53 ms·

They may be "do no evil" on privacy, but apple heavily pushes vendor lock in and basically does everything they can to keep you from being able to easily switch

They may be "do no evil" on privacy, but apple heavily pushes vendor lock in and basically does everything they can to keep you from being able to easily switch to a different vendor. Google seems easier to switch from, they seem less concerned with vendor lock in (don't get me wrong though, they still have some vendor lock in. Just less than apple IMO). I think in this case it is "choose your evil" and for a lot of people, for good reason, privacy is going to win.

eridius 11y ago
Google makes more money from iOS than they do from Android. Of course Google doesn't mind if you switch hardware vendors, just so long as you keep using Google products. Also, I disagree with the notion that Apple "heavily pushes vendor lock in". They certainly don't go out of their way to make it easy to switch, but I can't come up with any examples off the top of my head where they're deliberately making it harder to switch without having a good reason for that decision. After all, Apple doesn't really have to do anything at all to keep people invested in its ecosystem, since platform-specific software, by its very nature, already acts as a form of lock-in, and iOS has a lot of software that other platforms don't.
- Jtsummers 11y ago
  Re lock-in: I agree. I attempted to switch to Android (Nexus 4) several years ago from whatever iPhone I had at the time. I had no issue transferring data over (or data I cared about, at least). Services (mail, chat, etc.) mapped just fine. My primary complaint, at the time, was lack of a well-performing PDF reader/viewer, and a handful of apps that I'd become semi-dependent on and had trouble finding suitable replacements for (e.g., Omnifocus - which has nice intregration between the mobile and desktop versions). I only wanted to change my mobile workflow, not the rest, so I switched back to iOS (I also found the interface grating at the time, not certain why anymore). This is not, strictly, the fault of Apple, but of app developers and myself. Either for not making multi-platform a thing (Omnifocus), or for others not stepping up to compete, or for my inability or unwillingness to continue my search for suitable alternatives. All this said, most of my coworkers use Android devices, and several want to switch to iPhones, but have run into the same issue I did, but in reverse.
- ntakasaki 11y ago
  This one comes to mind, which they left unfixed for years. http://www.minyanville.com/sectors/technology/articles/Apple-Bug-Deletes-Text-Messages-Sent/5/16/2014/id/55013 http://www.minyanville.com/sectors/technology/articles/Apple...
  - eridius 11y ago
    From the article, it sounds like it was a hard problem to solve.
- weinzierl 11y ago
  > They certainly don't go out of their way to make it easy to switch, but I can't > come up with any examples off the top of my head where they're deliberately > making it harder to switch without having a good reason for that decision. Just an example for those that are not familiar with Apple devices. You can sync your calendar, reminders and contacts with iCloud. But you don't have to. iCloud calendar sync is basically a CalDAV server. You can setup your own CalDAV and sync with that if you like. On the iDevice you have to set the parameters for your server which makes it slightly harder to setup than iCloud, but that's just the way it is and not Apple's fault. There are no other stumbling blocks to make it more complicated than it needs to be. Once set up it works like a charm. I can say "Hey Siri, remind me to buy pasta" and a split second later I have a new VTODO on my CalDAV server.
  - roghummal 11y ago
    What do you use as a CalDAV server?
    - weinzierl 11y ago
      Simple Radicale[1] setup behind an NGINX proxy. [1] http://radicale.org/ http://radicale.org/
- Oletros 11y ago
  > Google makes more money from iOS than they do from Android. Source?
  - eridius 11y ago
    It's been stated in numerous articles over the years. I don't have any source offhand, though a quick DDG search gives me a story from 2012: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/03/29/iphone-4x-revenue-android-phones/ http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/03/29/iphone-4x-revenue-an...
    - Oletros 11y ago
      > It's been stated in numerous articles over the years Then it will be easy to find any source that it is not the same old "Google makes 4 times more from iOS than from Android" that was debunked years ago for using assumptions about a royalty figure in the Oracle vs. Google trial and nothing real
      - eridius 11y ago
        Here's an article from last year claiming that Google made 75% of its mobile search revenue from iOS: http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/05/27/apples-ios-drives-75-of-googles-mobile-advertising-revenue http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/05/27/apples-ios-drives-...
        Oletros 11y ago
        As I said, when you can find that "report" we can start to discuss about the figures. Until then, it has the same validity as using a random function in a computer to guess those numbers
        eridius 11y ago
        That's completely ridiculous. Even if the exact figures in the articles are wrong, it's still generally accepted that Google makes a significant amount of its mobile revenue off of iOS. Demanding that I unearth some vague "report" to give you specific figures is completely meaningless. Doubly-so since it doesn't even matter what the numbers are, because the whole point was that Android users switching to iOS are still extremely likely to be using Google products, which means Google's still making money off of them.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > Google makes more money from iOS than they do from Android. I think that statement's based on an old stat that, at that time, Google's revenue from licensing (Apple was paying for Maps) and advertising (including web and search advertising, and at the time Google was the default search provider on iOS and this was also before Siri was around to displace some web search) to iOS users was greater than its revenue from Android. The facts on which all that was based (market share, basis of iOS revenue streams, etc.) have changed substantially since then.
  - eridius 11y ago
    Fair enough, it's certainly possible that the stat is no longer true. Unless they've talked about it recently, it's hard to know for sure. Here's an article from May of 2015 that says that 75% of Google's mobile search revenue comes from iOS, which probably hasn't changed too dramatically since then, but it may no longer be accurate: http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/05/27/apples-ios-drives-75-of-googles-mobile-advertising-revenue http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/05/27/apples-ios-drives-...
    - Oletros 11y ago
      > Here's an article from May of 2015 that says that 75% of Google's mobile search revenue comes from iOS, Ah, the other figure from a report from Goldman Sachs that nobody has seen but it is now dogma. When you find the report, please, put it. And, by the way, using Appleinsider as source is very funny
      - eridius 11y ago
        It is funny, but it was the first result my search gave me. The result after was from another site that reported the same figure though, so it's not like AppleInsider was alone.
- ENGNR 11y ago
  So if someone texts me an address, I can have it open in Google maps by default when I click it?
mstade 11y ago
> They may be "do no evil" on privacy, but apple heavily pushes vendor lock in and basically does everything they can to keep you from being able to easily switch to a different vendor. This is often used as an argument against Apple, but having gone back and forth over the years, I just don't think it's true anymore. It certainly was a decade ago, but now I'm finding it hard to think of any issues I've had going from Apple to any other vendor – regardless of whether it's software (migrating data, chiefly) or hardware. At least, I don't think they're significantly worse than any other vendor.
- Matheus28 11y ago
  Have you tried plugging an Android into a Mac?
  - mstade 11y ago
    I haven't, no, but it'd be interesting to learn what the pain points are. Care to share?
    - Matheus28 11y ago
      By default you can't. You have to install an app on your OS X that Google makes, then it opens a file browser that lets you drag and drop files out/in of your phone. It's a pain.

eridius 11y ago

Google makes more money from iOS than they do from Android. Of course Google doesn't mind if you switch hardware vendors, just so long as you keep using Google products. Also, I disagree with the notion that Apple "heavily pushes vendor lock in". They certainly don't go out of their way to make it easy to switch, but I can't come up with any examples off the top of my head where they're deliberately making it harder to switch without having a good reason for that decision. After all, Apple doesn't really have to do anything at all to keep people invested in its ecosystem, since platform-specific software, by its very nature, already acts as a form of lock-in, and iOS has a lot of software that other platforms don't.

Jtsummers 11y ago
Re lock-in: I agree. I attempted to switch to Android (Nexus 4) several years ago from whatever iPhone I had at the time. I had no issue transferring data over (or data I cared about, at least). Services (mail, chat, etc.) mapped just fine. My primary complaint, at the time, was lack of a well-performing PDF reader/viewer, and a handful of apps that I'd become semi-dependent on and had trouble finding suitable replacements for (e.g., Omnifocus - which has nice intregration between the mobile and desktop versions). I only wanted to change my mobile workflow, not the rest, so I switched back to iOS (I also found the interface grating at the time, not certain why anymore). This is not, strictly, the fault of Apple, but of app developers and myself. Either for not making multi-platform a thing (Omnifocus), or for others not stepping up to compete, or for my inability or unwillingness to continue my search for suitable alternatives. All this said, most of my coworkers use Android devices, and several want to switch to iPhones, but have run into the same issue I did, but in reverse.
ntakasaki 11y ago
This one comes to mind, which they left unfixed for years. http://www.minyanville.com/sectors/technology/articles/Apple-Bug-Deletes-Text-Messages-Sent/5/16/2014/id/55013 http://www.minyanville.com/sectors/technology/articles/Apple...
- eridius 11y ago
  From the article, it sounds like it was a hard problem to solve.
weinzierl 11y ago
> They certainly don't go out of their way to make it easy to switch, but I can't > come up with any examples off the top of my head where they're deliberately > making it harder to switch without having a good reason for that decision. Just an example for those that are not familiar with Apple devices. You can sync your calendar, reminders and contacts with iCloud. But you don't have to. iCloud calendar sync is basically a CalDAV server. You can setup your own CalDAV and sync with that if you like. On the iDevice you have to set the parameters for your server which makes it slightly harder to setup than iCloud, but that's just the way it is and not Apple's fault. There are no other stumbling blocks to make it more complicated than it needs to be. Once set up it works like a charm. I can say "Hey Siri, remind me to buy pasta" and a split second later I have a new VTODO on my CalDAV server.
- roghummal 11y ago
  What do you use as a CalDAV server?
  - weinzierl 11y ago
    Simple Radicale[1] setup behind an NGINX proxy. [1] http://radicale.org/ http://radicale.org/
Oletros 11y ago
> Google makes more money from iOS than they do from Android. Source?
- eridius 11y ago
  It's been stated in numerous articles over the years. I don't have any source offhand, though a quick DDG search gives me a story from 2012: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/03/29/iphone-4x-revenue-android-phones/ http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/03/29/iphone-4x-revenue-an...
  - Oletros 11y ago
    > It's been stated in numerous articles over the years Then it will be easy to find any source that it is not the same old "Google makes 4 times more from iOS than from Android" that was debunked years ago for using assumptions about a royalty figure in the Oracle vs. Google trial and nothing real
    - eridius 11y ago
      Here's an article from last year claiming that Google made 75% of its mobile search revenue from iOS: http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/05/27/apples-ios-drives-75-of-googles-mobile-advertising-revenue http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/05/27/apples-ios-drives-...
      - Oletros 11y ago
        As I said, when you can find that "report" we can start to discuss about the figures. Until then, it has the same validity as using a random function in a computer to guess those numbers
        eridius 11y ago
        That's completely ridiculous. Even if the exact figures in the articles are wrong, it's still generally accepted that Google makes a significant amount of its mobile revenue off of iOS. Demanding that I unearth some vague "report" to give you specific figures is completely meaningless. Doubly-so since it doesn't even matter what the numbers are, because the whole point was that Android users switching to iOS are still extremely likely to be using Google products, which means Google's still making money off of them.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> Google makes more money from iOS than they do from Android. I think that statement's based on an old stat that, at that time, Google's revenue from licensing (Apple was paying for Maps) and advertising (including web and search advertising, and at the time Google was the default search provider on iOS and this was also before Siri was around to displace some web search) to iOS users was greater than its revenue from Android. The facts on which all that was based (market share, basis of iOS revenue streams, etc.) have changed substantially since then.
- eridius 11y ago
  Fair enough, it's certainly possible that the stat is no longer true. Unless they've talked about it recently, it's hard to know for sure. Here's an article from May of 2015 that says that 75% of Google's mobile search revenue comes from iOS, which probably hasn't changed too dramatically since then, but it may no longer be accurate: http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/05/27/apples-ios-drives-75-of-googles-mobile-advertising-revenue http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/05/27/apples-ios-drives-...
  - Oletros 11y ago
    > Here's an article from May of 2015 that says that 75% of Google's mobile search revenue comes from iOS, Ah, the other figure from a report from Goldman Sachs that nobody has seen but it is now dogma. When you find the report, please, put it. And, by the way, using Appleinsider as source is very funny
    - eridius 11y ago
      It is funny, but it was the first result my search gave me. The result after was from another site that reported the same figure though, so it's not like AppleInsider was alone.
ENGNR 11y ago
So if someone texts me an address, I can have it open in Google maps by default when I click it?

mstade 11y ago

> They may be "do no evil" on privacy, but apple heavily pushes vendor lock in and basically does everything they can to keep you from being able to easily switch to a different vendor. This is often used as an argument against Apple, but having gone back and forth over the years, I just don't think it's true anymore. It certainly was a decade ago, but now I'm finding it hard to think of any issues I've had going from Apple to any other vendor – regardless of whether it's software (migrating data, chiefly) or hardware. At least, I don't think they're significantly worse than any other vendor.

Matheus28 11y ago
Have you tried plugging an Android into a Mac?
- mstade 11y ago
  I haven't, no, but it'd be interesting to learn what the pain points are. Care to share?
  - Matheus28 11y ago
    By default you can't. You have to install an app on your OS X that Google makes, then it opens a file browser that lets you drag and drop files out/in of your phone. It's a pain.