Andrew Melder

I recently got a Pixel 9 Pro for work purposes. In order to test out switching platforms again, I had my main SIM card in the Pixel for a few days and used it as my primary phone while I took the opportunity to factory reset my aging 13 Mini.

I understood some of the ecosystem sacrifices I would be making as a result; with the rest of the family being in the Apple ecosystem and myself owning a Mac and Apple Watch. However this following is a list of pain points that have impacted me specifically which have led me to question the effort to switch platforms:

1. Screen time device management for kids devices

Having a son with an iPhone and daughter currently with an iPad, turns out I rely heavily on Screen Time. And while I can always manage this through my Mac; if we are out somewhere and the kids want some extra time on their devices, doing so now requires my wife to have to accept and process those requests.

As you can imagine, the wife is super happy with any extra admin load just because I want to use Android.

2. Health & medication management

I’m getting to the age where I have to take medication daily. Through Apple’s investment in health management, mainly through the development and success of the Apple Watch as a health platform; iOS is way ahead of Google in terms of being the best interface for health data.

There have been multiple instances of times where I have been reminded by Apple’s medication reminders that I have forgotten to take my daily medication; sometimes on my way to work resulting in having to go back. I’m always grateful for the reminder.

I can add a reminder of my medication to Google Tasks, but it’s not as prevalent and having a reminder set when I don’t complete that task every day is unclear.

Meanwhile, Google remains fumbling the ball yet again trying to work out what to do with Fitbit. I don’t trust them to get this right.

3. AirDrop

AirDrop is annoyingly good. While I can very much live without iMessage (and still have it off despite my SIM going back into my iPhone for now), going without AirDrop has been very annoying.

Not just to share items between my phone and Mac, but also sharing items with my wife and kids.

I could probably just use Google Drive for my own needs, but i don’t have a real alternative for AirDrop with the wife and kids devices.

4. Poor iCloud/Find My support

Did you know you can log into iCloud on the web and access some services such as reminders and Find My? Did you also know they are effectively useless. Reminders are dog slow to load, making them a frustration. Find My works…except for tracking AirTags.

Combined with the inability to remain logged in permanently, leading to login prompts when you actually need to use it, means you should not rely on iCloud for the web as an alternative to access some Apple services.