Smartphone/platform recommendation

RFK

Member
Hi,

The latest iOS firmware 11 has broken my VoIP telephone and SMS app Fongo (best app available in Canada for VoIP on iPhone) and also the battery life on my iPhone 6Plus struggles to make it through the day now - before the update - it easily made it through a day and a half. In short, I am really feeling fed up with Apple and the iPhone in general. Michael, I see that you love the iPad Pro - I recently got one for my wife - very fast and sleek but the price ... My question, what smartphone/platform would you recommend today?

Mostly I use Pleco for flashcards and dictionary lookups - I would look up words more if it were easier - screen lookups for example.

Thanks,
Robert
Toronto, Canada
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Have you tried the public beta of 11.1? https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/ - fixes a lot of bugs and might be worth trying out before giving up on iOS entirely. (significantly improved battery life on my iPhone 7 at any rate) Fongo appear to be aware of some of their iOS 11 issues + will hopefully have a fix soon.

My recommendation would still be for iOS; Android's issues to me are a) more severe and b) harder to fix. Apple's bugs hit more people simultaneously (and hence get a lot more press / lot more public outcry), but they're also fixed a lot faster and more consistently; on Android, since updates trickle out over the course of months (or years), it might take a while before you're hit by a particular bug, but if you are, if Google subsequently fixes that issue in a .x update it could be many more months before your phone receives that update, or it might even never receive it.
 

pdwalker

状元
And let this be a lesson to you early updaters; never update for an X.0, X.01, X.02 release. Let some other early adopter find the bugs first and wait for a few patches and then update only if the X.1, X.2 patches have no significant issues.

Every iOS update results in a slower phone. Every. Single. One. My 4s was lighting quick when I bought it, and it runs like cold molasses with iOS7. My iPad Air also runs slow now that I've brought it up to v10. v11 will probably be the last update it'll take before it too becomes unusable. You'll get some of the speed back in later patches but not all, so hold off a bit.
 
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RFK

Member
Thanks Michael and pdwalker. Good point about holding back on updates - I've usually done that but for some reason - got gung ho this time. Yes I've seen my fast phones bog down too - sad but I guess this is the nature of change. I did update to the beta and while it didn't fix the Fongo bug, it does seem to be better with battery life - already see a new Beta is ready to install - maybe that will fix things.

Really appreciate your guidance on platforms Michael - I also enjoy reading your asides in your generous bi-annual updates about your experiences as a developer. Cool for me to see your side of the app/platform world.
 
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