I’ve been using Google Pixels since they were Nexus phones and just activated my new 14 yesterday. It’s a little weird but I like it so far. I do miss twire instead of twitch, YouTube re-Vance’d, and Firefox with Adblock. What does a long term android user like me need to know/install/settings tweak/etc?
Some random tips:
Poke around the Accessibility settings. There’s lots of customization options hidden in there.
Learn the Shortcuts app. You can use it to create macros and save them on the Home Screen, in the share sheet, or as a voice command.
Customize the share sheet. Options are limited but there are some useful commands in there that are hidden by default. You may need to repeat customization with each files type (images get a different sheet from text, etc).
Set your AirDrop to “contacts only” or else you’ll get spam pushed to you when in public.
If you turn off wifi from the control centre it only disconnects. To turn off the radio completely you need to do it from Settings or switch to airplane mode.
You probably don’t need a calculator app, but if you do: pCalc.
Focus modes aren’t limited to “do not disturb”. You can have several with different home screens and different communication restrictions.
Apps that don’t have filesystem privileges can only access their own subfolder inside the “On My Phone” folder, so you sometimes need to move stuff into there manually. This is rare, but one common example is Minecraft worlds/texture packs.
If you dismissed the prompt to install Files, you can get it on the app store. Do it. Then install all the other cloud storage apps you use (Dropbox, etc), log in, then delete them from the Home Screen only and forget they exist. They’ll all be accessible in Files.
You can do a similar thing with the TV app, but personally I prefer separate apps on that front.
Oh and one more thing that trips people up: iCloud is not a backup. If you delete something from your phone it will immediately be deleted from iCloud too. The phone will even sometimes stealthy delete the local copy of music, photos, etc to save space and silently re-fetch them as-needed.
“iCloud Backup” is a thing. It backs up your configuration and some other things in case you need to factory reset or buy a new phone, but that’s separate from iCloud data storage.
Speaking of iCloud Backup, if you’re concerned about privacy don’t use it. Sync your phone with a pc instead and choose the encrypted backup option.