{"id":300183,"date":"2025-11-19T01:03:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T01:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/300183\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T01:03:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T01:03:11","slug":"5-things-that-annoy-me-about-iphones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/300183\/","title":{"rendered":"5 things that annoy me about iPhones"},"content":{"rendered":"

The best iPhones<\/a> also rank among the best phones<\/a> period, with high-end specs, great designs, impressive cameras, and generally slick software. But these phones aren\u2019t perfect, and even as someone who uses an iPhone as my primary handset, I still find myself getting annoyed by some of their limitations.<\/p>\n

These issues are on both the hardware and software sides, and they\u2019re things I really wish Apple<\/a> would address.<\/p>\n

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So below, you\u2019ll find five things that especially annoy me about iPhones \u2013 and which if fixed would keep me from considering a switch back to Android.<\/p>\n

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1. Their telephoto cameras aren\u2019t the best<\/p>\n

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\"Apple\n<\/p>\n

The iPhone 17 Pro Max (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff \/ Future)<\/p>\n

While iPhones largely have excellent cameras, their telephoto cameras arguably aren\u2019t as good as the best of the competition.<\/p>\n

They top out at 4x optical zoom if we\u2019re talking the iPhone 17 Pro<\/a> and iPhone 17 Pro Max<\/a>, or at 5x optical zoom on some older models, which is broadly in line with most rivals like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra<\/a> and the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL<\/a>. But when it comes to digital zoom, Apple’s phones simply can\u2019t compete in my opinion.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s probably because Android brands \u2013 and in particular Google<\/a> \u2013 are making use of more advanced AI to power their digital zooms, but the end result is that you can get quite usable shots on some of these phones at well beyond the optical zoom range, which isn\u2019t really true with an iPhone.<\/p>\n

I also quite like how with the Galaxy S25 Ultra you get two focal lengths for optical zoom, thanks to there being both a 3x and 5x lens. This isn\u2019t the case on any iPhone \u2013 Apple will advertise \u2018optical-quality\u2019 zoom at other focal lengths, but this is a misleading term with inferior results.<\/p>\n

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2. They charge slowly<\/p>\n

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\"Apple\n<\/p>\n

The iPhone 17 Pro (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff \/ Future)<\/p>\n

Apple\u2019s phones are even less competitive when it comes to charging power. Or rather, they are broadly competitive with Samsung<\/a> and Google \u2013 the two brands Apple probably sees as its main rivals \u2013 but can\u2019t begin to compete with Chinese brands like OnePlus and Xiaomi.<\/p>\n

On the iPhone 17 Pro Max<\/a>, Apple claims you can reach up to a 50% charge in 20 minutes with a 40W adapter or higher, implying that 40W of power is the most it can harness, whereas the OnePlus 15<\/a> for example supports 120W charging and the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max<\/a> can manage 100W.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a similar gulf with wireless charging \u2013 both of those Chinese brands support up to 50W wireless charging, while no iPhone can take advantage of more than 30W.<\/p>\n

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This is a major weak spot in iPhones, and as someone who values speedy charging, it\u2019s something that tempts me towards the Android side.<\/p>\n

3. You can\u2019t tap in the middle of words<\/p>\n

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\"Apple\n<\/p>\n

The iPhone 17 (Image credit: Jacob Krol\/Future)<\/p>\n

One thing that\u2019s a constant source of irritation for me is the fact that you can\u2019t just tap in the middle of a word \u2013 as you might want to if you need to correct a typo. Instead, tapping somewhere in a word will just bring the cursor to one or other side of it.<\/p>\n

Sure, there are of course ways to move the cursor into a word \u2013 you can long press on the word and then drag the cursor, or long press on the space bar and drag the cursor around the keyboard, using it a bit like a trackpad, but neither of these methods are as fast or intuitive as simply tapping.<\/p>\n

And sure, you could argue that tapping in a word can sometimes be imprecise and leave the cursor in the wrong position, but I know from having done this on Android keyboards that most of the time it works fine \u2013 and when it doesn\u2019t you still have other methods like those above to get a bit more precision.<\/p>\n

So why Apple won\u2019t just give us this option I don\u2019t know. They could still keep the other methods too, allowing people to simply choose which approach they\u2019d prefer to use.<\/p>\n

4. Their battery capacities are lower than most rivals<\/p>\n

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\"Apple\n<\/p>\n

The iPhone 17 Pro Max (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff \/ Future)<\/p>\n

As well as charging slower than many Android phones, iPhones also have lower capacity batteries.<\/p>\n

Now, in fairness Apple has gradually been increasing the capacity of its phones, and now the iPhone 17 Pro Max actually has the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra marginally beat (or at least eSIM-only versions of the iPhone 17 Pro Max do). But at 5,088mAh its battery is still lower capacity than the 5,200mAh Pixel 10 Pro XL, and far, far lower capacity than the likes of the 7,500mAh Xiaomi 17 Pro Max.<\/p>\n

So there\u2019s still lots of room for improvement here, because right now, iPhones are well behind much of the competition for battery capacities.<\/p>\n

5. You\u2019re stuck with Siri<\/p>\n

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\"Apple\n<\/p>\n

The iPhone 16 Pro Max (Image credit: Future \/ Lance Ulanoff)<\/p>\n

Siri has pretty much always trailed behind Google Assistant in most ways, and personally I even prefer Alexa. But the situation has got even worse in recent years, because we\u2019re starting to see AI assistants like Gemini<\/a> and ChatGPT<\/a> emerge, and with Apple trailing in AI capabilities, it\u2019s leaving Siri feeling even weaker.<\/p>\n

Now, in fairness you can link your ChatGPT account to Siri and then get ChatGPT-powered responses to some queries, but this always feels a little clunky compared to just using ChatGPT itself.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, there\u2019s some hope here, for Apple to either massively improve Siri or give us alternatives.<\/p>\n

For the former, we\u2019re hearing that Siri could get a big, Gemini-powered AI upgrade<\/a> in March or April. And for the latter, there are signs in an iOS 26.2 beta<\/a> that Apple might one day let you change the default voice assistant \u2013 though at least initially this ability might be exclusive to Japan.<\/p>\n

But right now, if I want to use AI I\u2019d much rather be doing it on an Android phone, because the experience is almost always better.<\/p>\n

So that’s what rubs me up the wrong way with Apple’s phones, despite them being some of the best phones<\/a> around. But let me know in the comments below what annoys you about iPhones, unless nothing annoys you about them…<\/p>\n

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