If you recently switched from Android (especially a Pixel) to an iPhone, there are a few things that will drive you nuts. Here’s what I ran into on an iPhone 15 Pro and how to fix what’s fixable.
An App Hijacked My Text Files
After installing the Indeed job search app, every .txt file on my phone started opening in Indeed instead of a text editor. No prompt, no confirmation -Indeed just claimed ownership of plain text files.
iOS doesn’t have a “default apps” setting for file types the way Android does. When an app registers itself as a handler for a file type (in this case public.plain-text), iOS may silently make it the default.
The fix:
- Open the Files app
- Find any
.txtfile - Long-press it
- Tap Open With and choose the app you actually want (Pages, Notes, or a third-party editor)
iOS should remember that choice going forward. If it doesn’t stick, try deleting Indeed, opening a text file with your preferred app, then reinstalling Indeed.
The real problem is that Apple doesn’t expose a “default app per file type” setting anywhere in iOS. You can set default browser and email client in Settings, but that’s it. Every other file type is a black box. Apple should fix this.
Autocorrect Is Aggressively Bad
Coming from a Pixel, the difference in autocorrect is immediately obvious. Google’s autocorrect learns your patterns and mostly stays out of the way. iOS autocorrect:
- Corrects words you already spelled correctly -especially names, technical terms, and slang
- Changes words after you’ve moved on -you’ll type a sentence, and iOS will silently “fix” a word three words back
- Refuses to learn -you can type the same word 50 times and it’ll keep correcting it
What helps:
- Settings → General → Keyboard → Auto-Correction -turn it off entirely if it’s unbearable
- Settings → General → Keyboard → Text Replacement -add words it keeps mangling (e.g., add “pfSense” so it stops “correcting” it to “presence”)
- Settings → General → Keyboard → Predictive -the prediction bar is actually decent once autocorrect is off; you get suggestions without forced corrections
- Consider installing Gboard (Google’s keyboard) from the App Store -it brings back the autocorrect behavior you’re used to from Pixel
iOS 17+ improved autocorrect with a transformer-based language model, but it’s still more aggressive than Google’s approach. If you work in IT or any technical field, you’ll want to either disable it or use Gboard.
AirDrop Doesn’t Work While Using Hotspot
This one isn’t fixable -it’s a hardware limitation. AirDrop and Personal Hotspot both use the same WiFi radio. When your iPhone is sharing its connection via hotspot, the WiFi radio is occupied and AirDrop can’t use it.
What makes it confusing: iPhone to Mac works fine while hotspot is on, because the iPhone can use Bluetooth to initiate the AirDrop transfer. But Mac to iPhone fails because the iPhone can’t receive the incoming AirDrop connection while its WiFi is serving the hotspot.
Workarounds:
- Turn off hotspot temporarily to receive an AirDrop, then turn it back on
- Use iCloud Drive -drop the file in iCloud from your Mac, open it in Files on iPhone
- Use a messaging app -send it to yourself via iMessage, Signal, etc.
- Use
scpor SSH if you’re that kind of person (Termius or a-Shell on iOS)
This is one of those things that “just works” on Android since Android can handle WiFi Direct and hotspot simultaneously on most modern phones. Apple hasn’t implemented this yet, possibly due to their more conservative approach to radio management.
The Bottom Line
iOS is polished but opinionated. When it works the way Apple intended, it’s seamless. When you need to do something Apple didn’t plan for -like opening a text file with the app of your choice -you’re fighting the system.
If you’re coming from a Pixel, the biggest adjustment isn’t the UI or the apps. It’s accepting that some things you took for granted on Android simply don’t exist on iOS yet.