9 ms·

Android similarly has been continually improving the privacy/permissions model of the OS when it comes to third party apps. I am not sure that Apple has any obv

by shawnz 6y ago

Android similarly has been continually improving the privacy/permissions model of the OS when it comes to third party apps. I am not sure that Apple has any obvious advantage in that department specifically.

patrickyeon 6y ago
I've only ever been an Android user, but for a while I was paying a lot of attention to iOS too. It seems to me like they've been back and forthing, as one side figures out some improvements, the other side more-or-less re-implements them on their next release with their own unrelated improvements. Seems like a good thing, really.
- dylan604 6y ago
  Not being an Android user, one of the negatives that was often talked about (maybe no longer true?) is that a lot of phones could not upgrade to new versions of Android. Is that still a thing, or was that limited to the lower tier phones?
  - tedivm 6y ago
    It's definitely still a thing, as android updates are normally pushed by the manufacturers. The Android One phones are an exception to this.
    - bchanudet 6y ago
      Updates are still pushed by the manufacturer. I have the Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite (with Android One) and only got Android 10 last week. Biggest advantage is that it's a pure Android with no bloatware from the manufacturer. Also you get a guarantee IIRC to have at least two versions upgrades for the phone (my Xiaomi came with Android 8, so 10 should be the last one), and most of all security updates.
      - abakker 6y ago
        I mean, the fact that you need to say “pure android” kinda says it all, though. All iOS is pure iOS. That’s the selling point for me, at least.
        shawnz 6y ago
        That's only because there are no other vendors to muddy the meaning of "pure". Only one vendor of devices for the OS means only one conception about what "pure iOS" means. It doesn't necessarily mean that Apple's conception of iOS is the best possible conception of iOS.
        riquito 6y ago
        So if you can choose between pure and not pure, locked vs unlocked, is worse? Interesting selling point
        abakker 6y ago
        For some of us, having a locked down, reliable, secure, and pure phone is a great solution. I don’t want iOS on my random experimental project laptop, for that I have Linux or windows, or vms. But, cellphones are not something I need to hack around on.
        bllguo 6y ago
        their point is that you can choose to have "pure" android or "unpure" - which is not an option apple provides. why is that worse?
        wycy 6y ago
        Because "unpure" Android barely receives updates and the few occasions where it does, it's extremely delayed. So that's pretty "worse" You can also choose to jailbreak an Apple device if you really want to be unpure, and luckily doing so won't prevent you from updating your phone in the future.
    - wycy 6y ago
      It's crazy that this ever became a thing. When Android first came out I assumed it would essentially be like Windows for the smartphone. But imagine if Windows worked the way Android does. You buy a Dell Windows laptop and then you receive all your OS updates directly from Dell, they limit you to only 2 years of updates (if that), and put some bloated skin over the whole OS. I don't know why Android users accept this.
  - what_ever 6y ago
    Security updates are pushed monthly though. And Samsung supports security updates for much longer period.
    - Psychlist 6y ago
      Except for all the Samsung devices that don't, of course. Mine periodically says "security update available", I click "install", it says "install failed" and that's the end of that. There appears to be no way to know what the update was or to retry the install.
  - shawnz 6y ago
    It is true that many vendors abandon their devices more quickly than I would like, but it depends on the vendor and the "flagshipness" of the device. Also, since version 8.0, Google has made a number of improvements to the modularity of the OS which make it easier for vendors to release updates ("Project Treble"), so the problem has been reduced somewhat
    - samtheprogram 6y ago
      While fact checking my other comment here, it seems like Samsung has been slow to roll out major version upgrades _since_ Android 8. Have other manufacturers improved in this regard since Project Treble?
      - WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
        Motorola's pretty on top of the game. $200 G7 got Android 10 about 3 weeks ago.
  - afterburner 6y ago
    Lol you realize this used to be true of iOS too? I know after a few years my 3GS definitely wouldn't be able to handle the next iOS version.
    - kemayo 6y ago
      The iPhone 3GS was released in June 2009, and the first iOS release that didn't support it was iOS 7 in September 2013. 4 years is much better than current Android phones, though it's true it doesn't quite live up to the current Apple lineup where iOS 14 is going to support the 6S which will be 5 years old by the time it launches.
      - afterburner 6y ago
        Even if iOS 6 could be installed on the 3GS, it wasn't advisable.
  - AnonC 6y ago
    It's still true. You'd be lucky to get updates beyond two years (so choosing the brand with this in mind is more important within the Android ecosystem). There are also devices that don't get updates after a few months of launch. Updates are also delayed by several months depending on the brand.
  - Nullabillity 6y ago
    Apples vs oranges. With iOS the norm seems to be that apps support 1 version back, if even that. So as soon as your device is no longer updated (or if you dislike the update!), you're stuck. Android puts much more emphasis on backwards compatibility, with Google moving more and more functionality into app libraries rather than system frameworks. Our app still supports Android 4.4 (released in 2014!).
    - rimliu 6y ago
      No, the norm on the iOS is current and two versions back. It is also worth mentioning that iOS are usually supported for much longer than Android. iphoneOS 15 will be supported by iPhone 6S: this was released in 2015. If app supports iOS 12 (which most do, as it is only one version below the current iOS 13) it means they support iPhone 5S: which was released in 2013. And Apple users are likely to update: 92% run the latest version, and 7% are on the iOS 12.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      You can walk into any Best Buy and buy new devices on the shelf that are running versions of Android so old they can't run apps like Netflix -- devices that are out of date now, and will never get an update. This is part of the reason Android developers need strong backwards compatibility.
- tedivm 6y ago
  From my perspective it seems like Apple keeps releasing new privacy features and Android keeps being forced to catch up. What are the major privacy enhancements that Google has put out first?
  - dahfizz 6y ago
    I believe Android was the first to have fine grained app permissions where you could actually choose what an app has access to. iOS added that later.
    - AnonC 6y ago
      Android had install time permissions for a long while. The user either had to allow all permissions asked by the app during install or not be allowed to install the app. On the other side, iOS had runtime permissions (nothing during installation) that were prompted by the system whenever the app needed a permission. When runtime permissions were added to Android 6, apps used to crash when not granted the permissions (so much so that some Android versions also started faking location data to apps when the user denied location access). This took a few years to improve, but even today, there are Android apps that will refuse to work if you don't grant some (unnecessary, in the view of the user) permission. That kind of behavior is very, very rare among iOS apps.
    - callalex 6y ago
      As a checkbox prompt on install, yes. iOS has always and will continue a slightly different model of throwing a modular question up to the user at the moment the action that requires the permission first occurs. This gives the user more context about the question, but also gives more alert fatigue. Which is better is left as an exercise to the reader.
    - JimDabell 6y ago
      No, it’s the other way around. In the beginning, Android showed you what an app could before you installed it, and it was an all-or-nothing approach – if you didn't want the app to do those things, your only choice was to not install it. In the beginning, iOS didn't have this, and instead it prompted you for permission the first time an app wanted permission to do something. Additionally, app review had rules that apps had to operate correctly if you refused permission and that apps couldn’t ask for permissions irrelevant to what you are doing. So you can install an app, then pick and choose what you grant permission for. Later, Android added the prompts to work the same as iOS. iOS hasn't changed to include the Android approach.
wnevets 6y ago
Especially when its taken 14 versions to get this information.
- savoytruffle 6y ago
  To be pedantic, version 1 and 2 of iPhone OS did not have a clipboard at all …
  - cryptoz 6y ago
    Was it called iPhone OS then? At some point I remember Apple saying it was basically OS X running on the phone. Weird how that went.
    - rootusrootus 6y ago
      The first iPhone used iPhone OS. It was never called OSX in production. In June 2010 it was renamed iOS.
      - shawnz 6y ago
        However they did call it OSX in the keynote: https://youtu.be/vN4U5FqrOdQ?t=548 https://youtu.be/vN4U5FqrOdQ?t=548
cwhiz 6y ago
Android is a spyware operating system filled with first party spyware apps developed by Google.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- andrepd 6y ago
  As opposed to apple which isn't because... apple says so.
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    Align the incentives.
  - mrgreenfur 6y ago
    No, because Apple makes money on subscriptions and retail purchases not on aggregating and reselling the data for advertisers.
    - sidibe 6y ago
      Apple also makes money by selling their users to Google to do all that nasty stuff.
      - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
        No, they really don't. Remember the fun we had making fun of Apple Maps? Why in the world would Apple have dropped Google as the back end for their original Maps program, right? Well, it was because back in 2011 or so, Google refused to give Apple access to true turn-by-turn navigation features unless Apple gave them more access to user data. Rather than do that, Apple decided to go it themselves, even though that made the Maps product worse for years. This is consistent with Apple's behavior in other fields. (Hey, Siri!) There are a lot of criticisms to be made of Apple, but "they're selling your data by proxy" just doesn't seem to be one of them.
lostgame 6y ago
Doesn't help much when the OS itself contains a million first party privacy violations, unfortunately. Both systems have extreme downfalls with the strategy they have taken, Apple's walled garden, and Google's necessity to use tracking because they are an ad company and this is how they make money. Overall, Apple's certainly the lesser of two evils, but I think I'll be considering a PinePhone next, once the software ecosystem has matured a bit. I'm going to start speaking with my wallet and not conceding to settling.
harikb 6y ago
Even if one were to ignore Google’s data collection, any non-vanilla android installation would have been butchered by the vendor (Samsung, Motorola, etc) to the point any expectation of security (and in turn privacy) is lost to the least secure app pre-installed. I had ESFileExplorer installed on a Nexus 7 tablet I barely used. One day I start it to find the charging has switched to “smart charging” where this software shows a banner ad on the home/charging screen. There is no end to the madness of what each app can do or even allowed to ask for.
- shawnz 6y ago
  I often use Motorola devices as I find they are one of the OEMs which applies the fewest customizations to the OS. However Samsung is definitely a problem when it comes to that. I am not sure what happened in your case with ES or how that would be possible. It sounds like maybe the app just pushed you an advertisement as a notification. Notifications can be disabled on a per-app basis but I think it is pretty reasonable that they are enabled by default.
  - harikb 6y ago
    Apparently it is not new change [1]. I just happened to notice it now since I rarely used it before. Now the tablet functions as a handy Zoom whiteboard [2] drawing tablet. Good thing I didn't throw it out. [1] https://www.androidpolice.com/2016/05/10/es-file-explorer-updated-with-super-shady-speed-charging-adware/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2016/05/10/es-file-explorer-up... [2] To those who might laugh at my paranoia about ES while I happily use Zoom, I teach classes and it is not an easy choice not to use Zoom.
  - danieldk 6y ago
    I often use Motorola devices as I find they are one of the OEMs which applies the fewest customizations to the OS. They got worse, also with updates since they were acquired Lenovo. Last time that I surveyed the Android landscape (~2 years ago), Nokia was the place to go for a pristine Android experience with quick updates.
- andrepd 6y ago
canada_dry 6y ago
> continually improving the privacy/permissions model Though an extremely annoying side effect is that they are also handicapping one of the best android features: user scripting with tools like automagic4android [i] and tasker [ii]. To wit: https://www.reddit.com/r/tasker/comments/b1272l/android_q_tasker_issues_star_all_these_issues/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tasker/comments/b1272l/android_q_ta... [i] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.gridvision.ppam.androidautomagic&hl=en_CA https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.gridvision.... [ii] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm&hl=en_CA https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch....
deeblering4 6y ago
We're talking about this because the Apple OS privacy/permissions model shed light on this issue. That seems like an obvious advantage to me.
j45 6y ago
I carry an Android. In Android, you and your data is the product, nothing else. In Apple the phone is the product.
- j45 6y ago
  Instead of drive by negging, happy to chat about why. I've probably had a smartphone as long as anyone. And I hope it's not just because some people work at Google. :)

by shawnz 6y ago

patrickyeon 6y ago

I've only ever been an Android user, but for a while I was paying a lot of attention to iOS too. It seems to me like they've been back and forthing, as one side figures out some improvements, the other side more-or-less re-implements them on their next release with their own unrelated improvements. Seems like a good thing, really.

dylan604 6y ago
Not being an Android user, one of the negatives that was often talked about (maybe no longer true?) is that a lot of phones could not upgrade to new versions of Android. Is that still a thing, or was that limited to the lower tier phones?
- tedivm 6y ago
  It's definitely still a thing, as android updates are normally pushed by the manufacturers. The Android One phones are an exception to this.
  - bchanudet 6y ago
    Updates are still pushed by the manufacturer. I have the Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite (with Android One) and only got Android 10 last week. Biggest advantage is that it's a pure Android with no bloatware from the manufacturer. Also you get a guarantee IIRC to have at least two versions upgrades for the phone (my Xiaomi came with Android 8, so 10 should be the last one), and most of all security updates.
    - abakker 6y ago
      I mean, the fact that you need to say “pure android” kinda says it all, though. All iOS is pure iOS. That’s the selling point for me, at least.
      - shawnz 6y ago
        That's only because there are no other vendors to muddy the meaning of "pure". Only one vendor of devices for the OS means only one conception about what "pure iOS" means. It doesn't necessarily mean that Apple's conception of iOS is the best possible conception of iOS.
      - riquito 6y ago
        So if you can choose between pure and not pure, locked vs unlocked, is worse? Interesting selling point
        abakker 6y ago
        For some of us, having a locked down, reliable, secure, and pure phone is a great solution. I don’t want iOS on my random experimental project laptop, for that I have Linux or windows, or vms. But, cellphones are not something I need to hack around on.
        bllguo 6y ago
        their point is that you can choose to have "pure" android or "unpure" - which is not an option apple provides. why is that worse?
        wycy 6y ago
        Because "unpure" Android barely receives updates and the few occasions where it does, it's extremely delayed. So that's pretty "worse" You can also choose to jailbreak an Apple device if you really want to be unpure, and luckily doing so won't prevent you from updating your phone in the future.
  - wycy 6y ago
    It's crazy that this ever became a thing. When Android first came out I assumed it would essentially be like Windows for the smartphone. But imagine if Windows worked the way Android does. You buy a Dell Windows laptop and then you receive all your OS updates directly from Dell, they limit you to only 2 years of updates (if that), and put some bloated skin over the whole OS. I don't know why Android users accept this.
- what_ever 6y ago
  Security updates are pushed monthly though. And Samsung supports security updates for much longer period.
  - Psychlist 6y ago
    Except for all the Samsung devices that don't, of course. Mine periodically says "security update available", I click "install", it says "install failed" and that's the end of that. There appears to be no way to know what the update was or to retry the install.
- shawnz 6y ago
  It is true that many vendors abandon their devices more quickly than I would like, but it depends on the vendor and the "flagshipness" of the device. Also, since version 8.0, Google has made a number of improvements to the modularity of the OS which make it easier for vendors to release updates ("Project Treble"), so the problem has been reduced somewhat
  - samtheprogram 6y ago
    While fact checking my other comment here, it seems like Samsung has been slow to roll out major version upgrades _since_ Android 8. Have other manufacturers improved in this regard since Project Treble?
    - WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
      Motorola's pretty on top of the game. $200 G7 got Android 10 about 3 weeks ago.
- afterburner 6y ago
  Lol you realize this used to be true of iOS too? I know after a few years my 3GS definitely wouldn't be able to handle the next iOS version.
  - kemayo 6y ago
    The iPhone 3GS was released in June 2009, and the first iOS release that didn't support it was iOS 7 in September 2013. 4 years is much better than current Android phones, though it's true it doesn't quite live up to the current Apple lineup where iOS 14 is going to support the 6S which will be 5 years old by the time it launches.
    - afterburner 6y ago
      Even if iOS 6 could be installed on the 3GS, it wasn't advisable.
- AnonC 6y ago
  It's still true. You'd be lucky to get updates beyond two years (so choosing the brand with this in mind is more important within the Android ecosystem). There are also devices that don't get updates after a few months of launch. Updates are also delayed by several months depending on the brand.
- Nullabillity 6y ago
  Apples vs oranges. With iOS the norm seems to be that apps support 1 version back, if even that. So as soon as your device is no longer updated (or if you dislike the update!), you're stuck. Android puts much more emphasis on backwards compatibility, with Google moving more and more functionality into app libraries rather than system frameworks. Our app still supports Android 4.4 (released in 2014!).
  - rimliu 6y ago
    No, the norm on the iOS is current and two versions back. It is also worth mentioning that iOS are usually supported for much longer than Android. iphoneOS 15 will be supported by iPhone 6S: this was released in 2015. If app supports iOS 12 (which most do, as it is only one version below the current iOS 13) it means they support iPhone 5S: which was released in 2013. And Apple users are likely to update: 92% run the latest version, and 7% are on the iOS 12.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    You can walk into any Best Buy and buy new devices on the shelf that are running versions of Android so old they can't run apps like Netflix -- devices that are out of date now, and will never get an update. This is part of the reason Android developers need strong backwards compatibility.
tedivm 6y ago
From my perspective it seems like Apple keeps releasing new privacy features and Android keeps being forced to catch up. What are the major privacy enhancements that Google has put out first?
- dahfizz 6y ago
  I believe Android was the first to have fine grained app permissions where you could actually choose what an app has access to. iOS added that later.
  - AnonC 6y ago
    Android had install time permissions for a long while. The user either had to allow all permissions asked by the app during install or not be allowed to install the app. On the other side, iOS had runtime permissions (nothing during installation) that were prompted by the system whenever the app needed a permission. When runtime permissions were added to Android 6, apps used to crash when not granted the permissions (so much so that some Android versions also started faking location data to apps when the user denied location access). This took a few years to improve, but even today, there are Android apps that will refuse to work if you don't grant some (unnecessary, in the view of the user) permission. That kind of behavior is very, very rare among iOS apps.
  - callalex 6y ago
    As a checkbox prompt on install, yes. iOS has always and will continue a slightly different model of throwing a modular question up to the user at the moment the action that requires the permission first occurs. This gives the user more context about the question, but also gives more alert fatigue. Which is better is left as an exercise to the reader.
  - JimDabell 6y ago
    No, it’s the other way around. In the beginning, Android showed you what an app could before you installed it, and it was an all-or-nothing approach – if you didn't want the app to do those things, your only choice was to not install it. In the beginning, iOS didn't have this, and instead it prompted you for permission the first time an app wanted permission to do something. Additionally, app review had rules that apps had to operate correctly if you refused permission and that apps couldn’t ask for permissions irrelevant to what you are doing. So you can install an app, then pick and choose what you grant permission for. Later, Android added the prompts to work the same as iOS. iOS hasn't changed to include the Android approach.

wnevets 6y ago

Especially when its taken 14 versions to get this information.

savoytruffle 6y ago
To be pedantic, version 1 and 2 of iPhone OS did not have a clipboard at all …
- cryptoz 6y ago
  Was it called iPhone OS then? At some point I remember Apple saying it was basically OS X running on the phone. Weird how that went.
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    The first iPhone used iPhone OS. It was never called OSX in production. In June 2010 it was renamed iOS.
    - shawnz 6y ago
      However they did call it OSX in the keynote: https://youtu.be/vN4U5FqrOdQ?t=548 https://youtu.be/vN4U5FqrOdQ?t=548

cwhiz 6y ago

Android is a spyware operating system filled with first party spyware apps developed by Google.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
andrepd 6y ago
As opposed to apple which isn't because... apple says so.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  Align the incentives.
- mrgreenfur 6y ago
  No, because Apple makes money on subscriptions and retail purchases not on aggregating and reselling the data for advertisers.
  - sidibe 6y ago
    Apple also makes money by selling their users to Google to do all that nasty stuff.
    - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
      No, they really don't. Remember the fun we had making fun of Apple Maps? Why in the world would Apple have dropped Google as the back end for their original Maps program, right? Well, it was because back in 2011 or so, Google refused to give Apple access to true turn-by-turn navigation features unless Apple gave them more access to user data. Rather than do that, Apple decided to go it themselves, even though that made the Maps product worse for years. This is consistent with Apple's behavior in other fields. (Hey, Siri!) There are a lot of criticisms to be made of Apple, but "they're selling your data by proxy" just doesn't seem to be one of them.

lostgame 6y ago

Doesn't help much when the OS itself contains a million first party privacy violations, unfortunately. Both systems have extreme downfalls with the strategy they have taken, Apple's walled garden, and Google's necessity to use tracking because they are an ad company and this is how they make money. Overall, Apple's certainly the lesser of two evils, but I think I'll be considering a PinePhone next, once the software ecosystem has matured a bit. I'm going to start speaking with my wallet and not conceding to settling.

harikb 6y ago

Even if one were to ignore Google’s data collection, any non-vanilla android installation would have been butchered by the vendor (Samsung, Motorola, etc) to the point any expectation of security (and in turn privacy) is lost to the least secure app pre-installed. I had ESFileExplorer installed on a Nexus 7 tablet I barely used. One day I start it to find the charging has switched to “smart charging” where this software shows a banner ad on the home/charging screen. There is no end to the madness of what each app can do or even allowed to ask for.

shawnz 6y ago
I often use Motorola devices as I find they are one of the OEMs which applies the fewest customizations to the OS. However Samsung is definitely a problem when it comes to that. I am not sure what happened in your case with ES or how that would be possible. It sounds like maybe the app just pushed you an advertisement as a notification. Notifications can be disabled on a per-app basis but I think it is pretty reasonable that they are enabled by default.
- harikb 6y ago
  Apparently it is not new change [1]. I just happened to notice it now since I rarely used it before. Now the tablet functions as a handy Zoom whiteboard [2] drawing tablet. Good thing I didn't throw it out. [1] https://www.androidpolice.com/2016/05/10/es-file-explorer-updated-with-super-shady-speed-charging-adware/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2016/05/10/es-file-explorer-up... [2] To those who might laugh at my paranoia about ES while I happily use Zoom, I teach classes and it is not an easy choice not to use Zoom.
- danieldk 6y ago
  I often use Motorola devices as I find they are one of the OEMs which applies the fewest customizations to the OS. They got worse, also with updates since they were acquired Lenovo. Last time that I surveyed the Android landscape (~2 years ago), Nokia was the place to go for a pristine Android experience with quick updates.
andrepd 6y ago

canada_dry 6y ago

> continually improving the privacy/permissions model Though an extremely annoying side effect is that they are also handicapping one of the best android features: user scripting with tools like automagic4android [i] and tasker [ii]. To wit: https://www.reddit.com/r/tasker/comments/b1272l/android_q_tasker_issues_star_all_these_issues/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tasker/comments/b1272l/android_q_ta... [i] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.gridvision.ppam.androidautomagic&hl=en_CA https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.gridvision.... [ii] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm&hl=en_CA https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch....

deeblering4 6y ago

We're talking about this because the Apple OS privacy/permissions model shed light on this issue. That seems like an obvious advantage to me.

j45 6y ago

I carry an Android. In Android, you and your data is the product, nothing else. In Apple the phone is the product.

j45 6y ago
Instead of drive by negging, happy to chat about why. I've probably had a smartphone as long as anyone. And I hope it's not just because some people work at Google. :)