11 ms·

Too little, too late for me... I hate to be the guy having those "hot takes" or whatever, but hear me out for a sec: I didn't get a cell phone until 2013. (Yes

by mholt 3y ago

Too little, too late for me... I hate to be the guy having those "hot takes" or whatever, but hear me out for a sec: I didn't get a cell phone until 2013. (Yes I used land lines until then.) It was a Nexus 4 (still love the grippy sides and sleek glass back). Every 2-3 years I traded up, all the way until Pixel 6. Tomorrow my first iPhone will be delivered. Why? A lot of reasons, but some are: - I can't just plug my Google phone into an external display to mirror it. Uh, hello?? DisplayPort out is explicitly disabled in the source code with no reason given: https://twitter.com/MishaalRahman/status/1189998588023234560 https://twitter.com/MishaalRahman/status/1189998588023234560 -- yet this works great in other phones. - I can't access my text messages from my Android phone (without a separate app like SMS Backup & Restore) -- go ahead, try it. Yeah, do an adb backup. Maybe rooting your phone would give you access, but it's impossible otherwise AFAIK. And I think rooting your phone deletes everything in the process. - I can't access my phone backup. It's ONLY stored on Google's servers. The only way to even get close is to restore it to a phone. This is a physical device I bought and literally am holding in my hand but can't access all the stuff on it! Did you know you can just plug in an iPhone into Windows or Macs and dump a backup to your computers? It's all right there, text messages, system settings, contacts, photos, databases, EVERYTHING (except maybe hardware-protected keys). It's amazing. - Do I even need to mention all the Google shenanigans? We all know what I'm talking about, right? The mess of messengers... the killing of various services, the lack of support, the stronger integration with ads and tracking. Apple's not perfect either, but I feel like it's worth a shot inside the walled garden for a bit. I like that some of these common sense things are not a problem with iOS: - Display out. - Accessing your own device. - Messaging that actually makes sense. - At least it feels like Apple cares about privacy; counterintuitively, I feel way more in control using Apple products than I do Google ones.

njroute22 3y ago
Why do you need to mirror your phone? Why do you want to access your messages? For what purpose? What do you need to backup besides (maybe) photos? Which is easy (drag and drop) anyway. Sounds more like you have some kind of device dependency beyond normality.
- teawrecks 3y ago
  I think when you say "why do you need to ____?" you think you're saying "what are you trying to do, and maybe there's another way to accomplish that", but what everyone hears is "you're right". And for the record, "because it's their device, not Google's" should be as good a reason as any.
  - njroute22 3y ago
    Actually I'm just wondering specifically why the need to do any of those things. Isn't the phone just fine as a standalone thing? I mean other than maybe exporting photos, videos, or sound to a more powerful and easier to use platform (such as a desktop)...
    - teawrecks 3y ago
      This is like asking, "why do you need a touch screen or internet on a phone in the first place? Neither are needed to make phone calls. Isn't a phone just fine as a standalone thing?" It's not 2005 anymore, a phone has all the computing power that most people need. In fact, most laptops are just phone boards these days. It's completely reasonable to ask that your hardware not be artificially limited by the software it's running so they can sell you a separate device that does the rest of what you need. In a perfect world, my phone is a supercomputer capable of doing everything I'll ever want in a fraction of a second. And the thing standing between my current phone and a perfect phone shouldn't be my insistence on having a separate giant desktop taking up more space than is necessary.
    - addaon 3y ago
      I do the NYT crossword on my iPhone. Not uncommonly, someone will start kibitzing over my shoulder. If there's a TV nearby, I throw the app up there, either with AirPlay or an HDMI cable. Because it's an iPhone, the app can detect that it's mirrored to a big screen and give an alternate layout for that screen; the NYT crossword app does an average job of this, giving a layout optimized for large 16:9 landscape displays. Makes two people (or ten) working on a crossword together much more pleasant. I'm not sure if this is a weird use case or not, but given the number of iPhone apps that I have both used and written that have special handling for TV mirroring to improve user experience... it can't be /that/ rare.
paulddraper 3y ago
> I can't access my phone backup. It's ONLY stored on Google's servers. What options do iPhones have for saving/restoring backups?
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > What options do iPhones have for saving/restoring backups? iCloud and local.
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    You can also do more granular backups with software like iMazing https://imazing.com/ https://imazing.com/
    - sharts 3y ago
      Ironically that website gives me ASP.NET vibes.
- mplewis 3y ago
  iPhone lets you manage backups from your computer. Learn more: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204136 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204136
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    Thanks!
- 0x38B 3y ago
  On Linux you can use libimobiledevice’s (1) idevicebackup2 to backup an iOS device. 1: https://libimobiledevice.org/ https://libimobiledevice.org/
DavidPeiffer 3y ago
I've been using android phones since 2009 and am highly considering a switch to Apple for the next one. Along with the reasons you state, the ecosystem is really messy. I've bought Nexus/Pixel phones for the last 10 years and continue to be bummed by their performance. Pixel 1 XL was fantastic, but after about 2 years the camera kept failing. 3+ seconds to load, and it would commonly crash. Ultimately the battery life degraded, and the replacement battery degraded within a couple months, so I moved on. The 3a fell out of my pocket and broke 2 months prior to the end of security updates. That was a decent phone overall, but not supported by Google as long as I would have liked. Pixel 6 Pro has been fine so far, but my wife has been having issues with her Pixel 5. Slow performance, unreliable cellular connectivity, etc. "Don't buy Pixel phones" could be the lesson here, but alternatives are arguably more of a security nightmare. My experience with Galaxy phones has been that they're preloaded with an incredible amount of junk that needs to be un-installed. With Pixel it's exclusively Google apps, most of which can be removed. That gives a smaller privacy and security concern than having 30 different companies with their apps pre-loaded (and possibly not removable). > Apple's no angel either IMO, but I feel like it's worth a shot inside the walled garden for a bit. I've hated on Apple a lot over the years and am disappointed that switching platforms seems like the best move after all these years.
- ttt3ts 3y ago
  Soon as I can sideload another browser with real AdBlock I am switching. Looks like the EU might force apple to allow it :)
  - mardifoufs 3y ago
    Yeah I have been using android for every single phone I've ever had, but I don't see the point once iOS allows sideloading. They have locked down android so much(I kind of understand why, but still) at this point that sideloading is pretty much the only difference now. So why go for android?
    - 0x38B 3y ago
      You can side load apps, but need a Mac or a MacOS VM and XCode. But without paying the $99/year developer program fee, apps have to be reloaded every week. I paid the $99, as I grew tired of reinstalling the tethering app or GBA/PSP emulator. If sideloading becomes easier, that’ll be a big win in my book.
teawrecks 3y ago
As someone who has been running de-googled android for years, I don't identify with any of your complaints. Good luck leaving that walled garden by going to apple.
- slashtab 3y ago
  There is nothing better than degoogled Android, or at least limiting google to some extent. Why choose one evil over another? Sure Apple device is more convenient but "Privacy", that's Joke. I get that people want convenience and feature but I would choose Google over Apple anyday, why? because it's not trying to lock me in.
colordrops 3y ago
Unlocking your phone wipes it. Rooting does not. I've used LineageOS + MicroG on a pixel phone and it's been great being free of Google spyware.
- dryanau 3y ago
  I've done this but have lost access to wireless payments (Google Pay). Any workarounds?
  - flangola7 3y ago
    Only fragile ones, and those will only work until google finally flips the switch and their servers stop validating anything less than true hardware-backed attestation.
    - bmicraft 3y ago
      Then we'll switch to patching the check out of those apps like is already possible for some with Revanced Manager
      - flangola7 3y ago
        You can't patch that out when it comes to hardware attestation. The entire bootchain is authenticated and you can't spoof it because the authentication mechanism and private key are is in the on-silicon enclave. Anything that's not authorized will fail attestation. You can't patch it out because it's an allowlist. Anything less than official signed boot + OS + apps + configuration + known good hardware private key will fail. It's about as easy as it would be for an ISP to inject code into an HTTPS page. The only reason anything works is because Google attestation servers still return a green light for evaluationType=BASIC. Once old devices become rare enough they'll only return a positive attestation for evaluationType=HARDWARE_BACKED. Go find try and find a single instance of anyone achieving HARDWARE_BACKED with less than a fully stock device. They are none. No amount of Magisk magic will make it work because it's all taken out of software's hands. Bypasses at that point look like electron microscopes and micro-electronics cleanrooms.
moonchrome 3y ago
I switch between both every few years, on iPhone 14 ATM. Honestly Android does a lot of things better - there's so many stupid "because Apple" things on iOS. For example it's impossible to tell the charging speed/estimated charge time, I have a lot of charging bricks between places and I can't tell if I picked an iPhone compatible fast charger/cable or not ? Or when I have Chrome/Firefox installed, highlight text and tap search the web - it takes me to Safari ? A lot of small annoyances like these where you can't do anything about it because the OS is so closed down. Android is way more customisable, easier to side load stuff (like running GBA emulator on iPhone). Also a lot more exciting phones in the Android ecosystem (eg. Samsung flip phones) I like the ecosystem integration with my Mac but I wouldn't say one is clearly better than the other.
- tEMporality7 3y ago
  Both ecosystems have their own pros and cons but I wouldn't trade my Pixel for an iPhone ever. In fact, I recently got a refurbished iPhone 13 just to check the ecosystem out (as a mobile dev) and get a feel for things but honestly I prefer my Pixel more. There are so many things that Android does well like notifications and typing (these two stood out to me on Apple - horrible implementations really, especially the latter) that it will always remain my primary driver. But yeah, if someone thinks that Android is not for them and Apple's walled garden is worth entering then or vice versa then whatever floats your boat, I guess.
  - rusk 3y ago
    Typing on iPhone is just such a bad joke.
    - TheHappyOddish 3y ago
      Typing on all touch screens is a bad joke. It's like you're comparing a dog turd with a cat turd.
      - rusk 3y ago
KomoD 3y ago
> - I can't just plug my Google phone into an external display to mirror it. Uh, hello?? DisplayPort out is explicitly disabled in the source code with no reason given This apparently changes with the Pixel 8 > - I can't access my text messages from my Android phone (without a separate app like SMS Backup & Restore) -- go ahead, try it. Yeah, do an adb backup. Maybe rooting your phone would give you access, but it's impossible otherwise AFAIK. And I think rooting your phone deletes everything in the process. > - I can't access my phone backup. It's ONLY stored on Google's servers. The only way to even get close is to restore it to a phone. This is a physical device I bought and literally am holding in my hand but can't access all the stuff on it! Did you know you can just plug in an iPhone into Windows or Macs and dump a backup to your computers? It's all right there, text messages, system settings, contacts, photos, databases, EVERYTHING (except maybe hardware-protected keys). It's amazing. This is not applicable for all Android phones > - Do I even need to mention all the Google shenanigans? We all know what I'm talking about, right? The mess of messengers... the killing of various services, the lack of support, the stronger integration with ads and tracking. No I don't, none of the dead services have impacted me, what mess of messengers? Lack of support for what?
- pests 3y ago
  I don't have an opinion but.. > what mess of messengers? Meet, Hangouts, GChat, Talk, Allo, Duo, Meet, Voice, Messenger. Fi and RCS barely. With various levels of integration, merging, and unmerging of the services over the years.
  - dryanau 3y ago
    I've been on Android for more than a decade, and I still don't know what I'm "supposed" to be using. I have switched out that stuff for third party apps a few years back. Was a disaster zone, I'm sure it still is.
    - pests 3y ago
      I hate to beat a dead horse but its been an issue even before Android. I had gmail in the inital invite-only launch back in 2004. They added their first real chat feature into gmail (back when gmail was the only google service you needed an account for) in 2006, 2 years before Android. I don't even know what they call that chat-inside-gmail these days. Talk? Chat? I remember it getting merged with Hangouts eventually and then un-merged. Or was that Voice? I was on Voice too as GrandCentral back before Google bought them. The mp3 ringback functionality which was the first feature lost in the purchase. Ended up reminiscing a bit there but its been a crazy ride in the Google sphere.
IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
1 - HDMI cable does the trick 2 - This until recently was not a problem if you had signal. 3 - Syncthing. it costs $0. 4 - iMessage ? You have to pick your poison, but a phone that actively forces you to update AND also blocks 3rd party apps from running AND forces proprietary cables that no other consumer device uses... seems like a nonstarter for me.
- jitl 3y ago
  The iPhone they bought uses USB-C
  - WithinReason 3y ago
    https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BR3M8XHK/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BR3M8XHK/
  - ranguna 3y ago
    But the option with display out cost more than 1000 usd
lmm 3y ago
A mess of messengers is a pain, but I'll take that over a messenger that only rich people can use, which is what you're signing up for with Apple. A few of the things you mention sound pretty annoying, but none of them are annoying enough to make up for not being able to write code on any computer I like, and run it on mine or my friend's phone, without paying a regular subscription and submitting to a reviewer who can just say no for any reason.
- hedora 3y ago
  The pay to write software thing is bullshit, but iPhone’s really aren’t more expensive than androids, per year. The 5g SE (2022) is $429 (or at least $100 less if you shop carrier deals), and the CPU is current android flagship-grade. You can get the 2020 model refurbished and unlocked at walmart.com for $70-$140. It probably has at least 2-3 more years of security updates, so the longevity is better than many new androids.
  - lmm 3y ago
    When you're poor you don't have the luxury of worrying about security updates, and your credit probably isn't good enough for those carrier deals. You use a phone until the battery explodes, and on that measure even the cheapest of new phones is going to outlast a refurbished anything.
  - askiiart 3y ago
    You're assuming 1) that people need a phone that fancy in the first place, and 2) that a phone's life is up once it stops receiving updates. The Moto G6, and that stopped receiving updates long ago, and was released in 2018 for about $100. I don't need much power, so I could easily get by with such an old, underpowered phone. I did for a while, but I did switch away because I was more phone-reliant at the time, and so an upgrade was needed. And I find the freedom of being able to install anything just from APKs, set another browser as my default, etc. as a huge value-add for Android. And yeah, the iPhone has more security updates, but that doesn't really matter to me. I only install reputable, and mostly open source, apps on my phone so I'm not really concerned about security. So in terms of value: there's the 2020 iPhone SE, with, say, 3 years left, for $120–$40 per year counting just the remaining years and using the current price at Walmart, or $300–$50 per year, assuming MSRP, a carrier discount of $100, and 6 years total. And the Moto G6, with just over of 5 years of life so far, and more value to me due to both the relative freedom of Android, and the fact that I'm used to and prefer Android, for $100–$20 per year. The choice seems obvious to me, for my purposes, but I can absolutely see why an iPhone is better for some people. By the way, fun fact: the Moto G6 has FM radio built-in! P.S. also, there's no way I'd risk becoming one of those arseholes that tries to make their whole family get iPhones so they can FaceTime, just because they can't figure out how to download another damn video calling app, despite being able to download all other apps just fine. Yes I'm looking at you, mother's half of my extended family.
rjh29 3y ago
A lot of your issues come from using a Google phone (Nexus/Pixel) rather than a different brand such as Samsung. Samsung can do external display mirror over USB, or let you use your external USB monitor as a second display (wirelessly too). It has no messaging bullshit. That said I have a Fold 4. iPhone aren't doing folding phones atm and they lock down the ecosystem so much I have zero interest.
- ranguna 3y ago
  Exactly my thoughts. The OP just seemed like they want an iPhone because they like it, not because of the excuses they posted. They are all solvable by simply picking a phone from another brand (except maybe for the messaging thing, I didn't quite understand that one).
xchip 3y ago
I'm thinking also about switching for some of the reasons you mentioned, but I learned thanks to you there are more good reasons.
pmontra 3y ago
I remember that I was able to mirror my phone to a TV with a USB cable. It's been years since I did it so I don't know if something changed. I don't know if I ever connected my current phone. I had phones from Samsung and Sony, never Google. Maybe they have different USB ports.
- pmlnr 3y ago
  That was gone in android 7, I think.
  - vetinari 3y ago
    In the past, some phones and tablets did support MHL. Today, some phones and tablets support DisplayPort alt-mode over USB-C.
charcircuit 3y ago
>DisplayPort out is explicitly disabled in the source code with no reason given https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/111044305 https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/111044305
- JoshTriplett 3y ago
  That link gives a permission error.
  - mholt 3y ago
    Same. @charcircuit want to give us a summary?
    - charcircuit 3y ago
      You have to be a Google employee to see it. I was pointing out that resolving that issue was the reason that was given for the change.
      - privacyking 3y ago
        And that issue was?
Elyra 3y ago
I've been on Google phones since the first nexus, with the exception of a single Samsung before swearing them off due to bloatware and awful performance degradation, despite being twice the price of the nexus, and am finally tempted to switch to an iPhone as well. The main things drawing me to the iPhone are: Live voicemail - don't have to deal with my carriers awful voicemail anymore, and it's way more practical than Android's Call Screen, because the Call Screen prompt is way too tedious to sit through, unprofessional if you're being called for an interview, and they know you're there. Live voicemail I can see it, optionally answer in the middle, it gets saved after, and the other party has no idea if I'm available or not. Apple Photo Memories - My girlfriend shows me them on her iPhone, they're cohesive and actually really enjoyable to watch, they look like they were professionally done, like what you'd pay someone to make or see an social media influencer post. Google Photo Memories look like random assortments of photos in a powerpoint presentation you made back when you were only 8. The apple watch is also better than the google watch. I still have to see what features I care about that I'll be losing before making the switch though. I still remember having to fight my iPod where the internal music db would always get corrupted and need to reset because I used MediaMonkey instead of iTunes since it was faster and had better transcoding and library management features.
- MaKey 3y ago
  I've been using my Samsung Galaxy S21 for two years now and don't notice any performance degradation. I feel that the bloatware you're speaking of is also minimal. It has far more features than an iPhone, e. g. Samsung DeX, which is actually quite interesting. The photo gallery app is good, I think you'd like its story feature. It has object recognition and creates small stories from pics of people, pets and certain days on which you took a few more pictures. I also like their new AI photo editor (Galaxy Enhance X). It gave me good results on overexposed pictures without me having to manually fumble around. The regular photo editor with its object eraser also comes in handy. If possible I suggest you try one of the new Samsung Galaxy S devices.
  - vetinari 3y ago
    More than decade ago, in 2011, my father had Galaxy S2 and I had Galaxy Nexus. Hardware-wise, they were comparable (Galaxy Nexus was something like Galaxy S2.1), but the former run TouchWiz and the latter vanilla Android. The latter was much more snappy, the former's performance did degrade. Now fast-forward almost a decode. I'm using Galaxy S10 since its introduction in 2019. TouchWiz is nowhere to be found. Samsung uses OneUI nowadays, which is actually pretty cool, and I prefer it to vanilla Android. Basically, I have as good experience with it, as you described.
petre 3y ago
Nexus user here as well. Of course you can accesss your stuff on it, just back it up with android debbugger (adb). If you're annoyed with the search box you can disable it or flash GrapheneOS or LineageOS. My partner is always having a hard time transferring her iPhone photos to her desktop. Finally gave up and bought iCloud storage. Apple has better integration with their peripherals though. No stupid app to use the heaphones, create other accounts etc. Their Apple Air Pods setup is just integrated in the OS. I have Sonys and absolutely hate their 4.7 star rated app, nags you to create an account and give it access to the camera in order to optimize your sound.
kristopolous 3y ago
These are all solvable on Android with a little bit of work. It's not packaged up and made shiny by the manufacturer, but that's why I like it. It's a decoupled experience where I've got control over it.
- lazycouchpotato 3y ago
  I have to sympathize with their post a bit. There's no reason for it to be "a little bit of work". Google is not some indie company. As much as I enjoy tinkering and having control over my device, sometimes I want things to just work. The Steam Deck and SteamOS are the what I consider the gold standard for this: SteamOS is very beginner friendly, but allows power users to access the Desktop mode and unlock its full potential. I've talked about this before on HN [1]. I cannot backup my Minecraft worlds on Android 13 without paying Mojang $4 for their server to act as an intermediary to transfer files, whereas people in the "walled garden" of iOS can access it via a file manager app or plug their phone into a computer and backup the worlds. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36350135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36350135
  - kristopolous 3y ago
    It's a company deciding what they will and what they will not do. If you want an all encompassing authoritarian provider, you have an option. But demanding that of everyone narrows the periphery and extinguishes the creative sparks of discovery Vendors should embrace diversity and not line up in compliance with whoever the perceived market leader is. This is called Error reinforcement: when a tech company makes a poor decision and their competitors copy them out of fear because they don't know it's a mistake. The original firm sees the copycat work as evidence they were right. See Google/Apple maps, iPhone/Android, Google/Bing etc This leads to service degradation, feature reduction, persumptive interfaces, poor defaults, hostile interfaces, and disliked products with no alternatives because everybody is racing to clone each other feature for feature assuming that everybody else knows what they're doing Any presumed market diversity from competition is then traded in for compliance, uniformity and conformity. So go buy your Apple device. Expecting everyone to be like Apple (or anyone else) is offensive to the craft of innovation
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
MayeulC 3y ago
Well, it sounds like you mostly have issues with Google (and Google devices). I'm pretty happy with my Fairphone 4 on LineageOS, personally. Murena also sells some degoogled out-of-the-box with /e/. I also like having root adb access on these systems (which btw, gives you access to the sqlite sms database). Screen mirroring via DP alt mode over USB-C works out-of-the-box and you can enable Android's "desktop mode", though it's rather barebones and clearly experimental. Plus, Fairphone supports their phone for a long time, they are easy to repair, they can run mainline kernels (postmarketOS...), etc. Of course, any Android phone still depends on Google for the OS. I'm with you on a lot of complaints regarding Google, though switching to Apple would feel like trading one evil for another: I would absolutely not describe an Apple cellphone as "mine", nor "accessing your own device" sounds like something Apple provides.
heartbreak 3y ago
Caveat that you have to have a device running macOS to do this: If you set up your Apple account to use iCloud to sync your messages, you will end up with your iMessage and text messages in the Messages app on your macOS computer. At that point the message content is easily retrieved from files on disk, should you choose to do so.
franga2000 3y ago
> Display out As you said, this is only a Pixel problem. Speaking of, have you tried Samsung Dex? > Accessing your own device Seriously? Apple basically invented the idea of not giving you full access to your "own" device. At least there's a file explorer now... > Messaging that actually makes sense Messaging under Apple is literally just messaging on Android plus iMessage. You still have SMS, like 50 common third-party messengers, all the Google ones, but then also this Apple-only thing. How is this better? If you want a better chat experience, look at Blackberry (yes, really!). You do have a point regarding privacy though, as most Android devices ship with at least Google's spyware, if not also their own...

by mholt 3y ago

njroute22 3y ago

Why do you need to mirror your phone? Why do you want to access your messages? For what purpose? What do you need to backup besides (maybe) photos? Which is easy (drag and drop) anyway. Sounds more like you have some kind of device dependency beyond normality.

teawrecks 3y ago
I think when you say "why do you need to ____?" you think you're saying "what are you trying to do, and maybe there's another way to accomplish that", but what everyone hears is "you're right". And for the record, "because it's their device, not Google's" should be as good a reason as any.
- njroute22 3y ago
  Actually I'm just wondering specifically why the need to do any of those things. Isn't the phone just fine as a standalone thing? I mean other than maybe exporting photos, videos, or sound to a more powerful and easier to use platform (such as a desktop)...
  - teawrecks 3y ago
    This is like asking, "why do you need a touch screen or internet on a phone in the first place? Neither are needed to make phone calls. Isn't a phone just fine as a standalone thing?" It's not 2005 anymore, a phone has all the computing power that most people need. In fact, most laptops are just phone boards these days. It's completely reasonable to ask that your hardware not be artificially limited by the software it's running so they can sell you a separate device that does the rest of what you need. In a perfect world, my phone is a supercomputer capable of doing everything I'll ever want in a fraction of a second. And the thing standing between my current phone and a perfect phone shouldn't be my insistence on having a separate giant desktop taking up more space than is necessary.
  - addaon 3y ago
    I do the NYT crossword on my iPhone. Not uncommonly, someone will start kibitzing over my shoulder. If there's a TV nearby, I throw the app up there, either with AirPlay or an HDMI cable. Because it's an iPhone, the app can detect that it's mirrored to a big screen and give an alternate layout for that screen; the NYT crossword app does an average job of this, giving a layout optimized for large 16:9 landscape displays. Makes two people (or ten) working on a crossword together much more pleasant. I'm not sure if this is a weird use case or not, but given the number of iPhone apps that I have both used and written that have special handling for TV mirroring to improve user experience... it can't be /that/ rare.

paulddraper 3y ago

> I can't access my phone backup. It's ONLY stored on Google's servers. What options do iPhones have for saving/restoring backups?

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> What options do iPhones have for saving/restoring backups? iCloud and local.
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  You can also do more granular backups with software like iMazing https://imazing.com/ https://imazing.com/
  - sharts 3y ago
    Ironically that website gives me ASP.NET vibes.
mplewis 3y ago
iPhone lets you manage backups from your computer. Learn more: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204136 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204136
- paulddraper 3y ago
  Thanks!
0x38B 3y ago
On Linux you can use libimobiledevice’s (1) idevicebackup2 to backup an iOS device. 1: https://libimobiledevice.org/ https://libimobiledevice.org/

DavidPeiffer 3y ago

I've been using android phones since 2009 and am highly considering a switch to Apple for the next one. Along with the reasons you state, the ecosystem is really messy. I've bought Nexus/Pixel phones for the last 10 years and continue to be bummed by their performance. Pixel 1 XL was fantastic, but after about 2 years the camera kept failing. 3+ seconds to load, and it would commonly crash. Ultimately the battery life degraded, and the replacement battery degraded within a couple months, so I moved on. The 3a fell out of my pocket and broke 2 months prior to the end of security updates. That was a decent phone overall, but not supported by Google as long as I would have liked. Pixel 6 Pro has been fine so far, but my wife has been having issues with her Pixel 5. Slow performance, unreliable cellular connectivity, etc. "Don't buy Pixel phones" could be the lesson here, but alternatives are arguably more of a security nightmare. My experience with Galaxy phones has been that they're preloaded with an incredible amount of junk that needs to be un-installed. With Pixel it's exclusively Google apps, most of which can be removed. That gives a smaller privacy and security concern than having 30 different companies with their apps pre-loaded (and possibly not removable). > Apple's no angel either IMO, but I feel like it's worth a shot inside the walled garden for a bit. I've hated on Apple a lot over the years and am disappointed that switching platforms seems like the best move after all these years.

ttt3ts 3y ago
Soon as I can sideload another browser with real AdBlock I am switching. Looks like the EU might force apple to allow it :)
- mardifoufs 3y ago
  Yeah I have been using android for every single phone I've ever had, but I don't see the point once iOS allows sideloading. They have locked down android so much(I kind of understand why, but still) at this point that sideloading is pretty much the only difference now. So why go for android?
  - 0x38B 3y ago
    You can side load apps, but need a Mac or a MacOS VM and XCode. But without paying the $99/year developer program fee, apps have to be reloaded every week. I paid the $99, as I grew tired of reinstalling the tethering app or GBA/PSP emulator. If sideloading becomes easier, that’ll be a big win in my book.

teawrecks 3y ago

As someone who has been running de-googled android for years, I don't identify with any of your complaints. Good luck leaving that walled garden by going to apple.

slashtab 3y ago
There is nothing better than degoogled Android, or at least limiting google to some extent. Why choose one evil over another? Sure Apple device is more convenient but "Privacy", that's Joke. I get that people want convenience and feature but I would choose Google over Apple anyday, why? because it's not trying to lock me in.

colordrops 3y ago

Unlocking your phone wipes it. Rooting does not. I've used LineageOS + MicroG on a pixel phone and it's been great being free of Google spyware.

dryanau 3y ago
I've done this but have lost access to wireless payments (Google Pay). Any workarounds?
- flangola7 3y ago
  Only fragile ones, and those will only work until google finally flips the switch and their servers stop validating anything less than true hardware-backed attestation.
  - bmicraft 3y ago
    Then we'll switch to patching the check out of those apps like is already possible for some with Revanced Manager
    - flangola7 3y ago
      You can't patch that out when it comes to hardware attestation. The entire bootchain is authenticated and you can't spoof it because the authentication mechanism and private key are is in the on-silicon enclave. Anything that's not authorized will fail attestation. You can't patch it out because it's an allowlist. Anything less than official signed boot + OS + apps + configuration + known good hardware private key will fail. It's about as easy as it would be for an ISP to inject code into an HTTPS page. The only reason anything works is because Google attestation servers still return a green light for evaluationType=BASIC. Once old devices become rare enough they'll only return a positive attestation for evaluationType=HARDWARE_BACKED. Go find try and find a single instance of anyone achieving HARDWARE_BACKED with less than a fully stock device. They are none. No amount of Magisk magic will make it work because it's all taken out of software's hands. Bypasses at that point look like electron microscopes and micro-electronics cleanrooms.

moonchrome 3y ago

I switch between both every few years, on iPhone 14 ATM. Honestly Android does a lot of things better - there's so many stupid "because Apple" things on iOS. For example it's impossible to tell the charging speed/estimated charge time, I have a lot of charging bricks between places and I can't tell if I picked an iPhone compatible fast charger/cable or not ? Or when I have Chrome/Firefox installed, highlight text and tap search the web - it takes me to Safari ? A lot of small annoyances like these where you can't do anything about it because the OS is so closed down. Android is way more customisable, easier to side load stuff (like running GBA emulator on iPhone). Also a lot more exciting phones in the Android ecosystem (eg. Samsung flip phones) I like the ecosystem integration with my Mac but I wouldn't say one is clearly better than the other.

tEMporality7 3y ago
Both ecosystems have their own pros and cons but I wouldn't trade my Pixel for an iPhone ever. In fact, I recently got a refurbished iPhone 13 just to check the ecosystem out (as a mobile dev) and get a feel for things but honestly I prefer my Pixel more. There are so many things that Android does well like notifications and typing (these two stood out to me on Apple - horrible implementations really, especially the latter) that it will always remain my primary driver. But yeah, if someone thinks that Android is not for them and Apple's walled garden is worth entering then or vice versa then whatever floats your boat, I guess.
- rusk 3y ago
  Typing on iPhone is just such a bad joke.
  - TheHappyOddish 3y ago
    Typing on all touch screens is a bad joke. It's like you're comparing a dog turd with a cat turd.
    - rusk 3y ago

KomoD 3y ago

> - I can't just plug my Google phone into an external display to mirror it. Uh, hello?? DisplayPort out is explicitly disabled in the source code with no reason given This apparently changes with the Pixel 8 > - I can't access my text messages from my Android phone (without a separate app like SMS Backup & Restore) -- go ahead, try it. Yeah, do an adb backup. Maybe rooting your phone would give you access, but it's impossible otherwise AFAIK. And I think rooting your phone deletes everything in the process. > - I can't access my phone backup. It's ONLY stored on Google's servers. The only way to even get close is to restore it to a phone. This is a physical device I bought and literally am holding in my hand but can't access all the stuff on it! Did you know you can just plug in an iPhone into Windows or Macs and dump a backup to your computers? It's all right there, text messages, system settings, contacts, photos, databases, EVERYTHING (except maybe hardware-protected keys). It's amazing. This is not applicable for all Android phones > - Do I even need to mention all the Google shenanigans? We all know what I'm talking about, right? The mess of messengers... the killing of various services, the lack of support, the stronger integration with ads and tracking. No I don't, none of the dead services have impacted me, what mess of messengers? Lack of support for what?

pests 3y ago
I don't have an opinion but.. > what mess of messengers? Meet, Hangouts, GChat, Talk, Allo, Duo, Meet, Voice, Messenger. Fi and RCS barely. With various levels of integration, merging, and unmerging of the services over the years.
- dryanau 3y ago
  I've been on Android for more than a decade, and I still don't know what I'm "supposed" to be using. I have switched out that stuff for third party apps a few years back. Was a disaster zone, I'm sure it still is.
  - pests 3y ago
    I hate to beat a dead horse but its been an issue even before Android. I had gmail in the inital invite-only launch back in 2004. They added their first real chat feature into gmail (back when gmail was the only google service you needed an account for) in 2006, 2 years before Android. I don't even know what they call that chat-inside-gmail these days. Talk? Chat? I remember it getting merged with Hangouts eventually and then un-merged. Or was that Voice? I was on Voice too as GrandCentral back before Google bought them. The mp3 ringback functionality which was the first feature lost in the purchase. Ended up reminiscing a bit there but its been a crazy ride in the Google sphere.

IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago

1 - HDMI cable does the trick 2 - This until recently was not a problem if you had signal. 3 - Syncthing. it costs $0. 4 - iMessage ? You have to pick your poison, but a phone that actively forces you to update AND also blocks 3rd party apps from running AND forces proprietary cables that no other consumer device uses... seems like a nonstarter for me.

jitl 3y ago
The iPhone they bought uses USB-C
- WithinReason 3y ago
  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BR3M8XHK/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BR3M8XHK/
- ranguna 3y ago
  But the option with display out cost more than 1000 usd

lmm 3y ago

A mess of messengers is a pain, but I'll take that over a messenger that only rich people can use, which is what you're signing up for with Apple. A few of the things you mention sound pretty annoying, but none of them are annoying enough to make up for not being able to write code on any computer I like, and run it on mine or my friend's phone, without paying a regular subscription and submitting to a reviewer who can just say no for any reason.

hedora 3y ago
The pay to write software thing is bullshit, but iPhone’s really aren’t more expensive than androids, per year. The 5g SE (2022) is $429 (or at least $100 less if you shop carrier deals), and the CPU is current android flagship-grade. You can get the 2020 model refurbished and unlocked at walmart.com for $70-$140. It probably has at least 2-3 more years of security updates, so the longevity is better than many new androids.
- lmm 3y ago
  When you're poor you don't have the luxury of worrying about security updates, and your credit probably isn't good enough for those carrier deals. You use a phone until the battery explodes, and on that measure even the cheapest of new phones is going to outlast a refurbished anything.
- askiiart 3y ago
  You're assuming 1) that people need a phone that fancy in the first place, and 2) that a phone's life is up once it stops receiving updates. The Moto G6, and that stopped receiving updates long ago, and was released in 2018 for about $100. I don't need much power, so I could easily get by with such an old, underpowered phone. I did for a while, but I did switch away because I was more phone-reliant at the time, and so an upgrade was needed. And I find the freedom of being able to install anything just from APKs, set another browser as my default, etc. as a huge value-add for Android. And yeah, the iPhone has more security updates, but that doesn't really matter to me. I only install reputable, and mostly open source, apps on my phone so I'm not really concerned about security. So in terms of value: there's the 2020 iPhone SE, with, say, 3 years left, for $120–$40 per year counting just the remaining years and using the current price at Walmart, or $300–$50 per year, assuming MSRP, a carrier discount of $100, and 6 years total. And the Moto G6, with just over of 5 years of life so far, and more value to me due to both the relative freedom of Android, and the fact that I'm used to and prefer Android, for $100–$20 per year. The choice seems obvious to me, for my purposes, but I can absolutely see why an iPhone is better for some people. By the way, fun fact: the Moto G6 has FM radio built-in! P.S. also, there's no way I'd risk becoming one of those arseholes that tries to make their whole family get iPhones so they can FaceTime, just because they can't figure out how to download another damn video calling app, despite being able to download all other apps just fine. Yes I'm looking at you, mother's half of my extended family.

rjh29 3y ago

A lot of your issues come from using a Google phone (Nexus/Pixel) rather than a different brand such as Samsung. Samsung can do external display mirror over USB, or let you use your external USB monitor as a second display (wirelessly too). It has no messaging bullshit. That said I have a Fold 4. iPhone aren't doing folding phones atm and they lock down the ecosystem so much I have zero interest.

ranguna 3y ago
Exactly my thoughts. The OP just seemed like they want an iPhone because they like it, not because of the excuses they posted. They are all solvable by simply picking a phone from another brand (except maybe for the messaging thing, I didn't quite understand that one).

xchip 3y ago

I'm thinking also about switching for some of the reasons you mentioned, but I learned thanks to you there are more good reasons.

pmontra 3y ago

I remember that I was able to mirror my phone to a TV with a USB cable. It's been years since I did it so I don't know if something changed. I don't know if I ever connected my current phone. I had phones from Samsung and Sony, never Google. Maybe they have different USB ports.

pmlnr 3y ago
That was gone in android 7, I think.
- vetinari 3y ago
  In the past, some phones and tablets did support MHL. Today, some phones and tablets support DisplayPort alt-mode over USB-C.

charcircuit 3y ago

>DisplayPort out is explicitly disabled in the source code with no reason given https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/111044305 https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/111044305

JoshTriplett 3y ago
That link gives a permission error.
- mholt 3y ago
  Same. @charcircuit want to give us a summary?
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    You have to be a Google employee to see it. I was pointing out that resolving that issue was the reason that was given for the change.
    - privacyking 3y ago
      And that issue was?

Elyra 3y ago

I've been on Google phones since the first nexus, with the exception of a single Samsung before swearing them off due to bloatware and awful performance degradation, despite being twice the price of the nexus, and am finally tempted to switch to an iPhone as well. The main things drawing me to the iPhone are: Live voicemail - don't have to deal with my carriers awful voicemail anymore, and it's way more practical than Android's Call Screen, because the Call Screen prompt is way too tedious to sit through, unprofessional if you're being called for an interview, and they know you're there. Live voicemail I can see it, optionally answer in the middle, it gets saved after, and the other party has no idea if I'm available or not. Apple Photo Memories - My girlfriend shows me them on her iPhone, they're cohesive and actually really enjoyable to watch, they look like they were professionally done, like what you'd pay someone to make or see an social media influencer post. Google Photo Memories look like random assortments of photos in a powerpoint presentation you made back when you were only 8. The apple watch is also better than the google watch. I still have to see what features I care about that I'll be losing before making the switch though. I still remember having to fight my iPod where the internal music db would always get corrupted and need to reset because I used MediaMonkey instead of iTunes since it was faster and had better transcoding and library management features.

MaKey 3y ago
I've been using my Samsung Galaxy S21 for two years now and don't notice any performance degradation. I feel that the bloatware you're speaking of is also minimal. It has far more features than an iPhone, e. g. Samsung DeX, which is actually quite interesting. The photo gallery app is good, I think you'd like its story feature. It has object recognition and creates small stories from pics of people, pets and certain days on which you took a few more pictures. I also like their new AI photo editor (Galaxy Enhance X). It gave me good results on overexposed pictures without me having to manually fumble around. The regular photo editor with its object eraser also comes in handy. If possible I suggest you try one of the new Samsung Galaxy S devices.
- vetinari 3y ago
  More than decade ago, in 2011, my father had Galaxy S2 and I had Galaxy Nexus. Hardware-wise, they were comparable (Galaxy Nexus was something like Galaxy S2.1), but the former run TouchWiz and the latter vanilla Android. The latter was much more snappy, the former's performance did degrade. Now fast-forward almost a decode. I'm using Galaxy S10 since its introduction in 2019. TouchWiz is nowhere to be found. Samsung uses OneUI nowadays, which is actually pretty cool, and I prefer it to vanilla Android. Basically, I have as good experience with it, as you described.

petre 3y ago

Nexus user here as well. Of course you can accesss your stuff on it, just back it up with android debbugger (adb). If you're annoyed with the search box you can disable it or flash GrapheneOS or LineageOS. My partner is always having a hard time transferring her iPhone photos to her desktop. Finally gave up and bought iCloud storage. Apple has better integration with their peripherals though. No stupid app to use the heaphones, create other accounts etc. Their Apple Air Pods setup is just integrated in the OS. I have Sonys and absolutely hate their 4.7 star rated app, nags you to create an account and give it access to the camera in order to optimize your sound.

kristopolous 3y ago

These are all solvable on Android with a little bit of work. It's not packaged up and made shiny by the manufacturer, but that's why I like it. It's a decoupled experience where I've got control over it.

lazycouchpotato 3y ago
I have to sympathize with their post a bit. There's no reason for it to be "a little bit of work". Google is not some indie company. As much as I enjoy tinkering and having control over my device, sometimes I want things to just work. The Steam Deck and SteamOS are the what I consider the gold standard for this: SteamOS is very beginner friendly, but allows power users to access the Desktop mode and unlock its full potential. I've talked about this before on HN [1]. I cannot backup my Minecraft worlds on Android 13 without paying Mojang $4 for their server to act as an intermediary to transfer files, whereas people in the "walled garden" of iOS can access it via a file manager app or plug their phone into a computer and backup the worlds. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36350135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36350135
- kristopolous 3y ago
  It's a company deciding what they will and what they will not do. If you want an all encompassing authoritarian provider, you have an option. But demanding that of everyone narrows the periphery and extinguishes the creative sparks of discovery Vendors should embrace diversity and not line up in compliance with whoever the perceived market leader is. This is called Error reinforcement: when a tech company makes a poor decision and their competitors copy them out of fear because they don't know it's a mistake. The original firm sees the copycat work as evidence they were right. See Google/Apple maps, iPhone/Android, Google/Bing etc This leads to service degradation, feature reduction, persumptive interfaces, poor defaults, hostile interfaces, and disliked products with no alternatives because everybody is racing to clone each other feature for feature assuming that everybody else knows what they're doing Any presumed market diversity from competition is then traded in for compliance, uniformity and conformity. So go buy your Apple device. Expecting everyone to be like Apple (or anyone else) is offensive to the craft of innovation

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MayeulC 3y ago

Well, it sounds like you mostly have issues with Google (and Google devices). I'm pretty happy with my Fairphone 4 on LineageOS, personally. Murena also sells some degoogled out-of-the-box with /e/. I also like having root adb access on these systems (which btw, gives you access to the sqlite sms database). Screen mirroring via DP alt mode over USB-C works out-of-the-box and you can enable Android's "desktop mode", though it's rather barebones and clearly experimental. Plus, Fairphone supports their phone for a long time, they are easy to repair, they can run mainline kernels (postmarketOS...), etc. Of course, any Android phone still depends on Google for the OS. I'm with you on a lot of complaints regarding Google, though switching to Apple would feel like trading one evil for another: I would absolutely not describe an Apple cellphone as "mine", nor "accessing your own device" sounds like something Apple provides.

heartbreak 3y ago

Caveat that you have to have a device running macOS to do this: If you set up your Apple account to use iCloud to sync your messages, you will end up with your iMessage and text messages in the Messages app on your macOS computer. At that point the message content is easily retrieved from files on disk, should you choose to do so.

franga2000 3y ago

> Display out As you said, this is only a Pixel problem. Speaking of, have you tried Samsung Dex? > Accessing your own device Seriously? Apple basically invented the idea of not giving you full access to your "own" device. At least there's a file explorer now... > Messaging that actually makes sense Messaging under Apple is literally just messaging on Android plus iMessage. You still have SMS, like 50 common third-party messengers, all the Google ones, but then also this Apple-only thing. How is this better? If you want a better chat experience, look at Blackberry (yes, really!). You do have a point regarding privacy though, as most Android devices ship with at least Google's spyware, if not also their own...