6 ms·

It's not just the average consumer. I continue to be surprised that so many developers and other tech nerds - the type who post on HN - chose and continue to ch

by Zak 7mo ago

It's not just the average consumer. I continue to be surprised that so many developers and other tech nerds - the type who post on HN - chose and continue to choose the iPhone over Android when Apple dictates what apps they can install and locks third-party accessories out of certain features. Current times do present the opportunity to raise awareness of the issue though. App store bans for apps like ICEBlock, and various laws age-gating app stores considerably expand the population with reason to care who has ultimate control of their phone.

lo_zamoyski 7mo ago
> I continue to be surprised that so many developers and other tech nerds - the type who post on HN - chose and continue to choose the iPhone over Android when Apple dictates what apps they can install and locks third-party accessories out of certain features. Why do you assume every "developer and tech nerd" cares about the things you do, or should? This is like the stereotypical buffoonish sysadmin who scoffs at people who don't mod their machines or configure every last bit of their OS by hand.
- Zak 7mo ago
  I expect most people to think it's bad if a corporation can keep them from running apps on their phone when those apps are good for the user and bad for the corporation. If most people don't understand that conflicts of interest lead to unethical behavior, that's a larger and more urgent social problem. I expect tech nerds to be aware that the conflict of interests exists in this case, while the average person would not.
  - WorldMaker 7mo ago
    You can be aware of the conflict of interest and still decide that is an acceptable trade-off to make. Ethics are personal, subjective, and subject to trade-offs. You have a strong ethical support for having control of the apps running on your devices and that overrides other trade-offs. Another person may have competing ethical beliefs such as Google is an advertising company and while Android allows open software installation (today, at least), Google's conflicts of interest as an ad company are more concerning for the entire platform and larger ecosystem than Apple's conflicts of interest as an application gate keeper. There's no right answer, everything is a shade of gray. Your strongest ethics aren't necessarily your neighbors'.
    - thewebguyd 7mo ago
      > Google is an advertising company and while Android allows open software installation (today, at least), Google's conflicts of interest as an ad company are more concerning for the entire platform and larger ecosystem than Apple's conflicts of interest as an application gate keeper. This, I suspect is a large part of it. At least for me, as a self described "tech nerd" who have been messing with computers since my childhood in the 90s. The other aspect is that I don't do anything serious from my phone. I'm still "old school" I guess and prefer a keyboard + mouse. My laptop is my main computing device, not my phone. And for that, Apple currently offers the best of a bad situation. It's still advantageous to them from a marketing standpoint to offer privacy, and they aren't primarily an advertising company. They are the only one of the two that offer E2EE (Advanced Data Protection) for photos, all the processing for that is done on device, etc. When meta threw their huge fit over the app tracking transparency, but were silent on anything Google was doing with Android, that just sold Apple even more for me. I'v made a choice to accept the tradeoff of them being an application gate keeper because for anything "serious" I'd just be using my computer anyway, which still allows me to install and run whatever I want, and do whatever I want with the hardware. I don't need that from a phone. Quite the opposite, I don't want that on a phone, I'm totally fine with the phone just being an appliance, and Apple offers the best appliance experience still.
    - lo_zamoyski 7mo ago
      > You can be aware of the conflict of interest and still decide that is an acceptable trade-off to make. Yes, here, you can talk about the relative merits of one piece of tech vs. another and compared with your personal needs. Of course, what is immoral is never permissible—it is nonsensical to speak of immorality otherwise—but there's nothing of the sort here. The behavior of the OP is a kind of moralizing rigorism, that is, the imposition of a personal concern on others that has no objective severity of the sort being claimed, as if his personal concerns here are morally binding on others. > Ethics are personal, subjective, and subject to trade-offs. Subjective, no. Morality (ethics is the study of morality) is objective, or it is nothing. Murder is evil not because I arbitrarily opine—with no objective basis whatever—that it is evil, but because it actually is evil, and to choose to commit it is a gravely immoral act.
georgeecollins 7mo ago
I don't think they have to reach the average consumer for this to work. The world is big, and while 99% probably could care less there are more than one reason to own an open source phone. If the lenovo hardware runs Android and Graphene, it's not like they have to make a big investment in it. And the Graphene users could give them some pricing power. If you are a phone manufacturer looking to differentiate your product, this is cheaper than inventing a display that folds four times or what have you.
sho_hn 7mo ago
> so many developers and other tech nerds - the type who post on HN The average developer stopped being a "tech nerd" around 2010 or so. I think older developers sometimes don't understand how the ranks have swollen and how many, many more people are in software now that don't have the "I was a nerdy kid in the 90s, loved computers and chose the career" upbringing. The average developer now has a MacBook, went to a bunch of bootcamps and writes TypeScript. Or enterprise Java if they got unlucky.
- rjbwork 7mo ago
  It's very evident when you work with the young juniors. I've seen people with CS degrees that don't know their keyboard shortcuts.
  - DANmode 7mo ago
    I’ve got great news for you.
- Zak 7mo ago
  It's less surprising to me that a developer would choose a Macbook than an iPhone. You can have root on a Macbook and install software without permission from Apple (though I hear of late it may require using the command line). The hardware performance is outstanding, and while opinions are split about the OS, a lot of people who display good taste in other technical matters like it. I've chosen to spend my own money on a different laptop, but if someone offered me a high-spec Macbook Pro on the condition that I use it for a year, I'd accept.
  - godelski 7mo ago
    I choose a Macbook because it's my terminal. I'm given the choice "Macbook" or "Windows laptop". I'm forced to use Microsoft products and they're actively hostile to Linux. My laptop is really just a glorified ssh machine, with a web browser, and corporate shovelware. Life is so much better in the terminal. Home is 192.168.1.0/24 and 100.64.0.0/10, it doesn't matter what screen I'm using. Home is where the ssh connection is.
endemic 7mo ago
I don't think it's iPhone vs. Android, rather "mega-corp $$$" vs. hobbyists. At the point where Android could be considered "open" (e.g. removing Google Play Services, etc.) you've lost a lot of the functionality that people come to expect from a smartphone. Sure, there are workarounds, but let's be honest: they're hacky and not a great experience.
- Cider9986 7mo ago
  It is a great experience without Google Play Services on GraheneOS.
afavour 7mo ago
> I continue to be surprised that so many developers and other tech nerds - the type who post on HN - chose and continue to choose the iPhone over Android when Apple dictates what apps they can install and locks third-party accessories out of certain features. I bought a Nexus One the day it became available, installed endless third party ROMs on it, tweaked it to my heart's desire. Got a Nexus 4, then 5. Today I have an iPhone. I just need something that works, just because I can tweak endlessly doesn't mean it's a good use of my time. Honestly one of the original biggest motivators was iMessage. A rock solid messaging system ought to be table stakes for a mobile OS but Google has reinvented the wheel so many times I've lost track. Also FaceTime for calling distant relatives. Sad to say, I don't find myself missing the relative openness of Android at all. Google-branded Android has issues similar to iOS, they also removed ICE Watch style apps. And non-Google Android is work.
- Zak 7mo ago
  > Also FaceTime for calling distant relatives. Are your relatives unable to install Signal or WhatsApp? Yes is a possible answer here, but installing a messaging/video-call app seems pretty low effort. I've had several elderly relatives do it and none required hand-holding, just the name of the app.
  - afavour 7mo ago
    At the time neither WhatsApp nor Signal had iPad apps. Looking at it now it seems Signal added that in 2020, WhatsApp in 2025. But I switched years before both.
  - MeetingsBrowser 7mo ago
    Even starting a FaceTime call is a struggle for lots of people. Installing an setting up Signal or WhatsApp is out of the question for a huge portion of the population.
    - toast0 7mo ago
      > Even starting a FaceTime call is a struggle for lots of people. Yes, 90% of global smartphone users can't do it at all :P
razingeden 7mo ago
Apple is doing a marvelous job of destroying the whole “it just works” or “it’s easy to figure out how to ____” thing they had going on. I would get over on an android 10-12 years ago and get exasperated about even trying to send a text message on the damned thing. Which, unfortunately can also now be said about the Apple experience. Apple doesn’t care what I think about their battery draining bloated garbage software anymore so I’m quietly quitting and don’t care about them either. I just finally gave away my MacBook to someone who needed it more than I do .. I loathe Tahoe… as much as I do ios26… but haven’t cut the cord with the iPhone YET. GrapheneOS seems to be the only contender that will get me to go along with that,(I’m running it on a pixel7 and warming up to it but still go back to iPhone to do some things I have no patience for figuring out on the pixel.) Motorola may seal the deal. If they offer a cool device. I had a Nexus 6 (I think) that Motorola made and it was cool, it was just already obsolete when I got my hands on it. I could root it and do whatever I wanted on it, and half the reason I got into iPhone was that I could readily jailbreak those once upon a time. And can’t now. So I have this fisher price piece of shit Apple device I can’t do anything fun on and the battery’s dead after 2-3 hours of use when … I paid extra for so called “pro max” devices for the extra battery capacity alone… the whole reason I even went down that road was getting lost in New York City with a dead battery a few too many time, this thing used to go 12-15 hours under ios18… Motorola had made several of my favorite phones ever before an iPhone existed. We’ll see. I don’t think anyone even enjoys or wants an iPhone anymore. We are all just fucking , and getting fucked by, Apple until someone better comes along. What else disgusts me about Apple is all the subtle ways they want you even more addicted to or dependent on your device. iCloud bullshit. In device subscriptions. Oh use our password manager and have a unique fucking 30 char password for every single site . Would you like a proprietary “passkey” so you’re forced to reach for your god damned iPhone another 15 times a day! 2fa? Authy won’t run on gOS. Just all this endless shit I’m going to have to divorce and migrate off of as well to get rid of them. And i will because i hate this company now. Please put them out of society’s misery for us.
- n8cpdx 7mo ago
  The problem is as bad as Apple has become, it has a long way to fall before it reaches the depths of Google/Android. We could have six more iOS 26 style disaster releases and I suspect it would still be better than putting up with Android. I tried to switch to graphene for similar reasons to you. It just wasn’t viable, as you’re discovering. And if you want to even attempt to have a modern smartphone experience, you’re logging into Google account, which is an “out of the frying pan, into the fire” move.
QuiEgo 7mo ago
This reminds me of when people say “I can’t believe developers use VS Code, real developers use vim/emacs” It’s a tool, a means to an end. I just want my tool to be easy to use and work. Another analogy would be cars: do you tune and modify, or do you want a transportation appliance? There is no wrong answer. Maybe your hobby is tinkering with your tools. If that’s you, more power to you. I want a phone, editor, and car that are easy to use and “just work.”
- Zak 7mo ago
  That's gatekeeping/snobbery. VSCode won't tell you you're not allowed to install extensions that aren't blessed by Microsoft. If it started doing that, most people could trivially switch to Codium.
  - eikenberry 7mo ago
    VSCodium does tell you your not allowed to install some extensions that are blessed by MS. (I.E. it's open core and switching might not be trivial if you rely on any of the proprietary extensions.)
- array_key_first 7mo ago
  There are actually wrong answers. We, intuitively, like to think in tradeoffs. No free lunch and all. So more open phones must be harder to use, they must be X Y and Z. But theyre not necessarily.
n8cpdx 7mo ago
It’s surprising to me that people who care enough about software to make a living writing it would tolerate the abominable state of software on Android. I tried switching but it is really hard when nearly every app is just horrible to use or missing basic features. Sure there are some limitations on what software is easy to install (as there are and will be soon on Android), but at least iOS has software worthy of being installed.
jjice 7mo ago
> I continue to be surprised that so many developers and other tech nerds - the type who post on HN - chose and continue to choose the iPhone over Android when Apple dictates what apps they can install and locks third-party accessories out of certain features. I ran Android since the beginning because I wanted to write my own software when I was in high school. I was on Android for something like 14 years. The other software I ran was never as good as my iOS compatriots. My software would crash, it looked worse, and it was generally lower quality. Of course, there were exceptions, but not enough. I switch to an iPhone a bit over a year ago and, while still having issues (especially recently), it's just such a better experience. My computer is where I do my fun software development. I just want my phone to work, which my Android phones weren't. Whether the hardware, the OS, or the applications were at fault doesn't matter to me, because I just wanted it to work.
arealaccount 7mo ago
I'm continued to be surprised that people carry around devices that are controlled by targeted advertising firms
quantum_magpie 7mo ago
Well, google doesn’t sell pixels in eu that can use graphene, and samsung installed the israeli spyware on all their devices. So apple is kinda the best solution. Unless you count xiaomi and huawei as the proper android devices?
nomel 7mo ago
Before my iPhone I had Android with custom ROMs, tricked out UI, bunches of system automations, etc. Now I want to spend exactly 0 seconds a day on any of that, and would never buy something that caused me to exceed that 0 seconds. I want an appliance in my pocket, when my car breaks down or I need to be in touch. I do my fun stuff elsewhere.
- cyberax 7mo ago
  It's weird to me that people keep saying that. How on Earth is iPhone more "appliancy" than regular Android? If anything, it's more annoying than Android with all the Apple inconsistencies. The settings UI, for example, is just plain broken. The gesture UI is finger-breakingly inconsistent, while Android has a simple reliable 3-button bottom bar.
  - nomel 7mo ago
    The most appliance thing about it is continued updates for and switching to a new device. If you stick with Samsung, the issues I've had probably go away. > gesture UI is finger-breakingly inconsistent I'm not familiar with this, at all. The app switching is actually my favorite feature about iPhone. So easy to flip between two apps. I don't use a case, so maybe that's related.
    - cyberax 7mo ago
      I've been using Pixel devices for a decade. I don't remember any issues with moving? I think the only bothersome thing was re-authentication in some apps after the move. It typically took me maybe an hour to move devices? Including moving to a non-Google phone once when I broke my phone during a foreign trip and had to get a temporary replacement. > I'm not familiar with this, at all. The app switching is actually my favorite feature about iPhone. So easy to flip between two apps. I don't use a case, so maybe that's related. I can't get it to switch consistently. On Android it's dead easy and reliable with a nav bar. On iPhone it's often not registering a gesture if I swipe too fast or don't start swiping from the very bottom.

by Zak 7mo ago

lo_zamoyski 7mo ago

Zak 7mo ago
I expect most people to think it's bad if a corporation can keep them from running apps on their phone when those apps are good for the user and bad for the corporation. If most people don't understand that conflicts of interest lead to unethical behavior, that's a larger and more urgent social problem. I expect tech nerds to be aware that the conflict of interests exists in this case, while the average person would not.
- WorldMaker 7mo ago
  You can be aware of the conflict of interest and still decide that is an acceptable trade-off to make. Ethics are personal, subjective, and subject to trade-offs. You have a strong ethical support for having control of the apps running on your devices and that overrides other trade-offs. Another person may have competing ethical beliefs such as Google is an advertising company and while Android allows open software installation (today, at least), Google's conflicts of interest as an ad company are more concerning for the entire platform and larger ecosystem than Apple's conflicts of interest as an application gate keeper. There's no right answer, everything is a shade of gray. Your strongest ethics aren't necessarily your neighbors'.
  - thewebguyd 7mo ago
    > Google is an advertising company and while Android allows open software installation (today, at least), Google's conflicts of interest as an ad company are more concerning for the entire platform and larger ecosystem than Apple's conflicts of interest as an application gate keeper. This, I suspect is a large part of it. At least for me, as a self described "tech nerd" who have been messing with computers since my childhood in the 90s. The other aspect is that I don't do anything serious from my phone. I'm still "old school" I guess and prefer a keyboard + mouse. My laptop is my main computing device, not my phone. And for that, Apple currently offers the best of a bad situation. It's still advantageous to them from a marketing standpoint to offer privacy, and they aren't primarily an advertising company. They are the only one of the two that offer E2EE (Advanced Data Protection) for photos, all the processing for that is done on device, etc. When meta threw their huge fit over the app tracking transparency, but were silent on anything Google was doing with Android, that just sold Apple even more for me. I'v made a choice to accept the tradeoff of them being an application gate keeper because for anything "serious" I'd just be using my computer anyway, which still allows me to install and run whatever I want, and do whatever I want with the hardware. I don't need that from a phone. Quite the opposite, I don't want that on a phone, I'm totally fine with the phone just being an appliance, and Apple offers the best appliance experience still.
  - lo_zamoyski 7mo ago
    > You can be aware of the conflict of interest and still decide that is an acceptable trade-off to make. Yes, here, you can talk about the relative merits of one piece of tech vs. another and compared with your personal needs. Of course, what is immoral is never permissible—it is nonsensical to speak of immorality otherwise—but there's nothing of the sort here. The behavior of the OP is a kind of moralizing rigorism, that is, the imposition of a personal concern on others that has no objective severity of the sort being claimed, as if his personal concerns here are morally binding on others. > Ethics are personal, subjective, and subject to trade-offs. Subjective, no. Morality (ethics is the study of morality) is objective, or it is nothing. Murder is evil not because I arbitrarily opine—with no objective basis whatever—that it is evil, but because it actually is evil, and to choose to commit it is a gravely immoral act.

georgeecollins 7mo ago

I don't think they have to reach the average consumer for this to work. The world is big, and while 99% probably could care less there are more than one reason to own an open source phone. If the lenovo hardware runs Android and Graphene, it's not like they have to make a big investment in it. And the Graphene users could give them some pricing power. If you are a phone manufacturer looking to differentiate your product, this is cheaper than inventing a display that folds four times or what have you.

sho_hn 7mo ago

> so many developers and other tech nerds - the type who post on HN The average developer stopped being a "tech nerd" around 2010 or so. I think older developers sometimes don't understand how the ranks have swollen and how many, many more people are in software now that don't have the "I was a nerdy kid in the 90s, loved computers and chose the career" upbringing. The average developer now has a MacBook, went to a bunch of bootcamps and writes TypeScript. Or enterprise Java if they got unlucky.

rjbwork 7mo ago
It's very evident when you work with the young juniors. I've seen people with CS degrees that don't know their keyboard shortcuts.
- DANmode 7mo ago
  I’ve got great news for you.
Zak 7mo ago
It's less surprising to me that a developer would choose a Macbook than an iPhone. You can have root on a Macbook and install software without permission from Apple (though I hear of late it may require using the command line). The hardware performance is outstanding, and while opinions are split about the OS, a lot of people who display good taste in other technical matters like it. I've chosen to spend my own money on a different laptop, but if someone offered me a high-spec Macbook Pro on the condition that I use it for a year, I'd accept.
- godelski 7mo ago
  I choose a Macbook because it's my terminal. I'm given the choice "Macbook" or "Windows laptop". I'm forced to use Microsoft products and they're actively hostile to Linux. My laptop is really just a glorified ssh machine, with a web browser, and corporate shovelware. Life is so much better in the terminal. Home is 192.168.1.0/24 and 100.64.0.0/10, it doesn't matter what screen I'm using. Home is where the ssh connection is.

endemic 7mo ago

I don't think it's iPhone vs. Android, rather "mega-corp $$$" vs. hobbyists. At the point where Android could be considered "open" (e.g. removing Google Play Services, etc.) you've lost a lot of the functionality that people come to expect from a smartphone. Sure, there are workarounds, but let's be honest: they're hacky and not a great experience.

Cider9986 7mo ago
It is a great experience without Google Play Services on GraheneOS.

afavour 7mo ago

> I continue to be surprised that so many developers and other tech nerds - the type who post on HN - chose and continue to choose the iPhone over Android when Apple dictates what apps they can install and locks third-party accessories out of certain features. I bought a Nexus One the day it became available, installed endless third party ROMs on it, tweaked it to my heart's desire. Got a Nexus 4, then 5. Today I have an iPhone. I just need something that works, just because I can tweak endlessly doesn't mean it's a good use of my time. Honestly one of the original biggest motivators was iMessage. A rock solid messaging system ought to be table stakes for a mobile OS but Google has reinvented the wheel so many times I've lost track. Also FaceTime for calling distant relatives. Sad to say, I don't find myself missing the relative openness of Android at all. Google-branded Android has issues similar to iOS, they also removed ICE Watch style apps. And non-Google Android is work.

Zak 7mo ago
> Also FaceTime for calling distant relatives. Are your relatives unable to install Signal or WhatsApp? Yes is a possible answer here, but installing a messaging/video-call app seems pretty low effort. I've had several elderly relatives do it and none required hand-holding, just the name of the app.
- afavour 7mo ago
  At the time neither WhatsApp nor Signal had iPad apps. Looking at it now it seems Signal added that in 2020, WhatsApp in 2025. But I switched years before both.
- MeetingsBrowser 7mo ago
  Even starting a FaceTime call is a struggle for lots of people. Installing an setting up Signal or WhatsApp is out of the question for a huge portion of the population.
  - toast0 7mo ago
    > Even starting a FaceTime call is a struggle for lots of people. Yes, 90% of global smartphone users can't do it at all :P

razingeden 7mo ago

Apple is doing a marvelous job of destroying the whole “it just works” or “it’s easy to figure out how to ____” thing they had going on. I would get over on an android 10-12 years ago and get exasperated about even trying to send a text message on the damned thing. Which, unfortunately can also now be said about the Apple experience. Apple doesn’t care what I think about their battery draining bloated garbage software anymore so I’m quietly quitting and don’t care about them either. I just finally gave away my MacBook to someone who needed it more than I do .. I loathe Tahoe… as much as I do ios26… but haven’t cut the cord with the iPhone YET. GrapheneOS seems to be the only contender that will get me to go along with that,(I’m running it on a pixel7 and warming up to it but still go back to iPhone to do some things I have no patience for figuring out on the pixel.) Motorola may seal the deal. If they offer a cool device. I had a Nexus 6 (I think) that Motorola made and it was cool, it was just already obsolete when I got my hands on it. I could root it and do whatever I wanted on it, and half the reason I got into iPhone was that I could readily jailbreak those once upon a time. And can’t now. So I have this fisher price piece of shit Apple device I can’t do anything fun on and the battery’s dead after 2-3 hours of use when … I paid extra for so called “pro max” devices for the extra battery capacity alone… the whole reason I even went down that road was getting lost in New York City with a dead battery a few too many time, this thing used to go 12-15 hours under ios18… Motorola had made several of my favorite phones ever before an iPhone existed. We’ll see. I don’t think anyone even enjoys or wants an iPhone anymore. We are all just fucking , and getting fucked by, Apple until someone better comes along. What else disgusts me about Apple is all the subtle ways they want you even more addicted to or dependent on your device. iCloud bullshit. In device subscriptions. Oh use our password manager and have a unique fucking 30 char password for every single site . Would you like a proprietary “passkey” so you’re forced to reach for your god damned iPhone another 15 times a day! 2fa? Authy won’t run on gOS. Just all this endless shit I’m going to have to divorce and migrate off of as well to get rid of them. And i will because i hate this company now. Please put them out of society’s misery for us.

n8cpdx 7mo ago
The problem is as bad as Apple has become, it has a long way to fall before it reaches the depths of Google/Android. We could have six more iOS 26 style disaster releases and I suspect it would still be better than putting up with Android. I tried to switch to graphene for similar reasons to you. It just wasn’t viable, as you’re discovering. And if you want to even attempt to have a modern smartphone experience, you’re logging into Google account, which is an “out of the frying pan, into the fire” move.

QuiEgo 7mo ago

This reminds me of when people say “I can’t believe developers use VS Code, real developers use vim/emacs” It’s a tool, a means to an end. I just want my tool to be easy to use and work. Another analogy would be cars: do you tune and modify, or do you want a transportation appliance? There is no wrong answer. Maybe your hobby is tinkering with your tools. If that’s you, more power to you. I want a phone, editor, and car that are easy to use and “just work.”

Zak 7mo ago
That's gatekeeping/snobbery. VSCode won't tell you you're not allowed to install extensions that aren't blessed by Microsoft. If it started doing that, most people could trivially switch to Codium.
- eikenberry 7mo ago
  VSCodium does tell you your not allowed to install some extensions that are blessed by MS. (I.E. it's open core and switching might not be trivial if you rely on any of the proprietary extensions.)
array_key_first 7mo ago
There are actually wrong answers. We, intuitively, like to think in tradeoffs. No free lunch and all. So more open phones must be harder to use, they must be X Y and Z. But theyre not necessarily.

n8cpdx 7mo ago

It’s surprising to me that people who care enough about software to make a living writing it would tolerate the abominable state of software on Android. I tried switching but it is really hard when nearly every app is just horrible to use or missing basic features. Sure there are some limitations on what software is easy to install (as there are and will be soon on Android), but at least iOS has software worthy of being installed.

jjice 7mo ago

> I continue to be surprised that so many developers and other tech nerds - the type who post on HN - chose and continue to choose the iPhone over Android when Apple dictates what apps they can install and locks third-party accessories out of certain features. I ran Android since the beginning because I wanted to write my own software when I was in high school. I was on Android for something like 14 years. The other software I ran was never as good as my iOS compatriots. My software would crash, it looked worse, and it was generally lower quality. Of course, there were exceptions, but not enough. I switch to an iPhone a bit over a year ago and, while still having issues (especially recently), it's just such a better experience. My computer is where I do my fun software development. I just want my phone to work, which my Android phones weren't. Whether the hardware, the OS, or the applications were at fault doesn't matter to me, because I just wanted it to work.

arealaccount 7mo ago

I'm continued to be surprised that people carry around devices that are controlled by targeted advertising firms

quantum_magpie 7mo ago

Well, google doesn’t sell pixels in eu that can use graphene, and samsung installed the israeli spyware on all their devices. So apple is kinda the best solution. Unless you count xiaomi and huawei as the proper android devices?

nomel 7mo ago

Before my iPhone I had Android with custom ROMs, tricked out UI, bunches of system automations, etc. Now I want to spend exactly 0 seconds a day on any of that, and would never buy something that caused me to exceed that 0 seconds. I want an appliance in my pocket, when my car breaks down or I need to be in touch. I do my fun stuff elsewhere.

cyberax 7mo ago
It's weird to me that people keep saying that. How on Earth is iPhone more "appliancy" than regular Android? If anything, it's more annoying than Android with all the Apple inconsistencies. The settings UI, for example, is just plain broken. The gesture UI is finger-breakingly inconsistent, while Android has a simple reliable 3-button bottom bar.
- nomel 7mo ago
  The most appliance thing about it is continued updates for and switching to a new device. If you stick with Samsung, the issues I've had probably go away. > gesture UI is finger-breakingly inconsistent I'm not familiar with this, at all. The app switching is actually my favorite feature about iPhone. So easy to flip between two apps. I don't use a case, so maybe that's related.
  - cyberax 7mo ago
    I've been using Pixel devices for a decade. I don't remember any issues with moving? I think the only bothersome thing was re-authentication in some apps after the move. It typically took me maybe an hour to move devices? Including moving to a non-Google phone once when I broke my phone during a foreign trip and had to get a temporary replacement. > I'm not familiar with this, at all. The app switching is actually my favorite feature about iPhone. So easy to flip between two apps. I don't use a case, so maybe that's related. I can't get it to switch consistently. On Android it's dead easy and reliable with a nav bar. On iPhone it's often not registering a gesture if I swipe too fast or don't start swiping from the very bottom.