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Reading this reminded me of two recent experiences I've had with Apple products, myself being solely a Windows and Linux user my whole life. 1. Friend gave me
by toastercat 3y ago
Reading this reminded me of two recent experiences I've had with Apple products, myself being solely a Windows and Linux user my whole life.
1. Friend gave me his old iPhone. I'm already happy with my current Android phone, so decided I would turn into a Retro emulation machine. I went to install Retroarch only to find that the steps for installing Retroarch on iOS is convoluted, doesn't allow auto update of cores, must be sideloaded with AltStore unless you have a jail broken phone, and apps installed with AltStore expire after 7 days if you don't pay $100/year to Apple for a developer account. I gave up and the phone is collecting dust in a drawer now.
2. Mom has an iPhone with 512GB storage that she filled with photos and videos. She's not keen on the iCloud pricing. No worries, I'll just back up her photos on her 2TB laptop I bought her a while back. Simple right? Just transferring files from one device to another just 2 inches away with a USB cord. Nope. iPhone won't give me access to those photos from her PC because it's Windows. Let me try the Windows photo backup tool... failed, crashes, and iPhone disconnects. OK someone told me I can backup photos using iTunes, lets get that started. Oh wait, Apple encrypts the files in some proprietary format when I back them up. Let me just use what iCloud storage she has, back them up in batches and... oh she has the free tier, 5GB. That will take ages and its damn ridiculous that I have to rely on a cloud middleman to transfer files to a device sitting literally next to the iPhone. OK my last resort, I'll install Syncthing... oh... no Syncthing for iOS.
What ended up working was a $5 app on the AppStore called Moebius that is just a wrapper around an outdated Syncthing. The most frustrating experience were the amount of people online whose solutions were "just pay for iCloud bro!” The entire reason I'm doing this is to NOT do that.
Anyway, after those two experiences, I swore off Apple products. Not for me, and apparently not for normal people like my mom either.
- realusername 3y ago> "just pay for iCloud bro!” The entire reason I'm doing this is to NOT do that. Even if you do pay for iCloud you have essentially no way to know what's going on apart from owning a Mac or using iTunes. There's not even a basic progress bar on the iPhone of what's being backed up there or not.
- skydhash 3y ago1. A quick research would have shown that Apple don't support sideloaded software on iOS 2. I see that Photos on iOS has an "Export Unmodified Original" on the share sheet that send the picture to Files. So you could probably connect to SMB share and export that way. I agree that Apple products are not for you. But Apple has always specify a Right Way (tm) to use their products. You either like it or not. Anything else will be an hack.
- toastercat 3y ago1. Yes, if it wasn't clear, I realized this in my attempts to install Retroarch. It was unintuitive to me as someone who uses Windows, Linux, and Android where I can install and run whatever I want to. 2. Chances are that was not obvious to me, or I tried and had no success. This was a while ago, so I may have forgotten other things I attempted. Still, I'm dumbfounded that these amazingly innovative silicon valley companies have failed (or refused) to make transferring files between devices simple. You're right about Apple having their "Right Way". I think it's an absolute dogshit way, but I guess that's why they call it a walled garden.
- skydhash 3y agoI would absolutely love for companies to embrace standards and interoperate better. Apple products' limitations never make sense other than "Profit". But AFAIK, their products work well together. And I agree it's painful when you're not invested in the ecosystem. But their focus is that ecosystem and I can understand their line of business.