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- Extremely slow and fragmented upgrade of OS. This resulted in substantially older features and security patches. Samsung phones does 4 years of updates now.

- 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.
  - kaba0 5y ago
    But we are very very heavily in the diminishing returns area now. 5-7 years ago, next-year’s device might easily have doubled its performance, camera performance, etc, but nowadays a 3 years old high-end phone is perfectly adequate if it’s not deliberately crippled by software
  - Silhouette 4y ago
    I mean, yes, but it wasn’t that long ago that Google had to get everyone to agree to at least 18 months. Given that many new phones were bundled with two-year contracts it seems likely that consumer protection laws in many places would have meant a phone that was not properly supported for at least that long after the time of purchase would have fallen foul of fitness-for-purpose rules and potentially entitled customers to partial refunds or updated replacements. 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. Sure but again that's why we need consumer protection rules. Any security patch implies that the original product was defective. Buyers are entitled to reasonable corrective action if a defective product was sold to them. It may be unrealistic to release a product with no defects, and the corrective actions are typically intended to compensate for actual loss of value rather than being punitive, but the basic rules still apply.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  I mean that's twice as long as it was before? It's only 4 years if you buy it on the release date :) . I'm sticking with iphone for now.
fsdjkflsjfsoij 5y ago
> Samsung phones does 4 years of updates now. That's terrible.
- KronisLV 5y ago
  Hmm, seeing as even most desktop OSes out there aren't supported for much longer, i'm not sure whether things are terrible in that regard. Debian's EOL comes to mind, even Ubuntu LTS isn't supported for much longer, CentOS was supposed to be the more stable option but that didn't work out either. Though for some reason mobile devices are somewhat crippled in regards to upgrading to new OS releases versus their desktop counterparts: not being update from Android X to Android Y is the real terrible bit here. Not sure why on earth that should be acceptable or why the drivers should be such an insurmountable problem, wherein using anything but flagship phones with third party ROMs is a total mess (i've personally had everything from the touch screen to radio, to even Wi-Fi stop working).
  - kaba0 5y ago
    We are talking about the very crippling of devices. So having n years of updates means that the device will effectively die after that, which is a shame and frankly ridiculous at only 4 years.
throwawayboise 5y ago
Yep. There is one reason and one reason only I am on Android: price. A mobile phone does not have enough value to me to pay for Apple's least expensive phone.
- drdec 5y ago
  Exactly. I was recently talking to a guy who had had his iPhone stolen. But it was no big deal - he had replacement insurance and the deductible was only $200. Which is more than I have ever paid for a phone in my life.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
    I use an iPhone but I was surprised the OP mentioned price as a reason to switch.
    - rejectfinite 5y ago
      I buy unlocked. I would rather have a 10/month phone bill than a 40-50 one.
      - 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
        I buy unlocked too. But you can get a decent Android phone that does all the major things for far less than an iPhone.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    Price of phone shouldn’t be used as a barometer. It should be the price you end up paying per month when all is said and done.
    - Dayshine 5y ago
      I pay £10/3 months plus £200-300 every 4 years for a phone.
notreallyserio 5y ago
> Samsung phones does 4 years of updates now. That's really, really poor. I mean it's good for the Android ecosystem but their biggest competitor is at six+. edit: replaced "almost twice that number of years" with "six+".

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.
- kaba0 5y ago
  But we are very very heavily in the diminishing returns area now. 5-7 years ago, next-year’s device might easily have doubled its performance, camera performance, etc, but nowadays a 3 years old high-end phone is perfectly adequate if it’s not deliberately crippled by software
- Silhouette 4y ago
  I mean, yes, but it wasn’t that long ago that Google had to get everyone to agree to at least 18 months. Given that many new phones were bundled with two-year contracts it seems likely that consumer protection laws in many places would have meant a phone that was not properly supported for at least that long after the time of purchase would have fallen foul of fitness-for-purpose rules and potentially entitled customers to partial refunds or updated replacements. 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. Sure but again that's why we need consumer protection rules. Any security patch implies that the original product was defective. Buyers are entitled to reasonable corrective action if a defective product was sold to them. It may be unrealistic to release a product with no defects, and the corrective actions are typically intended to compensate for actual loss of value rather than being punitive, but the basic rules still apply.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
I mean that's twice as long as it was before? It's only 4 years if you buy it on the release date :) . I'm sticking with iphone for now.

fsdjkflsjfsoij 5y ago

> Samsung phones does 4 years of updates now. That's terrible.

KronisLV 5y ago
Hmm, seeing as even most desktop OSes out there aren't supported for much longer, i'm not sure whether things are terrible in that regard. Debian's EOL comes to mind, even Ubuntu LTS isn't supported for much longer, CentOS was supposed to be the more stable option but that didn't work out either. Though for some reason mobile devices are somewhat crippled in regards to upgrading to new OS releases versus their desktop counterparts: not being update from Android X to Android Y is the real terrible bit here. Not sure why on earth that should be acceptable or why the drivers should be such an insurmountable problem, wherein using anything but flagship phones with third party ROMs is a total mess (i've personally had everything from the touch screen to radio, to even Wi-Fi stop working).
- kaba0 5y ago
  We are talking about the very crippling of devices. So having n years of updates means that the device will effectively die after that, which is a shame and frankly ridiculous at only 4 years.

throwawayboise 5y ago

Yep. There is one reason and one reason only I am on Android: price. A mobile phone does not have enough value to me to pay for Apple's least expensive phone.

drdec 5y ago
Exactly. I was recently talking to a guy who had had his iPhone stolen. But it was no big deal - he had replacement insurance and the deductible was only $200. Which is more than I have ever paid for a phone in my life.
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
  I use an iPhone but I was surprised the OP mentioned price as a reason to switch.
  - rejectfinite 5y ago
    I buy unlocked. I would rather have a 10/month phone bill than a 40-50 one.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
      I buy unlocked too. But you can get a decent Android phone that does all the major things for far less than an iPhone.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  Price of phone shouldn’t be used as a barometer. It should be the price you end up paying per month when all is said and done.
  - Dayshine 5y ago
    I pay £10/3 months plus £200-300 every 4 years for a phone.

notreallyserio 5y ago

> Samsung phones does 4 years of updates now. That's really, really poor. I mean it's good for the Android ecosystem but their biggest competitor is at six+. edit: replaced "almost twice that number of years" with "six+".