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If you follow Benedict Evans on Twitter then you know that he is something of an Apple fan boy, so it's hard to read such a piece without noting that there is a
by buro9 12y ago
If you follow Benedict Evans on Twitter then you know that he is something of an Apple fan boy, so it's hard to read such a piece without noting that there is already considerable bias in it.
I'd like to address the first list though, "There are a bunch of reasons why someone would buy a high-end Android rather than an iPhone".
That list does not include the two reasons that myself and people I know use Android:
1. We wish to have control over our devices
2. We have not invested heavily in either Apple or Google and we avoid making choices that will force us to be invested in one over the other
On the first point, control may be about privacy (using something like XPrivacy), personalisation (perhaps CyanogenMod), adblock (AdAway), or simply having more control over what runs to be able to extend the battery of a Nexus 5 to a few days of heavy use rather than a single day (kill all the background services but still have the apps available for us to use).
On the second point, myself and my friends do not use Google as an ecosystem or as a range of permanent services and virtual assistants. We invariably are using different launchers (Nova is most common), perhaps Duck Duck Go... and our Google footprint is really just to use some Google apps as standalone apps (Gmail, calendar, drive). We tend to get media from Kindle, or Spotify... so we're not even hooked on Google Play.
What this means is that we've avoided deep lock-in with Google, and we make choices that avoid being locked in to Microsoft or Apple too.
When I think of what most of my friends use, it's a mix of technologies. Apple and Lenovo laptops, the latter running Windows or Linux. iPods and Cowon music players. Mostly Android phones.
The biggest reasons not to go for an iPhone are the same reasons we haven't gone for an iPhone to date: It feels like an all or nothing decision that would be hard to change in the future.
The value of an iPhone seems to be of the entire Apple ecosystem, it makes sense if you've bought into it already, or are choosing to buy into it, but not if you do not choose to be locked in.
The value, to us, of an Android device is that you can get the benefits of this technology without having to be part of any ecosystem, Google's or Samsung's or that of anyone else (Amazon?).
I'm not sure it's possible for Benedict to see this any more... he's personally so deep into the Apple world that his perspective is skewed by that reality. The question of why anyone would choose not to be a part of an ecosystem isn't even asked. He's made it an Apple vs Google question, when the people I know using Android are not even considering that question.
PS: If I think of what entices people to consider an Apple iPhone more than anything else, it's the camera (usually noted as the software ecosystem around the camera). Photography on an iPhone bests every Android device there is. This is the single reason that some of my friends have an iPhone.
- gphreak 12y agoI dislike the term fanboy, but otherwise a solid addition to the post. One could argue that what you describe is a very geeky way to approach that descision and most people won't follow the same train of thought.
- buro9 12y agoI suspect you are right. There is a common theme amongst my friends that whilst they are not technical (I am the only programmer or person working in tech), they are all geeks for one thing or another; be it cameras, watches, coffee, cycling gear and so on. They like to tinker and play with things, have some control over them. Adults with toys. It's probably a selection bias, but it reaches out to so many people that ignoring it entirely is also a bias.
- fuzzythinker 12y agoOne of my main reason for using Android is I hate being forced to use iTunes to update and sync. One, it has one of the worst UI for device managers (was designed manage music), and it's a very unpleasant experience for me every time I am forced to use it to manage my idevices. Two, it had wiped out everything in my iphone one time I try to sync it to a new computer. To me, the word "sync" means to update devices so that the data missing from the other device gets synced. No way would I have second guessed it would wipe out data from the device. So every time I use iTunes to sync, I get super nervous. With Android, I can just navigate my device as if it's just an external drive when I plug it into my computer(a Mac). iTunes is just the opposite of Apple's "it just works" motto.
- lutusp 12y ago> To me, the word "sync" means to update devices so that the data missing from the other device gets synced. But that's not what sync means. True sync has a source and a target, and the target's file collection is always made to match the source. If you confuse the source and the target and the "source" is empty, you get the outcome you describe -- the empty device's file collection is "duplicated" (i.e. erased) on the other device that's been mistakenly chosen as the target. This is a surprisingly common outcome among people who don't fully understand the meaning of sync. If your interpretation were the default meaning, it would be impossible to delete any tracks from your music collection. If you deleted some tracks from the source device, the source would have those tracks restored from the target instead of being deleted from it -- but that's not what sync means. EDIT: People, don't downvote posts just because you don't understand the topic under discussion. The above description is absolutely, incontrovertibly correct in every detail. Therefore, in a depressing trend, it's been downvoted because it's annoyingly, infuriatingly right.