I’m currently with Verizon and I am considering switching over to TMobile network. I has an Android phone, the wife and kids have iphones. I’m pro-Google ecosystem but they are pro-Apple ecosystem.
What would be the advantages/disadvantages of choosing Google Fi over TMobile? Is there anything they cannot do with their iphones if we were on Google fi?
iPhones do not work well on Fi. They will not get WiFi Calling or 5G. They also have to manually update settings to send picture messages and they often do not work properly.
GoogleFi also has a hard cap on data, unlimited is not truly unlimited. For T-Mobile unlimited means your data will almost always be fast, even if you use over 100GB and get deprioritized.
Lastly, GoogleFi has terrible customer service, so if you need anything you better know how to help yourself.
A better T-Mobile alternative would be Metro by T-Mobile if you want the same coverage for less money. The iPhone experience will be much better, and you get a lot more for the money if you’re not an international traveler who specifically wants Fi roaming.
No wifi calling, no 5g, update MMS settings after each iOS update, connected to only T-Mobile (no network switching), not sure if they have access to Fi VPN.
If you’re using a designed for Fi device you’ll have access to all the features Fi has to offer.
If you read up on why 5G doesn’t work on the iphone with Google Fi, you find out that it’s because Apple has settings embedded in iOS that disallow it.
If you go with the Apple ecosystem, you just have to accept that Apple restricts your choices and channels you, so that the choices Apple wants you to make are easy and the choices Apple doesn’t want you to make are harder and have issues.
Both my wife and myself have Google Fi for about a year now, and love it. Neither of us have ever had a problem. We’re on Long Island, but I think if one is in a real rural area, Fi might not work out as well?. Our monthly bills are around $50 combined for both of us. I’m using the Pixel phone which is designed to work well with Fi. My wifes phone however is a Samsung Galaxy and hers also works well with Fi. Neither of us have had one second of any kind of problem in a year so far…Fingers staying crossed.
I’d go TMO in your situation.
Google Fi has been the absolute worst phone service I’ve ever used. I’ve been through all of them and I stayed with Google Fi for about 2 months I think. Every single aspect of their service is poor. Customer service was a joke. Service overseas was so poor that I ended up getting a hotspot. In the US, there coverage map in my area was 4G everywhere but actually there was no service whatsoever, anywhere near me. I ended up getting a hotspot at my home! So, hot spot at home, hotspot overseas, plus still paying for Google Fi. Then when I came back from a month overseas, suddenly I was first unable to send MMS, then I was unable to send or receive MMS, then suddenly no one was able to call me, and finally, I was unable to call anybody. And wasted A LOT of time on the phone with Google support. The last thing they said to me was that I should order a new SIM card and that was it for me. I immediately switched to AT&T. Before I went overseas, they took about 2 weeks to get back to me with the problem of why I wasn’t getting any coverage in my area. You can’t actually talk to higher level customer support. They will email you! And so I was apparently supposed to be without service for 2 weeks while they kept thanking me for my patience. It makes absolutely no sense.
Keep your Apple users on a service that provides them with what they want. You do your thing. The Apple users deal directly with their provider on their issues; you stay away 
Eschew all of the family “sticky” plans. The extra money you may save is not worth the hassle of trying to manage two different ecosystems. Let them do their thing, and deal directly with their own provider. Who knows, they may even be able to pick up some life skills.
For travel or use in the US?
making phone calls on a computer or laptop at messages.google.com and checking text messages there is a feature I do not think tmo offers. data only sims in a tablet or spare phone as well.
Xfinity Mobile over Google Fi. I had high hopes but the service was terrible in my area, 4g and 5g. I switched to Xfinity, which is just Verizon with lower caps and better cost
Hence why Apple needs to stop making their garbage
What Gio235 said. T-Mobile uses partners in my area and without being able to switch to these partners’ networks the coverage is nearly non-existant. I sign on temporarily and use esim when traveling.
I would not wish TMO on my worst enemy.
By far the worst costumer service experience I’ve had over the last 20 years, even moreso than Verizon and AT&T.
The worst is however their lax and even dismissive attitude to security: they are plagued with information leaks, ineffective 2FA implementation, SIM swap scams, and more – all preventable with a few basic tweaks to their policies but somehow elusive to them.
Take SIM swaps. There have been many cases where TMO store employees are either paid by scammers or leak their tools to scammers, allowing them to hijack someone’s number by “upgrading” to a new SIM. The original owner is asked to approve this via a text message, but the big flaw here is that unless they respond within 10 minutes, the swap is automatically approved. So the scammer simply floods the owner/victim with 100s of urgent messages asking them to take multiple different actions (before and after the verification text from TMO), drowning out that request.
Once the scammers have control of the victim’s number they then go to log into their bank account etc, use their “forgot password” option to receive a 2FA text, then log in with a new password.
Something so simple as requiring a little bit better verification would prevent this. Google is good at this, TMO is the worst.
As for information leaks: Personally I most recently had TMO for just under a month last December, and subsequently learned about yet another data breach. No word from TMO, but I added credit monitoring (free from many banks) and learned my SSN, DL#, etc were leaked to the dark web with TMO as source.
I don’t think you understand how relationships work…
99% of time would be in the US.
iPhones are fantastic phones and you’re 100% wrong if you state otherwise.
T-Mobile uses partners in my area and without being able to switch to these partners’ networks the coverage is nearly non-existant.
Phones not designed for Fi, including iPhones, can use T-Mobile’s roaming partners with Google Fi. What they cannot do is switch the SIM profile to US Cellular in the US or Three abroad and use those networks and their roaming partners.
I agree with this 100%. T-Mobile breached ALL my data and didn’t bother to notify me. I found out when someone tried to use my identity and I started digging. When I called to ask for credit monitoring they basically told me too much time had passed. Fuck T-Mobile. They used to be great, but that is no longer the case.
That, and I hear they’re bad with costumes 