Ask Paul: August 15 (Premium)

Happy Friday! After a very busy week, we're finally home and in need of rest. But first, let's kick off this weekend a bit early. We have some excellent questions to get to.
? A slice in time
dremy1011 asks:

Now that you've fully tested iOS, Pixel UI and Samsung what have you stuck with as your primary phone, at least until next weeks new Pixel launch?

About halfway into our last trip to Mexico, so mid-to-late July, I decided it was time to get off the iPhone and the iOS 26 Beta, at least temporarily, so I could see where Android 16 was at ahead of the coming Pixel and iPhone launches. And with fresh eyes, given all the time I'd spent in iOS 26.

And then I didn't make any changes. I'm still using the iPhone.

But this isn't about me preferring the iPhone. This is more about decision indecision. Which is pretty standard for me, but this time amplified by other uncertainties. One is tied to when those new phones will be available, whether we'll be home in the U.S. when that happens, in either case, and whether I even want to bother with a Pixel or iPhone upgrade anyway. Another is the looming possibility of getting a folding phone. And tied to both of those, rumors that Google will announce the next Pixel Fold while we're home and then delay shipping it until October, when we'll be back in Mexico. And ... yeah. Whatever.

There's more: Android 16 is incomplete, and the most interesting new features and changes are coming later this year. I have my Pixel and Galaxy S25+ on the latest beta releases--Android 16 QPR1 Beta 3.1 and One UI 8 Beta 4, respectively--so I can keep up on what's coming to each soon. But so far it's been pretty tame. On both, Android 16 is mostly minor, and with the Samsung, all the biggest changes already happened with One UI 7. I'm curious to see Live Updates/Live Notifications come to fruition, mostly, but also a fuller Material 3 Expressive rollout.

But the real shadow weighing over any switch for me now is Apple's nonsense iMessage crap: Despite following its instructions to the letter every single time I make this switch in either direction, my text messages are all screwed up for some indeterminate amount of time. Some texts, I just don't get. Some group texts will come in as individual texts from each participant. And whatever else. But this happens. Every. Single. Time. I switch. And I can't take it anymore.

I can tell this is screwed up in new ways now, too. With the '26 round of Apple's platforms, macOS now has a Phone app, and when I try to use that, it tells me that I have to connect my account to iCloud or something, and obviously, it is connected and properly configured. And ... seriously. I spent a lot of time while we were gone in July researching this, and I briefly considered just creating a new Apple ID and connecting that to my Apple "Family" to see if just using a new account would fix whatever is scrambled. But then I didn't think that would solve anything. And I'm sitting here...