Oh wow, it's been quite a while since my last post. The previous Windows Phone update that did arrive during my hiatus didn't actually do anything regarding my Bluetooth problems, but there's actually a new one coming next month with some Bluetooth-related improvements, so maybe I'll need to give it a try once it arrives.
However, despite being rather happy with my Nexus 5 and not quite satisfied with the price of the iPhone 6 (especially when I need to shell out extra 100 euros for decent storage), it looks like I'll be getting the 64GB iPhone 6 Plus. Why's that, when it doesn't even have wireless charging?
Well, it all boils down to Chromecast failing to compete with the Apple TV. I didn't notice this shortcoming during the summer when it's off-season in hockey, but now that the new season started I tried watching a game with my Nexus 5 streaming to Chromecast. It was all pixelated and choppy. Tried with Chrome browsers on two different computers with similarly bad results. Switched back to my iPad 3 + AppleTV and the result on my 32" TV was indistinguishable from a TV broadcast. I even tried doing the streaming on an ancient iPhone 4 and there was no visible deterioration in quality. This combined with the fact that as a hobbyist musician I'm still much better served with apps available only on iOS and Bluetooth still working much better there, I think I'll just cough up the price and get myself the new iPhone, which my wife gets to enjoy when I quite likely upgrade to the 6S. She just doesn't like Android or Windows Phone, so me continuing on iOS means a steady supply of hand-me-down iPhones for her.
What comes to Bluetooth, even though I was relatively happy with the Android performance when I disabled the phone profile, it has recently started taking longer and longer to connect to my car's Bluetooth receiver and it's starting to be in the "really annoying" territory. Many benefits of wireless charging are negated by having to wait for a small eternity for Bluetooth to reconnect. It's actually so bad right now that I've actually taken an old iPhone 4 back into use just for Bluetooth in the car. It connects really fast (I haven't even got my seatbelt on when it's already connected) and once the connection is there, I don't get the occasional choppiness in the playback that I'm experiencing more and more on my Nexus 5. It looks like the notion of Android's performance deteriorating over time is not completely unfounded. Oh well, Android L might change that, but currently I'm using mostly my iPhone for podcasts as Bluetooth is just so much more reliable there. I'm using Pocket Casts as my podcast app and it has both iOS and Android version which sync their playback positions surprisingly well, so consuming the same content on two different phones is not an issue.
Now the question is how long will it take before I'm able to get the 64 GB Plus. It looks like they're in quite a short supply already. The 4,7" would be a nicer form factor, but when buying a phone that expensive, I'd rather take also that optical image stabilization and the relatively much better battery.
