Migrating from Google Pixel 2XL to Apple iPhone 11 PRO

Recently I upgraded from Google Pixel 2xl for cell phones to iPhone 11 pro. I usually do not upgrade phones so soon and my friends say I extract every juice out of a device before dumping it away. Note that my previous phones were Lenovo l4 note and Micromax canvas 2, both of which were best sellers in their age+category and whom I used for at least 2 years. Only because my ex phone (pixel 2 xl) was such a marvellous machine, I thought an experiment of moving away from pixel series deserves a write-up.

Since I gave a figure for how long I used each phone, maybe you would judge me as a person not so much into phones or a miser or poor, but let me clarify I have no such beliefs. I am a free thinker when it comes to tech. I would suggest people flock to a better tech if they can afford to. What is good should truly be appreciated. Unfortunately, we live in a world where resources are scarce and phone prices are as high as income disparity in our society. So I leave it upon the reader to best decide their own good when it comes to the choice of phone. You can, however, read this as my experience of moving to iPhone rather than a prescription to switch.

Some pros and cons of iPhone vs Pixels

It works insanely well with MacBook Pro and the AirPods. I feel I am super productive by avoiding little distractions in my daily life. I am able to pick up calls even when working out in low network reception ( calls over wifi). AirPods are another separate topic - it has removed the need to carry any other listening device. I use it for talking on a metro train or even just focus by noise-cancelling feature. It was very costly for me but it turned out to be satisfying.

I always used to use Franz. It’s an application to keep all messaging apps together in one window - outlook ( work email), Gmail, Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, Android Messages, and Google calendar etc - basically an application wrapper over several tabs of chrome. It keeps most of my things sorted. I still use that and net need to touch the phone is very minimal when working on my MacBook (more than 6 hours a day - which is a quarter of my time). So change on that front.

Another big change is that I had to part with my favourite ringtone for over 10 years - Haddaway what is love. Mind you I am still very minimalist in terms of subscriptions so I haven’t gotten that ringtone back. It made me sad to think that despite paying so much for the device one is still not allowed to have their ringtone over that boring tune of iPhone. I really loved that ringtone and hadn’t changed it since undergrad so that was something I missed badly. But surprisingly it took not more than a day to get used to the new ringtone - I do lots of calls unsurprising to my decision to buy AirPods. Just that when I meet college friends now we don’t get to be nostalgic about my ringtone.

I noticed a few more things which are different. I used google calendar widget on android to remind me of pending tasks and carried the same habit to iPhone as well. But apparently, the iPhones Google calendar widget doesn’t show past full day reminders which are undone. That makes me worry that someday despite having a reminder set to finish a reminder, I would get into a mess by missing it. I found keynote and all sorts of other fancy apps like garage band etc were not useful for me. So I deleted them all and kept my obsession to keep my phone neat & clean again.

ProTip: Watch a bunch of YouTube videos on how to use iPhone

I used to feel weird about an extra silent button but have started to like it and feel it’s a killer feature now. I can make my phone silent without taking it out of my pocket. It’s a great feature if your girlfriend calls you in the middle of the night at times ( maybe mine does).

Overall I am happy that I get seamless connection across all the devices but sad at few things not working the same way before. They may be small but to an obsessed person who likes to keep the same ringtone for a decade, it’s slightly bothersome.