Switching to Android? - Second follow-up

Some people have written to me in the past few days for different reasons, but in their communications there was also curiosity about my switch to Android and how it was going. Some asked out of genuine interest, others had a provocative tone, like, Are you missing your iPhone already?

Since three months have passed since my last follow-up, I thought it was time for an update; possibly the last on the topic, as I think that at this point there isn’t much to add. So, the short answer is: My switch to Android is going well, much better than I anticipated, in the sense that the adjustment phase happened faster than I thought.

However, I can’t package my experience in a single, monolithic block of advice and tell you that if you plan to switch from iOS to Android, things will work out as smoothly as they did in my case.

I generally take a couple of devices with me when I’m out and about. For a while, they were my primary iPhone and an Android phone. As I explained in a previous post, my switch has been a literal switch: I still take a couple of devices with me when I’m out and about, only now they are my primary Android phone (Nothing Phone 2a), and my old iPhone. The purposes have changed slightly, though. While in the first scenario the secondary Android device served as a way to familiarise with the platform, what happens now is that my secondary iPhone is basically a camera device for taking pictures with a few photo apps I don’t feel like abandoning and for which there isn’t an Android counterpart. But to answer that question above — Are you missing your iPhone already? — well, no, I’m not.

I don’t miss it because when I take it with me as a creative tool for shooting, it’s there. And when I don’t take it with me, it’s because I don’t need it. And there have been times when I meant to take it with me but forgot to — and it wasn’t a big deal.

(Brief aside: As I’m explaining this I’m realising I’m selling my Nothing Phone 2a short. It’s a great device that does everything I need. I’ve set it up and customised the way I want, I found and downloaded all the apps I used the most on iPhone or found decent alternatives, and I haven’t had any particular hiccup in my interactions or ‘flow’ when using this phone).

Another aspect of my relative ease in switching platforms is that in all my years with the iPhone, it has never become a device I’ve heavily relied upon for my digital life. I’ve always preferred the Mac for working, writing, reading and entertainment, and for the past 13 years I’ve always added an iPad to the mix. In such a context, the role of an iPhone becomes less central, de-emphasised. It’s the device you take with you when you go out, to use as a phone, as a written communication device (Messages, Telegram, Signal, email), as a quick way to check social media and read the occasional article, and as a tool to look up information (Maps, Wikipedia, the occasional Web or dictionary search), and as an instant camera. Apart from certain fun photo apps, there’s never been anything ‘specialised’ in my iPhone usage. And therefore, nothing absolutely irreplaceable.

Years ago I would have added that the iPhone’s user experience was the irreplaceable variable, but that’s not strictly true anymore. The clunkiness and awkwardness of many Android versions is now a thing of the past. When I first took a good look at Android in 2014, I would have never considered switching. When I bought my first Android phone in 2019 (essentially for work-related reasons, as I was localising Android apps at the time and needed direct experience with the UI) the situation had already significantly improved. When I shared my impressions of that Xiaomi MI A2 in November 2019, in my final observations I wrote:

Five years ago, doing a complete platform switch and going from iOS to Android and vice-versa, implied a certain amount of friction that felt less problematic the more tech-savvy you were. The two experiences felt really different and, as far as I’m concerned, Android felt second-class. Even on more powerful handsets, basic stuff like scrolling and animations could end up being jerky and stutter with annoying frequency. The system looked more utilitarian than well-designed to provide an effortless, pleasant user experience.

Today, from my first-hand experience, I can say that this once very noticeable gap is essentially gone. Android has improved on all fronts, while iOS has for the most part rested on its laurels (and in certain areas has actually got buggier than it used to). The overall experience is similar between the two platforms. An increasing number of operations, interactions, and UI behaviours have become barely distinguishable from one another (share sheets, for example, look and work in a similar way). For three months I’ve been carrying both my iPhone 8 and the Mi A2 with me, keeping the iPhone as primary device, but for two weeks I purposefully inverted the roles, and I noticed that — save for a few favourite iOS apps — I could have left the iPhone at home.

And this, in 2025, keeps being true.

The godsend that is LocalSend

A primary concern in my embracing Android as a primary platform was the friction of not having an essential tool as AirDrop for quickly exchanging files between my Macs and my Nothing Phone 2a. But then I found LocalSend. At first glance, this service just seems too good to be true: free? open source!? cross-platform?!? But then you try it out and you immediately realise that yes, it’s that good, and the experience is that polished and seamless. There is just an additional, fractional step when compared to AirDrop. When you share a file via AirDrop, you initiate the sending on your Apple device 1, and the destination Apple device 2 automatically receives the file or automatically displays a pop-up asking for confirmation.

When you share a file with LocalSend, you have to open the app on both devices first, then you send the file from the source device, and in the LocalSend window on the destination device you’ll have to accept the file. But that’s it. Transfer times are comparable with AirDrop’s. (Update, March 11: This is the default behaviour, but there is an option that lets you auto-accept the incoming file(s) on the destination device, streamlining the process).

And there’s an added benefit: being cross platform means that now I can share files as seamlessly across a multitude of different devices, for example from my Windows 11 gaming laptop to my Mac mini, from my Nothing Phone 2a to my iPad, from my iMac to an old ThinkPad running Linux, from my iPhone SE 3 to my Surface Pro convertible, and so forth. It almost feels like having Apple’s Continuity everywhere.

If one of the major aspects preventing you from leaving iOS behind is AirDrop, I can’t recommend LocalSend enough.

Some days I even go ‘Android-only’

There are two other Android devices in my personal ecosystem I don’t talk much about. One is the Microsoft Surface Duo I purchased about a year ago. I still mean to write a proper article about it here, but I’ll say that despite it being considered ‘yet another Microsoft blunder’ by the tech cool kids’ circle, its digital book concept is the only way that a foldable device has made sense to me so far. Reading books in the Kindle app on the Duo is very cool and very practical because it’s like holding a physical book in your hands (or rather a slim metallic notebook, but you get the idea). The ability to display and use two apps at a time, one on the left screen, one on the right, is the most organic form of multitasking for me, and I’m happy to see that Microsoft managed to realise some of what was known as the Courier project back in 2009.

I use the Surface Duo primarily as a digital Moleskine. It works well with styluses like the Surface Pen and similar third-party products (like my Renaisser Raphael 530 active stylus), and I can use apps like Bamboo Paper and Sketchbook to draw sketches, and Microsoft OneNote to take notes, even handwritten ones, which are quicker to jot down rather than typing them.

The second device, the most recent acquisition is an Onyx BOOX Go 10.3 e‑ink Android-powered tablet, which brings this experience of reading, drawing, and taking handwritten notes to a whole other level. First, because it’s e‑ink, which means improved reading experience right away. Second, because it’s a 10.3‑inch tablet, which means improved reading/writing/drawing experience as well. Third, because its main interface is designed around note-taking, and that means having a lot of specialised tools to write, draw, select and convert text, organise notes in different folders, sync everything in the cloud, etc. Fourth, because writing and drawing with a stylus feels very natural overall. It’s not exactly like using a pencil or a pen on a paper notebook, but close enough that you tend to forget it’s a digital support. All of this, again, in a comfortable, practical ‘digital notebook’ form factor and user experience that for me — as a writer who has used pen and paper all his life — feels better than using an iPad for the same tasks. It’s not at all like touching or scribbling on a glass surface, like it happens on an iPad.

So while I still, for the most part, take my Nothing Phone 2a and my iPhone SE 3 when I’m on the go, there are days when I leave the iPhone at home and take the Nothing Phone and the Surface Duo or the BOOX Go 10.3 as ancillary devices. It’s been a few years since I realised it’s unwise to stick to a single ecosystem or walled garden, and that it’s much more stimulating to learn what other platforms have to offer, experiment with them, take what’s useful to me, and create a sort of personal ecosystem or digital environment. It’s not a minimalistic endeavour, but it teaches you to better adapt to changes, and keeps you cognitively nimble. On a pragmatic level, it also gives you an exit strategy when the big tech company you’ve grown so dependent on ends up letting you down.