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I’m not surprised. I used Android devoutly, had a Galaxy S4, then an S8 when that started showing its age. I upgraded to an iPhone 12 when AT&T ran the promotio

by lumb63 5y ago

I’m not surprised. I used Android devoutly, had a Galaxy S4, then an S8 when that started showing its age. I upgraded to an iPhone 12 when AT&T ran the promotion to get a free one. I wanted to keep liking Android. The amount of time I spent arguing vehemently that Android was superior made the switch hard, but several factors came into play for me: - Extremely slow and fragmented upgrade of OS. This resulted in substantially older features and security patches. - Privacy. iMessage’s encryption (though I stand by that it is gimmicky to only offer for iPhones, and I despise that) has a serious network effect. Apple is also far more transparent in what data they use, how they use it, etc. - Ironically, price. At the time, the iPhone was cheaper than the equivalent Android phone. The big downside is slower upgrades to the latest hardware features. Specifically, I am envious of the people who have 120 FPS phones, they’re beautiful. There is also a loss of customization, but truthfully I thought I’d miss it much more than I did. The fact that the iPhone “just works” is worth it to me.

wumpus 5y ago
> iMessage’s encryption (though I stand by that it is gimmicky to only offer for iPhones, and I despise that) What security guarantees would iMessage have if it ran on arbitrary hardware instead of only iPhones and Macs? To some people, that's important, not a gimmick. Totally fine for you to have your own opinion about it, but it's probably a good idea to be able to think about why people might disagree.
overtonwhy 5y ago
The 13 pro iPhone line is 120hz
modeless 5y ago
Apple has fooled you. iMessage is not end-to-end encrypted as advertised. If you use iCloud backups then all your messages can be read by Apple and by extension law enforcement. If you decide not to use the only allowed cloud backup option for iPhones, then your messages can still be read by Apple on the other end when your friends have iCloud backups enabled. Apple has not end-to-end encrypted iCloud backups of iMessage at the explicit request of the FBI. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive/exclusive-apple-dropped-plan-for-encrypting-backups-after-fbi-complained-sources-idUSKBN1ZK1CT https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...
- HNHatesUsers 5y ago
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Most of us on HN aren't stupid enough to put critical, life changing data through icloud server platform, but for day to day messagng imessage is fine. Most of my techie friend circle use signal anyway.
- Handytinge 4y ago
  Isn't the friends phone one of the ends? It sounds to me like it is E2EE, but people can opt in to back up the message after decryption. How is this different to any other E2EE program?
xony 5y ago
makeitdouble 5y ago
The iPhone 12 was released end 2020, right before we went into the pandemic. To me it would interesting to know if you made the switch before or after Covid hit full blown (as you mention rebate, I’d assume after) I know a lot of people who revised their relation to phone during that time (me included), and going for simpler things seemed to be a overall theme. Including those who went the other way and gave up iOS for the Pixel 4a for instance, or even some much smaller “dumber” phone.
scotty79 5y ago
> Specifically, I am envious of the people who have 120 FPS phones, they’re beautiful. That's super surprising. I bought 120fps Phone back in 2019 and it still works great and I can't imagine using anything below 120fps since then.
kevan 5y ago
Security patches stopping after 3 years made me switch. The phone (Pixel 2 XL) was perfectly fine performance-wise and still competitive with camera and screen quality but it wasn't safe to use anymore. I could've flashed a different OS but getting security at work to accept that to enable email and calendar access is unlikely.
TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
I switched recently, from an iPhone 7 to a Ulefone Power Amor 13, cost me $440 delivered from Hong Kong to Tasmania. Or $780 from an Aussie vendor, who must comply with our consumer protection laws, so warranty for replacement or refund, or parts to repair. But I figured at $440 if it breaks during the regular warranty period, I can just buy another, or similarly priced device. I definitely miss frequent OS and security updates, but I wasn't prepared to spend a similar amount on a slightly newer secondhand iPhone, or three times the amount or more on a new iPhone, which still won't have as good a battery as the Ulefone Power Amor 13, the thing weighs in at a little over 1 pound, just under half a kilogram, and requires recharging so infrequently I forget to, versus having an iPhone charge cable every couple metres at home and work. Another added benefit of having a phone that is mostly battery and weights over a pound it that I rarely drop it, because you certainly know you've got hold of it! If Apple did an iPhone that had a huge battery, and was ruggedized for us in the trades, and others who work in dusty / greasy environments, I'd be straight on to it. If my only choice was between a flagship Android from any manufacturer or an iPhone, it'd be the iPhone. Fortunately they aren't the only two options, and Android doesn't feel disappointing below about the $500 mark.
EdwardDiego 5y ago
I won't switch to iPhone for two reasons. 1) I can't afford that shite. 2) I don't want control of my device taken from me. On #1 - I buy a cellphone to be contactable, and to browse the web on the move with a reasonable modicum of speed. I rather dislike the whole "hey, our app is far better than our website" movement in the industry, because I know that "far better" means "far better for tracking and targeting you", based on my experience in adtech. And I don't need whatever bollocks tech (two cameras so your photos can do a little swoopy thing!) Apple is chucking in and charging big bucks for. I just need a smartphone that has enough CPU to run things okay. But I get other people might want fancy camera stuff without forking out for a proper camera, all good. And I find Android phones offer far more options at varying price points along the spectrum in this regard than Apple. On #2 - I've never had to wait for someone to find a vulnerability in my phone before I can root it, and do whatever I like with it. I can easily install APKs from others or myself without going through an app store, or paying Apple for a developer licence to write code to run on my own frigging phone. My non-technical wife can't grok Android, she's been on iOS since the earlier iPhones, so when her iPhone 5S' browser began to routinely crash when loading websites she read on the regular, I caved and got her an iPhone 13, at much expense, and she's generally unimpressed at the upgrade (she really misses that physical button). She doesn't care about any of the bollocks that they're advertising as a reason to upgrade - macro-photography, night photography, cinematic mode? She gives zero shits. Having to Google how to restart her phone when an app wouldn't stop playing audio really pissed her off though, I will say. The price of that thing was fucking ridiculous, but she can at least use it for the things that she always used her phone for, until something happened that caused the browser in her last iPhone to start shitting the bed - lack of browser upgrades? Bad browser upgrades? I'm unsure. I'm not a fan of Safari on any platform, so I'm just going to glare accusingly in that direction. TL;DR - iPhones are pricey AF, glad you got the iPhone 12 for free, and I really dislike Apple's approach to letting me do stuff with the small computer I bought that can incidentally do phone calls.
- Handytinge 4y ago
  Sounds like you might have picked the wrong product. The iPhone SE is significantly cheaper and has the button still. Probably a great purchase if she doesn't want the latest hardware widgets.
mmcnl 5y ago
Regarding messaging, contrary to popular belief WhatsApp is great for privacy as well. It is now end-to-end encrypted since it recently adopted the Signal protocol [1]. It's cross-platform and more widely used on a global scale. [1] https://scontent-ams4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.8562-6/271639644_1080641699441889_2201546141855802968_n.pdf?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=ad8a9d&_nc_ohc=w2XzjqFKtScAX-fh6xD&_nc_ht=scontent-ams4-1.xx&oh=00_AT8ci3pSciBm9QsZk8kXbZWe1W4G4rbceiSsyVbVplwJ5w&oe=6269E8BD https://scontent-ams4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.8562-6/271639644_...
deleted 5y ago
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lawl 5y ago
It's pick your poison. The only reason I'm still on android is because at least I can (still) have root there. I'm saying still because of safety net. But if apple let me have root, i'd probably prefer an Apple over Google. Mobile phones and their user hostility is a cancer. I'm seriously considering using a full GNU/Linux handheld for mobile things i can do in a browser, and keep an android phone for app garbage that I only turn on if I need to use a banking app or something.
- SergeAx 5y ago
  "If you don't have a root privilege on your device - this is not your device" But even without root I can side load an app via APK on Android. This way my Telegram messenger almost always a version ahead Google Play.
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    > But even without root I can side load an app via APK on Android. What about getting rid of the preinstalled "system" bloatware that may be present and outside of your control to remove without root?
    - SergeAx 5y ago
      It is annoying, but there is a "disable" option. They still will take some space on the device though.
- dmead 5y ago
  Is it seriously worth it for people to do stuff like this? I remember when stallman said he was giving the one laptop per child program a shot. Since the drivers for the wifi were non free he used some USB device instead. Last I read that lasted a few months because he got sick of it. I can't imagine adding all those steps to use a smartphone is any less annoying.
  - lawl 5y ago
    > Is it seriously worth it for people to do stuff like this? For the vast majority, it probably isn't. Also, I'm not full RMS since I would consider using an iPhone which definitely has closed-source components :) I don't think it would be that much of a hassle to me, since I already don't use a lot of the "nice" apps etc. The way most people use their phone is quite alien to me. E.g. I much prefer old.reddit.com over a reddit app and/or constantly getting harassed with banners to use the app. I'm pretty sure it would remove extra steps for me, instead of add them, by letting me compute how I like to (GNU/Linux) instead of trying to compute like GNU/Linux on Android.
VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
From my experience if you stay on the Google flagship/Pixel line then everything is great. Pretty much every other vender is garbage and will screw you and you'll have the experience you're talking about.
- tsupiroti 5y ago
  I've found Nokia/HMD also okay.
- freedomben 5y ago
  I typically tell people if you want an apples-to-apples (no pun intended) comparison, you can't compare iOS to Android. You need to compare iPhone to Google Pixel. If iOS was open source and available for 3rd parties to roll-their-own, you wouldn't take a cheap "iPhone" maker and compare that against the latest Pixel Pro, so the reverse shouldn't be done either.
  - afterburner 5y ago
    It seems though in the latest iteration at least, the Pixel 6 is actually worse than the Samsung S22. And frankly I've often felt like Samsungs were the flagship Android phones, not Google's phones.
    - freedomben 5y ago
      Kind of a late comment but I really do wish Samsung would make a serious attempt at a "stock android" type of device that was affordable, because I think they would kill it. Their phones have always seemed really high quality to me, but so expensive, and the S2 that I had back in the day was riddled with Samsung versions of apps that I didn't want.
      - afterburner 4y ago
        Samsung's A-series are excellent affordable phones.
- 5y ago
fsa3d4uyuiy 5y ago
Question about that: What I personally do most on my phone is browsing the web (when not at home, at home I can do that with a regular computer). On Android I can use Firefox with plugins to block ads, kill overlays, etc... and especially it has the reader mode AFAIK on iPhone you can only run one Apple-approved browser and all others are a skin around that, and it doesn't have plugins. To me browsing the web is unusable without those plugins in Firefox. How is browsing the web on an iPhone? Do you get overlays, autoplaying videos and ads on websites or can you block them? Do you get a reader mode?
- scarface74 5y ago
  Reader mode has been built into the iPhone version of Safari since 2010 and native support for third party “content blockers” since 2013.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  My PiHole is a must for my iOS devices. Yes, there’s a reader mode.
  - fsa3d4uyuiy 5y ago
    Typically I use my phone when not at home since at home I have a computer to browse the web of course. Is pihole installed on your iphone? Does it work when in a train, in a restaurant somewhere, etc...?
    - scrose 5y ago
      You can use pihole over a vpn. One common example is setting up Tailscale on Pihole and your phone and then you can set the dns on whatever Wifi you’re on to the Piholes private IP
- kccqzy 5y ago
  Yes there's a reader mode built in to the browser. Ad blockers are available since 2015, although these are declarative ad blockers. Custom web extensions are also available more recently; these can actually run custom JS.
grumpyprole 5y ago
But the iPhone only "just works" if you completely buy in to Apple's ecosystem. E.g. if you want to buy some FLAC music files from somewhere else, it won't "just work" anymore. Android is still the lesser of two evils in terms of allowing more choice on its platform.
- MBCook 5y ago
  > E.g. if you want to buy some FLAC music files from somewhere else, it won't "just work" anymore. The thing is nobody* does that. There are a few. That’s why I added the asterisk. But realistically very few people actually do it. Especially compared to the number of iPhones they sell every year. If you were using MP3 files, you wouldn’t have an issue. Or AAC. There might even be others. Apple really likes to make things easy, but they tend to only do it for the common case. That’s what gets the most use, that’s what makes the most people happy, that’s what they focus on. If you’re the kind of person who wants to do things that are far out of the mainstream you’re never going to be happy with an iPhone. You can use other apps as other people pointed out. But I wouldn’t expect this to ever work in Apple’s music player. It’s the same reason you can’t have root, re-theme your phone heavily, replace the dialer, or a lot of other heavy customizations. That’s not what they focus on. It’s just their ethos.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    > The thing is nobody* does that. Because it is difficult to do. > If you’re the kind of person who wants to do things that are far out of the mainstream you’re never going to be happy with an iPhone. FLACs are not the act of an extremist.
    - MBCook 5y ago
      > Because it is difficult to do. No, at this point I think the vast majority of people just use streaming services. The second biggest group, but probably much smaller, it’s people like me who both have a library and a streaming service. After that, smaller again, I would assume it’s people who have just a library. The majority of these are probably files bought from Apple and Microsoft and Amazon. Those are all formats that the iPhone can play. In last place is people who use more unique formats like FLAC. I understand why you would want it over the other formats. But I think it’s by far the least common case.
drewg123 5y ago
I did the same, roughly two years ago. I'd been Android since the Nexus One. The lack of commitment to long-term support is what did it for me. Between Apple's support for OS updates for much older hardware than Google, and the fact that we can get a phone battery replaced at an Apple store rather than a sketchy phone repair place is what did it for me. For me, the downsides are: - Notifications really suck. Everything has the same sound, unless the developer really cares. Its far harder to have custom alert sounds vs Android. - Garmin watch notifications can't be filtered. I realize this is partly Garmin's fault, since apparently competitors have worked their way around it. - I hate that "firefox" on iOS is a wrapper for Safari, and I can't use add-ons like uBlock
- filoleg 5y ago
  A minor note on your last point: since the last major iOS release, Safari now supports extensions. I use one for adblocking, for redirecting every AMP link to a non-AMP version of the page, as well as the one that automatically redirects every reddit link from a webpage to Apollo (a third party reddit app).
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    Try Brave Browser on iOS for ad blocking.
vmception 5y ago
- na85 5y ago
  >people have just resorted to ostracizing android users by co-opting iOS' "green bubbles" as a scarlet letter. What does this mean?
  - vmception 5y ago
    iOS messaging has end to end encryption by default, when that is enabled the messages are shown within a "blue bubble". When this is not possible, it falls back to sending normal SMS, which can be read in plain text by third parties in the middle and has no encryption, when that occurs messages are shown within a "green bubble". Therefore, messaging android users shows a "green bubble". People know its both an android user and unencrypted. This also results in a worse messaging experience for the iOS users, as all of their other rich media is disabled and handicapped as long as that conversation involves an android user.
    - howinteresting 5y ago
      The thing is, zero people I regularly chat with (SF bay area) use iMessage. Most people in my US friend group use Signal, the rest use Facebook, and many of my international contacts use Whatsapp.
    - blacksmith_tb 5y ago
      Hmm, I have never heard anyone mention "knowing its... unencrypted" I doubt most iOS users would care about that, realistically. Note that the experience is bad in both directions (at least for me in Signal on Android I get to endure a lot of 'so and so loved whole-text-of-previous-message' instead of just a heart emoji - I see that GOOG has improved things Messages recently to parse those, at least)
      - vmception 5y ago
rejectfinite 5y ago
- Extremely slow and fragmented upgrade of OS. This resulted in substantially older features and security patches. Samsung phones does 4 years of updates now. - Privacy. iMessage’s encryption (though I stand by that it is gimmicky to only offer for iPhones, and I despise that) has a serious network effect. Apple is also far more transparent in what data they use, how they use it, etc. iMessage? Everyone here (Scandinavia) uses FB Mewssenger, Whatsapp, Telegram or Discord anyway. The data thing, sure - Ironically, price. At the time, the iPhone was cheaper than the equivalent Android phone. Thats fair. The big thing for me with Android is price (my Asus 5z from 208 still going strong) Customization, and I don't mean homescreen I mean that webbrowsers are not just Safari re-skins, Firefox has actual addons for excample, there is the Google playstore but I can also use F-Droid And there aren't really downsides to Android imo
- Silhouette 5y ago
  Samsung phones does 4 years of updates now. Four whole years? It should be outrageous that we might consider such a short period acceptable for devices as expensive and otherwise long-lasting as a high-end Samsung phone. That it is not really surprising at all is a sad reflection on how normalised shipping insecure connected devices with inadequate support has become. Obviously we don't yet know how to build 100% secure devices of this complexity but we are talking about some of the biggest businesses in the world here. There is little excuse not to require (by law if necessary) essential security updates for a much longer period given the reasonable useful life of the hardware and the rest of the software on it.
  - sircastor 5y ago
    > Four whole years? It should be outrageous that we might consider such a short period acceptable for devices as expensive and otherwise long-lasting as a high-end Samsung phone. I mean, yes, but it wasn’t that long ago that Google had to get everyone to agree to at least 18 months. And the market would correct for that, but everyone was doing the same thing - abandoning a device mere months after its release. And from the manufacturers side it’s not hard to understand why the finance dept doesn’t want you to spend more money on a product that’s already been purchased.
shkkmo 5y ago
I've had pixels and motos for years and never really had any issue with being slow to receive updates. The real issue is the short lifespan of software support. It doesn't affect me personally because I lose / break phones often enough that I don't run into it. I just find deals on mid range phones that make them cheap to replace. I keep an eye on the libre phone space, so when I hopefully finally ditch android, it will be in that direction (unless perhaps regulations force Apple to open their walled garden, then we'll see.)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
xvector 5y ago
> Specifically, I am envious of the people who have 120 FPS phones, they’re beautiful The new iPhone has 120 FPS.
- lumb63 5y ago
  I suppose my point was, at the time I got my phone, they didn’t. The flagship Galaxy did, though (not sure on Pixel).
Workaccount2 5y ago
Long time Google fanboy here, and I'm honestly a hair's breadth away from buying an iphone 13. I have had nexus/pixels phones since the gnex. I have evangelized android to for almost as long. I did ground work for google by pushing people into google's services. I have a day 1 pixel 6 pro. I pay for cloud storage and yt premium. But to me google is just falling apart. I feel like they have lost their technology drive in order to pursue ideological ones. Their tech has become all half-assed with poor/no support. I cannot trust anything they make to be supported in the future anymore. RCS is still a disaster, my one friend on Fi with a pixel 5a still cannot get it working and Google/Fi has pretty said "We don't know". I do not like Apple, but after almost 20 years a Google fanboy, I'm starting to like Google even less. So much so that I'll have to eat lots of shame from the many iphone people who questioned my android love for years. *If anyone can convince me otherwise, please do*. I feel like the best thing that could happen is disposing of Sundar and getting someone who can refocus google on being a tech company devoted to making the best tech products.
- overview 5y ago
  After reading your comment, my first thought was to tell you to be more open to change. Seriously, it’s just a phone… just try it out :) PS: I was the same as you (used Android, despised Apple) but eventually made the switch and never intend to go back.
- adoxyz 5y ago
  I switched from Google to Apple after being in the Google ecosystem since the early days of Android. I had pretty much every single Nexus, Pixel, and a variety of Samsung devices. But Google's lack of support, half-assed one-foot in one-foot out, and lack of support made me switch to Apple about 3 years ago and I've never been happier. Apple's ecosystem, while it doesn't offer as much, is a much superior and polished experience. iMessage works great, integration with Apple Watch is top notch, and the whole ecosystem is very fine-tuned. There are still a bunch of things to complain about, for sure, but overall comparing the two is a night and day difference. I've slowly started phasing out all my Google products.. and not by choice either. Had Google Nest and Nest Secure for over 3 years until Google decided to just cancel Nest Secure all-together. Google Home devices are increasingly being less and less effective. Google just can't seem to commit to anything longer than 2-3 years and I'm sick of it. I'd much rather deal with getting features much later but thoroughly thought out, then half-assed and cancelled in 2 years. I will say the one thing I do miss is native Google Assistant, Siri is complete ass in comparison.
layer8 5y ago
> The fact that the iPhone “just works” is worth it to me. While I’m firmly entrenched in the iPhone/iPad ecosystem, nowadays there’s quite a lot of little things that don’t “just work”, but instead behave (or are designed) in quirky and inconsistent ways, or fail randomly. I’m not talking about third-party apps, but iOS functionality and essential built-in apps. I can only imagine it’s worse on Android.
coolsunglasses 5y ago
My iPhone 13 Pro Max has 120 hz, so that feature is available. I don't mind that it was Android only for a bit, very little on that platform can actually render a non-static UI at that rate.
- vetinari 5y ago
  > very little on that platform can actually render a non-static UI at that rate. you would be surprised, try it sometime.
  - kaba0 5y ago
    My friend’s brand new 1500 dollars flagship samsung gets sweared at constantly for failing to do so.
    - vetinari 5y ago
      That's interesting, even my father's 200 eur low end Redmi can do it. Not at all times, but quite impressive for a low end.
jrochkind1 5y ago
So... I'm curious, why were you spending a lot of time arguing vehemently that Android was superior, at the same time you weren't actually liking it yourself? [I have an Android phone, and don't love it or hate it.]
amiga-workbench 5y ago
I'd accidentally dropped my Mi Mix 2S in the bath and screwed the display, so while I waited a month for a new display & body to arrive from China I grabbed a refurbished Pixel 3a to hold me over. After seeing the absolute state of the Android 12 UI, I'm bailing out to a Pinephone Pro as soon as its viable.

by lumb63 5y ago

wumpus 5y ago

> iMessage’s encryption (though I stand by that it is gimmicky to only offer for iPhones, and I despise that) What security guarantees would iMessage have if it ran on arbitrary hardware instead of only iPhones and Macs? To some people, that's important, not a gimmick. Totally fine for you to have your own opinion about it, but it's probably a good idea to be able to think about why people might disagree.

overtonwhy 5y ago

The 13 pro iPhone line is 120hz

modeless 5y ago

Apple has fooled you. iMessage is not end-to-end encrypted as advertised. If you use iCloud backups then all your messages can be read by Apple and by extension law enforcement. If you decide not to use the only allowed cloud backup option for iPhones, then your messages can still be read by Apple on the other end when your friends have iCloud backups enabled. Apple has not end-to-end encrypted iCloud backups of iMessage at the explicit request of the FBI. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive/exclusive-apple-dropped-plan-for-encrypting-backups-after-fbi-complained-sources-idUSKBN1ZK1CT https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

HNHatesUsers 5y ago
stjohnswarts 5y ago
Most of us on HN aren't stupid enough to put critical, life changing data through icloud server platform, but for day to day messagng imessage is fine. Most of my techie friend circle use signal anyway.
Handytinge 4y ago
Isn't the friends phone one of the ends? It sounds to me like it is E2EE, but people can opt in to back up the message after decryption. How is this different to any other E2EE program?

xony 5y ago

makeitdouble 5y ago

The iPhone 12 was released end 2020, right before we went into the pandemic. To me it would interesting to know if you made the switch before or after Covid hit full blown (as you mention rebate, I’d assume after) I know a lot of people who revised their relation to phone during that time (me included), and going for simpler things seemed to be a overall theme. Including those who went the other way and gave up iOS for the Pixel 4a for instance, or even some much smaller “dumber” phone.

scotty79 5y ago

> Specifically, I am envious of the people who have 120 FPS phones, they’re beautiful. That's super surprising. I bought 120fps Phone back in 2019 and it still works great and I can't imagine using anything below 120fps since then.

kevan 5y ago

Security patches stopping after 3 years made me switch. The phone (Pixel 2 XL) was perfectly fine performance-wise and still competitive with camera and screen quality but it wasn't safe to use anymore. I could've flashed a different OS but getting security at work to accept that to enable email and calendar access is unlikely.

TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago

I switched recently, from an iPhone 7 to a Ulefone Power Amor 13, cost me $440 delivered from Hong Kong to Tasmania. Or $780 from an Aussie vendor, who must comply with our consumer protection laws, so warranty for replacement or refund, or parts to repair. But I figured at $440 if it breaks during the regular warranty period, I can just buy another, or similarly priced device. I definitely miss frequent OS and security updates, but I wasn't prepared to spend a similar amount on a slightly newer secondhand iPhone, or three times the amount or more on a new iPhone, which still won't have as good a battery as the Ulefone Power Amor 13, the thing weighs in at a little over 1 pound, just under half a kilogram, and requires recharging so infrequently I forget to, versus having an iPhone charge cable every couple metres at home and work. Another added benefit of having a phone that is mostly battery and weights over a pound it that I rarely drop it, because you certainly know you've got hold of it! If Apple did an iPhone that had a huge battery, and was ruggedized for us in the trades, and others who work in dusty / greasy environments, I'd be straight on to it. If my only choice was between a flagship Android from any manufacturer or an iPhone, it'd be the iPhone. Fortunately they aren't the only two options, and Android doesn't feel disappointing below about the $500 mark.

EdwardDiego 5y ago

I won't switch to iPhone for two reasons. 1) I can't afford that shite. 2) I don't want control of my device taken from me. On #1 - I buy a cellphone to be contactable, and to browse the web on the move with a reasonable modicum of speed. I rather dislike the whole "hey, our app is far better than our website" movement in the industry, because I know that "far better" means "far better for tracking and targeting you", based on my experience in adtech. And I don't need whatever bollocks tech (two cameras so your photos can do a little swoopy thing!) Apple is chucking in and charging big bucks for. I just need a smartphone that has enough CPU to run things okay. But I get other people might want fancy camera stuff without forking out for a proper camera, all good. And I find Android phones offer far more options at varying price points along the spectrum in this regard than Apple. On #2 - I've never had to wait for someone to find a vulnerability in my phone before I can root it, and do whatever I like with it. I can easily install APKs from others or myself without going through an app store, or paying Apple for a developer licence to write code to run on my own frigging phone. My non-technical wife can't grok Android, she's been on iOS since the earlier iPhones, so when her iPhone 5S' browser began to routinely crash when loading websites she read on the regular, I caved and got her an iPhone 13, at much expense, and she's generally unimpressed at the upgrade (she really misses that physical button). She doesn't care about any of the bollocks that they're advertising as a reason to upgrade - macro-photography, night photography, cinematic mode? She gives zero shits. Having to Google how to restart her phone when an app wouldn't stop playing audio really pissed her off though, I will say. The price of that thing was fucking ridiculous, but she can at least use it for the things that she always used her phone for, until something happened that caused the browser in her last iPhone to start shitting the bed - lack of browser upgrades? Bad browser upgrades? I'm unsure. I'm not a fan of Safari on any platform, so I'm just going to glare accusingly in that direction. TL;DR - iPhones are pricey AF, glad you got the iPhone 12 for free, and I really dislike Apple's approach to letting me do stuff with the small computer I bought that can incidentally do phone calls.

Handytinge 4y ago
Sounds like you might have picked the wrong product. The iPhone SE is significantly cheaper and has the button still. Probably a great purchase if she doesn't want the latest hardware widgets.

mmcnl 5y ago

Regarding messaging, contrary to popular belief WhatsApp is great for privacy as well. It is now end-to-end encrypted since it recently adopted the Signal protocol [1]. It's cross-platform and more widely used on a global scale. [1] https://scontent-ams4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.8562-6/271639644_1080641699441889_2201546141855802968_n.pdf?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=ad8a9d&_nc_ohc=w2XzjqFKtScAX-fh6xD&_nc_ht=scontent-ams4-1.xx&oh=00_AT8ci3pSciBm9QsZk8kXbZWe1W4G4rbceiSsyVbVplwJ5w&oe=6269E8BD https://scontent-ams4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.8562-6/271639644_...

deleted 5y ago

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lawl 5y ago

It's pick your poison. The only reason I'm still on android is because at least I can (still) have root there. I'm saying still because of safety net. But if apple let me have root, i'd probably prefer an Apple over Google. Mobile phones and their user hostility is a cancer. I'm seriously considering using a full GNU/Linux handheld for mobile things i can do in a browser, and keep an android phone for app garbage that I only turn on if I need to use a banking app or something.

SergeAx 5y ago
"If you don't have a root privilege on your device - this is not your device" But even without root I can side load an app via APK on Android. This way my Telegram messenger almost always a version ahead Google Play.
- KronisLV 5y ago
  > But even without root I can side load an app via APK on Android. What about getting rid of the preinstalled "system" bloatware that may be present and outside of your control to remove without root?
  - SergeAx 5y ago
    It is annoying, but there is a "disable" option. They still will take some space on the device though.
dmead 5y ago
Is it seriously worth it for people to do stuff like this? I remember when stallman said he was giving the one laptop per child program a shot. Since the drivers for the wifi were non free he used some USB device instead. Last I read that lasted a few months because he got sick of it. I can't imagine adding all those steps to use a smartphone is any less annoying.
- lawl 5y ago
  > Is it seriously worth it for people to do stuff like this? For the vast majority, it probably isn't. Also, I'm not full RMS since I would consider using an iPhone which definitely has closed-source components :) I don't think it would be that much of a hassle to me, since I already don't use a lot of the "nice" apps etc. The way most people use their phone is quite alien to me. E.g. I much prefer old.reddit.com over a reddit app and/or constantly getting harassed with banners to use the app. I'm pretty sure it would remove extra steps for me, instead of add them, by letting me compute how I like to (GNU/Linux) instead of trying to compute like GNU/Linux on Android.

VWWHFSfQ 5y ago

From my experience if you stay on the Google flagship/Pixel line then everything is great. Pretty much every other vender is garbage and will screw you and you'll have the experience you're talking about.

tsupiroti 5y ago
I've found Nokia/HMD also okay.
freedomben 5y ago
I typically tell people if you want an apples-to-apples (no pun intended) comparison, you can't compare iOS to Android. You need to compare iPhone to Google Pixel. If iOS was open source and available for 3rd parties to roll-their-own, you wouldn't take a cheap "iPhone" maker and compare that against the latest Pixel Pro, so the reverse shouldn't be done either.
- afterburner 5y ago
  It seems though in the latest iteration at least, the Pixel 6 is actually worse than the Samsung S22. And frankly I've often felt like Samsungs were the flagship Android phones, not Google's phones.
  - freedomben 5y ago
    Kind of a late comment but I really do wish Samsung would make a serious attempt at a "stock android" type of device that was affordable, because I think they would kill it. Their phones have always seemed really high quality to me, but so expensive, and the S2 that I had back in the day was riddled with Samsung versions of apps that I didn't want.
    - afterburner 4y ago
      Samsung's A-series are excellent affordable phones.
5y ago

fsa3d4uyuiy 5y ago

Question about that: What I personally do most on my phone is browsing the web (when not at home, at home I can do that with a regular computer). On Android I can use Firefox with plugins to block ads, kill overlays, etc... and especially it has the reader mode AFAIK on iPhone you can only run one Apple-approved browser and all others are a skin around that, and it doesn't have plugins. To me browsing the web is unusable without those plugins in Firefox. How is browsing the web on an iPhone? Do you get overlays, autoplaying videos and ads on websites or can you block them? Do you get a reader mode?

scarface74 5y ago
Reader mode has been built into the iPhone version of Safari since 2010 and native support for third party “content blockers” since 2013.
ceejayoz 5y ago
My PiHole is a must for my iOS devices. Yes, there’s a reader mode.
- fsa3d4uyuiy 5y ago
  Typically I use my phone when not at home since at home I have a computer to browse the web of course. Is pihole installed on your iphone? Does it work when in a train, in a restaurant somewhere, etc...?
  - scrose 5y ago
    You can use pihole over a vpn. One common example is setting up Tailscale on Pihole and your phone and then you can set the dns on whatever Wifi you’re on to the Piholes private IP
kccqzy 5y ago
Yes there's a reader mode built in to the browser. Ad blockers are available since 2015, although these are declarative ad blockers. Custom web extensions are also available more recently; these can actually run custom JS.

grumpyprole 5y ago

But the iPhone only "just works" if you completely buy in to Apple's ecosystem. E.g. if you want to buy some FLAC music files from somewhere else, it won't "just work" anymore. Android is still the lesser of two evils in terms of allowing more choice on its platform.

MBCook 5y ago
> E.g. if you want to buy some FLAC music files from somewhere else, it won't "just work" anymore. The thing is nobody* does that. There are a few. That’s why I added the asterisk. But realistically very few people actually do it. Especially compared to the number of iPhones they sell every year. If you were using MP3 files, you wouldn’t have an issue. Or AAC. There might even be others. Apple really likes to make things easy, but they tend to only do it for the common case. That’s what gets the most use, that’s what makes the most people happy, that’s what they focus on. If you’re the kind of person who wants to do things that are far out of the mainstream you’re never going to be happy with an iPhone. You can use other apps as other people pointed out. But I wouldn’t expect this to ever work in Apple’s music player. It’s the same reason you can’t have root, re-theme your phone heavily, replace the dialer, or a lot of other heavy customizations. That’s not what they focus on. It’s just their ethos.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  > The thing is nobody* does that. Because it is difficult to do. > If you’re the kind of person who wants to do things that are far out of the mainstream you’re never going to be happy with an iPhone. FLACs are not the act of an extremist.
  - MBCook 5y ago
    > Because it is difficult to do. No, at this point I think the vast majority of people just use streaming services. The second biggest group, but probably much smaller, it’s people like me who both have a library and a streaming service. After that, smaller again, I would assume it’s people who have just a library. The majority of these are probably files bought from Apple and Microsoft and Amazon. Those are all formats that the iPhone can play. In last place is people who use more unique formats like FLAC. I understand why you would want it over the other formats. But I think it’s by far the least common case.

drewg123 5y ago

I did the same, roughly two years ago. I'd been Android since the Nexus One. The lack of commitment to long-term support is what did it for me. Between Apple's support for OS updates for much older hardware than Google, and the fact that we can get a phone battery replaced at an Apple store rather than a sketchy phone repair place is what did it for me. For me, the downsides are: - Notifications really suck. Everything has the same sound, unless the developer really cares. Its far harder to have custom alert sounds vs Android. - Garmin watch notifications can't be filtered. I realize this is partly Garmin's fault, since apparently competitors have worked their way around it. - I hate that "firefox" on iOS is a wrapper for Safari, and I can't use add-ons like uBlock

filoleg 5y ago
A minor note on your last point: since the last major iOS release, Safari now supports extensions. I use one for adblocking, for redirecting every AMP link to a non-AMP version of the page, as well as the one that automatically redirects every reddit link from a webpage to Apollo (a third party reddit app).
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  Try Brave Browser on iOS for ad blocking.

vmception 5y ago

na85 5y ago
>people have just resorted to ostracizing android users by co-opting iOS' "green bubbles" as a scarlet letter. What does this mean?
- vmception 5y ago
  iOS messaging has end to end encryption by default, when that is enabled the messages are shown within a "blue bubble". When this is not possible, it falls back to sending normal SMS, which can be read in plain text by third parties in the middle and has no encryption, when that occurs messages are shown within a "green bubble". Therefore, messaging android users shows a "green bubble". People know its both an android user and unencrypted. This also results in a worse messaging experience for the iOS users, as all of their other rich media is disabled and handicapped as long as that conversation involves an android user.
  - howinteresting 5y ago
    The thing is, zero people I regularly chat with (SF bay area) use iMessage. Most people in my US friend group use Signal, the rest use Facebook, and many of my international contacts use Whatsapp.
  - blacksmith_tb 5y ago
    Hmm, I have never heard anyone mention "knowing its... unencrypted" I doubt most iOS users would care about that, realistically. Note that the experience is bad in both directions (at least for me in Signal on Android I get to endure a lot of 'so and so loved whole-text-of-previous-message' instead of just a heart emoji - I see that GOOG has improved things Messages recently to parse those, at least)
    - vmception 5y ago

rejectfinite 5y ago

- Extremely slow and fragmented upgrade of OS. This resulted in substantially older features and security patches. Samsung phones does 4 years of updates now. - Privacy. iMessage’s encryption (though I stand by that it is gimmicky to only offer for iPhones, and I despise that) has a serious network effect. Apple is also far more transparent in what data they use, how they use it, etc. iMessage? Everyone here (Scandinavia) uses FB Mewssenger, Whatsapp, Telegram or Discord anyway. The data thing, sure - Ironically, price. At the time, the iPhone was cheaper than the equivalent Android phone. Thats fair. The big thing for me with Android is price (my Asus 5z from 208 still going strong) Customization, and I don't mean homescreen I mean that webbrowsers are not just Safari re-skins, Firefox has actual addons for excample, there is the Google playstore but I can also use F-Droid And there aren't really downsides to Android imo

Silhouette 5y ago
Samsung phones does 4 years of updates now. Four whole years? It should be outrageous that we might consider such a short period acceptable for devices as expensive and otherwise long-lasting as a high-end Samsung phone. That it is not really surprising at all is a sad reflection on how normalised shipping insecure connected devices with inadequate support has become. Obviously we don't yet know how to build 100% secure devices of this complexity but we are talking about some of the biggest businesses in the world here. There is little excuse not to require (by law if necessary) essential security updates for a much longer period given the reasonable useful life of the hardware and the rest of the software on it.
- sircastor 5y ago
  > Four whole years? It should be outrageous that we might consider such a short period acceptable for devices as expensive and otherwise long-lasting as a high-end Samsung phone. I mean, yes, but it wasn’t that long ago that Google had to get everyone to agree to at least 18 months. And the market would correct for that, but everyone was doing the same thing - abandoning a device mere months after its release. And from the manufacturers side it’s not hard to understand why the finance dept doesn’t want you to spend more money on a product that’s already been purchased.

shkkmo 5y ago

I've had pixels and motos for years and never really had any issue with being slow to receive updates. The real issue is the short lifespan of software support. It doesn't affect me personally because I lose / break phones often enough that I don't run into it. I just find deals on mid range phones that make them cheap to replace. I keep an eye on the libre phone space, so when I hopefully finally ditch android, it will be in that direction (unless perhaps regulations force Apple to open their walled garden, then we'll see.)

deleted 5y ago

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xvector 5y ago

> Specifically, I am envious of the people who have 120 FPS phones, they’re beautiful The new iPhone has 120 FPS.

lumb63 5y ago
I suppose my point was, at the time I got my phone, they didn’t. The flagship Galaxy did, though (not sure on Pixel).

Workaccount2 5y ago

Long time Google fanboy here, and I'm honestly a hair's breadth away from buying an iphone 13. I have had nexus/pixels phones since the gnex. I have evangelized android to for almost as long. I did ground work for google by pushing people into google's services. I have a day 1 pixel 6 pro. I pay for cloud storage and yt premium. But to me google is just falling apart. I feel like they have lost their technology drive in order to pursue ideological ones. Their tech has become all half-assed with poor/no support. I cannot trust anything they make to be supported in the future anymore. RCS is still a disaster, my one friend on Fi with a pixel 5a still cannot get it working and Google/Fi has pretty said "We don't know". I do not like Apple, but after almost 20 years a Google fanboy, I'm starting to like Google even less. So much so that I'll have to eat lots of shame from the many iphone people who questioned my android love for years. *If anyone can convince me otherwise, please do*. I feel like the best thing that could happen is disposing of Sundar and getting someone who can refocus google on being a tech company devoted to making the best tech products.

overview 5y ago
After reading your comment, my first thought was to tell you to be more open to change. Seriously, it’s just a phone… just try it out :) PS: I was the same as you (used Android, despised Apple) but eventually made the switch and never intend to go back.
adoxyz 5y ago
I switched from Google to Apple after being in the Google ecosystem since the early days of Android. I had pretty much every single Nexus, Pixel, and a variety of Samsung devices. But Google's lack of support, half-assed one-foot in one-foot out, and lack of support made me switch to Apple about 3 years ago and I've never been happier. Apple's ecosystem, while it doesn't offer as much, is a much superior and polished experience. iMessage works great, integration with Apple Watch is top notch, and the whole ecosystem is very fine-tuned. There are still a bunch of things to complain about, for sure, but overall comparing the two is a night and day difference. I've slowly started phasing out all my Google products.. and not by choice either. Had Google Nest and Nest Secure for over 3 years until Google decided to just cancel Nest Secure all-together. Google Home devices are increasingly being less and less effective. Google just can't seem to commit to anything longer than 2-3 years and I'm sick of it. I'd much rather deal with getting features much later but thoroughly thought out, then half-assed and cancelled in 2 years. I will say the one thing I do miss is native Google Assistant, Siri is complete ass in comparison.

layer8 5y ago

> The fact that the iPhone “just works” is worth it to me. While I’m firmly entrenched in the iPhone/iPad ecosystem, nowadays there’s quite a lot of little things that don’t “just work”, but instead behave (or are designed) in quirky and inconsistent ways, or fail randomly. I’m not talking about third-party apps, but iOS functionality and essential built-in apps. I can only imagine it’s worse on Android.

coolsunglasses 5y ago

My iPhone 13 Pro Max has 120 hz, so that feature is available. I don't mind that it was Android only for a bit, very little on that platform can actually render a non-static UI at that rate.

vetinari 5y ago
> very little on that platform can actually render a non-static UI at that rate. you would be surprised, try it sometime.
- kaba0 5y ago
  My friend’s brand new 1500 dollars flagship samsung gets sweared at constantly for failing to do so.
  - vetinari 5y ago
    That's interesting, even my father's 200 eur low end Redmi can do it. Not at all times, but quite impressive for a low end.

jrochkind1 5y ago

So... I'm curious, why were you spending a lot of time arguing vehemently that Android was superior, at the same time you weren't actually liking it yourself? [I have an Android phone, and don't love it or hate it.]

amiga-workbench 5y ago

I'd accidentally dropped my Mi Mix 2S in the bath and screwed the display, so while I waited a month for a new display & body to arrive from China I grabbed a refurbished Pixel 3a to hold me over. After seeing the absolute state of the Android 12 UI, I'm bailing out to a Pinephone Pro as soon as its viable.