How Can You Miss Something You Never Had?

I use both Android and iOS devices in my daily life, mostly to keep up with both platforms so that I have an informed opinion, which is important as someone who writes about technology for a living. Recently, I switched my SIM card from a OnePlus 2 Android phone to an iPhone 7.

Leaving Android for iOS has been painful.

The notifications on Android are superior, in my opinion. They appear at the top of the screen, much like icons in the Start Menu bar on Mac computers. Plus, on the OnePlus, there's an option to have a different color light softly blink when you receive a new notification, and you can color code the light to various apps. When I see a yellow light, I know I have a SnapChat notification. Blue means I have a text message. Purple is for email. When the phone is plugged into power, the indicator light turns a solid green when the battery is 100 percent full.

If you've never used an Android phone, chances are you don't care. You don't miss any of these features because you never had them. Often when we don't know what we are missing, we don't care.

And that's fine. It's good even! When we feel content with the products and services we use, we should not let companies lure us into buying new products based on what we are theoretically missing. (Although, that's really the crux of advertising, isn't it, the promise of having a better life that, until this moment, you didn't realize you don't have?)

In any event, the job of a technology reviewer, which is in part my profession, is to tell you about these features when they are worth having. Does having this thing that I didn't even know existed until just now bring me greater happiness or satisfaction or ease? It's a reviewer's job to tell you whether the advertising delivers.

I've come to prefer having the color-coded LED notifications, and menubar widgets, and more responsive on-screen keyboard. But if you've never had them, you aren't missing out on much.