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I'm seriously not astrotrufing (for once!) but isn't Android itself shitty all round? Really complex OS that does a million things and all wrong. I have a phone

I'm seriously not astrotrufing (for once!) but isn't Android itself shitty all round? Really complex OS that does a million things and all wrong. I have a phone where no fb is installed but fb services that cannot be stopped are running in the background. I'm waiting for a Linux phone

sliken 7y ago
Er, if you want pure android why don't you buy a pixel?
- pjmlp 7y ago
  I guess because they are only available in a couple of countries, are expensive, and Google isn't any better than their OEMs keeping old devices updated.
  - sliken 7y ago
    Hadn't noticed the expensive side. They typically got half off within a month or two of announce. Got my Pixel 4XL 128GB for under $500 because of the Google Fi deal. I still have a pixel 1 from 4 years ago that I think just stopped getting major upgrades. Not great, but not bad. My samsung note 4 was around a year behind on updates, and felt very slow because of all the crapware. I switched to a nexus 5, with a much lower spec and it felt MUCH better. Even simple things like hitting the home button had much less lag. I did end up installing Cyanogen on the Note 4 which made it feel quite a bit snappier.
anonuser123456 7y ago
Well, if your OEM installed crapware in the system/vender/OEM partition, that's not really Android's problem. All other apps/services are very removable.
- cle 7y ago
  It is the customer’s problem, so it is jointly a problem for Android and the OEM. Google may try to abrogate responsibility here as usual, but it doesn’t make it any less their problem.
  - sliken 7y ago
    Dunno, the answer is generally if you don't want crapware, buy a pixel.
    - OkGoDoIt 7y ago
      But the pixels are (in my opinion) just such complete misses as phones. I’m not sure I’d want to use the latest Pixel if I got it for free, yet they charge an absurdly high price for it. I used to love my Nexus 4, and I liked my Nexus 5. It was absolutely amazing to have a real Google phone that I didn’t have to fight with in order to own for real at the lowest levels. But all the recent pixel phones have way too many trade-offs for me to use any of them as my daily driver. There are android phones out there which I like and would be happy to use as my daily driver, except on the software side they are way too locked down and I can’t root/flash them. I really wish phones worked the way computers do, I could just buy/build any hardware I want and run a fresh copy of Linux or windows on it under my complete control.
      - sliken 7y ago
        Why a complete mess? Sure Google is a popular target, much like apple, where a huge number of people chime in to complain. I've had every nexus and every pixel, all the way back to the HTC G1 on the first day it was for sale. Sure choice of OS would be nice, but there's a huge number of man hours that go into making a nice touch UI. Something that experts don't tend to obsess over, unless paid. The pixel's don't have a locked bootloader, and you could try one of the community builds, which I've done. But there's much less incentive lately. I used to root to tether, don't need to anymore.
    - ahartmetz 7y ago
      Motorola also ships ~no crapware.
- tracer4201 7y ago
  Why is that possible on android but not iOS phones? Serious question - I assume it’s because of the way android is built but I don’t know How that works. Why is there preinstalled installed software on Android phones at all? Edit: I’m not sure why this question is getting downvoted.
  - judge2020 7y ago
    When a device manufacturer makes a phone that uses android they can do a lot of stuff with Android without any issues (beside UX), other than messing with APIs and legal things. iOS is exclusively made by Apple and nobody can release their own iOS, so they always have prevented others (even the carriers) from putting their own apps on the phone before the user gets the device.
    - tracer4201 7y ago
      Could google change the terms and say that device manufacturers can not preinstall custom specific types of apps or services?
      - nl 7y ago
        They've made multiple attempts to do this. Manufactures really hate the lack of flexibility and there is a small amount of justification: new hardware often does need new controls. And of course many people like the flexibility of Android.
      - jinushaun 7y ago
        Why would you buy an LG versus a Samsung? Too many android manufacturers to compete on just hardware alone. Even less so than Windows laptops and PCs. Customizing Android is the differentiator. I personally hate it, but I understand why they do it. I just wish we could get a class leading vanilla Android phone. Pixel isn’t it.
  - izacus 7y ago
    Because the comparable phone to iOS phones aren't "Android phones" but "Pixel phones". Phones where the OS vendor also builds the hardware and controls everything. It's just a different model. Single corporation stack gives you more consistency and less bloatware and OEM based stack gives you more market choice and greater accessibility.
- TylerE 7y ago
  It is Android's problem because Apple has proven it's possible to tell vendors and OEMs that they can't do that shit.
  - y4mi 7y ago
    It's not an Android problem, as you only have the issue if you buy from a shitty oem. Get a device with stock Android ROM and there is no issue
TylerE 7y ago
Frankly, i think the ONLY thing worse than Android (which you correctly peg as terrible) would be a linux phone OS.
- gchamonlive 7y ago
  I sometimes dream of an Arch Linux Android OS. If only...
- ekianjo 7y ago
  Worse in what sense?
  - TylerE 7y ago
    Nothing working consistently? Things breaking randomly? Nothing looking consistent? Aping all the bad parts of the MS ecosystem while missing most of the good (I firmly believe desktop linux peaking with KDE 2 and has been consistently downhill ever sense)
    - judge2020 7y ago
      Are Apps on android sufficiently consistent or don't "break randomly"? I don't think I see much of material UI outside of Google's own apps (from the times I look at my friends' phones, I use iOS).
      - TylerE 7y ago
        No, like I said, Android is terrible, I just think given history a random linux phone os would somehow manage to be worse. I consider iOS to generally get the job done pretty well.
    - edoceo 7y ago
      I've had all these issues on iOS and Android. I'm dreaming of Gentoo/Xfce on my phone.
    - zem 7y ago
terrycody 7y ago
Already there are some linux phone, like Librem 5 and pinephone.
- rst 7y ago
  There have been Linux phones before, like the Nokia N900. But there hasn't been the combination of marketing push and, perhaps, polish required for them to succeed commercially against other platforms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900
dannyr 7y ago
Android is so shitty it has zero chance to succeed as a mobile OS. /s

sliken 7y ago

Er, if you want pure android why don't you buy a pixel?

pjmlp 7y ago
I guess because they are only available in a couple of countries, are expensive, and Google isn't any better than their OEMs keeping old devices updated.
- sliken 7y ago
  Hadn't noticed the expensive side. They typically got half off within a month or two of announce. Got my Pixel 4XL 128GB for under $500 because of the Google Fi deal. I still have a pixel 1 from 4 years ago that I think just stopped getting major upgrades. Not great, but not bad. My samsung note 4 was around a year behind on updates, and felt very slow because of all the crapware. I switched to a nexus 5, with a much lower spec and it felt MUCH better. Even simple things like hitting the home button had much less lag. I did end up installing Cyanogen on the Note 4 which made it feel quite a bit snappier.

anonuser123456 7y ago

Well, if your OEM installed crapware in the system/vender/OEM partition, that's not really Android's problem. All other apps/services are very removable.

cle 7y ago
It is the customer’s problem, so it is jointly a problem for Android and the OEM. Google may try to abrogate responsibility here as usual, but it doesn’t make it any less their problem.
- sliken 7y ago
  Dunno, the answer is generally if you don't want crapware, buy a pixel.
  - OkGoDoIt 7y ago
    But the pixels are (in my opinion) just such complete misses as phones. I’m not sure I’d want to use the latest Pixel if I got it for free, yet they charge an absurdly high price for it. I used to love my Nexus 4, and I liked my Nexus 5. It was absolutely amazing to have a real Google phone that I didn’t have to fight with in order to own for real at the lowest levels. But all the recent pixel phones have way too many trade-offs for me to use any of them as my daily driver. There are android phones out there which I like and would be happy to use as my daily driver, except on the software side they are way too locked down and I can’t root/flash them. I really wish phones worked the way computers do, I could just buy/build any hardware I want and run a fresh copy of Linux or windows on it under my complete control.
    - sliken 7y ago
      Why a complete mess? Sure Google is a popular target, much like apple, where a huge number of people chime in to complain. I've had every nexus and every pixel, all the way back to the HTC G1 on the first day it was for sale. Sure choice of OS would be nice, but there's a huge number of man hours that go into making a nice touch UI. Something that experts don't tend to obsess over, unless paid. The pixel's don't have a locked bootloader, and you could try one of the community builds, which I've done. But there's much less incentive lately. I used to root to tether, don't need to anymore.
  - ahartmetz 7y ago
    Motorola also ships ~no crapware.
tracer4201 7y ago
Why is that possible on android but not iOS phones? Serious question - I assume it’s because of the way android is built but I don’t know How that works. Why is there preinstalled installed software on Android phones at all? Edit: I’m not sure why this question is getting downvoted.
- judge2020 7y ago
  When a device manufacturer makes a phone that uses android they can do a lot of stuff with Android without any issues (beside UX), other than messing with APIs and legal things. iOS is exclusively made by Apple and nobody can release their own iOS, so they always have prevented others (even the carriers) from putting their own apps on the phone before the user gets the device.
  - tracer4201 7y ago
    Could google change the terms and say that device manufacturers can not preinstall custom specific types of apps or services?
    - nl 7y ago
      They've made multiple attempts to do this. Manufactures really hate the lack of flexibility and there is a small amount of justification: new hardware often does need new controls. And of course many people like the flexibility of Android.
    - jinushaun 7y ago
      Why would you buy an LG versus a Samsung? Too many android manufacturers to compete on just hardware alone. Even less so than Windows laptops and PCs. Customizing Android is the differentiator. I personally hate it, but I understand why they do it. I just wish we could get a class leading vanilla Android phone. Pixel isn’t it.
- izacus 7y ago
  Because the comparable phone to iOS phones aren't "Android phones" but "Pixel phones". Phones where the OS vendor also builds the hardware and controls everything. It's just a different model. Single corporation stack gives you more consistency and less bloatware and OEM based stack gives you more market choice and greater accessibility.
TylerE 7y ago
It is Android's problem because Apple has proven it's possible to tell vendors and OEMs that they can't do that shit.
- y4mi 7y ago
  It's not an Android problem, as you only have the issue if you buy from a shitty oem. Get a device with stock Android ROM and there is no issue

TylerE 7y ago

Frankly, i think the ONLY thing worse than Android (which you correctly peg as terrible) would be a linux phone OS.

gchamonlive 7y ago
I sometimes dream of an Arch Linux Android OS. If only...
ekianjo 7y ago
Worse in what sense?
- TylerE 7y ago
  Nothing working consistently? Things breaking randomly? Nothing looking consistent? Aping all the bad parts of the MS ecosystem while missing most of the good (I firmly believe desktop linux peaking with KDE 2 and has been consistently downhill ever sense)
  - judge2020 7y ago
    Are Apps on android sufficiently consistent or don't "break randomly"? I don't think I see much of material UI outside of Google's own apps (from the times I look at my friends' phones, I use iOS).
    - TylerE 7y ago
      No, like I said, Android is terrible, I just think given history a random linux phone os would somehow manage to be worse. I consider iOS to generally get the job done pretty well.
  - edoceo 7y ago
    I've had all these issues on iOS and Android. I'm dreaming of Gentoo/Xfce on my phone.
  - zem 7y ago

terrycody 7y ago

Already there are some linux phone, like Librem 5 and pinephone.

rst 7y ago
There have been Linux phones before, like the Nokia N900. But there hasn't been the combination of marketing push and, perhaps, polish required for them to succeed commercially against other platforms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900

dannyr 7y ago

Android is so shitty it has zero chance to succeed as a mobile OS. /s