Hello, I bought an iPhone again

It takes a week to switch phones. First, there’s the technical process of transferring eSIMs across devices, which takes either a few minutes (if you’re switching from one Android phone to another) or two days, six calls to Verizon, a verification text sent to your mom, and roughly 11,000 reboots of your phone (if you’re switching from an iPhone to Android). Then comes a few hours of downloading the app, tweaking settings, and customizing, because every phone has its own set of unique thoughts about everything.

You can be up and running on a new phone in an afternoon, but by the time you’ve downloaded all your Kindle books, synced your podcast queue, transferred all your binary code generators, and reconnected to all your Bluetooth devices, a week will have passed.

I know this, because I’ve spent the last few months switching phones almost every week. I was tired of my iPhone 16, a phone I bought almost entirely because it was blue, and decided to see what other options I actually had. I’m also in an unusual position: I used to be a phone reviewer, which means I spent nearly a decade switching phones every few months, but for the past five years or so I’ve been almost exclusively an iPhone user. I think I qualify as a regular phone owner at this point. But I have one distinct advantage: I can ask a range of phone manufacturers to send me their devices for testing, and some of them will do so! So I spent the winter on an Android tour, seeing if there was a phone — or, more excitingly, an entirely new phone concept — that might appeal to me.

I’ll spoil the ending: Last week, I went to the Apple Store and bought iPhone 17. I know, I know. I’m not happy about that either. But I can explain.

_{For more of our thoughts on phone cases, check this out This episode of vertcast.}

The first phone I tested was the one I had the highest hopes for: Motorola Razr Ultra. I am still convinced of that Flip phones are a good ideaThe combination of a smartwatch-style external display and a normal-sized internal display is compelling. The Razr Ultra hardware is pretty close to the right, at least for my purposes. When unfolded, the phone is a bit long, and it can be difficult to navigate with one thumb, but that’s true of every major phone now. I didn’t mind the slight crease in the middle, and I like the square shape of the phone when it’s closed. I found myself treating the turned off phone like a little Gemini walkie-talkie — bringing the phone to my mouth, holding the side button, and asking trivial questions about cherry blossoms.

The problem, which would become a theme in my tests, was the software. Neither Motorola nor Google discovered foldable phones. There are a few useful tools for the external display, but its organization system makes it difficult to add or find things. Most of the time, what you get on the external display is just a full-sized, minimized Android app, which is all well and good until you open the keyboard and cover the message you’re responding to and The text box in which you type. Even if I could get past that, I wouldn’t end up being able to accept all the “Allow this app to access the external display?” Warnings. Some apps manage to shrink and expand well enough, while others just shrug their shoulders and tell you to unlock the phone. I spent days changing settings, downloading utility apps, and trying to make the Razr Ultra feel smooth. It never happened. So I switched.

I had a slightly different experience with my flip phone, a Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold. (I tried to put my hand on it Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7((By most accounts, it’s the best foldable phone on the market, but I couldn’t get my hands on one in time.)) My problem with foldables is all the hardware: The phone feels big and blocky in my hand, it’s not easy to open, and foldables come with a lot of durability, battery, and camera sacrifices. I enjoyed having a larger internal screen for watching YouTube videos and a range of Champions League soccer matches. But in the face of so many sacrifices — and the staggering $2,000 price tag that comes with every foldable phone — I gave up a bigger screen.

Next I tried Unihertz Titan 2a rectangular monster phone with a large, spacious physical keyboard. I felt like I was using a BlackBerry again! I discovered almost immediately that I didn’t miss using my BlackBerry — while I loved having a keyboard for quick access to numbers and symbols, I never typed as quickly on a physical keyboard as I did on a screen. Additionally, this phone is just… giant (That’s why I’m fascinated by much smaller things Titan 2 Elite (Coming later this year).

My new favorite Android experience came from Vervon Gen 6an overall solid phone with one great feature: a physical slider switch that turns the device into a more compact, minimalist take on the phone. Fairphone calls this feature “Moments“And it’s great. You can have a few different moments, each using whatever combination of apps you choose; I spent a lot of time with my phone sorted into Phone, Messages, Maps, Pocket Files, and nothing else, and it was great. Everything else — even your wallpaper — disappears. It’s the most convincing version of the two-in-one experience I’ve wanted in forever, and it really works.

The Fairphone had just one problem: it’s not optimized for US coverage, and it doesn’t work fully on Verizon. This is out.

My next and final test was Google Pixel 10 ProIt’s easily my favorite Android phone ever. It’s a little heavy, but really well made; The camera is excellent in almost any conditions; I like having fingerprint and face authentication; Pixel phones have always had the cleanest, most feature-rich version of Android. (Although my Pixel still doesn’t have Gemini task automation…)

The Pixel 10 Pro reinforced the feeling I had throughout all of my testing: Android is a better operating system than iOS. Gemini is a useful and usable voice assistant, neither of which you can say about Siri. Android is excellent at sorting and sorting notifications, which means a lot less buzzing in my pocket. I also received significantly fewer spam and robocalls during testing, which was an unexpected but nice change — I actually started answering calls from unknown numbers again, because they were always calls I actually wanted. I like the Android keyboard better than the iPhone, partly because its autocorrect is much better.

There are a lot of small differences between Android and iOS that can make it difficult to switch between devices, but I prefer the Android app in almost every case. You can customize everything about your Android device’s home screen with ease, whereas dragging apps on an iPhone is a crazy experience. Android’s app tray makes more sense than iOS’s awkwardly organized library of apps; Swiping down for notifications and up to search is easier than swiping down from different parts of the iPhone screen for everything. And did I mention how much better Gemini is? When I use Android, I’m actually using my voice assistant. On purpose! What a world.

If all you got from your phone was an out-of-the-box experience, I’d choose the Pixel. But unfortunately for Android, there are app stores. And the App Store completely wipes the floor with the Play Store. A lot of the apps I use every day – apps like I smell, NotePlan, maystreamand Unread – They either don’t exist on Android at all or they only exist as web apps. Most of the ones that work on both platforms are better on iOS. And forget about things that small developers make by hand, like apps like Peak weather, presentand Quicheto name a few recent favorites — they’re all over the App Store and can’t be found at all on Android.

Android apps have only one advantage: they are allowed to do things that iOS apps cannot do. the Whistle The app, which I use for messaging across platforms and devices, integrates beautifully with Google Messages and not with iMessage at all. I can do more with my country pebble See when it’s connected to your Android phone. the Tasker The app is an automated dream. But for everything else, and for almost every app people use, iOS is superior.

There are a lot of reasons why the Play Store can’t keep up. The Android ecosystem is more diverse and therefore more difficult to develop; Most developers use Apple products; iPhone owners, for whatever reason, seem to be more willing to spend money than Android owners. But the truth of the matter, and the thing I realized most at the end of my phone-swapping experience, is that phones are app devices first and foremost. And the iPhone has better apps.

So, at the end of it all, I went through another weirdly complicated eSIM swap and upgraded to the iPhone 17. This is the best basic iPhone I’ve had in some time, and my iPhone 16 replacement made up for about half the cost. I’m not happy about it, honestly. My phone is back to being plagued by robocalls and unnecessary notifications, and I’m back to fighting with Apple’s ridiculous home screen layout widgets. Siri is still terrible. But until AI changes the way we do everything on our devices, my phone will remain an app machine. All my apps are here on this iPhone, and they all work.