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Over the last couple of weeks, I have had this thing in my pocket. And before you start saying it, I know this is Android Authority. But a few weeks ago, I was in China and I lost my iPhone 17 Pro Max in a forest, somewhere here. So, painfully I had to buy another one. Mostly for comparisons, and I kind of got sucked in by this smaller silver Pro. So, I thought, "Let me daily drive this for a couple of weeks and let me see if I'm missing out on anything." But, using the iPhone for the last couple of weeks only proved one thing, God, I love Android. I'll start by saying the iPhone 17 Pro is a good phone and it doesn't do anything wrong. It just does a few things different. The size of this though is perfect of the smaller Pro and
I just wish that all Ultra and Pro phones were just a one-handed powerhouse. And the way this phone looks might just be one of my favorite designs this year. Especially that silver white combo, just look at it. There's something about this. And it has one little button that I wish my S26 Ultra or my Pixel had, camera control. I'm not going to tell you that I've used camera control a lot when taking photos because it's just a bit annoying. It's too finicky to try and land a zoom and too much effort to try and use any of the other controls. What I do like though is that I can use it to open the camera. In the past, I have called out Honor, Oppo, Vivo for just straight up copying everything the iPhone does. Most of
their OS is like a skin on top of iOS, but they did at least copy one good thing and that is the camera control button. I know Android phones had this before the iPhone came along, but I just wish that more Android phones would bring this back and the reason is because it leaves the power button open to do other things. That means I then have a dedicated camera button then I can map the power button to anything that I like. And I just want this to be the wallet. I don't know if I'm alone, but I find it annoying, especially on Samsung phones, that I have to unlock my phone with my finger every time I want to pay. And it just leaves me stood there for like 2 minutes trying to validate as I tap back and forth and it
doesn't quite work. On Pixels, it is a little bit better cuz you can double press the power button to open the wallet, but then you lose the ability to use it for the camera. I really hope that Samsung or Google might bring in a camera control in the next year or two, and maybe the Pixel will with the rumor that the IR face lock is coming back eventually. So, this is something that I want to see. There's one other part of this iPhone note that I can't deny is just great. It's the video it can take. I say this a lot. Android phones, they just can't stack up to the video that the iPhone can take. Maybe the Vivo X300 Ultra is
the exception here, which I have a whole video about coming soon. So, make sure you subscribe for that. But, I can't help but be a little jealous of how good this video is, and this is why I think anyone who makes YouTube videos has an iPhone in their pocket. It comes down to a few things. I think it's pretty consistent between the ultrawide, the main, and the four times telephoto. And even that eight times doesn't look bad in good light. The stabilization is almost impossible to beat on any Android, and the iPhone is able to do this so well that those small jitters, they just don't exist. Colors are more accurate, I think, on the iPhone. And the lens switching isn't too bad. Like, I love doing a telephoto to ultrawide
zoom up, and the iPhone kind of handles it better than most. It's been a while since I used an iPhone, but one of my complaints was nighttime video and those flares from all of the lights, and the iPhone 17 Pro hasn't fixed this. I did say that the iPhone made me miss Android. And when I put my SIM back into the Z Fold 7, it just felt like a warm hug. It felt right. And it's the ease of what Android brings. I can't believe that in 2026, iOS doesn't have a universal clipboard. Like, what is this? The amount of times I went to try and find it after copying a few things, I just don't know how you guys live without one. I also miss Circle to Search so badly. I just didn't realize I
use this as much as I did. Admittedly, and a little embarrassingly, it's to find clothes that I see people wear on TikTok. But, from seeing what I want to finding where I can get it from takes 10 seconds and on the iPhone, highlight to search is weird. I need to screenshot and then circle, but it doesn't highlight what I then try to search. It's slow and I saved maybe about 100 screenshots by mistake because this UI is terrible. And it was so annoying when I wanted to try and copy text from somewhere that doesn't let you highlight it. Like on the iPhone, you just can't do it. On my Android, I'm circling to search in, I'm copying and pasting and I'm off. Like, I think circle to search might be one of the best things Google
has ever introduced. And then, Siri. I know it's a bit of a running joke about how bad Apple intelligence and Siri is, but it's so bad. Like, I don't know how Apple get away with this. Let me just show you how bad this is. Can you tell me how much the iPhone 17 Pro is? Okay, I found this on the web for Can you tell me how much the iPhone 17 Pro Not great. And now, let me ask the Z Fold 7 the same question. How much is the iPhone 17 Pro? The iPhone 17 Pro is expected to start at $1,099. There you go. I mean, like the iPhone can't tell me the price, but the Z Fold 7 can. Siri's just not good. And something else that Apple intelligence
just cannot do very well is removing things from photos. Like, this is not good. I'm going to test it with this. So, I have this photo on both phones with my hand in front of my face. So, on the iPhone, I'm going to try and do this first. So, I circle around what it needs to get rid of. It will slowly then try and get hold of the hand and let's see what it does here. Oh. Not great. And then, the same photo on the Z Fold 7. Let me try it on here. So, search around the hand and when I erase it, let's see what it comes back with. Oh.
Okay. I mean, it's giving me a face, but um Who's this guy? Okay, I got I might give that to the iPhone actually because at least it doesn't give me um that. Even for everyday tasks, I found the iPhone to just be a bit messy. I don't even know what the typing experience is about. The iOS keyboard is so bad. I feel like I can't get anything spelled right. Autocorrect is a pain and I just keep hitting keys by mistakes. And I'm glad it's not just me that thinks this. There's no back gesture. I don't know how you guys live without this. And maybe this is a little bit unfair cuz I multitask a lot on the Z Fold 7, but
there's no multitasking on the iPhone yet. Like it has all this power and you still have to swipe between apps if you want to open more than one at the same time. It's like living in the dark ages. Notification management is a bit bad and iOS 26 is just not great. I'll give Apple some credit though. Liquid glass looks pretty cool, especially in the few apps that I've seen it in. I really like the transparent icons you can get. With the right wallpaper, it looks great. But with the wrong one, you can't see those icons. And I think Face ID is unmatched. And I can't tell you that I'm not jealous of this. Face unlock on Androids is fine in daylight, but it's
in the dark where the iPhone ironically shines. The closest Android you can get to this is the Honor Magic 8 Pro, but I really wish that someone else would just add this sort of Face ID into their phones. What I kind of started to love though was the ecosystem because just being able to go from my AirPods on my phone to my Apple Watch to my Mac without having to do anything. Like it was kind of like magic and it's that old adage that people say about Apple, it just works and it did. Being able to copy and paste things from my iPhone to my Mac is like the devil's work as well. When it works because it doesn't always. So, after a few weeks with the iPhone 17 Pro, I don't think I came away hating
it. It was actually nice to be on the other side of the fence, even if it was just for a little bit. I really like the design. The video is ridiculously good. Face ID is still better than what most Android phones can offer and the ecosystem is annoyingly good. There was definitely a few things that tempted me to stick with the iPhone, but as soon as I put my SIM back into any of the Android phones I had, I just realized that this felt right. Everything just works easier, especially for me. There's so much variety when it comes to Android phones. The fact that you can get ridiculously sized batteries, quicker charging and an equally good ecosystem with things like
Samsung and Google with their buds and watches, I just couldn't make the switch. There is so much happening with Android 17 in the next couple of months as well. I didn't want to miss that. So, the iPhone for now can happily go back into the drawer until the next comparison. I'm interested though, if you switched from iPhone to Android and stayed with Android this year, what kept you on it? Or if you tried to make the switch and then you just couldn't do it and went back to your iPhone. Like, I'm genuinely curious, so let me know in the comments below. Before you head off, if you can subscribe to the channel, it would mean a lot and thank you very much. And if you do that, then I'll see you in the next one.
