I can now summarize my previous post up in one sentence: Android had become tiring and I find the iPhone delightful.
The new iPhone 5C arrived on Wed 2013-10-02 and I found the transition from the almost-two-year-old Android Galaxy Nexus 4.2.2 easy and painless. So far I’m happy using a new device with a fresh new interface and all that I consider essential.
I ordered the iPhone 5C on-line at the Apple Store. The process was simple and integration with my Verizon account and changes were straightforward. There was no charge for shipping and the device shipped by UPS and arrived in two days, i.e., I ordered it on Monday and it arrived on Wednesday. Somehow, Apple got the idea it should have arrived on Tuesday and sent an apologetic email alert about a shipping delay.
Transitioning the phone over to my Verizon account after turning it on was equally simple and only involved entering my phone number and the other typical identifying information Verizon wants.
Syncing my Gmail/Google contact list to the phone was a quick web search and simply adding that account to the Settings for the phone. I enabled contact syncing (but not email!) and much later, this morning in fact, I turned on calendar syncing. I didn’t sync email because I’m using the Gmail app and not the iPhone email app.
Apps
For installing apps I logged into my existing Apple account with no problem. In the first evening I was able to easily install nearly every app I consider essential, including all of the Google apps like Gmail, Maps, Chrome and more.
I continued to pull down apps over the next few days as I thought of them, needed them, or just had time to—the demand paging approach.
Amazon Cloud player was also an easy install and works just as it does on the Android. It will stream from the cloud or download songs, albums, or playlists to the phone to play them locally.
With a quick search of some on-line recommendations I settled on the excellent program, Downcast, for downloading and playing podcasts. Though I liked Doggcatcher on Android, I think Downcast is actually much better.
I figured out how to rearrange the apps on the screens so that the important apps were on the bottom bar (Amazon Cloud Player, Phone, Messages, Chrome), how to put apps into folders, etc. As expected, there’s still fiddling around left to do to get the arrangement of apps and organization of the screens balanced so they work best for me, but it’s very workable right now.
Anticipated Problems
For the most part, things I worried about the most haven’t been any trouble at all.
Having no back button doesn’t really cause a problem. Apps usually provide their own back button, or some equivalent, when you’d need one. It’s usually in the upper left corner. And there’s bailing out with the home button but I rarely find myself using that as an alternative to a back button.
Other changes in using a different interface just haven’t been a problem. The new UI has been easy and fast to learn. I like it a lot and, since I didn’t have IOS 6 as a reference, I don’t have anything to complain about regarding differences.
Surprisingly I don’t miss the widgets at all. There’s a nice economy of focus to only seeing information when you want to see it. There’s not the distraction of some random Facebook update and, well, I guess I just didn’t really depend that much on the other widgets. So, I thought widgets were really neat, I still do, but I’ve found they aren’t essential. Perhaps that means they’re really clutter, but I like them enough I wouldn’t suggest they be removed from Android.
One of the advantages of Android is the ability to customize almost anything and everything. It’s probably my personal stage of phone usage, but I don’t want to do that kind of hacking, I just want something that works.
No perfect box
Here’s the worst thing about the iPhone 5C: the box. Most Apple products come in packaging that’s so nice you hate to throw it away. The 5C came in a somewhat annoying, oversized, retro-like plastic case. And the worst sin of all, it was sealed with tape that left behind a pet-roller-like sticky band which makes you want to throw whole thing away as quickly as possible. The opposite effect of the typical packaging.
Yes, it’s not that important, really. Just bothersome.
Missing out on the Nexus 5
I don’t mind. If the leaked LG information is accurate, the Nexus 5 isn’t attention-grabbing to me. I have more to say in another post about why that may be. If I’d waited and then sprung for the Moto X or Nexus 5, I’d have a phone nearly the same as what I had. It might perform better from some ratchet clicks of CPU specs, but I don’t know if I’d notice. Maybe.
Reality check
I know I’m still grazing on the greener grass at the start of a new-phone honeymoon. The real test will be how its working after one, six and 12 months. But I have to say, being able to fall right in with all that I consider essential right there and a nice solid interface and hardware, I can’t see the complaints yet.