The iPhone is the best-selling smartphone on the planet, and, especially in the US, it is clearly a dominant force. I'm an Android user by choice, but every now and then I spend time with the latest iPhone to take a peek into Apple's garden, trying not to get trapped within its walls. I've been using the iPhone 15 Pro sporadically for the past few months and have had some thoughts.
The last time I used an iPhone for an extended period of time was the 2017 iPhone X, the device that really set the stage for Apple's big iPhone evolution. But this didn't last quite long as the device was quickly put into a few casual uses and tested out new apps and features from time to time. Since then, I've continued to happily use dozens of different Android phones, usually Pixel or foldable.
But the iPhone 15 Pro finally piqued my interest enough that I forked over $1,000 and gave Apple another chance. convince me.
What the iPhone does right
Camera, hardware, battery life and finally USB-C
Before we get into the complaints, let's talk about the positives of the iPhone, and that starts with the hardware. Apple knows how to design a phone, and quite well. The iPhone 15 Pro's titanium body is greatly exaggerated in Apple's advertising, but it's pretty good. The phone feels surprisingly light, yet very durable and premium. I spent most of my time using the device with the Nomad leather case, but every time it's not in that case I'm still amazed.
The hardware also has two major advantages for me. First of all, I like the color. The blue shade Apple is using here looks great, although I greatly prefer the Bay Blue color of the Pixel 8 Pro, but Apple's darker color has its own appeal.
Another important point is size. Smaller Android phones often sacrifice a lot for their size. The Pixel 8 is a pretty powerful offering, but it's not as small as the iPhone. And while I'm a big phone fan, I really appreciate using smaller devices. Usually this means the star on the main display opens up to reveal the tablet – the Pixel Fold is particularly good at this aspect – but it was very nice to enjoy a full-featured little smartphone without draining battery life.
And by the way.
Battery life is arguably one of the iPhone 15 Pro's biggest strengths. For its size, this is impressive. I mostly used this device as a secondary device, but on many days when I used it as my only smartphone, it performed quite well, easily lasting a full day without any of the battery issues that my Pixel 8 Pro had. despite the larger size and battery, this is something to struggle with. This may be partly due to the fact that I don't have a crazy amount of apps installed yet, but I'm still very pleased.
Plus, this iPhone finally has USB-C!
A few years ago I said that USB-C was what would make me want to give the iPhone another try, and I think it comes at the perfect time. Apple may have been forced to do this, but the company's implementation is exactly what I was hoping for – completely neutral. There is no deception going on. USB-C, for lack of a better term, just works. My chargers, accessories, everything works as I expected. Apple should have done this a long time ago, but I'm glad it's finally here.
And then there's the camera. A lot has changed since I last used the iPhone X.
The iPhone 15 Pro's triple camera is stable and predictable, which is exactly what I want in a smartphone camera. I think in the photography department, Apple and Google have really hit the same wall when it comes to camera quality. For the most part, the “best” photo is really just a matter of personal preference. I think overall I still prefer the contrasty look of the Pixel, but the iPhone's approach to photography is still great. It's also more stable across all apps, something Android really struggles with.
Here are a few shots taken with the iPhone 15 Pro over the past few months.
In video, Apple's camera definitely comes out ahead. While Video Boost on the Pixel 8 Pro gives Apple results worth its money, Apple's camera records at about the same quality without hours of cloud processing, and Apple's support for LOG recording simply opens up a world of possibilities. This won't do any good for the average buyer, but the camera here is simply superb.
Nevertheless, let's get to the fun part. Lots of complaints and headaches.
Let's talk about iOS
I always knew my experience with iOS would be full of headaches, but around seemingly every corner there was another reason why I just didn't like the platform. There's a lot to talk about, but let's start with the main screen.
The desktop has changed a lot since I last used an iPhone. There are widgets, as well as an “App Library” – things that I always missed in my past encounters with the platform. The widgets are done quite well, although to be honest I have moved away from this feature over the years. I don't use it much on Android, and I don't use it very much on iOS. But at least this feature is well implemented and has wide support from developers.
But the application library is a complete mess.
The iOS home screen has always seemed cluttered and disorganized to me simply because every app on your device is forced to be visible. The App Library technically fixes this by giving you the option to remove those apps from the Home screen and move them elsewhere. But for some reason it only gets worse. iOS automatically organizes your apps in the library into categories, but you don't really have any control, which makes it difficult to use. There is a search function and it's really the only way I've found it useful. And it really seems like the only reason this feature is like this is because Apple couldn't admit it was wrong. The app drawer on Android is a very simple alphabetical list of your apps, available with a quick swipe. It's intuitive. It's simple. The App Library is neither. This is bad.
Since we're talking about bad things, let's move on to what was clearly in store for us.
iOS Notifications.
Over the past few months, I've come to believe that Apple is purposefully designing iOS to make you forget about notifications, because otherwise I don't understand how things got to where they are today. When you swipe down to access Notification Center, iOS only shows one or two notifications. You have to scroll through to access more, and there often seems to be no rhyme or reason to how they appear. The obvious goal is to show everything in chronological order, but this won't help if you receive a lot of notifications throughout the day.
Overall, the biggest issue for me is the way notifications are grouped in iOS. If you keep an eye on notifications as they come in, it's relatively consistent and easy, but often I find that if I keep the phone in my pocket for a while, I'll have multiple email groups, multiple message groups for different apps, and multiple groups of social notifications that are mixed together. For example, if I receive Telegram notifications from multiple group chats, multiple Twitter/X notifications, and multiple emails within an hour, they might be divided into 7 or 8 groups. A chronological approach to notifications makes sense if you're glued to your phone, but I firmly believe it shouldn't work that way. Personally, I miss notifications all the time because I simply can't see them quickly. And until I really dive in, I have no idea how many notifications I have. Whether I have a couple of messages and email or a dozen apps sending me notifications, everything looks the same. And some notifications simply never go away until you clear them, even if they were cleared years ago. Again, I think Android does a better job in this area. You can see a few notification icons at the top of the screen to quickly understand what's going on, and the grouping method is much, much better.
I think iOS notifications are almost completely unnecessary to use. qualities, but not every aspect of iOS has disappointed me as much as the keyboard experience.
I thought smartphone keyboards were something we came up with a long time ago, but every time I move away from Google Gboard (on Android), I'm reminded of how crazy things can get.
The standard keyboard on iOS is good, but I think it gets too much praise. The keyboard is especially good for two-handed typing. I think the spacing is really good and muscle memory is easy to develop too. Swipe text entry, the Android original, is also very well implemented.
But Apple's autocorrect is far from aggressive, and is truly difficult to deal with.
Autocorrect is something everyone needs, but there is a line that needs to be crossed. Thanks to autocorrect on the Apple keyboard by default, the entire system simply does not recognize errors (much like Apple itself). You can make the same correction three or four times and he will miss the point and keep making the same correction. Also, my biggest concern is that autocorrect will work even after you hit submit. If you're viewing a completed message and click the Send button, if the keyboard senses that it needs to make a correction to the last word, it will do so when you click Send. This too often leads to frustrating changes after the fact (if that's possible).
- Why doesn't anyone else have a keyboard as good as the Google Pixel?
Voice to text is just as annoying. Sometimes it can work wonderfully and come close to matching Pixel, which is the gold standard for voice-to-text conversion today. But other times it simply fails, although not as badly as Samsung's truly terrible voice-to-text technology.
There are also simply no functions or options. It amazes me that Apple's default keyboard doesn't support GIF insertion, there's no option to display a number row, and it pisses me off that there's no way to collapse the keyboard without tapping the app above it.
Thankfully, iOS supports disabling the keyboard, but I haven't found anything I really like. Gboard, my favorite tool on Android, looks like a shell of itself on iOS, with a less-than-great layout and less-than-smooth GIF insertion (which is, of course, an iOS bug). If there's one thing the keyboard really does right, it's autofill. While Android's autofill option is a mess and inconsistent (a rant I'm going to discuss another time), iOS's autofill is fast and reliable, even with third-party apps like 1Password.
Perhaps the most annoying part of using iOS after years of using Android is the lack of a back button. This logical part of the operating system seems very important, unless you're Apple, obviously.
iOS has been designed with no system-wide back button in mind for many years, so apps are well equipped with built-in back buttons. In most cases there is also a back gesture when you swipe (only) from the left side of the screen. In general, the lack of a back button is not a problem, but an inconvenience.
So many times I've been in apps that don't have a back button in some interfaces, and I'm stuck on that screen until I move forward. Sometimes, oddly enough, people change their minds. But Apple leaves it up to developers to build this return into their apps, and it doesn't always exist. One example is the disc golf round tracking app UDisc. Once I'm in the scorecard, I have no way to get back to the rest of the app without closing the app or “finishing” my card. On Android all I have to do is press the back button, but since that's not possible on iOS I'm just stuck until the round ends. I'm sure the reaction to this will be “the developer should have added a back button” and technically you're right. But why does the task fall on them?
Why can't iOS have a back button? I've never understood the arguments against it. This seems like a logical and useful feature to me, and it's crazy that in 2024 it's still not there.
Android and iOS are incredibly mature operating systems that know what they're doing, but don't want to be. Thus, when new features appear in one of them, they are very often inspired by the other.
Using the iPhone 15 Pro, I've come across things I wish Android had, but I want a lot of Android stuff to be available on iOS as well. And ultimately, it feels like Apple doesn't want to admit that Android has done anything better. When this actually happens, Apple just comes up with the most convoluted way to do it, just to avoid admitting that Android was right. The best example of this is the App Library, which, as mentioned, is just a mess, but that seems to be a common theme of many of Apple's recent, belated additions.
Of course, there's a lot to be said for Android copying iOS features. Samsung and other companies have been shameless about this over the years, but in some ways that's a good thing. These Android brands aren't actually afraid to look at a feature that Apple introduced and say, “Hey, that's a good idea.”
And yes, there are a lot of good ideas in the software too.
One thing I really liked was the ability to quickly switch between lock screens. The presets are useful and very well implemented. I also like widgets on the lock screen, which Android should never have abandoned.
Apps are, of course, also an important feature of iOS. The overall quality bar seems at least a couple of notches higher on iOS than on Android, but only if you decide to dive into iOS-only apps. If you live a cross-platform life like I do, for the vast majority, iOS apps seem equal to their Android counterparts. Ironically, it's Google's apps that are lagging the most on iOS. What I really liked was the App Store, if only because of the incredibly fast app installations, which feel instant compared to Android's often slow process.
StandBy was another standout moment for me. When paired with MagSafe docks, it complements the always-on display with a large clock, weather notifications, and more. This has been very useful on my desk. My Pixel does something similar with the Pixel Stand, but Apple's implementation is better in my opinion since I don't always want to use it. To be able to easily get it by simply turning the device is absolutely amazing!
Then, of course, we also need to talk about the “ecosystem”.
This is a suggestion I've never liked because I try to keep my tech life as “platform independent” as possible. Apps that don't work across devices simply don't have a place in my workflow. This is why Apple's approach to apps and services doesn't appeal to me, but Google's doesn't.
But even I have to admit that there are some delightful little things in the whole ecosystem.
For example, I just bought a MacBook Air after years of being fed up with terrible battery life on Windows laptops (fingers crossed for the Snapdragon X Elite), and the speed at which the MacBook can call a hotspot on my iPhone is remarkable. . It's really convenient for working on the go and makes switching from my LTE-connected HP Dragonfly Chromebook less painful. It's not an outlandish idea, and you can do the same thing between Android and ChromeOS phones and even some Windows laptops, but it works very well here.
Similarly, connecting an iPhone to a MacBook's webcam can be magical (if a little tedious without accessories) and better than what Android currently offers. Similar to the MacBook, I really like getting notifications on my iPhone when I leave the Mac via the Find Me app.
On that note, I also really liked AirTags. This is something I'll finally get on Android soon, now that the Find My Device network is working, but I'll be impressed if it matches the same seamless level of integration that AirTag has had so far. One thing Android will definitely miss is UWB since AirTag supports it but none of the Android trackers support it. I also applaud Apple for putting the same UWB hardware in this smaller iPhone 15 Pro as the larger models, when most Android makers skip UWB on anything other than their top-tier flagships. This is a short-sighted move.
There's also Apple Wallet, which is superior to Google Wallet. I'll admit I haven't used this much since I spent most of my time using the iPhone as my secondary device, but it integrates better with cards – it's very handy to see the full history of my AMEX transactions, not just what happened with Apple Pay – and works with many more passes. Changing cards by double pressing the power button is also very useful (though I would have preferred to have a camera shortcut there).
Siri Shortcuts are another thing that impressed me. I haven't delved too deeply into this functionality, but I think it's crazy how much you can do with shortcuts, and it's crazy that Android doesn't have anything remotely similar. My colleague Damien Wilde particularly likes these features.
There's also iMessage.
iMessage is highly overrated.
It's a good messaging app, but it's not better than any other modern messaging app, and all of them don't require people to buy a specific smartphone just to use it. I've already talked about iMessage, and six months on the iPhone hasn't changed anything.
Please use other messaging apps.
At the end of the day, I think iOS is an excellent and very well designed operating system. It has all the features you need, lots of useful tricks, and a pretty easy-to-understand interface, even if I think some things (like notifications) are unintuitive.
I just don't like it.
I love being able to have my desktop exactly how I want it. I like the ability to manually download app updates. But most of all, I just love the way Android works, especially on the Pixel. And that's okay. Everyone is allowed to have their own opinion. If you like iOS, that's great!
The action button was wasted
One of the new iOS features on the iPhone 15 Pro is the Action Button. This is a pretty wild new idea for the iOS world. A customizable button that you can choose what it will do. It replaces the mute switch and replaces this feature by default.
Probably it should have remained that way.
An action button is an inherently good idea, but it has a few key flaws. First and foremost is the need to press and hold a button to do anything. My first thought about this button was to assign it to opening the camera, since the iPhone lacks a double-tab gesture for quickly accessing the camera using the power button. But the tap-and-hold gesture takes too long and ends up being more cumbersome.
Where Apple could really do well with this feature is giving users three actions. One with single tap, one with double tap and one with current press and hold. Even if only the last two were available, it would be significantly more useful than it is today.
The best function of the action button right now is to use Siri's context menu. This allows you to choose from several features. I think it's still a little cumbersome due to the time it takes to press the button, as well as the high placement of the button, but it's still useful functionality.
The iPhone isn't for me, but it's still a smartphone to beat.
What The iPhone isn't for me doesn't mean millions and millions of people don't have compelling reasons to buy one. Apple has an inherently fantastic product and it's the absolute gold standard in the smartphone industry today.
Best comment from The Werewolf
If we're going to lump all currently sold iPhone models into one, then with the exception of the last quarter, the iPhone hasn't been the best-selling phone in the world for some time. Samsung leads the phone lineup…they just have more models.
The exceptions are the US, UK and Japan, where the iPhone is definitely ahead and Samsung is second.
I also get nervous about any “review” where the reviewer starts by praising the product, THEN argues why it's not for them, and then reinforces the idea that even if it isn't. good enough for him, it's still the best.
If the iPhone is the best, then either the reviewer has bad priorities (and shouldn't be reviewing it because it's wrong). the person who will be writing the review), or the reviewer trying to soften the review for fear of offending iPhone fans… also not nice.
View all comments
At the end It's hard to beat the value proposition of the iPhone these days. The $999 iPhone 15 Pro I'm using has cutting-edge processing power that will keep it “futureproof” for years to come. It has more camera features than most Android phones. Has stable software that will be updated for several years. And it has exclusive features that Android does not have.
Apple has created a good product that people should like. Every Android flagship is compared to the iPhone, and for good reason.
The iPhone is very, very good if you really enjoy using it. It's just not for me.
Where to buy iPhone 15 Pro
- Apple.com
- Best Buy
- Amazon (updated)
- Verizon
- AT&T
- T-Mobile
