I feel the same way when someone hands me an iPhone. In 2020, the operating systems are equally capable and refined, it's just a question of what you're used to. If you had a great Android phone for a few months, you'd probably be just as comfortable with it as you are an iPhone.

When someone asks me what phone to buy, my answer is always "what phone do you have now?" because frankly, there is no reason to switch from one to the other. It's just a waste of time and energy to go through that.

To be fair, most skinned Android variants are really horrible. My whole immediate family uses Android phones, but half the time I just don't know how to quickly tell them where an option is because I've used CyanogenMod/LineageOS on all my phones, and they're using Samsung's take on Android, which is shockingly different. Worse yet, they often are on much older Android versions than me which results in even more differences. Settings categories having different names is the biggest problem. At least on some newer Android versions there's a search in the settings so you don't have to guess where stuff is as much.

I hope you're not equating Samsung with Android. I find most (if not all) skinned Androids horrible as well. Spent some time with mine removing preinstalled bloatware using adb and then a bit more finding various settings restoring default Android behaviour on the Sony, even though it's relatively vanilla.

I think one of the main problems with Android is how _varied_ different versions are. When I pick up anyone's iPhone I find it equally easy to do everything. Even when I had an Android, picking up anyone else's phone and trying to change settings (you know, being the only computer person around, I had to help people fix problems) was an enormous difficulty. Just because I had figured out my phone well didn't mean I could even find the same setting on someone else's phone. It's been a few yeas - it may be more standard by now.

Learning new things is always hard, and some flavors of Android (eg; Samsung) are pretty atrocious. What problems did you face?

I have both an iPhone (work) and an Android (Nexus 2, personal) and use both daily.

I find (stock) Android to be a much more usable and capable operating system. Which is a shame because the iPhones really are better hardware, especially the smaller ones.

Part of that is of course what you're used to, but a lot of Android phone makers put their UI and crapware over Android. I don't know why they put extra effort into making their phones worse. I tend to look for the purest Android I can find.

I have same experience with ios

I think that's less to do with realistic differences than it is familiarity... I've used google experience for the most part, and even then using someone's Samsung devices is different enough to be annoying.

For the most part, I adapt along the way... I've felt similar with iOS, but refuse to buy from Apple.

Familiarity may be one factor you never use one device long enough to get familiar with it.

It may also because idiots keep "innovating" with the home screen experience but for most androids the home screen is just another app you can replace with one not made by incompetents.

Nova is nice for example.

Agree kind of, although airline seats, sedans and furniture haven't been trending towards one end of the spectrum over a number of years. And I think it sounds like a reasonable idea to offer cars with swappable (or well-adjustable) seats. Airlines already offer seats with extra legroom, as well as business class depending on your needs.

The first touch devices might've been around 3.5-4" (just guessing here) but they've since then been constantly growing to where 6" is nowadays considered normal. How far can you going up in size? It's definitely not comparable to finding the size of a seat, as a phone's "right size" depends on how you intend to use it. There are hundreds of phone models on the market but they all seem to revolve around price points (and hence features/specs). Why not expand the range size-wise as well while at it?

I have fairly large hands and I don't mind manhandling a 6" "phone" but I simply do not want to carry one in my pocket. I can't imagine I'm alone on this. Largest phone I've ever had was 5.5" and that one constantly fell out of my shorts pocket when sitting down and now with the 4" iPhone SE I've grown rather accustomed to the form factor and am willing to trade off usability (more difficult, precise typing required) for it.

And then you have people with small hands.

Edit: Easy one-handed usage is also important to me.

For me phone size is not about human size. I'm tall person and my finger are quite long. It's about one-hand use. I was able to use iPhone 4S with one hand and it was convenient, not some kind of stretch. It's just not possible with iPhone 8. I'd pay good price for 3.5" iPhone 4S with modern internals.

That said, this boat has been sailed. Modern apps won't work on tiny screens because their developers optimize for large screens, so it's a pointless desire.

I’m in the same boat as you. I waited until iPhone 6 to buy my first iPhone precisely because the previous ones were too small for my usage. But, I full get the appeal for a smaller phone. I don’t expect Apple would revert back to the SE size though. They’re clearly optimising their manufacturing process to “eat leftovers” and reuse pipelines

Buy a seat in a cabin nearer the front. Buy a larger car.

These options are available, there’s nothing for people who want to have a hand sized phone.

I'm in your boat here. I have pretty large hands, and I've always regretted not getting the XL size of my Pixel 2.

Kitchen counters, too.

That's a great little table you've built there, highly useful for finding new phones with LineageOS in mind, bookmarked! I wish I would've found it a week ago...

It seems that for support is not fully there yet for the XZ2 Compact, camera is still a work-in-progress, unfortunately: https://forum.xda-developers.com/xperia-xz2/development/rom-...

But once that's sorted out I might be tempted to switch, or at the latest when I run out of official Sony updates.

My previous phone, a Sony Z5 Compact, was sadly one of the worse phone experiences I ever had, software wise. I used it for 4 years and in the end it was sooo slow that was unbearable (maybe the internal storage degraded?). Battery life was great thou, 2 whole days when I bought it and in the end it was about 30 hours but after 4 years it was better then newer, just unpacked phones.

Wow, the Z1C is pretty old. Do you have any trouble with battery life?

I used to run a Z3C, but after some of the seals got loose I upgraded to an XZ1C. It's near perfect for me, and I don't know where I'm going to go next for a compact phone.

Wow, nice article! Bookmarked.

It is compact compared to the competition!

> they are hard to find new!

I know! I found a single online store in my country selling them. There were lots of listings but in all stores except one they were sold out.

I was just looking at that XDA thread today and yeah, once the camera issues are fixed I'll probably be looking at flashing Lineage. At the latest once the official Sony updates stop coming in. Or if the next one brings back the bloatware I've removed..