On September 8th, Android 11 was released to Pixel devices and unfortunately, I installed it on my trusty Pixel 3. Pretty quickly, it started bootlooping and never recovered (despite a trip to UBreakIFix and a plea to Google). Even though I have a Google-made phone running a Google-made OS on a Google-made cellular network, they offered no help.
Previously, I have been eyeing the Pixel 4a 5G. The rumored $500 5G variant of the $350 phone that Google released in August seemed to be a good upgrade from the Pixel 3. The only compromise is that I would lose wireless charging. The problem is that it isn’t expected to be released until September 25 and I wasn’t planning on buying it until this year’s black friday sales. So, what do I do in the interim?
I currently keep around an Android One Motorola Phone (using a Google FI data sim) and an iPhone 8 (using a T-mobile sim) for testing. Between them and my Pixel phone, it gives pretty good testing coverage. Using the Android One phone as a daily driver would be pretty painful so I figured that I would try using the iPhone as my main phone until I buy a new Pixel phone.
So far, the switch is pretty painful. The iPhone’s hardware is nowhere near as good and the limitations imposed upon the software by Apple are sometimes infuriating. My hope is that by the end of this little experiment, I will have a better understanding of why someone would carry one of these phones, though.
[ Cover photo by Harry Cunningham on Unsplash ]