My experience switching from iPhone to Android Pt 2 - The Plug In

So my switch the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 did not come without some pretty serious research. Checking out as much as I could about the Sugary Food Named operating system and watching a lot of videos about the S Pen to see if it was as good as Samsung says it is and I felt fairly prepared for moving over - but you can never fully prepare.

First thing I've not experienced in a long time, a swappable battery. The whole back of the Note comes off and theres expandable memory, access to the Sim Card, and the Battery which is cool. Thus far I've been glad for the second battery and charger though since I've run the phone out by about 6:00 p.m. both days I've had it so far. I'm probably playing with it to much. But theres also these apps for saving batter that I'm apparently supposed to get... which is weird for someone whose been in the Apple world because it's just supposed to work! Which is a bit of the theme of my first days with an Android.

I plugged it into my computer, nothing happened. A little googling and I determined that I needed Samsung Kies so I downloaded that... and it pulled all the media off of my computer and organized it... sort of and copied it over to the Note... o.k. that's not so bad. Except my audiobooks aren't considered audiobooks, and some of my album art is there and some isn't... This is going to take some organization methinks. What surprised me is that there is no direct 'this is the iTunes of Android' that I've been able to find.

But it's o.k. I found my media and I click on it to play... except it comes up with a choice of what I want to play it on... which is a bit of a theme I'm discovering. With an Apple product you have the music player, the video player, the ibook reader, the texting app and so on. There aren't many apps out there that you would want or need to replace those things and if you have iTunes set up it just works. With this I keep running into situations where there is the Samsung version of a music player and theres the Google version of the player. This happens all over the place, I've got multiple photo apps, multiple calendar apps, Gmails picking up my mail and so is the "Mail" program and if I click on any link I have to choose between Chrome and or "Internet" browser. Talk about overload, and it's illustrating to me why Apple is popular, and why old people like it. It's so straightforward and it makes you feel so organized. I am sure that overtime I will determine which apps I like, and which I don't.

That runs into the customization piece, and yes, like all my Android wielding friends preached "I can do anything" which isn't a Hedley song in this case but the theme of this phone. I can put apps wherever I want, or keep them in the big list, theres widgets which are very cool, and I can even leave blanks where I want them. This is pretty cool, you can have your social media page, your Evernote page, your work stuff place and widgets to fit. I did discover that you have to be much more aware of system resources on an Android because it multitasks and won't stop you from loading a Bjillion apps. So quickly my sleek new device was running like a 50's Stolly. With freedom comes responsibility and so you've got to have some know-how to keep it running perfect. Again learning curve is steep but it's a Google device... and I'll be going there quite often to ask how to work it.

Having a Mixed Household - Everything in my house is an Apple Product... except my Droid. So it meant switching over my calendars and task lists from iCloud to Google... and then making sure that was on my Wifes' iPhone as well so we could still communicate. iMessage, I've run into an issue that's apparently not uncommon, everyone who has an iPhone whose been trying to text me has been getting error messages. Somehow the system doesn't automatically realize that my number is no longer associated with iMessage, so I've had to go back to my other phone and make sure all of that was disabled and coach a few people through changing my contact to Mobile and make sure there phone is enabled to send MMS. I'm not sure which of these steps has fixed the issue but it seems to be fine now. But at the end of the day the Apple devices have had to adjust to the Droid and rely on Google to sharing.

Finally Updating - I'm not there yet, the new Note 3 just came out and from what I can gather I'll be able to get the new OS on my Phone as well. But man they start talking about Rom's and upgrading the Samsung part of the device and the droid part of the device and it goes over my head. There is something to be said about Apple's philosophy of developing hardware and software in tandem.

How am I feeling? Still very good. Loving the big screen, enjoying S Pen and all the fancy features, and getting the hang of everything.