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Life Without the iPhone Is Pretty Damn Great

18 points by mgiannopoulos 9y ago

reacharavindh 9y ago
I stopped reading right after here. "All those “out of iCloud storage!” notifications that Apple pushes to your home screen in the hope that you’ll spend money on services that other companies offer for free." Repeat after me. There is no free lunch. If something's free you're milked in a different way. No company is altruistic to keep offering you services without getting some benefit from you/your data. I pay for my email service. Their business is sustainable and are not motivated to sell my data. They still could, but their terms and conditions I agreed to will prevent them from doing so without getting sued by me.
- eeks 9y ago
  I almost stopped reading at “google loaner“, and should have. It feels so much like a biased hit piece it could be ironic.
pmontra 9y ago
> Android OS features an omnipresent “back” button on the bottom left-hand corner of the interface. Want to go back on a website, or back to your last email? Don’t dislocate a thumb stretching to the top of the screen, learn some strange new gesture, or activate a weird Accessibility Mode that moves everything down. Just hit the button that’s always there. Done. I always wondered why Apple didn't copy that. Every time somebody hands me an iPhone I'm lost, I tend to go back to the home screen and start again from there. However everybody is trained to use a browser back button, even since before 2007. Google built on that.
- Terretta 9y ago
  On iPhone X a swipe right at bottom of screen puts you in your prior app. (It’s basically the WebOS cards.)
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    "Prior app" is a different thing from "back". (And in android you can double tap the app switcher button for that.)
    - pmontra 9y ago
      I didn't know that, thanks!
moreira 9y ago
> Swipe left on iOS, and you’ll arrive at a screen with Apple News. These are stories curated by your interests that you’ve set yourself with Apple. Swipe left on Android, and you arrive at a feed of stories that Google already knows you’ll be interested in because, let’s admit it, Google knows you better than you know yourself. It’s funny how you can agree with this paragraph in two completely opposed ways. I read it as “Apple News sounds great - I choose what I want to read”, but the author obviously wrote it as “Google News sounds great, it knows me”.
mark_l_watson 9y ago
Both iOS and Android phones a pretty much GREAT. I don't get articles trying to convince people to change their preference. I am fairly much of a Google fan (worked there as a contractor, I pay for Playstore books, movies, TV shows, sometimes pay for GCP). But, my reason for using iOS is to get away, at least somewhat, from all of my data being reused to pay for services. Not to go on a political rant because this is just a matter of personal opinion and choice, but I prefer to pay for services of value: Google Play, Audible, Netflix, Apple's paid for services, Fastmail. I wish there were a way to get a duckduckgo premium for no ads for a yearly charge, but I trues them to not track. I also believe in taking the trouble to remove all tracking cookies after using Facebook or Twitter.
pm24601 9y ago
I like the iPhone for 1 reason: Long-term support with software upgrades. Dan Luu's post highlights the issue: https://danluu.com/android-updates/ https://danluu.com/android-updates/ For me this means that over the course of my ownership, * it is possible that Apple will correct some of these issues. * Apple will add new features that will continue to be pushed out to older iphones. * 2018+ Android devices will get new software features that this Pixel 2 will not. I have an older iPhone and it is still getting updates whereas my spouse's phone isn't.
- cardiffspaceman 9y ago
  The subtlety here is that Apple doesn't make their newest OS with all of its software-only features available to all the phones they still support. I am considering changing to an iPhone SE because the iPhone 5 will never run iOS 11. My old iPad is running iOS 9. These are still getting updates to the OSs that do run on them, but the feature set is more or less frozen on these now.
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    > the iPhone 5 will never run iOS 11 That's still five years between introduction and iOS 11, or four years between discontinuation and iOS 11. Google promises something like 2.5 and 1.5 years for their phones, and that's pretty much top of the pack.
    - thisacctforreal 9y ago
      The iPhone 5s (Sept 2013) is the last generation for iOS 11. ARKit features require hardware from SE or 6s onward. They 5s is a lovely device. It's missing the Secure Enclave, but the iPhone SE makes a cozy upgrade as it used the same chassis.
      - earenndil 9y ago
        The 5s has SEP. All devices with touch ID have it (the 5s was the first).
cpr 9y ago
I stopped reading at "digital baby blanket." This writer can't be serious.

18 points by mgiannopoulos 9y ago

I stopped reading right after here. "All those “out of iCloud storage!” notifications that Apple pushes to your home screen in the hope that you’ll spend money on services that other companies offer for free." Repeat after me. There is no free lunch. If something's free you're milked in a different way. No company is altruistic to keep offering you services without getting some benefit from you/your data. I pay for my email service. Their business is sustainable and are not motivated to sell my data. They still could, but their terms and conditions I agreed to will prevent them from doing so without getting sued by me.

eeks 9y ago
I almost stopped reading at “google loaner“, and should have. It feels so much like a biased hit piece it could be ironic.

pmontra 9y ago

> Android OS features an omnipresent “back” button on the bottom left-hand corner of the interface. Want to go back on a website, or back to your last email? Don’t dislocate a thumb stretching to the top of the screen, learn some strange new gesture, or activate a weird Accessibility Mode that moves everything down. Just hit the button that’s always there. Done. I always wondered why Apple didn't copy that. Every time somebody hands me an iPhone I'm lost, I tend to go back to the home screen and start again from there. However everybody is trained to use a browser back button, even since before 2007. Google built on that.

Terretta 9y ago
On iPhone X a swipe right at bottom of screen puts you in your prior app. (It’s basically the WebOS cards.)
- Dylan16807 9y ago
  "Prior app" is a different thing from "back". (And in android you can double tap the app switcher button for that.)
  - pmontra 9y ago
    I didn't know that, thanks!

moreira 9y ago

> Swipe left on iOS, and you’ll arrive at a screen with Apple News. These are stories curated by your interests that you’ve set yourself with Apple. Swipe left on Android, and you arrive at a feed of stories that Google already knows you’ll be interested in because, let’s admit it, Google knows you better than you know yourself. It’s funny how you can agree with this paragraph in two completely opposed ways. I read it as “Apple News sounds great - I choose what I want to read”, but the author obviously wrote it as “Google News sounds great, it knows me”.

mark_l_watson 9y ago

Both iOS and Android phones a pretty much GREAT. I don't get articles trying to convince people to change their preference. I am fairly much of a Google fan (worked there as a contractor, I pay for Playstore books, movies, TV shows, sometimes pay for GCP). But, my reason for using iOS is to get away, at least somewhat, from all of my data being reused to pay for services. Not to go on a political rant because this is just a matter of personal opinion and choice, but I prefer to pay for services of value: Google Play, Audible, Netflix, Apple's paid for services, Fastmail. I wish there were a way to get a duckduckgo premium for no ads for a yearly charge, but I trues them to not track. I also believe in taking the trouble to remove all tracking cookies after using Facebook or Twitter.

pm24601 9y ago

I like the iPhone for 1 reason: Long-term support with software upgrades. Dan Luu's post highlights the issue: https://danluu.com/android-updates/ https://danluu.com/android-updates/ For me this means that over the course of my ownership, * it is possible that Apple will correct some of these issues. * Apple will add new features that will continue to be pushed out to older iphones. * 2018+ Android devices will get new software features that this Pixel 2 will not. I have an older iPhone and it is still getting updates whereas my spouse's phone isn't.

cardiffspaceman 9y ago
The subtlety here is that Apple doesn't make their newest OS with all of its software-only features available to all the phones they still support. I am considering changing to an iPhone SE because the iPhone 5 will never run iOS 11. My old iPad is running iOS 9. These are still getting updates to the OSs that do run on them, but the feature set is more or less frozen on these now.
- Dylan16807 9y ago
  > the iPhone 5 will never run iOS 11 That's still five years between introduction and iOS 11, or four years between discontinuation and iOS 11. Google promises something like 2.5 and 1.5 years for their phones, and that's pretty much top of the pack.
  - thisacctforreal 9y ago
    The iPhone 5s (Sept 2013) is the last generation for iOS 11. ARKit features require hardware from SE or 6s onward. They 5s is a lovely device. It's missing the Secure Enclave, but the iPhone SE makes a cozy upgrade as it used the same chassis.
    - earenndil 9y ago
      The 5s has SEP. All devices with touch ID have it (the 5s was the first).

cpr 9y ago

I stopped reading at "digital baby blanket." This writer can't be serious.