Leaving Apple's Walled Garden

📆 02 Oct 2026 00:00 UTC +01:00
📕 472 words ⏳ 3 min.
🏷️#Apple#Google#Phone

One week ago, after a long, long time, I have finally left the Walled Garden of Apple.

I have been using an iPhone since I got my first smart phone back in 2020, and have always found it to be too locked down. I have wanted to move away since a couple of years into using iOS.

The last phone I had was an iPhone 14, once I paid off the phone and was out of contract, I decided to get a new phone.

I had a look at the Android phones that my service provider offered and settled on a Google Phone, I know, I know, but Android is better than iOS.

The Phone

When doing my initial research, I was torn between getting a Pro phone or a regular, and after I made the decision to get a normal phone, I saw a ton online saying that there is not much difference between the Pro and non pro for this phone.

So, I got myself a Google Pixel 11, in the Frost colour.

The Setup

Coming from an iPhone made me a little bit worried, I have previously heard of problems from people transferring from an iPhone to an Android. But me being me, I went ahead with it anyway. And it went much smoother than I was expecting.

Going into this, I wasn’t expecting any Notes, Photos, Call History, Message History, etc to transfer across… but it did! Which was a big relief.

In terms of setting up the account and everything, I had that all set up within ten minutes. Transferring my data from my iPhone to my new Pixel, took about ten minutes or so. It went extremely well. No issues at all.

Configuration

I haven’t done much in terms of customisation, the home screen layout (I think it’s called a launcher on Android), was also copied from my iPhone, and so was my wallpaper.

I am sure that in time, I will make significant changes to my system and how I use it too.

Another “Smart” Watch

As with my iPhone and my Apple Watch, I decided to treat myself to a nice brand new Google Pixel Watch 5, in the Obsidian colour. I also got this all set up and I have got a nice little watch face on it, with all the stuff I want to see at a quick glance.

I don’t really have too much to say about the Pixel Watch, it’s another small computer on my wrist.

And I don’t think there’s much else I can write about this one, I hope my rambling has somewhat made sense. Let me know your thoughts by email (see below), BYEEE!!!