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After iOS 14, there's almost no reason to buy an Android phone anymore
- skyhigh007 6y agoThat's just crazy talk
- artsyca 6y agoMy favourite feature on an unlocked android phone is having a call recorder
- pyprism 6y agoCare to explain ? I have an "un-rooted" android phone, I can use call recorder without rooting
- artsyca 6y agoThere are many call recorders, from ones that activate the speaker and record through the mic to others that activate a threeway call and record that way. The one I prefer is one which taps into the audio at the core level and captures the stream -> https://callrecorder.skvalex.com/get https://callrecorder.skvalex.com/get
- tchaffee 6y agoI don't love Google but the fact that Apple has been caught doing shitty stuff like slowing down older phones and having to pay out a $500 million settlement when they were caught is enough reason for me to stay away.
- danieldk 6y agoCan this myth die? They throttle phones with old batteries that cannot provide enough current. This avoids that phones reboot spontaneously. Replace the battery and it is as fast as ever. I used an iPhone 6s (2015) until recently and it was still butter smooth on iOS 13. I gave it to my niece who is still happily using it.
- tchaffee 6y agoThey lost a $500 million class action lawsuit. I'll try to be open minded but my time is valuable so can you provide a stronger heuristic than the settlement?
- scarface74 6y agoYes Apple slowed down phones because the alternative was the phone completely shutting off when the battery was old. The settlement was because Apple didn’t disclose that they added the battery management feature and that the slowdown could be alleviated by buying a new battery instead of buying a new phone.
- tchaffee 6y agoSo they did slow down old phones and they lied about it and they had to settle a huge lawsuit as a result? And you were expecting that to change my mind?
- encom 6y ago>They throttle phones with old batteries that cannot provide enough current. Stop gaslighting. They were forced to admit to doing so, after enough people made a stink about it for a very long time. And iphone batteries are not user servicable.
- scarface74 6y agoYou can find places that will replace an iPhone battery easily many of the places are authorized.
- slenk 6y agoI do believe the American legal system disagrees with you
- scarface74 6y agoThe “shitty thing” was not disclosing that it was slowing down to keep the phone from cutting off entirely when the battery degraded.
- tchaffee 6y agoThat is shitty. Not a surprise they handed out $500 million to compensate for that.
- st3fan 6y ago> Who needs Android when iPhone finally has proper widgets? Well, iOS 14 widgets are read-only while Android widgets are fully interactive. So I would not call them _proper_ just yet. Maybe in iOS 15 :-)
- StavrosK 6y agoThis article is ridiculous flame bait.
- bootloop 6y agoWithout that headline nobody would have even looked at it so understandable. Just a reminder that you don't have to click on every link (or read every article) on the internet.
- StavrosK 6y agoI wanted to give it the benefit of a doubt, but then my suspicions were confirmed and I wanted to warn others.
- pjmlp 6y agoSure there is, price for pre-paid customers, which is what most of the world uses, and their phones get used until they either die or get stolen, there isn't a two year free exchange program in place. Ideally I would be using Windows Phone, but given how it all ended up, Android it is, even if Google's stewardship leaves very much to be desired.
- nercury 6y agoGood job projecting your reasons to the world.
- i_am_proteus 6y agoMyriad Android phones are substantially cheaper than even the iPhone SE. $200 is a lot of money for a lot of people.
- BuckRogers 6y agoConsidering how important they are for most people at this point, it’s worth it. For most people’s only device, it’s got to work and work reliably.
- FatalLogic 6y agoEven if there's no reason, there's still a reason: choice
- ur-whale 6y ago>Why wouldn't you buy an iPhone now that Apple has copied all of Android's best ideas? Because I can still - albeit with some amount of work - run whatever I want on my Android phone. Not that it'll last, I guess, but as of today, still possible.
- wolco 6y agoApple can't compete on price and more apps are available for free on android. Having the most features only matter to a very small population. Something rarely talked about. Having an iphone gives the impression you have more money than technical ability.
- auggierose 6y agoWhat kind of "technical ability" do you need to operate a phone?
- wolco 6y agoRooting your phone would require a certain technical ability. Possible on andriod.. Side loading apps? Technical ability like making an app for andriod cost me 10 dollars once. 100+ yearly for apple. But you missed the key point. It doesn't matter both can be operated by non-technical people. If you look at the populations who own each one group has a higher technical ability than the other. One has people willing to pay 10x more for a phone, willing to pay for apps that are freely available in the other's store app store.
- gambiting 6y agoLol, I assume the author is either a troll or extremely privileged, or both. Iphones are still crazy expensive in most of the world, even the SE hasn't changed that, where I'm from SE is worth a month of your salary, the higher end models are nearly untenable. The most popular smartphones around are all different Xiaomis and Huaweis, since you get good hardware for like $100-200 max. Do you think people buy them for android and now that iOS has widgets those people will move to iOS?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Squarex 6y agoUntil there is a full fledged Firefox with uBlock Origin, there is no way for me to leave Android.
- newscracker 6y agoIf you aren’t using the element blocking features in uBlock a Origin (not sure if it’s supported on mobile) and are using only subscribed blocklists, then using NextDNS as the DNS provider could be an option. It’ll take care of blocking for all apps, not just for one app (like Firefox). It’s kinda like running a pi-hole on the cloud.
- BuckRogers 6y agoIf you ever get tired of Android’s failings as I did, know there is Microsoft Edge on iOS with adblock built in. You can still send tabs to desktop Firefox from Edge if you have iOS Firefox installed. That said I use Firefox almost exclusively for the night mode, which is where I’m swiping this message from.
- ur-whale 6y agoTerrible article, beyond the obvious bias, it is rather shallow and misses then entire walled garden side of the story.
- st3fan 6y ago> Who needs Android when iPhone lets you choose your own default apps? Well, iOS 14 makes a little bit of progress here. Which is great. But it will be very far away from Android. iOS will just "allow" this for Web and Email applications, while Android has a rich and open intent and app system that doesn't need permission from Google. Android also has a great app chooser. Click on a web link and it will ask you in which browser you want to open it. Or set a default from there. So, good small step forward, but still miles away from what you can do on Android.
- newscracker 6y agoSomeone commented in another thread (on an article about virtualization on Macs) about the flood of low value articles being posted now, especially related to Apple and the WWDC announcements. This title is so hyperbolic that it fits that description. FWIW, I’m an iOS user and wouldn’t consider Android for many reasons. But I would never say “almost no reason” to describe choices people make among the two main smartphone OSes.
- ylyn 6y agoBy this logic, there's no reason to buy Windows laptops over MacBooks, because MacBooks can actually do anything a Windows laptop can. Yup, so I guess that's why Mac market share is a whopping 10-20%.
- trzeci 6y agoWriting that as a mobile game developer: As long as supporting variety of devices on Android makes me suffer during long debugging evenings - I think that open nature of Android makes the mobile innovating much faster. Competition between Android phones is enormous - which results with such great hardware features like 90Hz+ displays, truly full screen displays, under-screen fingerprint reader. Picture-in-Picture, Split view - those things were available for a long time on Android - and I loved to add support for them. I think iOS would be never like nowadays if no Android was released, without Android will never innovate as much - due monopoly of one company using that OS.
- newscracker 6y ago> I think iOS would be never like nowadays if no Android was released, without Android will never innovate as much - due monopoly of one company using that OS. The same would be true the other way too. Without iOS and Apple, Android-the-OS would be stuck with data sucking, data slurping, battery draining apps and users being buried in an ecosystem that thrives on this right from the company making the OS (most Android users wouldn’t know what rooting is or how to avoid all the data being collected and exfiltrated). Google has also started to change its tune and some of its behaviors on this front (though it’s still not as much as iOS).
- kyriakos 6y agoI think the idea is that there's competition in android lands because of multiple companies providing hardware and android custom roms to go along with.
- scarface74 6y agoThe $399 iPhone SE is faster than any Android at any price.
- Yetanfou 6y agoUnfortunately it is as closed as other iOS devices and as such a no-go for those who value their freedoms. If Apple were to open up iOS to the same extent as Android is open - i.e. the basic system is open, on top of which proprietary services can be (but do not have to be) added - it might be more interesting. It would also be nice to have the possibility to add a microSD-card to the device. Add these options and a substantial number of Android users will consider iOS as a viable option.
- ulam2 6y agoI have one, money. If there were apple phones on every price point it'd have been a different story. Add in modular customizations (camera options, camera locations, # of wifi, size options) and I'd be a fan.
- vincengomes 6y agoAfter reading the article, i have a feeling that the author has not actually used an Android phone, instead has only read about what features an Android Phone has.
- Yetanfou 6y agoGreat, point me at the source repo so I can build my own distribution with a few things removed, some changed and others added. What? No source? Really? But you said there was no more reason to get Android devices...
- anoniuyiu33412 6y agohahaha, And Iphone here where I live is around U$S 1500-2000 A Samsung Galaxy Note 10 is around U$S 1000, and a Xiami, top of the line, similar hardware, is U$S 500-700. But the 90% of the really good non-premium phones are in the range of U$S 300 to 500
- timrichard 6y agoLike other commenters, I think price is the big one. I used to go for Android developer phones since the first in 2008, and liked the fact it wasn't cluttered with manufacturer or carrier bloat. Over time, I became exasperated at the short lifespan of the soldered-in batteries, given the price of each device. The (Huawei) Nexus 6P was the final straw. In January, I picked up a Nokia 4.2 Android One device, and I use it without any contract on a PAYG SIM[1]. On Android One, there should be two years of OS updates and three of security updates following the device launch last May. It works well, and the battery performance is fine[2]. I chose a smaller device unlike my previous phablets, and haven't dropped it during use yet. The Nokia design is good, and so is the build quality (Foxconn?). I appreciate the vanilla Android without the aforementioned bloat. The unlocked handset was £99 ($122) at the time from a shop on the high street. I don't think Apple is going to be attracted to that end of the market. When this one dies, I'll look around for another Android One device with the longest update prospects. [1] The phone is not my primary computing device, and I mostly receive calls and use WiFi for data when using apps and browsing. I'm not a gamer. [2] I keep battery saver mode on pretty much all the time, which is great for battery life but probably not so much for chatty background services.
- slenk 6y agoAh yes, because everyone can afford a MacBook and a $1k license fee to publish on their store
- scarface74 6y ago$1K license fee? And you can also buy a used Mac mini.
- slenk 6y agoI am mistaken, I did not realize it was down to $100. It used to be a lot more - I was paying. It's also a yearly fee where Google is a one-time fee.
- scarface74 6y agoIt’s always been $100. I spend $90 a year on my R# license. Of all things to complain about, the $100 is the least objectionable.
- slenk 6y agoFor free apps, maybe? I know back in 2011/2012 we had to pay more than $100 directly to Apple.
- scarface74 6y agoIt has always been a $100 developer fee since 2007 regardless.