iPhone 10th Anniversary: Why My Next Smartphone Could Actually Be An Android

Whether it's just because I'm bored with iOS and the iPhone, or just that I'm beginning to yearn for the flexibility and cutting-edge features of the latest Samsung and HTC handsets I'm not sure, but the iPhone's 10th anniversary could signal me saying goodbye to the Apple ecosystem - not raising a glass to another 10 years. I'm not alone either - plenty of iPhone owners have expressed some frustration at looking beyond the iPhone 6S as well as more general concerns about Apple's products and ecosystem. Here's why.

I still remember the day the original iPhone was released. There was a lot of excitement in the office and at that point, no one knew that smartphones were about to change for the better or how successful the iPhone would turn out to be.  Like many, I put the noise down to the usual buzz around an Apple launch - something that existed before the iPhone and of course still exists today. As much as I loathe that side of Apple's fan base, there's no doubt that from the 3GS onwards, I was a big fan as well.

I still remember the day the original iPhone was released. There was a lot of excitement in the office and at that point, no one knew that smartphones were about to change for the better or how successful the iPhone would turn out to be.  Like many, I put the noise down to the usual buzz around an Apple launch - something that existed before the iPhone and of course still exists today. As much as I loathe that side of Apple's fan base, there's no doubt that from the 3GS onwards, I was a big fan as well.

Prior to that point, I'd been using the likes of Nokia's Sat Nav-equipped N95 and eventually made the move to the hideousness that was Windows Mobile on a gargantuan HTC TyTN II. It's because of the dire touch screen/Windows Mobile pairing with this phone that it took me so long to join the iPhone club - I really wasn't convinced that a mainly touch-based smartphone wouldn't drive me mad.

The rest is history of course and most of us now view any smartphone with more than one or two navigation-focussed buttons with a degree of suspicion such is Apple's success. The modern Android OS is, in terms of look and feel, undoubtedly related to iOS in a kind of spin-off way, as the many lawsuits between Apple and other smartphone brands will attest to.

I'm not your average iPhone user though. I've been an avid jailbreaker over the years (using a third party tool to allow non-Apple signed apps and OS tweaks to be installed, greatly improving the iOS experience in my opinion) as there were many features I felt iOS lacked. Control Center is one - something that was introduced fairly recently in the iPhone's history, yet has existed in the jailbreaking world and that of Android for nearly as long as the iPhone has existed. Only with iOS 11 are we going to be able to customize the Control Center - something that jailbroken versions have been able to do from the start. There are plenty of other features that Apple has copied from the jailbreaking scene too, but for some reason, even in the face of these features existing and clearly being items that should be introduced to the standard iOS, Apple has been remarkably slow to implement them.

This has been the same for a lot of hardware features too. Apple continues to offer excellent camera and video quality, but even features such as 4K video were available on other devices long before they appeared on the iPhone. I'm a big fan of wireless charging too, and I've actually adopted a wireless charging case for my iPhone 6, which I use every day at my desk and in my car and absolutely love. The fact that only now, with the iPhone 8's imminent arrival, that we're finally hearing some weight with rumors of wireless charging means I feel let down by Apple, most likely due to its blinkered obsession with making ever thinner devices.

The last point leads into another complaint about the iPhone - battery life. It has consistently fallen short of my needs, to the extent that I continuously have my iPhone 6 in a battery charging case (that also offers wireless charging). That's not even due to the fact that the battery is old - I've replaced it twice already, but every iPhone model I've owned has fallen short here. Again, the iPhone 8 looks set to have a significantly larger battery, but for me, this feels like too little too late given the larger, faster-charging and often easily replaceable batteries in other smartphones.

So, a lack of battery life, a lack of features like wireless charging and slow implementation of useful software are just some of the things pushing me towards Android. Further evidence of my possible departure comes from the fact that despite having usually upgraded with nearly every other iPhone version, which would have seen me upgrade to the iPhone 7, I haven't - I'm still using an iPhone 6. The lack of a headphone jack and the fact you can't charge the device while listening to wired headphones via the Lightning port was a dealbreaker for me, as was the need to use Bluetooth headphones. I've already seen one Apple AirPod earphone rattling around a train carriage, and with an experiment with Bluetooth headphones a few months ago, found them with flat batteries on more than one occasion. I'm certainly not using any of the hideous adaptors either.

So, unless there's some clever trickery with regards to the iPhone 8's wireless charging and a number of the above issues are addressed, or the new device expected this September offers some other killer features, I could be browsing the Android landscape this September and not swooning over the iPhone 8. Have you switched from Apple to another smartphone? Are you a happy iPhone 7 owner or planning on buying the iPhone 8 on launch day. Feel free to let me know in the comments, on Twitter or Facebook.