Jan-Lukas Else

Tech, life and everything else

I bought an iPhone (as my third smartphone)

Published on 2025-09-21 in 📱 appydroid

Short link: https://b.jlel.se/s/826

I never thought I would do this, but I bought an iPhone. It’s a pretty cheap iPhone SE 2. Gen (2020) used from eBay, like the device I got issued from my work. It’s so tiny and it’s really difficult to type even a short text like this.

Why did I do this? I cannot use my work iPhone for private things, but there is one important use case for me: subscribing to YouTube Premium. 😅 If Google is using globalization to save taxes, why shouldn’t I apply some “cost optimizations” as well? The iPhone is quickly paid by the savings.

But it’s also interesting to see what’s going on on the other side. Like to try the new liquid glass design. And to reassure myself that Android is the better mobile OS for myself.

Who doesn’t have three smartphones? 😂 Now I have my Samsung Galaxy A54, the Galaxy XCover 7 I use on bike trips (and as a backup) and the iPhone SE (2020).

Tags: Apple, iPhone

Interactions & Comments

Eric @en have you considered an alternate os on Android like GrapheneOS or Calyx? I personally use iOS as my family is deep in the ecosystem but if they weren’t I’d be going the GrapheneOS route.
- Jan-Lukas Else The hardware support of Graphene or CalyxOS is unfortunately quite limited to mostly Pixel devices. I am happy so far with my Samsung phones, they should also get updates for a couple more years, but yes, in the past I already used LineageOS on some phones, when they were out of support. I still have my old Xiaomi Mi A1 in the drawer with LineageOS installed.
Jerry I also have multiple phones (a Pixel and an iPhone), and when reading about others who use multiple phones I'm always curious: how do you handle data and phone numbers? Do you have a sim card that you move around, do you have multiple sims, or do you use one phone as your "main" phone and then use wi-fi or hotspot using the others when you need to?I've personally enjoyed having two phones, and since I do dev work on both it's nice to keep up with both OSes, but juggling is sometimes a struggl…
- Jan-Lukas Else My current multi-phone strategy In response to a question a commenter named Jerry asked, I want to briefly explain my multi-phone strategy.
- Jan-Lukas Else My current multi-phone strategy In response to a question a commenter named Jerry asked, I want to briefly explain my multi-phone strategy. My Samsung Galaxy A54 is my main phone, which I carry everywhere I go, except for planned bike rides, for which I use my Samsung Galaxy XCover 7. That device is more robust, and in case the battery becomes weak, I have the possibility to easily change it, as it has a removable back plate and the battery can be swapped without any tools (it also has a 3.5 mm headphone jack!). But it also…
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- Amit Interesting that you find cheaper subscriptions with iPhone. My experience has generally been that they are significantly pricier on iOS as compared to android. Is this trick location specific?