Mined the Gap: Android, Windows and the iMessage Problem , Can You Really Leave Apple?
I have spent the last week trying to leave Apple.
Not in the dramatic sense. There were no angry letters to Tim Cook, no ceremonial smashing of an iPhone with a hammer and no standing outside an Apple Store shouting, “You can’t lock me in here.”
I simply swapped my usual setup , an iPhone 17 Pro, MacBook Neo and iPad , for a Samsung Galaxy S23 and a sixth-generation, 15-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop.
The question was straightforward enough: could I get my work done just as easily with Android and Windows?
The answer, rather annoyingly for anybody hoping for a simple conclusion, is yes.
Mostly.
Mined the Gap: The Android and Windows experiment
The Surface Laptop was chosen because it was roughly the same second-hand price as the MacBook Neo I had been using. The Galaxy S23 was the phone I settled on for the week.
This was not a laboratory test. I wasn’t measuring processor temperatures while rendering a 4K film in a shed. I was using the devices as most people use their devices: email, messages, photos, web browsing, documents, video work and the general business of trying to remember why you walked into another room.
And the first surprise was how little friction there was.
The Galaxy worked perfectly well. In fact, the video version of this review contains the moment where I admitted that Samsung’s One UI might actually be better than iOS.
There. I’ve said it again.
One UI felt solid and practical. The phone had no trouble handling what I asked of it, and my experience of reception was better than with the iPhone. That is my experience with these particular devices and locations, rather than a universal scientific verdict, but it was noticeable.
I would have been quite happy to carry the Galaxy full-time.
Mined the Gap: The Surface Laptop was no consolation prize
The Surface Laptop was also a pleasant surprise.
Using Microsoft’s Phone Link app, I could synchronise messages and photos between the phone and the laptop. It gave me a surprisingly familiar, joined-up experience. Not identical to using a Mac and iPhone, but close enough that I wasn’t sitting there wondering which button Apple would have put somewhere else.
The 15-inch screen was excellent. The keyboard was lovely. The trackpad was great. The machine felt powerful enough for everything I needed to do.
The one obvious compromise was battery life. It could not get anywhere near the battery life of the MacBook Pro or MacBook Neo. That said, “not as good as the battery life of a MacBook” is not the same thing as “useless”. It was fine.
More than fine, really.
The Surface and Galaxy combination worked. I could work, communicate and get through the day without feeling that I had accidentally bought a set of technological garden tools.
So why did I end up back with the MacBook Neo?
Mined the Gap: The green and blue bubble problem
iMessage.
That is the bit nobody wants to admit is important.
If you are moving from iPhone to Android and from Mac to Windows, the hardware and software are not necessarily the problem. The people you talk to are the problem.
Or, more accurately, the system that those people are already using becomes the problem.
My family uses Apple devices. They use iMessage. They carry on using iMessage even when I ask them not to, because apparently asking a family to change a messaging app is more difficult than asking them to relocate a small village.
The result is the familiar green and blue bubble situation.
Messages that were straightforward in the Apple ecosystem became a social nuisance outside it. Family conversations became more complicated. Some group chats were suddenly less accessible. I found myself trying to persuade people to use WhatsApp instead, which is not a sentence that makes you feel like you have taken control of your digital life.
It is easy to say that the green and blue bubble distinction is nonsense. It is nonsense. But that does not make it imaginary.
The important point is that your decision is not only about the quality of the phone in your hand. It is also about the devices, services and habits of the people around you.
Mined the Gap: The cost comparison was not close
The other part of this experiment was financial.
The prices shown here are the examples displayed in the video and may change. They are not a live quotation, a buying recommendation or the official price of every possible configuration.
For the CeX comparison, the Surface Laptop shown was £500. The Samsung Galaxy S23 was £285. Adding a Galaxy Tab brought the total to roughly £1,010.
The tablet was arguably unnecessary. I don’t think most people need one simply because they have bought a phone and a laptop. But it was included to make the comparison with an Apple laptop, phone and tablet.
On the Apple side, I selected:
- A MacBook Neo
- An iPhone 17e
- An 11-inch iPad Air
The total shown in the video came to £2,147.
That makes the difference roughly £1,000, using those particular examples and configurations.
Mined the Gap: CeX makes the second-hand argument interesting
There is another detail worth mentioning: the five-year warranty highlighted in the video.
That is a significant part of the appeal of buying through CeX. You are not simply finding a used laptop from somebody’s spare bedroom and hoping that the hinge does not fall off when you open the lid.
The condition grading also matters. A B-grade product might have a mark, a scratch or lack its original box, but that does not necessarily affect how it works. If you are buying technology to use rather than display in a glass cabinet, that can be a sensible trade-off.
The CeX route does not make every second-hand purchase automatically perfect. You still need to check the device, configuration and condition. Prices move, stock changes and the exact item you want may disappear while you are still deciding whether the colour is important.
But the comparison does raise a sensible question: how much are you paying for the ecosystem, and how much are you paying for the actual work the devices do?
For most everyday tasks, the Surface and Galaxy did the job.
Mined the Gap: The useful bits I did not expect to miss
There were a couple of other details that influenced the week.
The Apple Watch remained useful, particularly because it had a cellular connection. While family members continued sending iMessages to me, those messages still appeared on the watch.
Oddly, the watch was more useful during the week when I was not using the iPhone than it normally is when I am using the iPhone.
That was not the result I expected.
I also kept using a small magnetic USB-C hub with the MacBook Neo. The Neo has two USB-C ports, and not both are fast enough to power everything you might want to attach.
The hub clips magnetically to the back of the machine and connects via a short cable. It provides:
- HDMI
- A power input
- Another USB-C port for power out
- USB-A
- An SD card reader
It solves a practical problem without turning the laptop into a nest of adapters. When removed, it leaves a circular mark on the back.
It is not a coffee stain.
I have explained this several times now, which probably means it looks exactly like a coffee stain.
Mined the Gap: So, can you really leave Apple?
Yes, you can.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 and Surface Laptop worked perfectly well for me. They handled the work. They communicated. They gave me a capable and enjoyable setup for considerably less money in the second-hand comparison.
There is nothing inherently wrong with Android and Windows. The Apple fans are not entirely right, and neither are the people who claim every Apple product is a waste of money.
The difficulty is the ecosystem.
If your family, friends or colleagues all live inside iMessage, moving away from Apple can create friction that has nothing to do with processor speed, screen quality or how nice the keyboard feels.
That is the part I had underestimated.
So I am going back to the MacBook Neo. I will also return to the iPhone, although whether I stay with the current model is another question. I will probably keep an iPad around, too.
The Surface may stay as well. I was surprised by how much I liked it.
The Android and Windows setup proved that I could leave Apple’s hardware. What it did not prove was that I could leave the habits and expectations of everybody else.
And that, as usual, is where the gap is.
Mined the Gap: What comes next?
The tech-video slot is moving to Wednesday evenings.
The next question is particularly relevant with children and students heading back to school, college or university: is an iPad with a keyboard the right device, or would a second-hand laptop from CeX make more sense?
That will be the subject of the next video.
If there is a particular device or technology you would like me to review, put it in the comments. I am always interested in testing things so that you don’t have to : although, judging by the number of devices currently sitting around me, I may already be testing too many.
if anything I've said today struck a chord with you and you'd like a chat or if you have a particular challenge with energy, power & infrastructure, business generally or you might like to use the studio, drop me an email at andrew@aelhawley.com - if you've watched the video version of this blog you can drop a comment below and, I think I'm supposed to say like and subscribe but I won't. See you on Sunday in the field.. that to be clear, isnt my garden.