How Open are Iphones?

[atavax]

I'm thinking about getting the new Iphone SE, but this would be my first apple device since I got an ipod shuffle like 15 years ago and I just don't know how much freedom do you have with iphones. Can I connect it to my windows PC and upload mp3's onto it? How is the Navigation system? What are things a Windows/Android guy should know about the switch to an Iphone?

[Mateyyy]

You can connect it to your Windows PC and throw MP3s on it through iTunes. You just sync your device first with your PC, and afterwards it's fairly straightforward, but I've had times where I needed to resync my iPhone, therefore deleting the music that was on it which wasn't particularly pleasant but that happened on a new Windows install, and quite a while ago iirc.

[Kilrah]

If you're used to working with files, working on something from different apps etc... they're a pain.

[atavax]

1 hour ago, Mateyyy said:

You can connect it to your Windows PC and throw MP3s on it through iTunes. You just sync your device first with your PC, and afterwards it's fairly straightforward, but I've had times where I needed to resync my iPhone, therefore deleting the music that was on it which wasn't particularly pleasant but that happened on a new Windows install, and quite a while ago iirc.

So I have to download iTunes onto my PC and get MP3s through iTunes to share MP3s from my PC to an iPhone?

[Mateyyy]

1 hour ago, atavax said:

So I have to download iTunes onto my PC and get MP3s through iTunes to share MP3s from my PC to an iPhone?

There's ways to do it without iTunes I believe but it's just a lot easier to do it through iTunes.

[Kilrah]

Yes, either iTunes or other 3rd party programs are needed. Can't just drag files over.

[Zodiark1593]

Probably the only thing about iPhone that actually elicited swear words from me. My music library was scattered pretty much everywhere in different folders among different drives. To make things worse, iTunes wants nothing to do with my FLAC files. With Android, I can just freely drag, drop, and it works. 
 

Organizing and converting was a pretty painful project to get iTunes to play nice, and even then, some of my album art is broken that I hadn’t bothered fixing yet. 

[Commodus]

3 hours ago, atavax said:

I'm thinking about getting the new Iphone SE, but this would be my first apple device since I got an ipod shuffle like 15 years ago and I just don't know how much freedom do you have with iphones. Can I connect it to my windows PC and upload mp3's onto it? How is the Navigation system? What are things a Windows/Android guy should know about the switch to an Iphone?

People have addressed the music syncing to some degree (it's quite elegant once you've got your songs tagged properly).  Of course, the dream is streaming, since that means having your songs everywhere without having to sync.  There is iTunes Match if you're only interested in cloud syncing for your uploads and not a full music service catalog.

 

Navigation?  Well, you can use most any nav app you like, including Google Maps and Waze.  Apple Maps isn't flawless, but it has grown up a lot since the early days and works just fine.

 

There are a number of specifics we could go into beyond that, but remember that iOS is a smartphone platform like any other, and that you're not always beholden to the Apple way of doing things.  Also: be open to a different way of doing things.  I know some folks who gripe about iOS simply because it doesn't behave exactly like Android.  No, you can't customize the home screen much.  No, you can't set a third-party app as your default (not yet, anyway -- that might change in iOS 14).  But just... use it.  Breathe.  Relax.  Once you adapt you may appreciate the faster performance, reduced quirkiness and much better OS update policy.

[Lord Vile]

18 hours ago, Commodus said:

People have addressed the music syncing to some degree (it's quite elegant once you've got your songs tagged properly).  Of course, the dream is streaming, since that means having your songs everywhere without having to sync.  There is iTunes Match if you're only interested in cloud syncing for your uploads and not a full music service catalog.

 

Navigation?  Well, you can use most any nav app you like, including Google Maps and Waze.  Apple Maps isn't flawless, but it has grown up a lot since the early days and works just fine.

 

There are a number of specifics we could go into beyond that, but remember that iOS is a smartphone platform like any other, and that you're not always beholden to the Apple way of doing things.  Also: be open to a different way of doing things.  I know some folks who gripe about iOS simply because it doesn't behave exactly like Android.  No, you can't customize the home screen much.  No, you can't set a third-party app as your default (not yet, anyway -- that might change in iOS 14).  But just... use it.  Breathe.  Relax.  Once you adapt you may appreciate the faster performance, reduced quirkiness and much better OS update policy.

Apple music in the ecosystem is quite amazing. I tend to download all the music rather than stream but having it all the same on my MacBook, phone and PC is great. 

 

It's not as open as android but you're taring that for stuff like better app curation, software support and better hardware. Don't think there's an android phone that can beat an iPhone in all roundedness. Sure it might not do everything the best but it doesn't derp like other phones tend to do in a few areas. 

[Kilrah]

For me the lack of shared, freely accessible storage and no possibility to sideload apps just kills it for too many applications. And since I never have any of the issues with android that people always fearmonger about...

 

I have an iPad I use mostly for Youtube and Flickr, but as a daily driver there's just no way. I did use iPhones as main devices in the past before android got "mature" enough though.