I got an iPhone SE 2020. The motivation is that custom ROMs on Android gave the best privacy at the cost of security (unlocked bootloader), but Apple would give me the second best privacy at comparable security.

Like, I didn't use diction or Google Assistant or location services because I didn't trust Google. I feel I can more comfortably use Siri.

I tried coming into this with an open mind. So, in addition to "Bad things" and "Good things", I'll also list "UI/UX things", where Apple diverges from classic desktop UI/UX "things" I've come to expect.

Bad thing: The Postmates courier gets fucked when you order from Apple

I ordered the "courier delivery" for $9, thinking it would be some Apple store employee nearby bringing my device to my house. Nope -- they order through Postmates, tip $0 on your behalf, and had this guy drive an hour to my house to get me my iPhone. I understand it pays well if you're picking up multiple orders. I tipped him some extra cash anyways (not 20% though, that'd be over $80 that I wasn't prepared to shell out) because I learned Apple orders are near-universally hated by Postmates drivers

Good thing: I guess LCD displays are actually good now.

I'm surprised the LCD 1334x750 display looks this good. The resolution is surprisingly a non-issue, but the black isn't as black as an OLED.

Good thing: Nice setup privacy, I think?

The set-up has a lot of opt-out options for privacy, which I thought was neat. You still need to break into settings to disable iCloud and advertising stuff.

UI thing: Menus

You select a drop down / list menu, but the list appears not where you pressed, but at the bottom of the screen. This probably violates some UI principals, and had me confused for a bit. But if they're consistent with this (I don't know yet if they are!) then I can accept it.

UI thing: Done

I could have put this in "Menus", but following Apple's design philosophy, I'm putting two elements into something that could have one. When you select an item in the list, you then need to click "Done" for it to register as entered. This is different from a typical dropdown, where you 1. Press the dropdown, and then 2. Press the item you want.

Good things: You can change Siri's voice.

Siri is an Australian man now.

Good things: You can turn off iMessage.

Bad things: The Settings app has an advertisement for Apple TV+.

Bad thing: Lightning cable instead of USB C

Bad thing: Glass body.

This is bad for me, someone who doesn't use wireless charging. I'd prefer metal, which does not crack and conducts heat better.

Bad thing: Horrendously slow... At first.

My old Android phone has fallen down a staircase, taken a lil splash in a stream, been bent forward and back, and suffered a lot of abuse in the >4 years I've had it. It's suffering and slow. Sometimes, when I press a UI element, it trudges along, but the fact that I pressed it is reflected immediately.

But with the SE, menus, contexts, etc. were slow and I had to wait for them, and I had no indication I had pressed things! I believe it may have been crunching along in the background, setting things up.

Other times, I'd open an app ("Oh, what is Garageband?") and I had enough time to get a cup of water, fill it, take a sip, and come back to my desk. This hasn't happened since I finished setup though.

Bad thing: Apple Pay and payment information aren't combined?

This was kind of annoying. I had to enter my payment information twice, once for Apple Pay and once for payment information.

Bad thing: What do you mean, payment processed?

Another small thing -- any app you install will say "Payment processed", which worried me that I accidentally paid for an app I thought was free. Turns out it was just Apple's mistake.

Bad thing: My God, the Settings.

I spent a lot of time in settings. Having a unified place for all the app settings was actually pretty nifty for me, except for the apps that don't have the settings.

Siri was awful for searching the settings. "Hey Siri, show me security settings." "It doesn't look like you have an app named security." Like, what?

The Search was also awful. Type "TouchID" to try to find TouchID in the settings, but instead you get results like "3D Touch" (a discontinued feature not present on this phone) under accessibility but no results for TouchID. Scroll through the settings and find it yourself, and it crashes for some reason?

Also, when I change a setting, sometimes it is not reflected in the rest of the settings app. I disabled iCloud, navigated back a page, but it still had "iCloud On" (or something like that, I can't recall.)

Bad things: Animations are extremely slow.

Long presses, tapping through apps, moving through dialogues. Each comes with a penalty of time, each with a transition animation. Each thing is a speedbump in my train of thought which isn't present on any other computing device I use. On every other device, I can speed up or disable animations.

But not this! iOS demands your patience at every turn. There are no settings to remove or speed-up these animations (perhaps they are optimized for one speed, rather than controlled by a variable speed). This really turns me off from using any Apple devices for serious use and is one of my biggest issues. I hope this philosophy isn't present on iPad OS or MacOS.

Bad thing: The keyboard.

On Android, I have this wonderful little open source keyboard with a number row and long-presses for a variety of punctuation and diacritics. I can write in English, Spanish or Esperanto, type most of my passwords, and type numbers without ever having to "shift" to a different keyboard. In iOS, numbers and all punctuation are squirreled away behind one or more keypresses. This is a major issue for passwords (described below.)

Bad thing: Passwords and keyboards and TouchID, oh my!

I use a password manager. On Android, it's great and fast. I click "autofill with 1Password", touch my fingerprint, and voila. On iOS, I have to touch many more times. Combined with the animations, logging into things is now a cumbersome process. But it gets worse.

On a new device, I expect to have to enter my master password (and other MFA info) exactly once to use 1Password. It's why my password is very long and unyieldy. But on iOS, it's inconsistent. I've had to enter it four times now, despite setting up TouchID with 1Password as soon as I could. As mentioned, this issue is compounded with the keyboard, which sometimes requires multiple keypresses for one character.

Bad things: You can't delete 'favorites' in Safari without loading the page.

You long hold the favorite, and it pops up in a lil window with the option to remove it. Google is one such "favorite" automatically listed.

UI things: The home menu is very rigid and inflexible.

Anybody coming from Android, especially who used the Nova launcher, will feel dismayed that all their apps and folders are on one screen, and even when reorganized, default to the top/left of the screen. As a right-handed person, I'd like to place these on the right/bottom of the screen.

UI things: The Windows Vista phone.

Remember Windows Vista, where the windows looked like frosted glass? A lot of UI elements on this phone look similar. Make of that what you will.

Bad things: Shortcuts won't work?

I spent a lot of time making a Shortcut to find out the "Wait" functionality breaks it. Maybe if you wait for 30 seconds, it looks like the process is hanging on something, and Siri tells you something went wrong? I don't know what's going on but it's surprising this issue wasn't caught and fixed before release.

Good things: Taptic engine feedback.

I swear, I'm going to wear out the "do not disturb" toggle. This is extremely satisfying.

Good thing: WiFi calling and more bands!

This is just compared to my older Android phone, which lacked in wireless support. This isn't iOS specific.

Bad, awful, horrible thing: Tethered ethernet over USB requires iTunes.

If you're like me and you fuck around regularly with hardware that has no WiFi, you may have made extensive use of Android's USB Tethering feature, which uses your Android as a router and provides Ethernet over USB. This has never not worked for me.

iPhones have this feature too, if you download iTunes to the device to want to tether to. This requires 1. An internet connection and 2. A MacOS or Windows machine.

I can't imagine giving up my Android while this is still the case.

Bad thing: Battery life.

My 2016 Android and my 2020 iPhone SE both cost $400, and yet after 4 years of usage, my Android battery life is comparable to this iPhone battery life.

Bad thing: Camera is just worse.

So, my 2016 Android with a Google Camera port has all the awesome computational photography features you get in a modern Pixel device. It can stitch together information taken during an exposure to add detail impossible from traditional methods. It takes some computational crunch, but it's fuckem good.

Apple has this too, and calls it Deep Fusion, but the SE does not have it. After taking some photos, I'm really sad to see that my shitty 2016 Android outperforms my 2020 iPhone.

Furthermore, the camera is locked down, and you can't manually control things like focal length and exposure, something that is present in every default Android camera app I have ever touched.

Bad things being fixed in iOS 14: No widgets, no choice of default apps.

Good things: The iOS keyboard has swipe typing now.

Bad things: iOS opened up NFC only recently...

... and so there are no SleepAsAndroid-esque alarm apps that require you scan NFC tags to turn off the alarm.

Bad things: The included EarPods do not fit my ears at all.

UI things: Text selection doesn't let you tap within a word.

Bad things: Expensive to develop for.

I've made Android apps and videogames before. It is extremely easy to use Godot or GameMaker or any typical game engine and export to Android. I'd done this even before I ever had a smartphone, using an inexpensive and old laptop. It was extremely easy.

It may also be easy to export for iOS. I wouldn't know, because exporting to iOS requires you have a Mac device, and publishing to the app store requires you pay Apple $100 every year.

Bad things: iOS communities are uncritical and pretentious.

I've spent a lot of time on Apple forums and subreddits and I do not like these communities at all. I don't like people who say that people with green texts are "sus" or "not worth the time" or who speak like a marketer saying "All the best apps and services come to iPhone" or "Why would you want to use game emulators when you have the massive collection of high quality games on iOS?" Or "What's the point then [if your case covers the logo]?"

I get the impression that the people active in these communities view themselves as just superior to others, and are very aware of and happy about their Apple devices being status symbols. I hate that. I feel out of place and disliking those around me. This is exactly the way I felt that one time I was invited to play golf at some golf club with a wealthy friend.

Good thing: Not too different from Android.

For all these issues, there's not a large learning curve. I don't feel like I'm holding an alien piece of tech. I don't feel like I compromised too much, because Google and Android phone manufacturers keep copying Apple (and so, providing fewer and fewer unique reasons to keep me on Android) while Apple keeps copying Android (albeit with many years delay.)

A quick guide for Android users: Swipe from the left side of the screen instead of pressing the back button, the home button is like a screen and a button (even though not actually a button) and double press it to get to the task switcher, hamburger menus will always be somewhere inside apps, and if something isn't working it's probably because you need to looooooooong press (for literal multiple whole seconds.)

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EDIT: more things:

• Dislike the lack of a headphone jack
• Dislike how weak notifications are
• I like the physical home button
• I like the reachability feature