alt Hacker NewsI am an iPhone user myself, but the number of "this is an android problem" and "just use iPhone" in response to the author's complaints surprises me. I thought HN was more anti apple in the past? Maybe we are all old now and tinkering with our devices is out of fashion, but this doesn't make the author's complaints illegitimate.
And if we zoom out a bit, iPhones are only 20% of the global phone market. The overwhelming majority of the world uses android because, well, iPhones are expensive. There are plenty of places where an iPhone is still a status symbol. Even you think the author should have bought his parents iPhones instead, there is still a whole world of people out there who would benefit from improvements in the android ecosystem.
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HN is mostly US and apparently in US even geeks have given up on Android.
Anyway, here is my experience when I upgraded from a Pixel 8 to Pixel 10 Pro: login to my Google account, let the backup restore happen then my new phone was identical to the old one.
I only had to do the login process to a few messaging apps like Signal or WhatsApp, and my home settings on Smart Launcher had to be manually imported but that's pretty much it.
Basically, a lot of what OP lists as "bare minimum requirements" are just preferences. If he used his Android phone like an iPhone, and like most people use it (with minimal tinkering) then the migration would have been just as smooth.
I don't use Android because iPhones are more expensive. In fact you can get Android phones that are as expensive and sometimes more expensive than iPhones. I use Android phones because it is a much more flexible ecosystem, where I can choose my browser, for example.