IPhone 17

I wanted to share my experience because I have now tried more than 14 screen protectors including ESR, Spigen, TORRAS, amFilm, Ailun, and even the official Belkin that the Apple Store installed using their machine. Every single one lifted at the edges (bottom left, the sides, and the top near the speaker).

At the Apple Store, they were initially confident the Belkin would work, but when it started lifting instantly, the manager told me there was “nothing they could do” because they “haven’t heard of this issue.” Since they did not classify it as a manufacturing defect, they refused to replace my device.

This was extremely frustrating because the Belkin protector is the one Apple sells for this phone, so if even that does not adhere properly, something is clearly not right.

When I called Apple Support later, they told me that they have not seen this issue reported internally, so they could not label it as a known defect. For context, Reddit, Amazon reviews, and MacRumors all have threads of users describing the exact same edge lifting problem. What made it even more frustrating is that the Apple Store said they cannot take online reports seriously because “people say anything on the internet” and it is not considered an official Apple source. So they dismissed every example I brought in even though the Belkin protector they installed themselves failed within seconds.

📢 So if anyone else is dealing with edge lifting on the iPhone 17 series, please report it directly to Apple Support.
The more people who report this, the faster it becomes a recognized issue instead of individual cases being dismissed as a simple “screen protector incompatibility.”

Cropped for privacy reasons. The environment was nothing special, no bright lights or lasers or anything. Super weird camera behaviour.

Posting it here to see if anyone has similar problems or knows a fix.

I’ve been a pretty massive Google phone fan since I was a teen, I had the Nexus 4, 5 and 5x and then Pixel 2, Pixel 4a, Pixel 5a, Pixel 7 and Pixel 9. After how disappointing the Pixel 10 was and my overall unhappiness with the trajectory of the Pixel line I decided to jump ship to iPhone after all of these years. It is one hell of a base model, ProMotion, the A19 chip, 256gb base storage and a great, thin compact size and after trading in my Pixel 9 I was able to get it for $1k AUD.

The phone itself is amazing so far, but I just wanted to talk a little bit about my experience with iOS. My only experience with iOS in the past was an iPhone SE I had for work in 2022 and a 5th gen iPod touch and it was pretty average so most of this is new to me, here’s what I love:

1. ⁠⁠The fluidity of the OS and the overall UX. The animations are amazing, I love the physicality of the OS and how everything feels like it’s coming in from somewhere when it animates in and is getting tucked away somewhere when it goes off screen.

2. ⁠⁠Really big fan of Face ID, one of my biggest grievances with my Pixel was the fingerprint sensor and not being able to conveniently unlock my phone when my hands were wet or dirty. I’ve had experience with face unlock on my Pixel 7 but the technology just isn’t there for it to match how reliable and fast Face ID is even in less than optimal lighting.

3. ⁠⁠The file system has come a long way since I last meaningfully used an iOS device (which was a jailbroken iPod touch 5th generation) and the ease of use has definitely quelled one of my biggest fears jumping ship.

4. ⁠⁠Which leads into my final thing I’m loving, parity with android overall. I came into this experience expecting to have to relearn a lot of how I use my phone, and maybe this speaks more about the iOS-ification of stock Android than it does about the jumps iOS has made but other than being forced into gesture navigation, overall day to day use has felt close to identical. It’s crazy to see iOS get features Android removed like lock screen widgets that Android fans have been begging for.

Things I’m meh on:

1. ⁠⁠The keyboard. G Board on android is amazing but it just doesn’t feel as good on iPhone so I use the stock iPhone keyboard and I miss my number row. A tiny nitpick but noticeable nonetheless.

2. ⁠⁠The back button. This was something I was super bummed about losing as the back button in Android is amazing. It works exactly the same in every app and you won’t make any mistakes. iPhone on the other hand definitely has inconsistency with where it’s gonna take you when you’re trying to navigate back but again super minor and I honestly miss it a lot less than I thought I would.

Things that bother me:

1. ⁠⁠Super specific but in Melbourne for some reason the main public transport card is only compatible with Google Pay, so it’s forced me to add a physical card back into my wallet which isn’t ideal in 2025.

2. ⁠⁠iOS definitely still feels behind Android when it comes to customisation. It frustrates me that I can’t rearrange my connectivity folder in the control panel, because tell me why AirDrop is an instant press but I have to go into an additional menu to toggle mobile data. Do better Apple.

3. ⁠⁠No RAW photos on the base model. I was able to make the camera on my Pixel phones go far as hell through editing the RAW files and it seems that’s not an option on the base models. If anyone can help with this, let me know!

Overall though, definitely happy with the iPhone 17 as a move from the Pixel and I’m pleasantly surprised with the leaps and bounds apple has made with iOS and even surpassed Android in some ways with features like the action button, lock screen widgets and the dedicated camera button. As Google continue to lock down Android and the Pixel remains a mid range phone at a flagship price I find year after year there’s less reason to be an Android user and I think I may be a convert if my experience remains this positive.