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Google's long term strategy with Android is baffling to me. Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Apple has higher consumer trust. Apple has better ap

Google's long term strategy with Android is baffling to me. Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Apple has higher consumer trust. Apple has better app selection (for most people). Apple has been increasingly implementing the core features that differentiate Android devices, like USB-C and RCS. Every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share is another customer Google has to pay exorbitant fees to a competitor to access. And Google's strategy is to continue removing differentiating features from Android that also help them mitigate the threat of antitrust? Surely the marginal revenue from the inconsequential number of sideloading users isn't attractive enough to justify that kind of strategic blunder.

3abiton 9mo ago
Their strategy is growing markets, especially in india, and africa, and of course China. It's where the chinese oem dominate. Beside chinese OEM, i think the only other player is Samsung. So google strategy seems to be to circumvent people from misusing their OS by blocking certain services (mainly ads). This is done via apps from fdroid, and rooting and what not. If google can control how people uses their devices (block vpn based adblocking, or rooting all together), they have better grip on the market. At the end of the day, Android is front for an ad platform.
- thaumasiotes 9mo ago
  > [Google's] strategy is growing markets, especially in india, and africa, and of course China. Really? China? Where Google services are banned and Android phones come with local OS versions that cut them out? "High-friction sideloading" won't affect anyone in China. It won't be part of their experience at all.
  - londons_explore 9mo ago
    I think OP is suggesting that the ability to sideload is what is preventing their phones being distributed in China. If you can present a "locked down" phone to regulators, you might be more likely to get permission to sell large volumes of them - like iPhones in China.
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
    - pmontra 9mo ago
      But there still won't be Google Services so what extra money is Google to make there? The markup on hardware. But they have to compete with local manufacturers with the very same OS. At least Apple is the only manufacturer selling phones with iOS.
    - thaumasiotes 9mo ago
      > I think OP is suggesting that the ability to sideload is what is preventing their phones being distributed in China. This comment is insane in several different ways. There's nothing preventing Google's phones from being distributed in China. They already are distributed in China. Those phones won't come with the vendor OS installed; they'll come with an OS that works without a hitch in China. One of the modifications to the local OS will be to make sideloading trivial, since that's how you're expected to install apps. If you did start selling phones with a stock Android OS in China, those phones wouldn't work because their connections to Google services would all be blocked.† The reason for that block has nothing to do with sideloading or even with phones. It's going to stay in place. † In my experience, it's still possible to receive pushes from Google while you're in China. For example, you can't connect to the Play Store, but if you visit the Play Store in a browser on a different device that can dodge the Great Firewall, and tell it that you want to install something to your phone, Google will reach out and make the install to your phone even if your phone isn't dodging the firewall.
silisili 9mo ago
I have a feeling, despite Google's communications, this is all an attempt to thwart the numerous ad-free YouTube apps. Another reason it should have been broken apart years ago. It's laughable that the biggest ad company in the world owns the largest video site in the world, largest browser in the world, largest search engine in the world, and largest mobile OS in the world.
- vee-kay 9mo ago
  NewPipe (FOSS available on F-Droid) is nice alternative to ads-infested YouTube. I disabled YouTube and YouTube Music apps on my mobile, and I use NewPipe instead. You can even download YT videos or audio from YT videos using it.
  - thaumasiotes 9mo ago
    What's going on with NewPipe? Their F-droid repository is down. Their domain is down. Their github repository is up, but it links to their domain, which isn't. Are they dying?
    - shscs911 9mo ago
      Seems like a DNSSEC screw-up. You can find more details here. https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/website/issues/420#issuecomment-3791439828 https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/website/issues/420#issuecomme...
  - ycombinatrix 9mo ago
    I'm using Grayjay at the moment. Somehow still available in the play store (though with reduced feature set).
  - McDyver 9mo ago
    I'm using Pipepipe. I believe it's a fork from NewPipe, and has more features, namely skipping sponsor block, and intros
    - 9mo ago
jacquesm 9mo ago
Why the surprise, they do the same with search, they do the same with their Google workspace (the degree to which they are pushing AI is really hurting the product). Google stopped being aware of their customer's needs a really long time ago, they are so arrogant they think the audience is now fully captive.
- chii 9mo ago
  > they think the audience is now fully captive. the audience is captive. Do you have a choice to move from android, if you didnt want to have an apple device? Do you want to use a different search engine other than google? Is there another email provider than gmail (for the non-technical person - i know you can run your own). Is there another browser other than chrome (and dont say firefox or edge - because both don't compete)? Google behave in ways that they think makes them more profit. When users cannot migrate (nor even threaten to), then it simply means they can do this.
  - szundi 9mo ago
    [dead]
  - kristopolous 9mo ago
    Once an alternative to one of their things, like immich, becomes viable, people run as fast as they can. The strategy of doing everything you can to make sure your customers truly and utterly despise you and want to spit in your face is probably not productive.
  - csomar 9mo ago
    > Do you want to use a different search engine other than google? I've been on Kimi now for 3 months. I rarely used Google in that time. Kimi is largely free though sometimes when I run of the free quota I fallback to DeepSeek/Perplexity. I have no idea where they are getting their index from though. > Is there another email provider than gmail (for the non-technical person - i know you can run your own). There is microsoft/apple/yahoo mailboxes. However, I think most people should pay for their email especially that it's cheap and also critical (2FA). > Is there another browser other than chrome (and dont say firefox or edge - because both don't compete)? Firefox is a solid fallback and also webkit (Apple) is now basically a different browser (ported to Linux on GNOME Web). Not the best situation though it could be worse (given Firefox situation). For me personally, the only two things I still use Google for are chromium and maps. I am unlikely to move from Chromium anytime soon but might consider alternative for maps (though might still need maps for reviews/photos/street view). I am the most bullish I've ever been on Google losing its monopoly especially after they botched AI and hyper-scaling.
pjmlp 9mo ago
Except only a few countries in the world have wages where their citizens can afford Apple. While I can afford Apple, out of principle I am not buying anything above 300 euros, that requires me to also buy another computer for hobby coding, and a dev license. All my use of Apple hardware is via projects where pool devices are assigned to the delivery team.
- necovek 9mo ago
  Mobile providers usually offer loans ("service contracts") where people get phones outside their financial standing (I regularly see high end iPhones and foldable phones of €1-2k run by people in a country where average monthly salary is less than €1k): if a highly visible device like your phone can be had for 10% of your monthly salary, people will, unfortunately, opt for it. I tend to not use Apple not due to cost (I honestly believe it's OK to pay a premium for quality; I might disagree they offer it today though, as I do use a couple of their devices at work), but because of how closed their ecosystem is (and yes, all my personal devices are running some sort of Linux, and Android phones are rooted and with bootloader unlocked).
  - pjmlp 9mo ago
    Many countries prefer the freedom of pre-pay/post-pay than being bound by contracts though. Not everyone has the US culture of running their life on credit. Because when life changes, it isn't only their phone they lose. The only single time I had a contract, because it was the only way to get a Nokia N70, I learnt never to do another one ever again.
    - necovek 9mo ago
      Are you sure it is your whole country or it's you? I mostly buy my phones outright too, but I am under no impression that everybody else does it as well.
      - grishka 9mo ago
        In my country, for example, buying phones from carriers as part of your plan just isn't a thing. As in, you couldn't do it even if you wanted to. Same for postpaid plans and contracts. As a result, quite a lot of people use the "I can't believe they could make and sell an entire phone at this price" Xiaomi and similar phones.
Guestmodinfo 9mo ago
Because antitrust laws are strong in a few countries. While most of the 2nd or 3rd world antitrust laws are non existent. Google's strategy is to squeeze those markets. They have higher population too and hence many more advertising to sell and much more control of the "online experience" in those countries.
yieldcrv 9mo ago
This is a legitimately crazy take, yes the differentiations are less but how we got there isn’t so altruistic I’m firmly in the Apple ecosystem and every one of those examples were not Apple’s unilateral decision I think seeing the noose circling around both Apple and Google’s necks better explains the quagmire that Google is in Apple was getting ahead of a European consumer protection ruling to switch to a single interoperable cable, USBC was there Apple and Google worked to make RCS better for years, as Apple was ignoring it and Google was using a non-standard RCS
onli 9mo ago
I don't see any iOS advantage with the apps anymore. That was maybe true in the very beginning, during the gold rush time of the app store. But not since then. In which category are there better iOS apps? Browsers? No, strictly worse. Youtube app? No, worse. Texting? Worse or equal (Whatsapp). Podcast client? I assume worse, since there is no Antenna Pod. Social media apps? The iOS variants of those apps are afaik in no way better. What else is there, where is the advantage? Also, while the Play store is an equally ad-riddled and unsearchable hellhole, at least Android does have with F-Droid a high quality alternative. iOS has nothing. But sure, removing the F-Droid advantage can only hurt Android, the direction of your comment still stands.
- karlgkk 9mo ago
  Honestly, you’re so wrong about the app situation that it’s almost staggering. iOS apps tend to be more stable, better polished, have better integration with system features (like the Dynamic Island), and even often have more features. This isn’t even an unfounded opinion, it’s a material problem for Google and led them to vastly investing in automated testing and quality efforts App addressable user base is another problem for Google, one that they have mentioned in developer conferences. It’s a big part of why they’ve been trying to ship a tablet and unify android and Chromebook. If Google isn’t careful they could find themselves in a downward spiral situation, stuck between apple on one side, and android forks on the other. And the last answer is, as always, money - browser is deemphasized on iOS, and so it’s weaker feature set matters less - iOS is generally easier to develop for because of less device differentiation - on average iOS has significantly wealthier users who tend to be higher return or paying customers (seriously, look it up). This in turn leads companies to invest more heavily in iOS. - easier integration due to a narrow system services ecosystem (no Google vs Samsung slapfights) - unified platform advantage (apps written for iOS easily port to the watch and tablet, unlocking larger markets, and justifying greater spend in developing apps) - apples review process is significantly stricter (for better or for worse) Yes, Apple doesn’t have something like fdroid, and that’s really disappointing and honestly a legitimate dealbreaker for a lot of people
  - wiseowise 9mo ago
gambiting 9mo ago
>>Apple has had better mobile hardware for years Are you joking? Look at the latest Xiaomi, Oppo and other Chinese manufacturers, Apple would love to have the hardware they are shipping right now. From batteries to cameras and screens, apple is way behind on hardware tech. Yeah they are better than Samsung - but Samsung has also massively fallen behind what's the state of the art. >>is another customer Google has to pay exorbitant fees to a competitor to access. Last time I checked, it's apple paying Google, billions of dollars a year? And it will be even more now that Apple announced they are going to use Gemini as their AI base model.
- swiftcoder 9mo ago
  > Last time I checked, it's apple paying Google, billions of dollars a year? You checked wrong. Google pays Apple on the order of $20 billion to be the default search on iOS - this is so significant it accounts for ~5% of Apple's annual revenue
- trinix912 9mo ago
  > Look at the latest Xiaomi, Oppo and other Chinese manufacturers, Apple would love to have the hardware they are shipping right now. This is true, but their phones don't ship with Google services out of box (at least the last time I checked). So in reality, "Google's Android" is really mostly Samsungs and Pixels.
  - socialcommenter 9mo ago
    They do when purchased outside China (largely EU, UK, also Singapore and others)
    - trinix912 9mo ago
      They don't in the EU. Not in Slovenia, so not the entire EU. I've seen it first hand. It's also not some special law that we'd have invented here so I'm pretty sure there are other EU countries where it's the same.
RobotToaster 9mo ago
What confuses me is that easy "sideloading" has been the main thing that kept down the proliferation of degoogled custom ROMs.
- spwa4 9mo ago
  Well you misunderstand enshittification. It will never get better again. Both Google and Apple have enshittified their phones. You can verify this on the App Store, on the Play Store, both of which have now more than 50% of search result screen space dedicated to ads, more when it comes to scams [1]. AND you can verify this in the financial statements of Apple and Google, where you see what we've always seen in Google: steadily increasing at a fixed rate profits from ads on the play store in Google's case, and steadily increasing at a fixed rate profits from "Services", which is App Store ads. In Apple's case this has been the only Apple business to grow at all in several of the recent years. In fact there's quite a few Apple businesses that look like they are "revenue neutral", most famously iPads. Google is better, but not by much. Cloud is growing fast ("but why?" is a question that's unanswered. I mean, "because of AI", of course, but ... seriously?) So not only are they enshittified, and you see them getting worse and worse over time, but the financial statements show: if you're expecting this to get any better either in the Apple or Google case, you're insane. Because clearly ads for scams are worth it for advertisers, and most other types of ads are not worth it. The situation evolves more and more towards the cable channel situation of 20 years back. You could also reverse the view. The simple question: "are people willing to compromise on hardware quality to get less ads?" has a very clear NO answer. "Are governments/institutions that are totally dependent on these systems willing to pay to either improve phones or make an alternative available?", again has boatloads of evidence that the answer is NO, in all caps. [1] Search for "credit card" or "lose weight" and judge for yourself. Top results are promoting Apple or Google themselves, everything else are ads, and very bad deals that trivially will neither accomplish the promised financial independence nor weight loss. Or should I put it like this: the credit card deals advertised are so bad they might achieve weight loss. By the way ads designed to mislead, which the top ads for either search obviously are, are what both Google and Apple promised time and again never to do.
- direwolf20 9mo ago
  Secure boot prohibits custom ROMs on most android devices
xg15 9mo ago
> Surely the marginal revenue from the inconsequential number of sideloading users isn't attractive enough to justify that kind of strategic blunder. If the rumors are true that the whole anti-sideloading thing is mostly because some governments complained, it might not have to do with a business strategy at all.
- vbezhenar 9mo ago
  Why not limit these restrictions to these specific locations? Surely there's already lots of location-specific and carrier-specific customizations like shutter sound in Japan, different radio frequencies and many more. It still sucks for those who live in these countries, but at least they know who to point their finger at.
direwolf20 9mo ago
Apple makes a lot more money. Google wants to do what Apple does, to make more money like Apple. Google might also get paid to enable surveillance.
StopDisinfo910 9mo ago
> Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Well no, Chinese phones are above Apple material-wise (better battery, better cameras, better cooling) and on par SoC-wise since last year. That's what makes Google's strategy so baffling. > Apple has better app selection (for most people). It's entirely the same. I have gone back and forth regularly for the past 10 years. Android is completely on par app-wise. Apple has the iMessage lock-in in the US obviously but not in the rest of the world. Apple might have a slight advantage on the pro segment with the iPad but I don't think it has a huge impact on phones. The really baffling thing to me is that while they lock down Android, they pay to put Gemini on iOS. Google has a real competitive advantage with IA and they just gave it to Apple. It's clear to me that they are two companies fighting each other inside Google: the ex-Motorola who wants to be Apple and the service side who wants to be Microsoft. I personally fear that they are making the bed of the regulators who will probably come for Play Protect at some point to open the door for alternative OS providers at least in Europe. But maybe they think it's coming anyway and are strengthening their position and trying to milk what they can in the meantime.
- HWR_14 9mo ago
  > they pay to put Gemini on iOS. Google has a real competitive advantage with IA and they just gave it to Apple. What Google loses by pushing iOS AI customers to ChatGPT outweighs what they gain by trying to convince people to switch phones for access to Gemini.
- manuelabeledo 9mo ago
  How are they on par SoC-wise? Last time I checked, Qualcomm was still trying to catch up to Apple.
  - StopDisinfo910 9mo ago
    Well, recheck. Both Qualcomm and Mediatek have caught up on the phone SoC market. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 has a slightly better CPU than the A19 Pro but a slightly worse GPU. Apple has a very slight advantage in watt usage but that's more than offset by the battery gap. Same thing with the Dimensity 9500. The SoC market is now extremely competitive.
ulfw 9mo ago
Thinking Apple hardware is better is utterly laughable when you look at non-US Android devices. Much better camera sensors, much better silicon carbon batteries etc in Oppo, Vivo, Honor and Xiaomi devices than anything Apple produces. Form factors Apple still hasn't figured out, such as 7th gen Foldables, Flip foldable phones etc, Camera zoom lenses that can be attached...
patrickk 9mo ago
Apple only implemented USB-C due to pressure from the EU. One area Android has a clear advantage is Android TV devices verified by Google, because there is a much wider array of streaming apps of all kinds available. However google doesn’t seem to focus on this very much, and if you look for forum recommendations for google android streaming devices it’s very often the NVIDIA shield pro from 2019. Hopefully that device will I’ll be supported for a few more years because there seems to not be good easily available alternatives.
- xattt 9mo ago
  The killer apps that gave Android an advantage on TV are now mostly available on tvOS. To me, these were VLC and RetroArch.
- JasonADrury 9mo ago
  Apple was among the first to implement USB-C in early 2015. A whole year before Samsung and the likes.
  - freerk 9mo ago
    But not on mobile. First iPhone with USB-C was iPhone 15 released late 2023. The Google Nexus 6P phone had USB-C in 2015, 8 years earlier.
    - JasonADrury 9mo ago
      Sure, but the claim that "Apple only implemented USB-C due to pressure from the EU." is simply ridiculous. Apple implemented USB-C at a steady pace across their entire product lineup, as is demonstrated by the timeline below: 2015: 12in MacBook with USB-C released 2016: MacBook pro switches to USB-C 2018: iPad Pro switches to USB-C 2020: iPad Air switches to USB-C 2021: iPad Mini switches to USB-C 2022: iPad switches to USB-C 2023: iPhone switches to USB-C If Apple only implemented USB-C because of pressure from the EU, you'd presumably be able to see a gap in that list during the period of Apple allegedly not implementing USB-C. There is no gap, because Apple was steadily moving users to USB-C since 2015. It feels really silly to be spending time defending Apple over this, but the EU certainly does not deserve credit for iPhones having USB-C. I'm sure there are politicians who'd love for you to believe that, but it's simply dishonest propaganda.
andrekandre 9mo ago
> And Google's strategy is to continue removing differentiating features from Android they see apples recurring revenue and lust over it, and the correlation is the walled-garden and they want it too personally, it makes me less enthusiastic about android as i don't need another iphone but n=1, so maybe it will work out for them....
rvba 9mo ago
People who are reaponsible for Android all use Google phones. They dont care about android. They dont use it. They dont understand their use cases. If you are hired by a manufacturer of say cola, you cannot drink the competition cola. Those in google laugh when asked to show their phones - and then show iphones. In any other business they would be terminated.
- pbalau 9mo ago
  I think an edit is in order, as your post, in the current form, doesn't make any sense.
  - jerojero 9mo ago
    He's saying people at Google use iPhones. I don't know if that's true, but the times I've visited silicon valley I didnt see many android phones.
    - Scene_Cast2 9mo ago
      You're typically issued a corporate phone, it's the only phone that can open work email. You have a choice between an Android (something like a Pixel and a Samsung) and an iPhone, with some companies incentivising Androids with things like a faster upgrade cycle or more premium trims. The culture is split between having just the one free corporate phone and having two phones - one personal, one corporate.
      - rvba 9mo ago
        There are lots of examples of Android team employees who are proud of using only Apple phones. Check the "socially inept tech roast show" - where people from those teams demonstrate their ignorance and hatered towards own products and users. Since they dont use them, they dont see nor care about bugs. Meanwhile if you work for a cola company and they catch you drinking competing product you will get fired (your contract bans you fron that). Same for many other products. I understand using an Apple phone to learn what it does / its featurs, but those Android employees dont use Android at all. And it shows
lucideer 9mo ago
I'm similarly baffled for the reasons you state but your breakdown of the market differentiations is a little hyperbolic. > Apple has had better mobile hardware for years Apple has never had better hardware (on mobile). Apple has had better software support & integration for their hardware that has lead to e.g. strong camera quality advantages (iOS camera app has been able to use the hardware better to produce photos people want despite some Android OEMs having objectively better camera modules since those OEMs have to work through a lot of Google contracts & software extraction). The hardware has never been better - their holistic ecosystem has just made integrations with it smoother. > Apple has better app selection (for most people) This has been true but it's always been marginal, & the "for most people" qualifier has contracted significantly in recent years. Both Google's & Apple's 1P offerings have declined in quality & popularity, but Google have increased lock-in & reliance on theirs in ways Apple can't, while the 3P offerings on Android have improved significantly relative to iOS. Gone are the days of companies releasing exclusively on iOS, or the Android version being an afterthought with missing features - if anything it's swung in the other direction. To be clear, I think your points still stand: Google's recent strategy doesn't make sense for Google. I just don't think it's as glaringly clear cut as you make out. One aspect that's worth keeping in mind is the non-US market. Apple has a 58% market share in the US but it's 28% worldwide. Outside of the US market the impact of that "every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share" is significantly diluted (tbh I'm not sure it's even increasing outside of the US at all) & emerging markets are growth areas.
- qball 9mo ago
  >Apple has never had better hardware (on mobile). This is just straight up false. Qualcomm's current top of the line processors are about 3 years behind what you can get in Apple's cheapest product (that being the 16e), and the budget phones (and by "budget" I mean "the 600 dollar ones") are another 3 years behind that. iPhones don't generally become too slow to realistically use until their support lifetime expires. Androids are like that out of the box unless you spend over a thousand dollars, and those only last for about half the time (a combination of inferior hardware and inferior software). It doesn't matter if you have a 120Hz screen if the UI only updates at 20. This is why the only killer feature for Android (outside the cameras) is adblocking- which, of course, is what Google wants to prevent. They don't want you to run real Firefox (with the only effective adblock remaining), and they want you to pay for YouTube Premium rather than using NewPipe (or some other ReVanced successor) so you can't get out of paying 10 bucks to listen to a video with the screen off.
monooso 9mo ago
For context, I'm a long-time iPhone user, who switched to a Pixel 8a about 18 months ago. > Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. I can't say I noticed a difference in quality when switching. Maybe some people can, but for me it was just a different, but still well-made phone. > Apple has higher consumer trust. I can't speak for consumers in general, but this is certainly no longer the case for me. I also used MacOS for 20 years, and switched to Linux about a year ago because I didn't like the direction Apple was headed. It may be my choice of reading material (HN), but I receive almost daily confirmation that this was a sound decision. > Apple has better app selection (for most people). Not selection, necessarily, but certainly quality. As a side note, my iPad (my sole remaining Apple device) quietly updated to iOS 26 a few days ago. Despite having spent months reading about how bad it is, I was still genuinely shocked. Again, I can't speak for "consumers", but for me Apple now has a far worse user experience.
- Analemma_ 9mo ago
  I’ve been an iPhone owner for a while, but recently was required to get an Android phone to be a secondary work device. I got a Pixel 10 Pro—- brand-new, Google’s flagship device—- and within about a week there was a rattling noise from the camera module any time the phone moved. The consensus online appears to be “oh, yeah, that’s the OIS module, you have to expect it, they all do that”. Well, iPhones also have OIS and they don’t do this. Android might be “good enough” in hardware now but it’s definitely still behind.
  - layer8 9mo ago
    This can happen with iPhones too: https://www.google.com/search?q=iphone%20camera%20rattling%20noise%20site%3Adiscussions.apple.com https://www.google.com/search?q=iphone%20camera%20rattling%2...
- darkhorse222 9mo ago
  Personally I feel that their emphasis on privacy by design was a very winning marketing strategy. Not sure if it played with the general pop.
MarginalGainz 9mo ago
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WhyNotHugo 9mo ago
Realistically, they have nothing to lose. There a duopoly. It’s not like people pissed at this are going to migrate away. Sure, a small proportion might move to Linux Mobile. Most of the rest of the population will just stick to Google, because they don’t have a choice. In many countries, your government or some other essential service demands that you have either an Apple or Google device.
sigmar 9mo ago
>Every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share is another customer Google has to pay exorbitant fees to a competitor to access. What? Are you referring to the 36% of ad revenue Google pays to Apple? I don't think Google is too concerned about that. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/14/apple-gets-36percent-of-google-search-revenue-from-safari-alphabet-witness.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/14/apple-gets-36percent-of-goog...
anymouse123456 9mo ago
It’s incredibly sad to watch Google abandon the values that inspired so much trust and belief that there is a better way to build a company. Long time Pixel user here who has always believed the story that Apple has the closed, but refined, higher quality experience and Google has the slightly freer, but coarser UX. I was convinced to make the switch this year and the Apple iPhone 17 Pro + whatever iOS version is, by far the worst phone I’ve ever owned. Photos are worse, low light is worse, macros are worse, the UI is laggy, buggy and crashes. The keyboard and autosuggest is shockingly bad. Incredibly popular apps on iOS (YT, X, etc) are just as bad and often worse. iMessage is a psyop. The absolute worst messaging app in history with zero desktop access for non-Mac users?! If you’re on Android, and especially pixel, please know that Apple has completely given up and no longer executes at the level you remember from 10-15 years ago.
- vbezhenar 9mo ago
  The whole software world is shit now. The foundations were stable decades ago. Like Windows kernel, WinAPI, .NET, WPF, Linux kernel. But end user software is so terrible. Windows 11 with ads and unhelpful AI. macOS which is a bit less terrible, but still too bloated. Linux with its eternal changes between X, Wayland, Alsa, Pipewire, Pulseaudio, sysvinit, systemd, and endless choices. Both iOS and Android are terrible. iOS was perfect 10 years ago, it's absolute clownfest now. I would blame AI vibe coders, but it started before. I don't know who to blame. Why can't we just build solid minimal non-bloated OS that will last for decades without major rewrites. We've got so good foundations but so terrible end product.
potatoproduct 9mo ago
""Apple has better app selection (for most people). Apple has been increasingly implementing the core features that differentiate Android devices, like USB-C and RCS."" You mean Apple has been forced by regulators to implement core features like USB-C and RCS? https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-apple-monopolizing-smartphone-markets https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-s... https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32022L2380 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32...
- dietr1ch 9mo ago
  Sure, but uninformed consumers won't see it that way. Maybe in their circles it just sounds like a great idea and they thank Apple for implementing it.
  - lkjdsklf 9mo ago
    Even if you’re an informed consumer, it doesn’t matter. Whether they did it out of the goodness of their heart or because a regulator forced them, it’s still got usb-c
- AlexandrB 9mo ago
  Saying they were forced to implement USB-C is really overstating things. Apple loooved USB-C - so much so that their ill-fated butterfly switch laptops went all-in on it. They also helped design it. It's highly likely they were planning a move to USB-C anyway and the EU just pushed it forward a year.
  - weazl 9mo ago
    This is untrue. Apple was fighting EU the entire time trying to avoid a switch to USB-C on iPhones. EU representatives were publicly critical of Apple, eventually Apple was forced to give in.
    - acdha 9mo ago
      I realize a conspiracy narrative gets more clicks but … you know Apple started the development of USB-C and shipped some of the first devices in 2015, right? People whined about the MacBooks requiring new hubs, etc. for a couple of years and got over it. The same thing happened with the iPad in 2018, AirPods, etc. When they introduced Lightning in 2012, they made a commitment to all of the third-party hardware developers that iPhones would support it for a decade. I’m sure the EU pressure helped but USB-C iPhones shipping in 2023 is right on that original timing.
PlatoIsADisease 9mo ago
> Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. No Aux port, no usb. Slow phone with slow animations. But maybe this is fixed, its been 10 years. >Apple has higher consumer trust. lmao, this is just a user error problem. None have trust. If they trust, yikes. Thats a negative that Apple can brainwash people. >Apple has better app selection (for most people). Solid no here. Being able to install stuff from fdroid is amazing. >Apple has been increasingly implementing the core features that differentiate Android devices As long as you are okay with waiting 4 years. Sure. You forgot to mention how poor iPhone security is. People have died due to Apple's poor security.
- _vqpz 9mo ago
  "Slow phone with slow animations" is a crazy assessment, I switched from Galaxy S7 to iPhone XR in 2018 because the Galaxy was (like every other Android I had) slow to do everything, applications would crash randomly and my phone would just give up and reboot without warning. Not to mention all of the killer Android features that Google had gotten rid of up to that point (RIP notification ticker, I miss you so much). What's the point of being able to sideload and customize when none of it works on a day to day basis? And when Google/other Android phone manufacturers insist on their phones being more and more similar to iPhone/iOS, the reasons to stay on Android go away too.
  - PlatoIsADisease 9mo ago
    Samsung is the Apple of Android. They are fake luxury and use a big marketing budget. Not surprised the same kind of person that buys an iphone also fell for samsung.
    - _vqpz 9mo ago
      In early 2016, it was by far the best Android offering available and it was a pitiful display for the operating system.
- mminer237 9mo ago
  Most Android devices also don't have aux ports. iPhones have USB now too. Losing the ability to easily sideload apps is what we're talking about. How do iPhones have worse security than Android???
firebot 9mo ago
Oh come on fanboy, Apple doesn't have meaningfully better hardware, consumer trust, or app selection (for most people the opposite is true!) Oof, Apple adopting core 'Android' features... Yea, finally? Increasing iOS market share? Where? Not most places I think it's weird you come at this from an antitrust angle when I would totally make the argument the other way. If there's pressure to remove this feature, then it's from companies that make apps that anyone can pull up in Revanced and they can patch it and can be running a version of a piece of software that shouldn't exist with "premium" features enabled. I don't think there's an argument against it really besides that. At least not an honest, intelligent argument.... Ultimately, I doubt many would jump to Apple. Inertia would insist: People just won't upgrade. Which is already occurring, people are keeping their devices longer, especially Apple users. And they wonder why their battery stops working... Oy vey!
codyb 9mo ago
Apple's certainly been working to destroy their consumer trust though! At least on my end the political knee bending by Tim Cook and their recent iOS and MacOS updates have me firmly on the side of not giving any more money to Apple. (Sadly, I still pay for Apple One for hy family, so I'm not perfect. But... hey, it's a start. Speak with your wallets). And I will be considering alternatives when my machines which I will be running to their end stop working. It's really such a shame cause I really liked their privacy stances, accessibility work, and focus on user experience. Now I say, screw Apple, and encourage people to boycott and be wary of upgrades.
conception 9mo ago
Advertising folks not engineers are now in charge of Google, and they are gaining influence at Apple now as well.
- __MatrixMan__ 9mo ago
  This is the real threat. Brand loyalty is a distraction.
nerdponx 9mo ago
Cost? Apple stuff is expensive and unaffordable or inaccessible to a lot of the world. Google'd Android is the only option if you can't shell out for an iPhone (assuming you don't want to buy an unsupported 5+ year old device second/third-hand).
dismalaf 9mo ago
> core features that differentiate Android devices, like USB-C and RCS It's obvious you've never used Android if you think these are core features LMAO. No one cares that much about connector type, more the fact it's using an industry standard versus proprietary. No one cares about RCS, everyone uses WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Messenger, Line, etc... Core features are stuff like being able to search for a business through the phone app, Maps telling you where you parked your car, unprompted, compatibility with the casting protocol, the ability to make ANY app the default for a particular task, the ability to sideload, the fact you can switch phone brands and get whatever hardware you want but your core OS with all your accounts stays the same. Basically the ability to do what you want win your OS and no one restricting your phone's features. As for Google's strategy, it's the same as Valve's. Having a platform they can't be locked out of since both MS and Apple have shown they'll abuse their market power.
UltraSane 9mo ago
Apple has a huge hole in their screen that I hate.
__MatrixMan__ 9mo ago
Agreed. The only thing they have going for them is that you can degoogle your android device, but you can't deapple your iphone, and here they are making moves that suggest they may back off from that position.
kazinator 9mo ago
AnkiDroid, a fully self-contained version of Anki for Android, not requiring pairing with a desktop app and completely free, does not exist or iOS. Or did not, last time I checked. So that would be a deal breaker. Maybe by now there is some Android emulation for iOS that can do it?
petre 9mo ago
I gave an iPhone a shot fof like a week but had to return it because it didn't have alternatives to the apps I was using on Android. Apps like BitCalculator, Convertbee, Aegis, a decent calculator with sin/cos/log and the ability to write expressions like the default on Android, Wireguard and a decent browser with an ad blocker. No Safari doesn't qualify.
GuB-42 9mo ago
The biggest differentiator is price. An entry level Android phone is about $300 while an iPhone is in the $1000 range. And to be honest, anything more than an entry level Android is luxury these days. I say that because that's what I have and I have never felt held down, except maybe for pictures, but it is good enough for my (lack of) skills as a photographer. So, Android may actually benefit from a lack of differentiation: like iOS, for a third of the price seems like a good value proposition.
- burnerthrow008 9mo ago
  The iPhone 16e (came out less than 6 months ago) starts at $600 without carrier subsidy. That’s about half of what you claimed.
  - GuB-42 9mo ago
    I wasn't referring to the absolute cheapest, more of a representative price. If you want to go cheap, the Samsung Galaxy A17 5G, a perfectly fine, recent phone is $200, which is still a 1:3 price ratio to the $600 iPhone. And you can go even cheaper than that, as in $150, new, though at that point, we are entering a territory where many people will feel the limitations.
burnerthrow008 9mo ago
> And Google's strategy is to continue removing differentiating features from Android that also help them mitigate the threat of antitrust Sigh. When will HN learn that the vast majority of customers dont see those as differentiating features. One of the key things separating humans from other animals is being able to put yourself in another’s shoes.
fHr 9mo ago
>Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Classic Apple glazer take. This is why I still made another 100% with Apple stock over past 5 years because stupid people got gaslight into buying their overpriced stuff that is marginally better if at all.
- bigstrat2003 9mo ago
  Yeah, at no point has Apple ever had meaningfully better hardware than the competition. They have always been a more expensive version of the same hardware you can get from their competitors, just this one has an apple logo. But a lot of people, even smart people, are fooled by the marketing.
drnick1 9mo ago
> Apple has higher consumer trust. That is quickly eroding and has never been justified other than by marketing. > Apple has better app selection (for most people). Android has always had a much better selection of open source software, which, at least to me, is the thing that matters most.
miki123211 9mo ago
This isn't about pure revenue, it's about scams. Android has a reputation for being unsafe precisely because of sideloading (as well as low Google Play fees, looser app review, accessibility services and remote access). This policy is bad for us HNers, but objectively good for the 95+% of people who will never sideload a legitimate Android app, but are extremely likely to get caught by scammers. The heavy US skew of HN really distorts the arguments here, as Android-based scams aren't as common in AMerica due to the prevalence of iOS in that region.
- themaninthedark 9mo ago
  And yet the times that I have dealt with Android phone issues (2 times in the last year), it has been an app that was popping up full screen ads. Both phone users have no idea how to sideload, everything was installed from the Play store.
- tw04 9mo ago
  I can say that my parents have never once complained about a scam on their phone caused by sideloading. In fact I don’t know anyone among any of my friends or family that have ever had that issue. Every last one of my non-technical friends and family have been hit by spyware on their windows devices. To say I’m extremely skeptical that this has anything to do with protecting users is an understatement. In fact I’m willing to go out on a limb and say it’s a nearly non-existent issue outside of people being targeted by nation states. Would love to see some numbers backing up the claim that sideloading is resulting in mass exploiting of Android devices because I can’t find them.
  - bigyabai 9mo ago
    Yeah. My dad loves sideloaded Newpipe, and I haven't ever heard of him dealing with scams or viruses.
  - miki123211 9mo ago
    Do your parents: 1. Live in a country where Android is much more popular than iOS? 2. Live in an environment where piracy is rampant? 3. Are used to sideloading apps to get free movies / soccer?
kernal 9mo ago
Android gets a bad rap because of security and Apple has exploited this in their marketing campaigns to the max. So the moment Google does something to address this glaring hole in their security model the 1% vocal minority throws a fit. You’ll still be able to side load, but because it has extra friction they’ll threaten to switch to iOS. To which I say - go for it. Google doesn’t care about people who side load apps like an automatic reloading the chamber. You’re an insignificant percentage of their base. Personally, I would rather see Android only run signed and sanctioned apps to prevent the technologically illiterate from getting pwned. If you want to be able to side load then sign up to be a developer and go to town on your device.
kakacik 9mo ago
Better mobile hardware is highly specific. Crappy batteries worse than literally all competition? Check for first what, 5 or 6 generations? For many people, battery life is single most important attribute of their phone. Also USB-C ain't some differentiating feature of android, rather rest of the world and electronics. Fully apple's fault here, it could have been their standard as the one, but greed is greed. Screens were always better on Samsungs flagships (apple buys screens there too) - mildly higher resolution, refresh rate and contrasts but these are rather unimportant. As an non-apple tech user, apple phone hardware has very few things that interest me or put them above the others. Its better integration with software that did put them above, since it was optimized for a very narrow band of hardware so could get far even with subpar hardware (till M chips came but these days they are almost on par with Snapdragons). But that software has a list of issues much bigger than hardware above so no, thank you.
1vuio0pswjnm7 9mo ago
"Google's long term strategy with Android is baffling to me. " How does one know there is a long-term strategy History has shown that so-called "tech" companies often act in a reactionary manner^1 1. Often, the act is of one of copying what someone else has done. Other times it might be response to regulation One could argue Android itself was a reaction to iOS This is one example of the reactionary copying phenomenon but HN replies may choose to focus only on this one example and not on the overall "tech" company phenomenon of reactionism as exhibited through endless copying
- einsteinx2 9mo ago
  > One could argue Android itself was a reaction to iOS It quite literally was a reaction to iOS considering it was originally a copy of the BlackBerry OS (the older one in their keyboard phones) until the iPhone came out and they pivoted to copying iOS instead. EDIT: to get ahead of any negative replies about them copying iOS, I’m fully aware that they work quite differently under the hood and Android has had various features before iOS, etc. I mean they were creating from a UI/UX standpoint a copy of the BlackBerry when Google bought them, and then when the iPhone came out they completely changed the UI/UX paradigm to match.
  - rockemsockem 9mo ago
    IDK what you could possibly mean by saying it was "a copy of the BlackBerry" and further I don't see how that validates the claim that "Android itself was a reaction to iOS". The actual truth seems to be that "Android's introduction of touchscreens was a reaction to iOS", which is WAY different than saying that the entire operating system was spun up just to compete with iOS.
- mannycalavera42 9mo ago
  > One could argue Android itself was a reaction to iOS and it definitely was, to mitigate the risk of losing sight of the web users behaviour
- rockemsockem 9mo ago
  Android was in development well before iOS was released, really the only big change was the touchscreen, which is obviously revolutionary, but that's a long-way from "Android is a reaction to iOS".
shmerl 9mo ago
These "better" claims are simply not true. But it's surely a marketing Koolaid they sell. That said, Android options are dwindling which is not a good thing. Remember LG? They are gone.
bri3d 9mo ago
> Surely the marginal revenue from the inconsequential number of sideloading users isn't attractive enough to justify that kind of strategic blunder. Or you could analyze this at the actual face value: the damage to Google’s brand caused by malware campaigns, especially faux-banking apps robbing people in some regions, is greater than the damage from making sideloading harder for some edge case users. Not everything is a giant conspiracy; this move has always looked pretty clear cut to me from Google’s standpoint and I’ve never really seen any evidence to the contrary.
krzyk 9mo ago
Apple has better app selection? Where? Does it have Tasker? Or browsers that aren't reskin of safari?
shams93 9mo ago
The lock in with Safari is horrifc though, the browser on a $20 prepaid android phone is better than the browser on your most expensive ios device. Apple says well you need to write a native app, stop using the web and PWA's. Allow Apple to mediate absolutely everything.
- no_wizard 9mo ago
  While I agree with the principle, and we as tech professionals and enthusiasts should be lobbying hard for law makers and regulators to open iOS up to allow for different browsers, there’s a couple flaws here without these precedents or activism. The alternative here is not Firefox gaining more market share, it’s further encroachment of Chrome and derivatives. You’re not getting this big win for browser diversity. I’m not sure what you really gain here as Safari works fine for near most everything most people do. Also I don’t think PWA’s have proliferated on desktop or Android despite Google’s efforts in raising awareness for them. It seems to me like consumers largely aren’t into web app shells. They either visit a web app in their browsers or use the App Store apps, by a large margin
epolanski 9mo ago
Not everybody wants/cares for an iPhone. Realistically a 200 euros Xiaomi phone, to most users, is as good as they need it for seeing videos online and chatting. If you want to spend more, at each price tier you have plenty of choice including: better hardware, better cameras, more memory, etc. E.g. I do need dual (physical) sim phones. So I ain't buying iPhones ever for this very need. Consumer trust is very debatable: I have been locked out of my apple id for 2 months in 2021, and that was a work machine I was locked out from. Tragic. Apparently it's not my hardware if Apple decides it's not. Nowadays I only own an M3 Max because my employer gave it to me. But I don't even use it unless on the move, as I have a way more powerful desktop computer.
- shadowgovt 9mo ago
  It's true, but the main reason I haven't just switched to an iPhone is the ecosystem that lets me write apps without having to pay Apple money or use their computers. If Google is narrowing their moat on this, there are a lot fewer reasons for me, personally, to stay on the platform.
  - epolanski 9mo ago
    Sure, but the alternative ain't better for it, no?
    - shadowgovt 9mo ago
      I'm not quite sure I catch your meaning; "it" is an unbound pronoun in that sentence. If I assume "it" means "programming on a mobile device": yes, it is. Apple cares an awful lot about the developer experience, has massive support, and a deep well of shareable knowledge. Google is about the same (the developer experience is a little patchier; I'd generously call Google's approach to devex on Android "bag-of-cats vision" and since one is not developing on, generally, a vertically-integrated tech stack, one has to struggle a bit more to get the tools set up and maintained). The big selling point for Android is freedom of that stack, and if they throw sand in those gears, the benefits of the vertically-integrated stack that you have to pay-to-play start to become actually enticing.
kwanbix 9mo ago
> Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Better on what? Versus what? > Apple has higher consumer trust. Not from me and my peers. All nerds/devs/sysadmins. > Apple has better app selection (for most people). Again, based on what? > Apple has been increasingly implementing the core features that differentiate Android devices, like USB-C and RCS. Only when forced. > Every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share is another customer Google has to pay exorbitant fees to a competitor to access. What are you even talking about? Don't get me wrong, iPhones are great devices, but I prefer the Android ecosystem time and time again.
jdkrkekebeb 9mo ago
I think what is happening here is the moat is breaking. With llms getting good enough to make a program, how long until it is a whole OS...? And then how long until regulars figure out play store and play appa not needed???
vintermann 9mo ago
I think they are worrying about antitrust, and believe (probably correctly, unfortunately) that whether they get hit by antitrust or not is entirely political. There's more than enough evidence, for any justice department which wants to. They're not going to change that by keeping Android moderately open. What they can do, is make themselves politically useful to whoever will be in charge. Right now the war on general purpose computing is in high gear, due to panic over AI models, social media manipulation and (as always) kids. That's the only ticket to avoid an antitrust crackdown.

3abiton 9mo ago

Their strategy is growing markets, especially in india, and africa, and of course China. It's where the chinese oem dominate. Beside chinese OEM, i think the only other player is Samsung. So google strategy seems to be to circumvent people from misusing their OS by blocking certain services (mainly ads). This is done via apps from fdroid, and rooting and what not. If google can control how people uses their devices (block vpn based adblocking, or rooting all together), they have better grip on the market. At the end of the day, Android is front for an ad platform.

thaumasiotes 9mo ago
> [Google's] strategy is growing markets, especially in india, and africa, and of course China. Really? China? Where Google services are banned and Android phones come with local OS versions that cut them out? "High-friction sideloading" won't affect anyone in China. It won't be part of their experience at all.
- londons_explore 9mo ago
  I think OP is suggesting that the ability to sideload is what is preventing their phones being distributed in China. If you can present a "locked down" phone to regulators, you might be more likely to get permission to sell large volumes of them - like iPhones in China.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - pmontra 9mo ago
    But there still won't be Google Services so what extra money is Google to make there? The markup on hardware. But they have to compete with local manufacturers with the very same OS. At least Apple is the only manufacturer selling phones with iOS.
  - thaumasiotes 9mo ago
    > I think OP is suggesting that the ability to sideload is what is preventing their phones being distributed in China. This comment is insane in several different ways. There's nothing preventing Google's phones from being distributed in China. They already are distributed in China. Those phones won't come with the vendor OS installed; they'll come with an OS that works without a hitch in China. One of the modifications to the local OS will be to make sideloading trivial, since that's how you're expected to install apps. If you did start selling phones with a stock Android OS in China, those phones wouldn't work because their connections to Google services would all be blocked.† The reason for that block has nothing to do with sideloading or even with phones. It's going to stay in place. † In my experience, it's still possible to receive pushes from Google while you're in China. For example, you can't connect to the Play Store, but if you visit the Play Store in a browser on a different device that can dodge the Great Firewall, and tell it that you want to install something to your phone, Google will reach out and make the install to your phone even if your phone isn't dodging the firewall.

silisili 9mo ago

I have a feeling, despite Google's communications, this is all an attempt to thwart the numerous ad-free YouTube apps. Another reason it should have been broken apart years ago. It's laughable that the biggest ad company in the world owns the largest video site in the world, largest browser in the world, largest search engine in the world, and largest mobile OS in the world.

vee-kay 9mo ago
NewPipe (FOSS available on F-Droid) is nice alternative to ads-infested YouTube. I disabled YouTube and YouTube Music apps on my mobile, and I use NewPipe instead. You can even download YT videos or audio from YT videos using it.
- thaumasiotes 9mo ago
  What's going on with NewPipe? Their F-droid repository is down. Their domain is down. Their github repository is up, but it links to their domain, which isn't. Are they dying?
  - shscs911 9mo ago
    Seems like a DNSSEC screw-up. You can find more details here. https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/website/issues/420#issuecomment-3791439828 https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/website/issues/420#issuecomme...
- ycombinatrix 9mo ago
  I'm using Grayjay at the moment. Somehow still available in the play store (though with reduced feature set).
- McDyver 9mo ago
  I'm using Pipepipe. I believe it's a fork from NewPipe, and has more features, namely skipping sponsor block, and intros
  - 9mo ago

jacquesm 9mo ago

Why the surprise, they do the same with search, they do the same with their Google workspace (the degree to which they are pushing AI is really hurting the product). Google stopped being aware of their customer's needs a really long time ago, they are so arrogant they think the audience is now fully captive.

chii 9mo ago
> they think the audience is now fully captive. the audience is captive. Do you have a choice to move from android, if you didnt want to have an apple device? Do you want to use a different search engine other than google? Is there another email provider than gmail (for the non-technical person - i know you can run your own). Is there another browser other than chrome (and dont say firefox or edge - because both don't compete)? Google behave in ways that they think makes them more profit. When users cannot migrate (nor even threaten to), then it simply means they can do this.
- szundi 9mo ago
  [dead]
- kristopolous 9mo ago
  Once an alternative to one of their things, like immich, becomes viable, people run as fast as they can. The strategy of doing everything you can to make sure your customers truly and utterly despise you and want to spit in your face is probably not productive.
- csomar 9mo ago
  > Do you want to use a different search engine other than google? I've been on Kimi now for 3 months. I rarely used Google in that time. Kimi is largely free though sometimes when I run of the free quota I fallback to DeepSeek/Perplexity. I have no idea where they are getting their index from though. > Is there another email provider than gmail (for the non-technical person - i know you can run your own). There is microsoft/apple/yahoo mailboxes. However, I think most people should pay for their email especially that it's cheap and also critical (2FA). > Is there another browser other than chrome (and dont say firefox or edge - because both don't compete)? Firefox is a solid fallback and also webkit (Apple) is now basically a different browser (ported to Linux on GNOME Web). Not the best situation though it could be worse (given Firefox situation). For me personally, the only two things I still use Google for are chromium and maps. I am unlikely to move from Chromium anytime soon but might consider alternative for maps (though might still need maps for reviews/photos/street view). I am the most bullish I've ever been on Google losing its monopoly especially after they botched AI and hyper-scaling.

pjmlp 9mo ago

Except only a few countries in the world have wages where their citizens can afford Apple. While I can afford Apple, out of principle I am not buying anything above 300 euros, that requires me to also buy another computer for hobby coding, and a dev license. All my use of Apple hardware is via projects where pool devices are assigned to the delivery team.

necovek 9mo ago
Mobile providers usually offer loans ("service contracts") where people get phones outside their financial standing (I regularly see high end iPhones and foldable phones of €1-2k run by people in a country where average monthly salary is less than €1k): if a highly visible device like your phone can be had for 10% of your monthly salary, people will, unfortunately, opt for it. I tend to not use Apple not due to cost (I honestly believe it's OK to pay a premium for quality; I might disagree they offer it today though, as I do use a couple of their devices at work), but because of how closed their ecosystem is (and yes, all my personal devices are running some sort of Linux, and Android phones are rooted and with bootloader unlocked).
- pjmlp 9mo ago
  Many countries prefer the freedom of pre-pay/post-pay than being bound by contracts though. Not everyone has the US culture of running their life on credit. Because when life changes, it isn't only their phone they lose. The only single time I had a contract, because it was the only way to get a Nokia N70, I learnt never to do another one ever again.
  - necovek 9mo ago
    Are you sure it is your whole country or it's you? I mostly buy my phones outright too, but I am under no impression that everybody else does it as well.
    - grishka 9mo ago
      In my country, for example, buying phones from carriers as part of your plan just isn't a thing. As in, you couldn't do it even if you wanted to. Same for postpaid plans and contracts. As a result, quite a lot of people use the "I can't believe they could make and sell an entire phone at this price" Xiaomi and similar phones.

Guestmodinfo 9mo ago

Because antitrust laws are strong in a few countries. While most of the 2nd or 3rd world antitrust laws are non existent. Google's strategy is to squeeze those markets. They have higher population too and hence many more advertising to sell and much more control of the "online experience" in those countries.

yieldcrv 9mo ago

This is a legitimately crazy take, yes the differentiations are less but how we got there isn’t so altruistic I’m firmly in the Apple ecosystem and every one of those examples were not Apple’s unilateral decision I think seeing the noose circling around both Apple and Google’s necks better explains the quagmire that Google is in Apple was getting ahead of a European consumer protection ruling to switch to a single interoperable cable, USBC was there Apple and Google worked to make RCS better for years, as Apple was ignoring it and Google was using a non-standard RCS

onli 9mo ago

I don't see any iOS advantage with the apps anymore. That was maybe true in the very beginning, during the gold rush time of the app store. But not since then. In which category are there better iOS apps? Browsers? No, strictly worse. Youtube app? No, worse. Texting? Worse or equal (Whatsapp). Podcast client? I assume worse, since there is no Antenna Pod. Social media apps? The iOS variants of those apps are afaik in no way better. What else is there, where is the advantage? Also, while the Play store is an equally ad-riddled and unsearchable hellhole, at least Android does have with F-Droid a high quality alternative. iOS has nothing. But sure, removing the F-Droid advantage can only hurt Android, the direction of your comment still stands.

karlgkk 9mo ago
Honestly, you’re so wrong about the app situation that it’s almost staggering. iOS apps tend to be more stable, better polished, have better integration with system features (like the Dynamic Island), and even often have more features. This isn’t even an unfounded opinion, it’s a material problem for Google and led them to vastly investing in automated testing and quality efforts App addressable user base is another problem for Google, one that they have mentioned in developer conferences. It’s a big part of why they’ve been trying to ship a tablet and unify android and Chromebook. If Google isn’t careful they could find themselves in a downward spiral situation, stuck between apple on one side, and android forks on the other. And the last answer is, as always, money - browser is deemphasized on iOS, and so it’s weaker feature set matters less - iOS is generally easier to develop for because of less device differentiation - on average iOS has significantly wealthier users who tend to be higher return or paying customers (seriously, look it up). This in turn leads companies to invest more heavily in iOS. - easier integration due to a narrow system services ecosystem (no Google vs Samsung slapfights) - unified platform advantage (apps written for iOS easily port to the watch and tablet, unlocking larger markets, and justifying greater spend in developing apps) - apples review process is significantly stricter (for better or for worse) Yes, Apple doesn’t have something like fdroid, and that’s really disappointing and honestly a legitimate dealbreaker for a lot of people
- wiseowise 9mo ago

gambiting 9mo ago

>>Apple has had better mobile hardware for years Are you joking? Look at the latest Xiaomi, Oppo and other Chinese manufacturers, Apple would love to have the hardware they are shipping right now. From batteries to cameras and screens, apple is way behind on hardware tech. Yeah they are better than Samsung - but Samsung has also massively fallen behind what's the state of the art. >>is another customer Google has to pay exorbitant fees to a competitor to access. Last time I checked, it's apple paying Google, billions of dollars a year? And it will be even more now that Apple announced they are going to use Gemini as their AI base model.

swiftcoder 9mo ago
> Last time I checked, it's apple paying Google, billions of dollars a year? You checked wrong. Google pays Apple on the order of $20 billion to be the default search on iOS - this is so significant it accounts for ~5% of Apple's annual revenue
trinix912 9mo ago
> Look at the latest Xiaomi, Oppo and other Chinese manufacturers, Apple would love to have the hardware they are shipping right now. This is true, but their phones don't ship with Google services out of box (at least the last time I checked). So in reality, "Google's Android" is really mostly Samsungs and Pixels.
- socialcommenter 9mo ago
  They do when purchased outside China (largely EU, UK, also Singapore and others)
  - trinix912 9mo ago
    They don't in the EU. Not in Slovenia, so not the entire EU. I've seen it first hand. It's also not some special law that we'd have invented here so I'm pretty sure there are other EU countries where it's the same.

RobotToaster 9mo ago

What confuses me is that easy "sideloading" has been the main thing that kept down the proliferation of degoogled custom ROMs.

spwa4 9mo ago
Well you misunderstand enshittification. It will never get better again. Both Google and Apple have enshittified their phones. You can verify this on the App Store, on the Play Store, both of which have now more than 50% of search result screen space dedicated to ads, more when it comes to scams [1]. AND you can verify this in the financial statements of Apple and Google, where you see what we've always seen in Google: steadily increasing at a fixed rate profits from ads on the play store in Google's case, and steadily increasing at a fixed rate profits from "Services", which is App Store ads. In Apple's case this has been the only Apple business to grow at all in several of the recent years. In fact there's quite a few Apple businesses that look like they are "revenue neutral", most famously iPads. Google is better, but not by much. Cloud is growing fast ("but why?" is a question that's unanswered. I mean, "because of AI", of course, but ... seriously?) So not only are they enshittified, and you see them getting worse and worse over time, but the financial statements show: if you're expecting this to get any better either in the Apple or Google case, you're insane. Because clearly ads for scams are worth it for advertisers, and most other types of ads are not worth it. The situation evolves more and more towards the cable channel situation of 20 years back. You could also reverse the view. The simple question: "are people willing to compromise on hardware quality to get less ads?" has a very clear NO answer. "Are governments/institutions that are totally dependent on these systems willing to pay to either improve phones or make an alternative available?", again has boatloads of evidence that the answer is NO, in all caps. [1] Search for "credit card" or "lose weight" and judge for yourself. Top results are promoting Apple or Google themselves, everything else are ads, and very bad deals that trivially will neither accomplish the promised financial independence nor weight loss. Or should I put it like this: the credit card deals advertised are so bad they might achieve weight loss. By the way ads designed to mislead, which the top ads for either search obviously are, are what both Google and Apple promised time and again never to do.
direwolf20 9mo ago
Secure boot prohibits custom ROMs on most android devices

xg15 9mo ago

> Surely the marginal revenue from the inconsequential number of sideloading users isn't attractive enough to justify that kind of strategic blunder. If the rumors are true that the whole anti-sideloading thing is mostly because some governments complained, it might not have to do with a business strategy at all.

vbezhenar 9mo ago
Why not limit these restrictions to these specific locations? Surely there's already lots of location-specific and carrier-specific customizations like shutter sound in Japan, different radio frequencies and many more. It still sucks for those who live in these countries, but at least they know who to point their finger at.

direwolf20 9mo ago

Apple makes a lot more money. Google wants to do what Apple does, to make more money like Apple. Google might also get paid to enable surveillance.

StopDisinfo910 9mo ago

> Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Well no, Chinese phones are above Apple material-wise (better battery, better cameras, better cooling) and on par SoC-wise since last year. That's what makes Google's strategy so baffling. > Apple has better app selection (for most people). It's entirely the same. I have gone back and forth regularly for the past 10 years. Android is completely on par app-wise. Apple has the iMessage lock-in in the US obviously but not in the rest of the world. Apple might have a slight advantage on the pro segment with the iPad but I don't think it has a huge impact on phones. The really baffling thing to me is that while they lock down Android, they pay to put Gemini on iOS. Google has a real competitive advantage with IA and they just gave it to Apple. It's clear to me that they are two companies fighting each other inside Google: the ex-Motorola who wants to be Apple and the service side who wants to be Microsoft. I personally fear that they are making the bed of the regulators who will probably come for Play Protect at some point to open the door for alternative OS providers at least in Europe. But maybe they think it's coming anyway and are strengthening their position and trying to milk what they can in the meantime.

HWR_14 9mo ago
> they pay to put Gemini on iOS. Google has a real competitive advantage with IA and they just gave it to Apple. What Google loses by pushing iOS AI customers to ChatGPT outweighs what they gain by trying to convince people to switch phones for access to Gemini.
manuelabeledo 9mo ago
How are they on par SoC-wise? Last time I checked, Qualcomm was still trying to catch up to Apple.
- StopDisinfo910 9mo ago
  Well, recheck. Both Qualcomm and Mediatek have caught up on the phone SoC market. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 has a slightly better CPU than the A19 Pro but a slightly worse GPU. Apple has a very slight advantage in watt usage but that's more than offset by the battery gap. Same thing with the Dimensity 9500. The SoC market is now extremely competitive.

ulfw 9mo ago

Thinking Apple hardware is better is utterly laughable when you look at non-US Android devices. Much better camera sensors, much better silicon carbon batteries etc in Oppo, Vivo, Honor and Xiaomi devices than anything Apple produces. Form factors Apple still hasn't figured out, such as 7th gen Foldables, Flip foldable phones etc, Camera zoom lenses that can be attached...

patrickk 9mo ago

Apple only implemented USB-C due to pressure from the EU. One area Android has a clear advantage is Android TV devices verified by Google, because there is a much wider array of streaming apps of all kinds available. However google doesn’t seem to focus on this very much, and if you look for forum recommendations for google android streaming devices it’s very often the NVIDIA shield pro from 2019. Hopefully that device will I’ll be supported for a few more years because there seems to not be good easily available alternatives.

xattt 9mo ago
The killer apps that gave Android an advantage on TV are now mostly available on tvOS. To me, these were VLC and RetroArch.
JasonADrury 9mo ago
Apple was among the first to implement USB-C in early 2015. A whole year before Samsung and the likes.
- freerk 9mo ago
  But not on mobile. First iPhone with USB-C was iPhone 15 released late 2023. The Google Nexus 6P phone had USB-C in 2015, 8 years earlier.
  - JasonADrury 9mo ago
    Sure, but the claim that "Apple only implemented USB-C due to pressure from the EU." is simply ridiculous. Apple implemented USB-C at a steady pace across their entire product lineup, as is demonstrated by the timeline below: 2015: 12in MacBook with USB-C released 2016: MacBook pro switches to USB-C 2018: iPad Pro switches to USB-C 2020: iPad Air switches to USB-C 2021: iPad Mini switches to USB-C 2022: iPad switches to USB-C 2023: iPhone switches to USB-C If Apple only implemented USB-C because of pressure from the EU, you'd presumably be able to see a gap in that list during the period of Apple allegedly not implementing USB-C. There is no gap, because Apple was steadily moving users to USB-C since 2015. It feels really silly to be spending time defending Apple over this, but the EU certainly does not deserve credit for iPhones having USB-C. I'm sure there are politicians who'd love for you to believe that, but it's simply dishonest propaganda.

andrekandre 9mo ago

> And Google's strategy is to continue removing differentiating features from Android they see apples recurring revenue and lust over it, and the correlation is the walled-garden and they want it too personally, it makes me less enthusiastic about android as i don't need another iphone but n=1, so maybe it will work out for them....

rvba 9mo ago

People who are reaponsible for Android all use Google phones. They dont care about android. They dont use it. They dont understand their use cases. If you are hired by a manufacturer of say cola, you cannot drink the competition cola. Those in google laugh when asked to show their phones - and then show iphones. In any other business they would be terminated.

pbalau 9mo ago
I think an edit is in order, as your post, in the current form, doesn't make any sense.
- jerojero 9mo ago
  He's saying people at Google use iPhones. I don't know if that's true, but the times I've visited silicon valley I didnt see many android phones.
  - Scene_Cast2 9mo ago
    You're typically issued a corporate phone, it's the only phone that can open work email. You have a choice between an Android (something like a Pixel and a Samsung) and an iPhone, with some companies incentivising Androids with things like a faster upgrade cycle or more premium trims. The culture is split between having just the one free corporate phone and having two phones - one personal, one corporate.
    - rvba 9mo ago
      There are lots of examples of Android team employees who are proud of using only Apple phones. Check the "socially inept tech roast show" - where people from those teams demonstrate their ignorance and hatered towards own products and users. Since they dont use them, they dont see nor care about bugs. Meanwhile if you work for a cola company and they catch you drinking competing product you will get fired (your contract bans you fron that). Same for many other products. I understand using an Apple phone to learn what it does / its featurs, but those Android employees dont use Android at all. And it shows

lucideer 9mo ago

I'm similarly baffled for the reasons you state but your breakdown of the market differentiations is a little hyperbolic. > Apple has had better mobile hardware for years Apple has never had better hardware (on mobile). Apple has had better software support & integration for their hardware that has lead to e.g. strong camera quality advantages (iOS camera app has been able to use the hardware better to produce photos people want despite some Android OEMs having objectively better camera modules since those OEMs have to work through a lot of Google contracts & software extraction). The hardware has never been better - their holistic ecosystem has just made integrations with it smoother. > Apple has better app selection (for most people) This has been true but it's always been marginal, & the "for most people" qualifier has contracted significantly in recent years. Both Google's & Apple's 1P offerings have declined in quality & popularity, but Google have increased lock-in & reliance on theirs in ways Apple can't, while the 3P offerings on Android have improved significantly relative to iOS. Gone are the days of companies releasing exclusively on iOS, or the Android version being an afterthought with missing features - if anything it's swung in the other direction. To be clear, I think your points still stand: Google's recent strategy doesn't make sense for Google. I just don't think it's as glaringly clear cut as you make out. One aspect that's worth keeping in mind is the non-US market. Apple has a 58% market share in the US but it's 28% worldwide. Outside of the US market the impact of that "every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share" is significantly diluted (tbh I'm not sure it's even increasing outside of the US at all) & emerging markets are growth areas.

qball 9mo ago
>Apple has never had better hardware (on mobile). This is just straight up false. Qualcomm's current top of the line processors are about 3 years behind what you can get in Apple's cheapest product (that being the 16e), and the budget phones (and by "budget" I mean "the 600 dollar ones") are another 3 years behind that. iPhones don't generally become too slow to realistically use until their support lifetime expires. Androids are like that out of the box unless you spend over a thousand dollars, and those only last for about half the time (a combination of inferior hardware and inferior software). It doesn't matter if you have a 120Hz screen if the UI only updates at 20. This is why the only killer feature for Android (outside the cameras) is adblocking- which, of course, is what Google wants to prevent. They don't want you to run real Firefox (with the only effective adblock remaining), and they want you to pay for YouTube Premium rather than using NewPipe (or some other ReVanced successor) so you can't get out of paying 10 bucks to listen to a video with the screen off.

monooso 9mo ago

For context, I'm a long-time iPhone user, who switched to a Pixel 8a about 18 months ago. > Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. I can't say I noticed a difference in quality when switching. Maybe some people can, but for me it was just a different, but still well-made phone. > Apple has higher consumer trust. I can't speak for consumers in general, but this is certainly no longer the case for me. I also used MacOS for 20 years, and switched to Linux about a year ago because I didn't like the direction Apple was headed. It may be my choice of reading material (HN), but I receive almost daily confirmation that this was a sound decision. > Apple has better app selection (for most people). Not selection, necessarily, but certainly quality. As a side note, my iPad (my sole remaining Apple device) quietly updated to iOS 26 a few days ago. Despite having spent months reading about how bad it is, I was still genuinely shocked. Again, I can't speak for "consumers", but for me Apple now has a far worse user experience.

Analemma_ 9mo ago
I’ve been an iPhone owner for a while, but recently was required to get an Android phone to be a secondary work device. I got a Pixel 10 Pro—- brand-new, Google’s flagship device—- and within about a week there was a rattling noise from the camera module any time the phone moved. The consensus online appears to be “oh, yeah, that’s the OIS module, you have to expect it, they all do that”. Well, iPhones also have OIS and they don’t do this. Android might be “good enough” in hardware now but it’s definitely still behind.
- layer8 9mo ago
  This can happen with iPhones too: https://www.google.com/search?q=iphone%20camera%20rattling%20noise%20site%3Adiscussions.apple.com https://www.google.com/search?q=iphone%20camera%20rattling%2...
darkhorse222 9mo ago
Personally I feel that their emphasis on privacy by design was a very winning marketing strategy. Not sure if it played with the general pop.

MarginalGainz 9mo ago

[dead]

WhyNotHugo 9mo ago

Realistically, they have nothing to lose. There a duopoly. It’s not like people pissed at this are going to migrate away. Sure, a small proportion might move to Linux Mobile. Most of the rest of the population will just stick to Google, because they don’t have a choice. In many countries, your government or some other essential service demands that you have either an Apple or Google device.

sigmar 9mo ago

>Every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share is another customer Google has to pay exorbitant fees to a competitor to access. What? Are you referring to the 36% of ad revenue Google pays to Apple? I don't think Google is too concerned about that. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/14/apple-gets-36percent-of-google-search-revenue-from-safari-alphabet-witness.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/14/apple-gets-36percent-of-goog...

anymouse123456 9mo ago

It’s incredibly sad to watch Google abandon the values that inspired so much trust and belief that there is a better way to build a company. Long time Pixel user here who has always believed the story that Apple has the closed, but refined, higher quality experience and Google has the slightly freer, but coarser UX. I was convinced to make the switch this year and the Apple iPhone 17 Pro + whatever iOS version is, by far the worst phone I’ve ever owned. Photos are worse, low light is worse, macros are worse, the UI is laggy, buggy and crashes. The keyboard and autosuggest is shockingly bad. Incredibly popular apps on iOS (YT, X, etc) are just as bad and often worse. iMessage is a psyop. The absolute worst messaging app in history with zero desktop access for non-Mac users?! If you’re on Android, and especially pixel, please know that Apple has completely given up and no longer executes at the level you remember from 10-15 years ago.

vbezhenar 9mo ago
The whole software world is shit now. The foundations were stable decades ago. Like Windows kernel, WinAPI, .NET, WPF, Linux kernel. But end user software is so terrible. Windows 11 with ads and unhelpful AI. macOS which is a bit less terrible, but still too bloated. Linux with its eternal changes between X, Wayland, Alsa, Pipewire, Pulseaudio, sysvinit, systemd, and endless choices. Both iOS and Android are terrible. iOS was perfect 10 years ago, it's absolute clownfest now. I would blame AI vibe coders, but it started before. I don't know who to blame. Why can't we just build solid minimal non-bloated OS that will last for decades without major rewrites. We've got so good foundations but so terrible end product.

potatoproduct 9mo ago

""Apple has better app selection (for most people). Apple has been increasingly implementing the core features that differentiate Android devices, like USB-C and RCS."" You mean Apple has been forced by regulators to implement core features like USB-C and RCS? https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-apple-monopolizing-smartphone-markets https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-s... https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32022L2380 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32...

dietr1ch 9mo ago
Sure, but uninformed consumers won't see it that way. Maybe in their circles it just sounds like a great idea and they thank Apple for implementing it.
- lkjdsklf 9mo ago
  Even if you’re an informed consumer, it doesn’t matter. Whether they did it out of the goodness of their heart or because a regulator forced them, it’s still got usb-c
AlexandrB 9mo ago
Saying they were forced to implement USB-C is really overstating things. Apple loooved USB-C - so much so that their ill-fated butterfly switch laptops went all-in on it. They also helped design it. It's highly likely they were planning a move to USB-C anyway and the EU just pushed it forward a year.
- weazl 9mo ago
  This is untrue. Apple was fighting EU the entire time trying to avoid a switch to USB-C on iPhones. EU representatives were publicly critical of Apple, eventually Apple was forced to give in.
  - acdha 9mo ago
    I realize a conspiracy narrative gets more clicks but … you know Apple started the development of USB-C and shipped some of the first devices in 2015, right? People whined about the MacBooks requiring new hubs, etc. for a couple of years and got over it. The same thing happened with the iPad in 2018, AirPods, etc. When they introduced Lightning in 2012, they made a commitment to all of the third-party hardware developers that iPhones would support it for a decade. I’m sure the EU pressure helped but USB-C iPhones shipping in 2023 is right on that original timing.

PlatoIsADisease 9mo ago

> Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. No Aux port, no usb. Slow phone with slow animations. But maybe this is fixed, its been 10 years. >Apple has higher consumer trust. lmao, this is just a user error problem. None have trust. If they trust, yikes. Thats a negative that Apple can brainwash people. >Apple has better app selection (for most people). Solid no here. Being able to install stuff from fdroid is amazing. >Apple has been increasingly implementing the core features that differentiate Android devices As long as you are okay with waiting 4 years. Sure. You forgot to mention how poor iPhone security is. People have died due to Apple's poor security.

_vqpz 9mo ago
"Slow phone with slow animations" is a crazy assessment, I switched from Galaxy S7 to iPhone XR in 2018 because the Galaxy was (like every other Android I had) slow to do everything, applications would crash randomly and my phone would just give up and reboot without warning. Not to mention all of the killer Android features that Google had gotten rid of up to that point (RIP notification ticker, I miss you so much). What's the point of being able to sideload and customize when none of it works on a day to day basis? And when Google/other Android phone manufacturers insist on their phones being more and more similar to iPhone/iOS, the reasons to stay on Android go away too.
- PlatoIsADisease 9mo ago
  Samsung is the Apple of Android. They are fake luxury and use a big marketing budget. Not surprised the same kind of person that buys an iphone also fell for samsung.
  - _vqpz 9mo ago
    In early 2016, it was by far the best Android offering available and it was a pitiful display for the operating system.
mminer237 9mo ago
Most Android devices also don't have aux ports. iPhones have USB now too. Losing the ability to easily sideload apps is what we're talking about. How do iPhones have worse security than Android???

firebot 9mo ago

Oh come on fanboy, Apple doesn't have meaningfully better hardware, consumer trust, or app selection (for most people the opposite is true!) Oof, Apple adopting core 'Android' features... Yea, finally? Increasing iOS market share? Where? Not most places I think it's weird you come at this from an antitrust angle when I would totally make the argument the other way. If there's pressure to remove this feature, then it's from companies that make apps that anyone can pull up in Revanced and they can patch it and can be running a version of a piece of software that shouldn't exist with "premium" features enabled. I don't think there's an argument against it really besides that. At least not an honest, intelligent argument.... Ultimately, I doubt many would jump to Apple. Inertia would insist: People just won't upgrade. Which is already occurring, people are keeping their devices longer, especially Apple users. And they wonder why their battery stops working... Oy vey!

codyb 9mo ago

Apple's certainly been working to destroy their consumer trust though! At least on my end the political knee bending by Tim Cook and their recent iOS and MacOS updates have me firmly on the side of not giving any more money to Apple. (Sadly, I still pay for Apple One for hy family, so I'm not perfect. But... hey, it's a start. Speak with your wallets). And I will be considering alternatives when my machines which I will be running to their end stop working. It's really such a shame cause I really liked their privacy stances, accessibility work, and focus on user experience. Now I say, screw Apple, and encourage people to boycott and be wary of upgrades.

conception 9mo ago

Advertising folks not engineers are now in charge of Google, and they are gaining influence at Apple now as well.

__MatrixMan__ 9mo ago
This is the real threat. Brand loyalty is a distraction.

nerdponx 9mo ago

Cost? Apple stuff is expensive and unaffordable or inaccessible to a lot of the world. Google'd Android is the only option if you can't shell out for an iPhone (assuming you don't want to buy an unsupported 5+ year old device second/third-hand).

dismalaf 9mo ago

> core features that differentiate Android devices, like USB-C and RCS It's obvious you've never used Android if you think these are core features LMAO. No one cares that much about connector type, more the fact it's using an industry standard versus proprietary. No one cares about RCS, everyone uses WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Messenger, Line, etc... Core features are stuff like being able to search for a business through the phone app, Maps telling you where you parked your car, unprompted, compatibility with the casting protocol, the ability to make ANY app the default for a particular task, the ability to sideload, the fact you can switch phone brands and get whatever hardware you want but your core OS with all your accounts stays the same. Basically the ability to do what you want win your OS and no one restricting your phone's features. As for Google's strategy, it's the same as Valve's. Having a platform they can't be locked out of since both MS and Apple have shown they'll abuse their market power.

UltraSane 9mo ago

Apple has a huge hole in their screen that I hate.

__MatrixMan__ 9mo ago

Agreed. The only thing they have going for them is that you can degoogle your android device, but you can't deapple your iphone, and here they are making moves that suggest they may back off from that position.

kazinator 9mo ago

AnkiDroid, a fully self-contained version of Anki for Android, not requiring pairing with a desktop app and completely free, does not exist or iOS. Or did not, last time I checked. So that would be a deal breaker. Maybe by now there is some Android emulation for iOS that can do it?

petre 9mo ago

I gave an iPhone a shot fof like a week but had to return it because it didn't have alternatives to the apps I was using on Android. Apps like BitCalculator, Convertbee, Aegis, a decent calculator with sin/cos/log and the ability to write expressions like the default on Android, Wireguard and a decent browser with an ad blocker. No Safari doesn't qualify.

GuB-42 9mo ago

The biggest differentiator is price. An entry level Android phone is about $300 while an iPhone is in the $1000 range. And to be honest, anything more than an entry level Android is luxury these days. I say that because that's what I have and I have never felt held down, except maybe for pictures, but it is good enough for my (lack of) skills as a photographer. So, Android may actually benefit from a lack of differentiation: like iOS, for a third of the price seems like a good value proposition.

burnerthrow008 9mo ago
The iPhone 16e (came out less than 6 months ago) starts at $600 without carrier subsidy. That’s about half of what you claimed.
- GuB-42 9mo ago
  I wasn't referring to the absolute cheapest, more of a representative price. If you want to go cheap, the Samsung Galaxy A17 5G, a perfectly fine, recent phone is $200, which is still a 1:3 price ratio to the $600 iPhone. And you can go even cheaper than that, as in $150, new, though at that point, we are entering a territory where many people will feel the limitations.

burnerthrow008 9mo ago

> And Google's strategy is to continue removing differentiating features from Android that also help them mitigate the threat of antitrust Sigh. When will HN learn that the vast majority of customers dont see those as differentiating features. One of the key things separating humans from other animals is being able to put yourself in another’s shoes.

fHr 9mo ago

>Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Classic Apple glazer take. This is why I still made another 100% with Apple stock over past 5 years because stupid people got gaslight into buying their overpriced stuff that is marginally better if at all.

bigstrat2003 9mo ago
Yeah, at no point has Apple ever had meaningfully better hardware than the competition. They have always been a more expensive version of the same hardware you can get from their competitors, just this one has an apple logo. But a lot of people, even smart people, are fooled by the marketing.

drnick1 9mo ago

> Apple has higher consumer trust. That is quickly eroding and has never been justified other than by marketing. > Apple has better app selection (for most people). Android has always had a much better selection of open source software, which, at least to me, is the thing that matters most.

miki123211 9mo ago

This isn't about pure revenue, it's about scams. Android has a reputation for being unsafe precisely because of sideloading (as well as low Google Play fees, looser app review, accessibility services and remote access). This policy is bad for us HNers, but objectively good for the 95+% of people who will never sideload a legitimate Android app, but are extremely likely to get caught by scammers. The heavy US skew of HN really distorts the arguments here, as Android-based scams aren't as common in AMerica due to the prevalence of iOS in that region.

themaninthedark 9mo ago
And yet the times that I have dealt with Android phone issues (2 times in the last year), it has been an app that was popping up full screen ads. Both phone users have no idea how to sideload, everything was installed from the Play store.
tw04 9mo ago
I can say that my parents have never once complained about a scam on their phone caused by sideloading. In fact I don’t know anyone among any of my friends or family that have ever had that issue. Every last one of my non-technical friends and family have been hit by spyware on their windows devices. To say I’m extremely skeptical that this has anything to do with protecting users is an understatement. In fact I’m willing to go out on a limb and say it’s a nearly non-existent issue outside of people being targeted by nation states. Would love to see some numbers backing up the claim that sideloading is resulting in mass exploiting of Android devices because I can’t find them.
- bigyabai 9mo ago
  Yeah. My dad loves sideloaded Newpipe, and I haven't ever heard of him dealing with scams or viruses.
- miki123211 9mo ago
  Do your parents: 1. Live in a country where Android is much more popular than iOS? 2. Live in an environment where piracy is rampant? 3. Are used to sideloading apps to get free movies / soccer?

kernal 9mo ago

Android gets a bad rap because of security and Apple has exploited this in their marketing campaigns to the max. So the moment Google does something to address this glaring hole in their security model the 1% vocal minority throws a fit. You’ll still be able to side load, but because it has extra friction they’ll threaten to switch to iOS. To which I say - go for it. Google doesn’t care about people who side load apps like an automatic reloading the chamber. You’re an insignificant percentage of their base. Personally, I would rather see Android only run signed and sanctioned apps to prevent the technologically illiterate from getting pwned. If you want to be able to side load then sign up to be a developer and go to town on your device.

kakacik 9mo ago

Better mobile hardware is highly specific. Crappy batteries worse than literally all competition? Check for first what, 5 or 6 generations? For many people, battery life is single most important attribute of their phone. Also USB-C ain't some differentiating feature of android, rather rest of the world and electronics. Fully apple's fault here, it could have been their standard as the one, but greed is greed. Screens were always better on Samsungs flagships (apple buys screens there too) - mildly higher resolution, refresh rate and contrasts but these are rather unimportant. As an non-apple tech user, apple phone hardware has very few things that interest me or put them above the others. Its better integration with software that did put them above, since it was optimized for a very narrow band of hardware so could get far even with subpar hardware (till M chips came but these days they are almost on par with Snapdragons). But that software has a list of issues much bigger than hardware above so no, thank you.

1vuio0pswjnm7 9mo ago

"Google's long term strategy with Android is baffling to me. " How does one know there is a long-term strategy History has shown that so-called "tech" companies often act in a reactionary manner^1 1. Often, the act is of one of copying what someone else has done. Other times it might be response to regulation One could argue Android itself was a reaction to iOS This is one example of the reactionary copying phenomenon but HN replies may choose to focus only on this one example and not on the overall "tech" company phenomenon of reactionism as exhibited through endless copying

einsteinx2 9mo ago
> One could argue Android itself was a reaction to iOS It quite literally was a reaction to iOS considering it was originally a copy of the BlackBerry OS (the older one in their keyboard phones) until the iPhone came out and they pivoted to copying iOS instead. EDIT: to get ahead of any negative replies about them copying iOS, I’m fully aware that they work quite differently under the hood and Android has had various features before iOS, etc. I mean they were creating from a UI/UX standpoint a copy of the BlackBerry when Google bought them, and then when the iPhone came out they completely changed the UI/UX paradigm to match.
- rockemsockem 9mo ago
  IDK what you could possibly mean by saying it was "a copy of the BlackBerry" and further I don't see how that validates the claim that "Android itself was a reaction to iOS". The actual truth seems to be that "Android's introduction of touchscreens was a reaction to iOS", which is WAY different than saying that the entire operating system was spun up just to compete with iOS.
mannycalavera42 9mo ago
> One could argue Android itself was a reaction to iOS and it definitely was, to mitigate the risk of losing sight of the web users behaviour
rockemsockem 9mo ago
Android was in development well before iOS was released, really the only big change was the touchscreen, which is obviously revolutionary, but that's a long-way from "Android is a reaction to iOS".

shmerl 9mo ago

These "better" claims are simply not true. But it's surely a marketing Koolaid they sell. That said, Android options are dwindling which is not a good thing. Remember LG? They are gone.

bri3d 9mo ago

> Surely the marginal revenue from the inconsequential number of sideloading users isn't attractive enough to justify that kind of strategic blunder. Or you could analyze this at the actual face value: the damage to Google’s brand caused by malware campaigns, especially faux-banking apps robbing people in some regions, is greater than the damage from making sideloading harder for some edge case users. Not everything is a giant conspiracy; this move has always looked pretty clear cut to me from Google’s standpoint and I’ve never really seen any evidence to the contrary.

krzyk 9mo ago

Apple has better app selection? Where? Does it have Tasker? Or browsers that aren't reskin of safari?

shams93 9mo ago

The lock in with Safari is horrifc though, the browser on a $20 prepaid android phone is better than the browser on your most expensive ios device. Apple says well you need to write a native app, stop using the web and PWA's. Allow Apple to mediate absolutely everything.

no_wizard 9mo ago
While I agree with the principle, and we as tech professionals and enthusiasts should be lobbying hard for law makers and regulators to open iOS up to allow for different browsers, there’s a couple flaws here without these precedents or activism. The alternative here is not Firefox gaining more market share, it’s further encroachment of Chrome and derivatives. You’re not getting this big win for browser diversity. I’m not sure what you really gain here as Safari works fine for near most everything most people do. Also I don’t think PWA’s have proliferated on desktop or Android despite Google’s efforts in raising awareness for them. It seems to me like consumers largely aren’t into web app shells. They either visit a web app in their browsers or use the App Store apps, by a large margin

epolanski 9mo ago

Not everybody wants/cares for an iPhone. Realistically a 200 euros Xiaomi phone, to most users, is as good as they need it for seeing videos online and chatting. If you want to spend more, at each price tier you have plenty of choice including: better hardware, better cameras, more memory, etc. E.g. I do need dual (physical) sim phones. So I ain't buying iPhones ever for this very need. Consumer trust is very debatable: I have been locked out of my apple id for 2 months in 2021, and that was a work machine I was locked out from. Tragic. Apparently it's not my hardware if Apple decides it's not. Nowadays I only own an M3 Max because my employer gave it to me. But I don't even use it unless on the move, as I have a way more powerful desktop computer.

shadowgovt 9mo ago
It's true, but the main reason I haven't just switched to an iPhone is the ecosystem that lets me write apps without having to pay Apple money or use their computers. If Google is narrowing their moat on this, there are a lot fewer reasons for me, personally, to stay on the platform.
- epolanski 9mo ago
  Sure, but the alternative ain't better for it, no?
  - shadowgovt 9mo ago
    I'm not quite sure I catch your meaning; "it" is an unbound pronoun in that sentence. If I assume "it" means "programming on a mobile device": yes, it is. Apple cares an awful lot about the developer experience, has massive support, and a deep well of shareable knowledge. Google is about the same (the developer experience is a little patchier; I'd generously call Google's approach to devex on Android "bag-of-cats vision" and since one is not developing on, generally, a vertically-integrated tech stack, one has to struggle a bit more to get the tools set up and maintained). The big selling point for Android is freedom of that stack, and if they throw sand in those gears, the benefits of the vertically-integrated stack that you have to pay-to-play start to become actually enticing.

kwanbix 9mo ago

> Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Better on what? Versus what? > Apple has higher consumer trust. Not from me and my peers. All nerds/devs/sysadmins. > Apple has better app selection (for most people). Again, based on what? > Apple has been increasingly implementing the core features that differentiate Android devices, like USB-C and RCS. Only when forced. > Every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share is another customer Google has to pay exorbitant fees to a competitor to access. What are you even talking about? Don't get me wrong, iPhones are great devices, but I prefer the Android ecosystem time and time again.

jdkrkekebeb 9mo ago

I think what is happening here is the moat is breaking. With llms getting good enough to make a program, how long until it is a whole OS...? And then how long until regulars figure out play store and play appa not needed???

vintermann 9mo ago

I think they are worrying about antitrust, and believe (probably correctly, unfortunately) that whether they get hit by antitrust or not is entirely political. There's more than enough evidence, for any justice department which wants to. They're not going to change that by keeping Android moderately open. What they can do, is make themselves politically useful to whoever will be in charge. Right now the war on general purpose computing is in high gear, due to panic over AI models, social media manipulation and (as always) kids. That's the only ticket to avoid an antitrust crackdown.