Episode 2 – Hardware Standards
iphone_to_android February 9th, 2015
This is a series of blog posts documenting my switch from iPhone to Android. To read the whole exciting saga, click here.
The first step to getting my phone up and running was to move the SIM card from my iPhone to my Android phone. My iPhone uses a Nano-SIM, while the Android phone takes an industry standard SIM card. While the smaller size might allow Apple to make a smaller phone, it’s still the same thickness (which seems to me to be the more important dimension when designing a phone).
Luckily, there are inexpensive SIM card adapters; I bought a set on a popular internet auction site. While the correct height and width, the combination of the adapter and SIM were too thick to fit in the phone; a careful sanding with 180 grit sandpaper and thorough cleaning fixed that.
Next came headphones. Amazon makes a great ear bud headset, but the controls don’t work on an iPhone. Nor, apparently, do they work on an older Android phone. iPhone ear pod headset phone controls work, but media volume controls don’t. Non-branded headsets seem to work just fine.
The Android phone uses an industry-standard USB cable. One cable works for my MyFi wireless box, bluetooth headset, external battery and phone. One thing that frustrated me with the iPhone was its ability to reject non-certified cables and adapters. I’ve used a variety of car and wall chargers and a handful of USB cables with no complaints.
The battery on my phone may be suspect, but I don’t have enough experience with it to know if the battery is degraded. New replacement batteries are under $5 on eBay. The iPhone lacks a user-replaceable battery.
WINNER: Android.
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