Between the Apple and the Robot

My iPhone 12 mini has been my faithful companion for more than six years, but starting this summer its battery finally gave up. I even tried to replace it myself, only to end up with a broken screen and a cheap replacement that works far worse than the original. Also the new battery sucks.

In the meantime, I needed something to keep me connected, and that’s how a POCO X7 Pro landed in my hands. What started as a temporary fix quickly turned into a proper experiment: I’ve been switching back and forth between iOS and Android, and it has been surprisingly fun.

Rediscovering Android

After years inside the Apple ecosystem, booting up an Android phone felt refreshing. I found myself browsing app stores, installing, tweaking, and customizing just about everything, something I had almost forgotten was possible. The insane level of configurability on Android is astonishing compared to iOS. I already knew it but it really is!.

On the other hand, I was immediately annoyed by the amount of bloatware preinstalled out of the box. Having to disable or hide unwanted apps is not exactly the kind of freedom I was looking for.

Big Screen, Smooth Motion, Endless Battery

I thought moving from the iPhone Mini’s 5.4 inches to a 6.67-inch Android would be a nightmare, but the opposite happened. For videos, maps, and media consumption in general, the larger screen is a real advantage. Add to that the 120Hz refresh rate, which makes iOS feel oddly slow when I switch back, and the POCO starts to shine even more.

And then there’s the battery: this phone is an absolute beast. Even without a SIM card (to be fair), the difference is shocking. On a road trip, I used it as a GPS for more than two hours, and the battery dropped only 10%. That would be unthinkable on the iPhone side.

Living in Two Worlds

One detail I’ve fell in love with on Android is the simple “back” gesture from either side of the screen. It feels so natural that I immediately miss it on iOS. But gestures aside, the reality is that Apple’s ecosystem still wins where it matters most. With iCloud, my documents, photos, and notes are always synced across my MacBook, iPad, and iPhone. Could I replicate all this with something like Nextcloud? Probably, but I don’t feel like reinventing the wheel right now.

Takeaways

Switching to Android reminded me that smartphones can be fun again. The customization, the bigger screen, the battery life… they all make Android incredibly compelling. But when it comes to serious stuff, from productivity to seamless syncing across devices, Apple still has the edge.

In the end, it feels like a constant trade-off: flexibility and fun on one side, versus the strength of Apple’s ecosystem when you own multiple devices. A big question mark remains over what my next daily driver will be.