Android is not like iOS. Don't expect it to be

Actually no. I got a pixel and didn’t expect it to work as the iPhone.
As I have Windows and do not expected to work as macOS and as I have PlayStation and don’t expect it to work like Xbox.
My problem with android is that talk back is sluggish on it, I don’t find it Difficult to use the pixel or the operating system, just slow.
All other platforms and systems I mentioned can be used and I don’t complain about those.

One thing I always thought was really neat about Android, was the ability to change your Launcher (home screen UI). I have read in other forums that the Nova Launcher is pretty good with accessibility. Is this still true?
Sincerely asking here.

@Brian, Nova is great! When I was on Samsung, the default launcher was not bad, but Nova has always been my go to whenever I've gotten the itch to see how Android has come along. I doubt it has gone downhill in the few months I've been back on the iPhone.

As to the original post, it is not logical to expect one operating system to behave like another, however it is normal to make comparisons between the two. In order to make an informed decision, you need to know how it works compared to what you already know. To say that iOS is only for people who like things simple, and Android is only for the techies, is a huge generalization and not entirely accurate. As someone who has used both, I prefer the Voiceover way of doing things, and the Voiceover snappiness. Talkback, with its way of doing things, is not bad at all. However, the sluggishness even on what is otherwise great hardware, and the lack of enforcement for talkback actions even in Google's own apps, made me come back to Apple after about 6 months over on the Android side. Will I ever try Android again? Most likely. There's a lot to like. But for now, I feel I am much faster, and much more productive, on iOS. And this is coming from a techy.

I love nova launcher, switched to it almost right after getting my Samsung back in 2021, I love how nova 8 has actions, i like the android way of doing things more then IOS, I have an iPad that I use for watching YouTube

Let's throw old stereotypes where they belong … I won't finish that sentence. Yes there are differences and they are significant but I see both android and iOS getting more similar by the year.Android has that customizable quick pannel, suddenly apple let's you arrange your control center. Apple gives you the dynamic island, androi 16 beta now has a dynamic island with whatever name they needed to avoid getting sued. Sure android can cater more to techy tinkering with ADB, developer options, rooting and romming but most android users, blind and sighted never touch that. Talkback in particular is built to be more lean and simple than voiceover, just compare its gesture customizations to voiceover's gesture commander and myriad other settings … who's more customizable and techy now? Yes they're different but they're converging with every OS update. As far as screenreader responsiveness I find voiceover scrolls just a touch faster and swiping between things is marginally quicker, like a tenth of a second or less. Talkback in contrast works far better with explore by touch which is the one area where I most agree with OP, iOS teaches people to flick and android wants you to know where things are on the screen.

@Holy Diver, yes, the slight lag when swiping doesn't seem like much, but after the honey moon phase where everything was new and interesting, it did start to get on my nerves. Also, the lack of implementation of talkback actions, even across Google's own apps was frustrating. While I can appreciate knowing how the exact interface is laid out, there are times when swiping can just be quicker, especially when you can avoid all the extra buttons. I get that you can skip some of those when using explore by touch, and I found that a combination of the two worked best, but it would have been nice to see greater enforcement of the tb actions.
Sure I will eventually try Android again.

Yeah I hear you, I really do. There's no reason they couldn't give you the full screen layout and still impliment those actions more widely, it feels like google being so big all the app teams aren't as integrated into the same accessibility framework as apple … or something. Like you could still show every button in the youtube app or whatever and understandably annoy folks used to voiceover but still have all the swipe down actions … isn't that how it settled on iOS? Anyway, I've had my hands on a pixel 7 pro for almost a month and the talkback flick lag is not as much as on the Samsung I replaced. Especially with the tweaks people have suggested here it's much more at parody with voiceover though I'd probably notice a slight difference side by side. It's not even that flicking is bad on android, I do it all the time even with touch exploration, more there's a lot more to flick through.

I've heard that if you turn off angled gestures, the responsiveness is a lot better, as in more like iOS.
Of course, those angled gestures are amazing, and I in fact wish iOS had something like that.

Not only do most users not touch the moretechnical stuff like custom ROMs, being able to change your default web browser or install a screen reader from China doesn't make you some sort of techno warlock familiar with the arcane depths of black techie magick. Complexity or number of settings does not automatically equal "tech savvy" person.

As an example, I'll pick on iOS. iOS file management is hot garbage. With Android, you connect it, maybe pick an option that says make it act like a drive, and there you go, you can copy files to and from it like any other drive.

It's actually *way* easier than whatever dumbness Apple has going on. Being able to do Apple's far more complicated gibberish doesn't mean you're suddenly more "tech savvy" than an Android user, just because all they have to do is plug in a cable and use standard file utilities.

Interesting about the angle gestures. I didn't know you could actually turn those off. I never liked them, so would totally do that.
Whenever I do decide to try Android again, I think I would go for either a Pixel or something that runs regular tb out of the box. Can you replace Samsung TB? Yes. But it's nice to not have to. The thing that would be most tempting to me about the Pixel is Guided Frame. But, I'm so integrated in to the Apple ecosystem that switching would involve a lot. If there was ever a good app that could integrate with Homekit without too much hacking, it would make the switch a ton easier. A phone is easy enough to switch out, and so is a watch, earphones, etc. But when you already have every light in the house, plus your thermostat and a few smart plugs set up directly in homekit, doing all that again in Google Home, or even Alexa, is just a no go. But if anyone was ever able to come up with a somewhat easy solution to that, I'd be a lot more willing to consider it again.

I would have chosen Alexa over Apple's Homekit.
Just my personal preference. 🤷

“I find it interesting how often people feel the need to frame Android as some kind of elite, ‘tech-savvy’ platform while reducing iOS to an oversimplified system for people who supposedly can’t handle complexity. The reality is much less dramatic. People gravitate toward what works for them, and there’s no inherent intellectual barrier to preferring one over the other. Acting as though switching to Android requires some sort of technical rite of passage is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

That said, since we’re discussing actual usability, let’s take a moment to address this idea that iOS is ‘simple’ while Android is for the more technically inclined. If you’ve ever tried to do anything beyond Apple’s carefully curated, pre-approved use cases, you’d know iOS is far from intuitive. • File management is a convoluted mess, buried in unnecessary limitations. • Transferring files without AirDrop is an exercise in frustration. • Side-loading apps is impossible if you’re not in the European union, and awful if you are. jailbreaking is a Band-Aid fix, you shouldn’t need to hack your own phone to customize it. GarageBand? A tedious, over-complicated maze of restrictions—one that becomes impossible to justify once you experience the comparative ease of professional software. • Downloading a YouTube video or converting files are simple tasks on most platforms, but on iOS, they become a test of patience, requiring either third-party workarounds or outright giving up.

So no, iOS isn’t ‘simple.’ It’s deliberately restricted, and there’s a major difference.

In the end, both operating systems have strengths and weaknesses. The real issue isn’t the platforms—it’s the people who act as though their preference makes them inherently more ‘tech-savvy’ or intellectually superior. You use what works for you. That’s it. No one is winning a prize for knowing how to navigate a settings menu.”

I say we all become one voice.
One nation.
One community.
One creature.
. . . and give up all technology and go back to the Abacus!

All hail the Abacus. All hail simplicity!

Thank you. I have spoken. 🙇

@Brian, the abacus? You out of yo mind bro!!! 🤣😂

One accessible os to rule them all...

And, oh look, it never needs charging.
OK. OK. I'm done. Ha ha

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

I own three blind ones, several Chinese models, and a schoty, Russian abacus. It's not anti-anything, sometimes I'll use Calculator or Python to do math, sometimes I'll grab an abacus. I just like them as a thing. Plus the math can get really interesting, if that's the sort of thing you're interested in.

http://totton.idirect.com/soroban/

And to cover blindness specifically, just to be complete:

https://www.aph.org/app/uploads/2022/06/4-27110-00.pdf

I thought there was a text version of this but I'm not finding it offhand, so maybe I ran OCR on it. Be brave. Join me in using the abacus!

I know many sighted people who are used to using Android devices get confused when trying to figure out how they go back from one screen to the other within a single app without exiting the app and going to the home screen on an iPhone, or how they access the App Switcher, but the overall experience is far easier for them, as they don't have to memorize any VoiceOver or Talkback gestures, compare the operating systems and screen readers, or test each app they use to find out how accessible it is on Android or iOS and look for other alternatives if possible and/or necessary. All the sighted have to do is to get used to how the Home button serves a different function compared to the physical or virtual buttons on Android phones or that you have to swipe up from the bottom of the screen to go the home screen on iPhones without one, and the fact that you usually have to tap the top left corner of the screen to go back within an app. Just tap on something and it is selected. Swipe with one finger to scroll and you're good to go, with a fresh page before you. Other than that, they might have to familiarize themselves with how the settings differ etc., but they can switch from and get used to one operating system to the other relatively quickly. If they just use the stock features without messing around with "rooting" or "jailbreaking", sighted users should find the user experience closer in terms of convenience when they compare iOS to Android, compared to the average visually-impaired user. I've not heard the average sighted user using an Android device complain about the OS or interface being too convoluted, let alone complaining about Talkback being too sluggish or the myriad of VoiceOver bugs, unless (s)he uses the device to perform tasks that go beyond downloading apps from the Play Store, watching Youtube videos, using Instagram or WhatsApp, or browsing the web. For the visually-impaired, however, even the most trivial task requires more experience. Installing Jieshuo is one example. Many do that because it effects the overall user experience and does make certain apps more accessible. As for why I describe installing Jieshuo as "trivial", it's because it is not necessarily simpler but definitely essential and not done to tweak certain apps or modify the operating system for the sake of fun and therefore not worthy of further discussion in the sense that it is not something that only the most tech-savvy should be able to do, for it is already a must for many rather than a niche app intended for a specific task/purpose. Even experimenting with different launchers to see how accessible each one is, is done by visually-impaired users to compare their convenience and pick the best one, as opposed to how many sighted users do that to brag about how their home screen looks more similar to the iOS home screen. Sighted users, however, can just stick with the built-in functions unless they wish to obtain "root access" or install a different ROM. Installing different TTS engines and customizing them is another example, for it can also be done in an attempt to use the device more conveniently, or possibly even be able to use it at all, if the TTS engine(s) installed on the device (e.g., Google TTS or Samsung TTS) do(es) not support a certain language (adequately).

Well said. It's all personal preference. One isn't better than the other; they both have their benefits and drawbacks.
And just had to throw in here... the abacus? OMG, Lol. I haven't heard that word in many, many years. This has made me wonder if, somewhere buried in my old closet at my mother's house, one might be lurking.

Even if I got my hands on one, which I have no desire to do, I don't think I would even remember how to use it. Math and I never really got along. lol Will stick to my smart phone calculator thank you. Give me literature, art, foreign language, anything but math.

What are you talking about, math is great, mostly anyway, some of the more visual stuff is less great.
I think I have an abacus somewhere, or two, not sure why but they exist

I wonder why no one is stating on the Apple side of the site, iOS is not like Android, then telling us to not expect it to be the same. Maybe I'm just skipping those posts.
As to the abacus, it also works from right to left, as in some of the Human Calculator techniques. You're supposed to do those in your mind, but why not cheat?

It happens. Now and then. Typically along the lines of ...
"iOS is better because blah blah blah"
... followed by the usual mass hysterical fear of change that seem to permeate these forums. 😉

Now I remember, though that's a little different than this. I suppose you could substitute "Android users" and "iOS users" into the title, and tell everyone to not expect them to be like each other. Abacus users and finger counters too...

I was just viewing a thread about the Pixel 9 on here and no, I won't be getting it.

I prefer swiping, and using explore by touch when needed, I guess I'm used to it and I shouldn't have to go into all these settings just to make the thing faster.

If you get it, great! Have fun but it's not for me.

I would absolutely love to have a Pixel device as a backup, if nothing else. It will be a little while longer before I can upgrade my current iPhone, and truth be told, that new 16E is looking very promising.

I won't need a new IPhone for a couple of years, and by then they'll have released some other AI thingy on the phones that we don't need but I'll probably buy the 16E then.