few other non play store apps on my phone, given the App Store, I'm not sure Apple would let such apps through.
