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Hopefully this will eventually lead to a day where users once again have full control over their devices. Android is a bit better, even if alternate app stores

Hopefully this will eventually lead to a day where users once again have full control over their devices. Android is a bit better, even if alternate app stores don't have the same system privileges as Google Play, but Apple devices are wholly authoritarian in what you can run on a device you supposedly own.

gchokov 5y ago
Google Devices are anything but owned by customers. You don’t have anything yours there, not even your data, location.. anything. Wake up.
- ssaturn 5y ago
  Freedom is not a boolean, it is a scale and google offers more than apple at the moment. Ironically the pixel devices are one of the few where bootloaders are unlocked in the US and you can flash a customer google free rom. Assuming there is no hardware based surveillance this is as close to free as we can get at the moment.
  - simondotau 5y ago
    Close to free—for the 0.1% of owners who are willing to put in tens of hours of their time.
marricks 5y ago
It's a case of choosing how you lose. Android certainly is more open and free in terms of what you can do with it, but you become Google's product and they will mine all meaningful data from your interactions. What would be swell is an open device you fully control which doesn't spy on you. Turns out that cuts off most of the ways to make big bucks.
- arsome 5y ago
  You can basically have this today - you might have to give up a few niceties, but if you don't rely on anything too fancy, Lineage + F-Droid, with optional MicroG will generally do the trick for most apps. Gotta be a bit of tinkerer to set that one up though, not something for grandma.
  - simondotau 5y ago
    If she had an iPhone, how many paid apps or in-app purchases was Grandma going to make anyway? Probably none. Heck, I'm a developer and tech enthusiast that owns numerous Apple devices, and I honestly can't remember the last time I made a financial transaction through the iOS App Store or IAP.

gchokov 5y ago

Google Devices are anything but owned by customers. You don’t have anything yours there, not even your data, location.. anything. Wake up.

ssaturn 5y ago
Freedom is not a boolean, it is a scale and google offers more than apple at the moment. Ironically the pixel devices are one of the few where bootloaders are unlocked in the US and you can flash a customer google free rom. Assuming there is no hardware based surveillance this is as close to free as we can get at the moment.
- simondotau 5y ago
  Close to free—for the 0.1% of owners who are willing to put in tens of hours of their time.

marricks 5y ago

It's a case of choosing how you lose. Android certainly is more open and free in terms of what you can do with it, but you become Google's product and they will mine all meaningful data from your interactions. What would be swell is an open device you fully control which doesn't spy on you. Turns out that cuts off most of the ways to make big bucks.

arsome 5y ago
You can basically have this today - you might have to give up a few niceties, but if you don't rely on anything too fancy, Lineage + F-Droid, with optional MicroG will generally do the trick for most apps. Gotta be a bit of tinkerer to set that one up though, not something for grandma.
- simondotau 5y ago
  If she had an iPhone, how many paid apps or in-app purchases was Grandma going to make anyway? Probably none. Heck, I'm a developer and tech enthusiast that owns numerous Apple devices, and I honestly can't remember the last time I made a financial transaction through the iOS App Store or IAP.