Am I too old to switch from Android to Apple (for mobile photography)?

[jowwy]

Apple support their devices for a lot longer than Android. You'll be lucky to get around two years from Android. @oldwheels 8 is six plus years old?

My android phone is now 3yrs old and is still fully supported with updates……


but i also use an apple ipad on a daily basis, it is a lot faster than the original samsung galaxy tablet it replaced and a lot lighter too, but you do pay through the nose for apple products.

 

[tom73]

The Apple ecosystem requires that your laptop and tablet be Apple.

Wrong and has been for years they all work independently of each other you can happy have one thing fully working without the rest.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

This might sound a little 'out there' and way off-trend but...

... my Android phone 'just works" too.🙂

 

[oldwheels]

Apple support their devices for a lot longer than Android. You'll be lucky to get around two years from Android. @oldwheels 8 is six plus years old?

No idea of the age since it was second hand refurbished but I have had it for at least 4 years and it is still supported. My iPad is about 10 years old and is not supported but it still does what I need.

 

[oldwheels]

Wrong and has been for years they all work independently of each other you can happy have one thing fully working without the rest.

I still have my iPhone 7+ which had a dodgy battery and use it as a kind of tablet on wifi. Photos on my main phone are automatically copied to this but not to the iPad or Macbook but airdrop is easy if required.

 

[Arrowfoot]

Apple is such a rip off though. My daughter has apple products, she recently took a new job. She can work from home a couple of days a week. She has a 2017 MacBook Pro. Which has served her well. The new software the company wants her to use requires a bit more processing power.

That's fine computer technology moves along. She spoke to her colleagues and they have the latest MacBook Pro 16" laptops. We looked at the price, nearly £4000 for a bloody laptop.. Jesus, no way has she that money. You might be looking at £2-2.5k for top end windows laptop.

Apple wants an £3000 extra if you wanted 8tb storage. Daughter bought a 4tb plug in drive from WD for £150. I told her to shut down all other programs and just run the main application, even though it's still jittery.

I have Macbook Pro 13, (brand new is £1350) and I hook it up to a large dell monitor and I use external drives. The processing speed is what should be looked at. Apple always charges an arm and leg for additions.

 

[swee'pea99]

Interesting stuff!

Apple stuff is good, there is no doubt about that. But you pay a significant premium for the design, on top of what you would pay for similar functionality from Windows or Android devices.

I would never consider going Apple if you are looking for something budget. But if you are looking for quality and budget is not important, then it may well be the way to go.

But, but, I want quality and cheap!

I have a theory about the Apple premium, which is kind of based on what they used to say - and maybe still do - about buying cars: that the very best VFM you can get is buying a top end prestige model when all that prestige has worn off. Three year old Lexus with FSH sort of thing.

I have been using the P30 pro, and could never go back to an old Pixel, say. Three lenses is a deal-breaker for me. And the P30P has Leica lenses - and you can tell. The sharpness is jaw-dropping. Superb macro, genuinely worthwhile 50x zoom. It really is an awesome bit of kit. But. Then I came across a review comparing it with the iPhone 11 Pro Max, and what's close to clinching it for me is this brace of photos, Huawei on the left, iPhone on the right:

They immediately brought to mind the number of times I've looked at my photos and thought hmmm...that's not what I was looking at. And apparently this is what Apple's particularly good at. Colour rendition. Less 'kodachrome', for us older viewers; more 'true'.

And the price premium isn't what I expected, not least thanks to the pretty much zero street cred of a three year old 'prestige' phone - order of magnitude, maybe +25%, on the bay. For me, maybe £300, as against £230ish.

Dammit, I'm going to press the button! You only live once, and like the man said, you can always sell it on if it doesn't work out.

 

[tom73]

Interesting stuff!



But, but, I want quality and cheap!

I have a theory about the Apple premium, which is kind of based on what they used to say - and maybe still do - about buying cars: that the very best VFM you can get is buying a top end prestige model when all that prestige has worn off. Three year old Lexus with FSH sort of thing.

I have been using the P30 pro, and could never go back to an old Pixel, say. Three lenses is a deal-breaker for me. And the P30P has Leica lenses - and you can tell. The sharpness is jaw-dropping. Superb macro, genuinely worthwhile 50x zoom. It really is an awesome bit of kit. But. Then I came across a review comparing it with the iPhone 11 Pro Max, and what's close to clinching it for me is this brace of photos, Huawei on the left, iPhone on the right:

View attachment 669929

They immediately brought to mind the number of times I've looked at my photos and thought hmmm...that's not what I was looking at. And apparently this is what Apple's particularly good at. Colour rendition. Less 'kodachrome', for us older viewers; more 'true'.

And the price premium isn't what I expected, not least thanks to the pretty much zero street cred of a three year old 'prestige' phone - order of magnitude, maybe +25%, on the bay. For me, maybe £300, as against £230ish.

Dammit, I'm going to press the button! You only live once, and like the man said, you can always sell it on if it doesn't work out.

One other thing used Apple stuff tends to be well looked often very well looked after so hardly tell they are not nearly new.

 

[tom73]

I still have my iPhone 7+ which had a dodgy battery and use it as a kind of tablet on wifi. Photos on my main phone are automatically copied to this but not to the iPad or Macbook but airdrop is easy if required.

Maybe your setting are a bit out easy enough to fix. You’re right though airdrop is easy enough too.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

One other thing used Apple stuff tends to be well looked often very well looked after so hardly tell they are not nearly new.

Well, I'm not going to argue with your personal experience but ime the kids with 'Apples' in our friends & family network seem to have the same amount of damage as the Android owners.

Not that I've carried out an in-depth review but the number of parents who whinge about their kids breaking kit (normally phone screens and laptop lids) doen't seem to be weighted one way or the other.

As an aside: why do kids seemingly break phone screens and laptop lids more than adults?

Had a mobile for best part of a quarter of a century, ditto laptop and I've never damage any of them.

 

[oldwheels]

Maybe your setting are a bit out easy enough to fix. You’re right though airdrop is easy enough too.

Suits me as it is. I gave my old iPhone5 to a grandson and I got his text messages till he sorted it🙁

 

[Alex321]

Well, I'm not going to argue with your personal experience but ime the kids with 'Apples' in our friends & family network seem to have the same amount of damage as the Android owners.

Not that I've carried out an in-depth review but the number of parents who whinge about their kids breaking kit (normally phone screens and laptop lids) doen't seem to be weighted one way or the other.

As an aside: why do kids seemingly break phone screens and laptop lids seemingly more than adults?

Had a mobile for best part of a quarter of a century, ditto laptop and I've never damage any of them.

Kids are both more active and less coordinated - partly because they are still growing, so don't really know where their "edges" are yet.

So they are more likley to be running around with them than adults AND more likely to knock into things, knocking them out of hands.

 

[ColinJ]

As an aside: why do kids seemingly break phone screens and laptop lids seemingly more than adults?

The simple answer is that it is usually the adults who are paying for them!

My nieces and nephew have got through incredible numbers of phones and laptops...

Nephew decided to take his new iPhone out for a walk on the local moors. He got caught out in a huge thunderstorm and when he got back the phone was fall of water and refused to turn on. He drained as much out as he could and put the phone on a radiator to dry out but it still didn't work so his ma bought him a new phone. They read that putting a wet phone in a bag of rice can sometimes dry it out so they did that with the old phone and chucked it in the back of their airing cupboard. They forgot about it for a couple of years and then found it again. Miraculously, it came back to life when the battery was charged but by then they had been through a few more phones and that one was 'too old' so it got handed on to someone who wasn't bothered by that.

One niece was in the habit of slamming the lid down on her laptop and throwing it onto the sofa while it was still shutting down. This was when laptops still had hard drives rather than SSDs. I told her that she would wreck the drive if she carried on doing that. She laughed and ignored me. A couple of weeks later, she did it again and... wrecked the hard drive!!

As for phone cameras... I am perfectly happy with the camera in my Pixel 5.

ALDI sign (normal lens)

ALDI sign (normal lens, cropped, full resolution)

ALDI sign (wide angle lens)

ALDI sign (wide angle lens, cropped, full resolution)

The camera is certainly good enough for my needs.

 

[DCBassman]

Work changed our iPhone to Android a while back. I'd trade back to Apple anyday. More intuitive it basically just works without fuss....

It's what you're used to. I find the iPhone UI ridiculously unintuitive and convoluted. For me, Windows and (Samsung) Android 'just work'. They're each just different, and I suspect that neither is technically superior in any way whatsoever.

 

[icowden]

And, more broadly, is it a good idea?

Some thoughts from me.

On Android it's very easy to copy photos on and off the phone as you just hook it up as a USB drive. On iPhone you *still* have to use the awful iTunes software.

Remember that none of the software you have purchased on Android will transfer to Apple's ecosystem and many apps may be more expensive.
Even copying your contacts etc will be a pain in the proverbials. And going back - whilst Apple might let you copy some stuff to them, they definitely won't make it easy to go back (although thankfully Google will as they facilitate this through Gmail).

iPhones do what they do but are locked down. There is no tweaking or changing them. You can't use a different camera app if you don't like the default camera.

Digital Camera World rate the Pixel 7 Pro as having the best camera of all phones in 2022. The iPhone comes in 3rd after the Samsung Galazy S22 Ultra.

Iphone:- 48MP (f/1.8) main with 2x optical zoom, 12MP (f/2.2) ultrawide, 12MP (f/2.8) telephoto with 3x optical zoom
Pixel7 Pro: 50MP (f/1.85) main, 12MP (f/2.2) ultrawide, 48MP (f/3.5) telephoto with 5x optical zoom

Personally, having 3 iPhones in the family (wife and two kids all have iPhones), I absolutely hate them, and love my Pixel 4a.