On 24 September 2026, it was time. The last straw had been reached. I want to leave Apple! But let’s start from the beginning. If you’re only interested in tips and tricks and not in complaints, read on at the end. For everyone else, let’s start from the beginning.
A chronik
Until 05.09.2025 – Apple has always been my go-to smartphone. I’ve practically grown up with it. I did have an Android for a while, but that didn’t last long. With a Mac, iPad, Apple TV and AirPods, the ecosystem was complete. Everything works really smoothly. I even managed to persuade my partner to use an iPhone too.
Since 05.09.2025 – I’m growing increasingly fed up with Big Tech. The political situation in the US has shown me that it’s probably best not to rely too heavily on products from the US. Especially when they’re provided by companies whose agenda is geared towards maximum profit rather than any values, which now only seem to find their way into adverts. My partner and I are in agreement. We need to move on. Towards an alternative. Ideally, a good European alternative.
Since iOS 27 – my iPhone 13 mini. Small and cute, but with a rubbish battery. I’ve even had it replaced once. But since the new OS update, it drains so quickly – faster than you can blink. Lots of apps are glitchy and crash. I want a new mobile before this one finally gives up the ghost and my 2FA and so on are no longer available. But what’s a good European alternative?
I’ve found a few: Fairphone (🇳🇱 NE), Shiftphone (🇩🇪 DE), Jolla (🇫🇮 FIN), HMD (🇫🇮 FIN), Nothing Phone (🏴 ENG), Crosscall (🇫🇷 FR), Punkt (🇨🇭 CH), … ! Wow! What a selection! At least as far as the hardware is concerned. Because most of these smartphones run on Android, which is theoretically open-source but is effectively controlled by Google and dutifully sends user data to the company. The Fairphone, however, offers an OS from Murena (🇫🇷 FR) /e/OS, which is based on LineageOS/Android. To be able to download apps available on the Google Play Store, microG has been installed on this /e/OS. I’m only half understanding this at the moment. Is it really that hard to design an operating system for a mobile phone? What if this new OS can’t run my essential apps? This backdoor Android also feels almost illegal. But actually, it’s Big Tech’s data theft that’s the illegal part here. It’s mad how brainwashed I already am. Jolla has a Linux-based OS, Sailfish OS! Really interesting. But from what I’ve heard in reviews so far, Linux phone OSs are still a bit too experimental for me. But maybe those are just preconceptions. The Fairphone is also kind of eco-friendly, which suits me.
25.09.2026 – It’s going to be a Fairphone 6+. With /e/OS. Goodbye Google, Meta, Apple and Co. Hello, repairable mobile with replaceable everything! The very next day, the decision is final. The money has been debited. Next week I can pick up my new phone. Now I’ve got a bit of time to think about the easiest way to make the switch. A quick list:
- 🧑🤝🧑 Transfer contacts.
- 🎶 Music. I’m currently using Apple Music. Will that still work? Do I want to keep using it?
- 🏞️ Transfer photos? Or start from scratch?
- ☁️ Cloud storage. You don’t really need it, but it is quite useful…
- 🔑 Password manager and 2FA!
- 📅 Calendar. Ideally one that I can share with my partner.
A short, manageable list. But once again, I’m on the hunt for a good European alternative. Because what adverts and search engines tend to present to you are mainly Big Tech services. Clean, useful, simple. One Swiss company that offers a range of services in a neat suite is Proton (🇨🇭 CH). It almost seems too good to be true – a bit fishy, somehow. But I can’t find any major negative reviews online, so I’ll give it a go. I’m already using their 2FA app anyway. And I’m sure I’ll come across the other apps in due course.
29.09.2026 – It’s arrived! Now off quickly by bike to the parcel collection point. The parcel was handed to me by a little old lady in her stationery shop. Even though the shop didn’t look shabby, it was very empty. Lots of shelves, but only sparsely stocked. And here I am, walking out with a €700 mobile without having bought a thing… Once I got home, I was over the moon again! Time to unpack and inspect it. Mobile, case, screen protector, headphones – you don’t want to skimp, do you? But didn’t I actually want to be eco-friendly? Oh well, too late. Now it’s time to switch it on, set it up and transfer everything! That was at 6 pm. By 9 pm, my joy had turned to exhaustion. A lot of things went well and were straightforward. But some things were painfully slow or didn’t work at all. Apple Music – doesn’t work. My workout app – not working. eBay Marketplace – not working. Some of the transferred music won’t play via the /e/OS Music app, with no discernible pattern. The headphones only switch to pairing mode at random. The lovely card holder, which you can attach to the back, lies sadly beside me, watching as I struggle with the software. I don’t have the right screwdriver to fix it on. (It later turns out that the screwdriver was supplied with the new back cover; I’d just not spotted it.) Have I swapped a reasonably functional mobile for another one that’s even less so? The essentials work, though: messaging services, the banking app and verification, the password manager, 2FA. This should be enough for today.
30.09.2026 – My first ride. Everything went well. I was able to use the navigation (OrganicMaps 🇪🇪 EST)make contactless payments via my banking app (GLS 🇩🇪 DE), and send messages (Signal 🇺🇲 US). Yes. It’s a mobile phone.
The following days – So far, so good. A mobile phone that basically works. Adjusting the settings isn’t as intuitive for me as it is on iOS, but you can manage. However, the ‘de-Googled’ system is now showing its rough edges.
Sports
Of all things, in sport? I use the App Workout from MacroFactor (🇺🇲 US)to train at the gym, and then Strava (🇺🇲 US) to share my sessions. Well, I can’t log in to either of them from my Fairphone. So I’ve switched back to Hevy (🇨🇦 CA / 🇪🇸 ES) for logging my workouts, and said goodbye to Strava. I do miss the features of Workout MF, though. It always created good workouts for me and told me how much weight to use, which it estimated very well based on my reps in reserve. Unfortunately, Hevy can’t do that. I also find the social aspect of Hevy a bit of a nuisance, because I end up comparing myself to others straight away. Oh, she can lift so much more than me! Oh, he does much longer workouts! I really do find it a shame not to have Workout MF anymore. I’ve written to MF’s support team, but haven’t received a reply yet.
Music
The music is still causing a few problems. Apple Music (🇺🇲 US) won’t launch, and I don’t really want to sign up for another streaming service that exploits musicians. Luckily, I still have a few MP3s and FLAC files, and a Bandcamp (🇺🇲 US) account. Bandcamp works a treat. The MP3/FLAC files, though… not so much. To transfer them from my Mac, I first had to download a piece of software (Open MTP, free). I transferred them over. Out of 20 albums, exactly two work. So that’s another thing to add to the list of things I need to look into if I want to use my smartphone as I am used to. Lots of people recommend Vanilla Music, but this app doesn’t appear in my App Lounge and I can’t find it anywhere else either. I did find the Foldplay app, which simply plays music stored in a folder. Everything works fine with this. It’s a slightly unfamiliar way for me to listen to music. Where are my playlists, and the playlists that are created for me? Why do I have to think?
Maps
I decided to use OrganicMaps (🇪🇪 EST) for my navigation. At first, I wasn’t convinced by the design, but I thought the idea of simply downloading maps and then navigating the old-school way (without an internet connection, using just GPS) was brilliant! That was until I drove with friends in a new area. Join the A5 in 400 metres. Unfortunately, the slip road was closed. OrganicMaps didn’t know this, as it only has offline maps available. So we took a small detour. And then another. And another. We eventually arrived at our destination, a little later than planned. And with a few more kilometres on the clock. And a bit more petrol used. Not very ‘organic’. But very embarrasing for me as the navigator.
An initial verdict
Is the Fairphone a good European alternative? Absolutely! I’m happy with it. The smartphone’s key functions work brilliantly. The problems I’ve had are mainly with apps that are more of a ‘luxury’. Of course, I’d love it if /e/OS were just as smooth as iOS – if all the settings, apps, music and photos simply worked.
But one thing my partner said keeps echoing in my head: It doesn’t always have to be easy. Of course, it would be easier if everything ran as smoothly and elegantly as we’re used to from Apple and the like. As we’re used to just going with the flow. But perhaps this very act of going with the flow isn’t such a good thing after all; you end up flowing away.
Now, at night, I read blog posts like this one, about the pros and cons of /e/OS. To find out how things might be better, or should be. On my iPhone, I never read blog posts about iOS. I never thought about how things could be better. Everything just always worked; there was no need to change anything. I didn’t have to worry about a thing. Now, the switch from iOS to Android – and the shift from Big Tech to anti-Big Tech – is casting a shadow over me. I reckon this shadow will stay with me for a few more weeks or months, until I’ve found good European alternatives for everything that work well (enough) for me. But it’s unlikely to be as straightforward as it was with Apple and Google. And perhaps that’s just as well. It’s more of a hassle. But it also means I’m the one making the decisions. And if you don’t decide for yourself, others will decide for you. I hope this little account of my experience helps you with your decision.
5 Tips and Tricks for Making the Switch
1. Switch whilst you still have your old mobile.
The most environmentally friendly option is to keep using your old mobile until it gives up the ghost. And even then, you should have it repaired rather than buying a new smartphone, which is made from rare earth elements. And yet, I’d advise you to make the switch whilst you still have your old mobile and it’s still usable. Although I did draw up a short list at the start of everything that needed to be transferred from my old mobile to my new one, I realised that it was very incomplete. It’s difficult to get an overview of and estimate how many apps, data and functions are important in everyday life, because they’re already so integrated into our lives that they’ve almost become second nature to us.
Having my old mobile to hand so I could still access my old data has been very useful to me over the last few days.
2. Check the key apps before you switch.
Some apps won’t run on the new, ‘de-Googled’ /e/OS. That might be acceptable if it’s something like TikTok. However, if it’s your bank’s authentication app, you’ll be in a bit of a pickle. There are two places I’d like to point you to where you can check whether apps work on /e/OS or with microG: checksap.io/ and two community posts for Banking Apps and other Apps.
I first bought my new Fairphone, and then I checked whether my most important apps worked. I was lucky, but it was also a bit silly.
3. Switch to different apps before you change your mobile.
When I ordered the Fairphone, I also started the process of switching over from my old mobile at the same time. I installed Proton apps, exported my contacts (exported them as a vcf file in Apple Contacts and then imported them as a vcf file into /e/OS Contacts – very easy to transfer!), switched from Apple Passkey logins to email logins, and so on and so forth. In some cases, it felt a bit unnecessary to download new apps onto my old iPhone, but I think it was the right thing to do. Then I just had to update the new apps on my new phone and hey presto! Everything was transferred.
4. Take your time.
All in all, it really did take a long time. It took up a whole evening, and I had to invest a lot of time over the following days as well. You have to go into it with the mindset that not everything will work straight away (which makes tip 1 all the more important). It will take time to find solutions to any problems that arise, and you’ll need patience to realise that for some issues, there isn’t a straightforward solution. Compared to iOS and Android, /e/OS is still in its infancy and has a smaller team than Apple and Google. The community is active, but some issues haven’t yet been resolved or properly documented.
5. Just Do it!
Even if it means a bit of work. Make the switch! Go for it! It just feels so much better to me to use a smartphone that I can take apart and repair myself. It feels as though I really own this device. Not like with Apple or Google, where I feel like I’m just a user, not an owner. I think the Fairphone is really a good European alternative.
This is a translation of this blog post. DeepL (🇩🇪 DE) was used to help with translation.
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