Okay, this is not an iPhone vs Android Phone debate. I respect your right to choose whichever platform that you want.
I mean, iPhone seems so antithetical with the idea of freedom. You have to connect it to a server to even use it, all apps have to go through a centralized server, no option to install whatever apps you want, which means, you literally cannot have any third-party apps without an online account.
Most of my fellow americans seems to love the idea of freedom so much, yet just buy into a closed ecosystem with no freedom? 🤔
Like almost 60% of Americans use iPhone, kinda weird to preach freedom when you cant even have an app without a corporation’s approval. If it were any other country, I wouldn’t find it weird, but for a country that’s obsessed with the idea of freedom (so much so that they disobeyed mask mandates), it’s really weird to be using a device with zero freedom.
Bootlickers got nothing to hide… Also Android is the same thing unless degoogled.
IMO Android is worse unless you really tinker with it. Most people don’t even know how to side load an app, much less root and degoogle. Many people don’t know to buy carrier unlocked phones or can’t afford to. The last android I used had several carrier apps forced onto it, unable to be removed, including apps I refuse to use like Facebook, which I’m sure the carrier got a kickback to force on us. Then the carrier decided no more updates despite the manufacturer releasing more major updates.
Most people just don’t know or care enough to do what should be done with an android phone. They just want a device to call and text on that can also crush candy or whatever other distraction they prefer.
A man who doesn’t tend to his own business will have another man do it for him
Most people just don’t know or care enough to do what should be done with a [wife]. They just want a [wife to cook and clean] that can also [fuck on command] or whatever other distraction they prefer
what the fuck are you on about, you creep
if you don’t take care of your device, some rapist in mountain view or cupertino will…
for my slow readers ;)
Tbh androids privacy is shit. I’d rather deal with Apple than Google both on hardware and privacy any day. The only way I’d switch is to something like Graphene
Marketing.
Convincing stupid people that their self-worth is based on how much they spend.
Not a thing that is exclusive to Apple, of course. It’s how society has been since the 80s and Reaganomics, with Nike and other running shoes being the first really noticeable marketing push in that regard.
Where Apple paved the way is that, even back then, a company would make a product, assign a profit margin to it (traditionally about 30-40%), and sell it at that price…
Apple came along and said, “the only limit to a profit margin is how much you can convince stupid people to pay. We’ll use billions of dollars in advertising to convince people that they’re sub-human if they don’t agree with it. If the consumer is dumb enough to pay 250% profit margin for a phone device that costs us literally a couple hundred bucks to make…than that’s on them and their own stupidity.”
So in short, profit margin is no longer a relatively stable number dictated by market forces and the relative strength of the economy, and (thanks to Apple) instead has become a function of marketing. How much can you convince suckers to spend.
Because an iPhone isn’t “that” expensive when you buy it on a plan. I mean it’s only $38 CAD for the new iPhone 6e on a Contract. That’s with my paycheque to paycheque budget. /s
Though honestly that’s the mind set of these users. Sure they are literally paying $100+ CAD more than MSRP. But to them since it includes the data it’s a good deal.
Now bellow is my view as a guy who manages and orgs fleet of Samsung phone, developed apps for both Android and iOS, and is the defacto IT guy for my family.
I think the lean towards iPhones comes from budget Android being crap, and peer pressure from those around them. Get a cheap A series Samsung or a Budget Acer and you are just asking for a slow and buggy experience where the mic will just stop working after 2 years. Or it’s running Android One.
Even an older iPhone like the 6s is still supported by many apps. Plus since it once had flagship specs. The soc has more power and runs better than anything new from Android. It’s the same logic that if you get an older iPad for the same price as a new Fire Tablet the iPad will be better than a fire tablet.
The solution is to get a more expensive Android. But once you get to the price point of a Samsung S series, you might as well get an iPhone. The price is comparable, and you don’t loose out on features like the App Store (google play is a steaming pile in comparison). Plus iMessage and FaceTime is seamless and Airdrop “just works”.
My relative had Android for years and struggled to use them. I finally convinced one of them to use an iPhone XR by the time the 14 was coming out, and now my Nan is texting and doing FaceTime. They could’ve done this before with the budget Android their carrier gave them. But the work Apple did to make it feel intuitive is brilliant. In fact because of the confidence boost from the iPhone, she’s even gotten herself an iPad to do her crossword puzzles.
On top of that, unlike Apple. There is no guarantee that if you pay more for you Android that I’ll keep getting support. Most phones struggle to offer more than 2 years. And with the fiasco around the Pixel 4 battery, it’s hard to believe the biggest players “promises”. Compare that to Apple and while the promise 7 years, realistically it can be 10 years.
For me the reason I swapped over was the Play Store being hot garbage. And the disgusting amount of uninstallable bloat on it. I tried for years to install custom ROMs and midrange Chinese phones to get around it. While it works, I grew tired of the work required just to keep my phone up to date. And the loss of built in features since I was going u official. Like the loss of 2/3 cameras in the app (trying to find a cracked gcamera which enables both is a chore), and contactless pay (evolution x worked sometime, and locked me out other time).
Don’t get me wrong iOS isn’t better than Android. I miss my headphone jack, FDroid, side loading my own apps, the ease of adding custom ringtones, and custom launcher. Oh and being able to use 3rd party web browsers that aren’t skins of Safari (WebKit). But when updates come through I’m not concerned. My contactless pay works. Ad blocking is possible and I can’t complain about the cameras.
The answer is marketing by Apple and mobile carriers, which lean on peer pressure via iMessage. Plus the iPhone built on the success of the iPod, which led the market for mp3 players.
I would never use an iPhone if my phone were my primary computing device. But I just make occasional calls and texts, and use a handful of apps (for instance, Nextcloud and Home Assistant connected directly to my home server, bypassing most of Apple’s ecosystem). I just want something simple and sturdy that I have to think about as little as possible, and for that specific use case the limitations are a plus.
I do always wonder if this is part of it. I want my phone to just work, but I have more appropriate tools for playing with stuff. My servers are Linux, my laptop is windows, and my work is Mac - appropriate tools for my uses. My kids can spend all day tweaking their gaming computers, but want their phones to just work also
While I’m atypical in how many different computers I have, are we just more used to multiple devices in the us?
Not an American, but as an iPhone user who has had Android phones since cupcake before: iPhones „just work“, they are a lot less janky than Android, the ecosystem is smooth (although admittedly and intentionally less so when leaving it), they get updated for longer (and at the same time!) and apple has a much better privacy track record than the competition (a low bar).
Yes, I would prefer to install my apps from anywhere I want on the device I should own. An open source phone from top to bottom would be my dream, but Android is about as far removed from that as an iphone. Google took Linux and made it into a Frankenstein nightmare that is wholly dependent on them.
Just try to stick to open source and make your phone respect your privacy and see how far you get. Start at the usually locked bootloader, install a rom without google and see how few apps are left that do not require google services. And even then you are most likely dependent on binary blobs for the drivers, meaning the manufacturers can (and will) pull the rug from under your efforts as soon as they no longer feel like updating their shitty built of Android for the device in time.
I do not have time for that. What I have is enough money to buy a phone that comes as close as possible to my idea of safety, freedom and privacy without constantly jumping through burning hoops. If I am to be in a cage, it better be golden.
they are a lot less janky than Android
What did you find so problematic and unsolvable?
Just to say. I recently jumped from Android and the iPhone didn’t just work like I remember they did. Two bugs I had were adding comments on Reddit using Firefox. The keyboard would come up but my text would be off screen so I couldn’t see what I was typing. This could be a Firefox bug but it was still very weird and not one I’d seen on Android.
One bug that used to get annoying is I’d unlock the phone and when going to type, the volume would be at max briefly before going back to the volume the phone was set at. This caught me out a few times in the middle of the night.
I couldn’t get on with iOS and felt that after not using it since the iPhone 4S that nothing had really improved. Also the lack of being able to use uBlock Origin on Firefox was awful. It’s been a while since I browsed the web without an adblocker and I really hated having to do something every day. Eventually I sold the 16 Pro I had and went back to my Pixel 8.
The one thing I remember being great about the iPhone was when you upgrade you restore the backup and the phone just works. With Android you typically have to go around and login to all the apps again. Again a developer issue but certainly easier on iOS.
This could be a Firefox bug but it was still very weird and not one I’d seen on Android.
This is likely directly related to the fact that Apple blocks use of any other web renderer than Webkit based on App store guidelines.
This means neither Chrome nor Firefox on iOS are actually the normal versions. Normally Chrome uses Blink and Firefox uses Gecko, but they both use Webkit on iOS.
Android restores all your logins too.
An open source phone from top to bottom would be my dream, but Android is about as far removed from that as an iphone. Google took Linux and made it into a Frankenstein nightmare that is wholly dependent on them.
have you considered flashing custom roms on it? e/OS, LineageOS and GrapheneOS (restricted to google pixel for hardware+privacy/security reasons) are all opensource.
Graphene. Don’t try the others if you aren’t prepared for an uphill battle. Graphene just works.
I agree that graphene is the hands down best. But for people who have a device and want to switch, and that device is not a google pixel, well that severely limits your options.
As soon as you start flashing custom firmware the “just works” goes right out of the window.
Blue ticks and group chats.
Cos they never made it away from the pre-installed apps.
The Blue/Green tick thing has winded down in my own personal sphere. My wife’s family has a group chat where I was the only android user and would get dunked on when I replied. I just asked to be removed so they wouldn’t have to deal with SMS/MMS bullshit. Now that RCS is on everything it doesn’t matter. Ive been trying to get them to use Signal for the last few years but no one wants another app that isn’t their default messaging app.
On the second part, yeah thats true. If Apple does anything right it’s making “things work” for the average user, and I am sure we all know what the average user can do now. Any concerns I bring up with iOS is met with “but you work in IT and understand that stuff” which is hard to argue with when people just want something to work without troubleshooting and exploring options.
I personally do not trust Google at all. Their entire business model is ads and tracking.
Apple is in no way better.
You’re not even making an argument, just an assertion. Are you by chance a software engineer? If you really understand what Google is doing on a technical level, there is no comparison. No they are not the same. No Apple is not just as bad. Just think about it, Google makes their money selling businesses ads. Apple makes their money selling you a phone. The incentives are very different.
Apple also sells ads, their ad business just isn’t as big as google’s.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corebluetooth/advertising-data
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1330127/apple-ad-revenue-worldwide/
In 2022, Apple generated 4.7 billion U.S. dollars with its global advertising business.
But sure, they’re not the same. Apple’s advertising is working on you.
The ads are in the app store and about apps. Googles ads are all over the web and they’ve embedded trackers in every website that call home and tell google what you’re up to. Most android apps also have Google libraries in them that track you. Chrome monitors your off Google activity. Gmail extracts purchase receipts from online shopping and monitors your spending to serve ads. Meanwhile, Apple forced app developers to ask for permission to track users and pissed off the entire tech industry. The two are not the same from a user privacy perspective. Apple also does not have trackers all over the web and does not read your email. Also, $4.7 billion is peanuts to Apple. Their annual is roughly $400 billion. Ads for them are a fart in the wind. Google meanwhile makes 75% its money on ads. I don’t trust them at all.
I disagree. Apple might not be perfect, but it is better than Google when it comes to ads and tracking. I know my data is encrypted, both on the device and in my cloud. And in the App Store, it tells me exactly what data is being collected by the apps I choose to install.
https://securityaffairs.com/174500/security/apple-removes-icloud-encryption-in-uk.html
Oh yeah, they really care. I guess you can be sure it’s encrypted unless… *checks notes… governments require a backdoor.
Apple received the request to add a secret government backdoor and responded by publicly disabling a popular feature to invalidate the request.
I guarantee you that Google, Microsoft, and others received identical requests, but we’ve heard crickets from them. Implication being everyone except Apple silently complied.
I’ll believe that when they shut down their encrypted services in the US, where we know they were compromised by NSA’s PRISM since Snowden.
You say this like governments mandating backdoors is a new thing that hasn’t been happening.
The SolarWinds hack literally exploited the backdoors that were required by the US government.
Bullshit, this is the exact opposite of what you’re intending to say. UK government demanded a backdoor to secretly invade your privacy. They had no choice. However instead of implementing the back door into your data while leaving you with an illusion of privacy, they publicly announced you have no expectation of privacy in the U.K, they kept their privacy implementation secure and no longer use it in the UK
Short of leaving the market entirely, what better response could you hope for.? Save your anger for the U.K. government
I mean, they had to demand it. Unlike with google who gladly gives them access.
through significant promotion and advertisement by APPLE, the mackbook, is used by tons of programmers though, and i have used the desktops at university library.
I’ve used an IPhone since 4s. I have a 13 Plus Max. However. I used to have android devices. I always enjoy the UI/UX on the iPhone over the Android os. Even after working for the Android team. I still preferred iOS. I know I’m missing out to some awesome android features. But I can always jailbreak and add those features like I have on my iPad mini cellular. Which worked with Google Fi somehow. After jailbreaking. And my iPhone 6.
Because they are easily gullible.
Whatever you say, Mr. President!
You have to connect it to a server to even use it
That’s also true of the versions of Android that 99.99% of people use
cannot have any third-party apps without an online account.
Most people don’t care. They’ll use the suggested app store and have an account already.
Right or not, it is what it is.
I can only speak for myself and my kids. I have an iPhone because my work gave me one for free. They only support iPhone for security reasons. Keeping Android devices up to date across a large fleet is challenging leaving security gaps. For my kids they wanted my old iPhones because it’s what all their friends have.
android user now but basically… it might be that most of us Americans try to take the path of least resistance or whatever doesn’t give us headaches. I mean like, almost everything we do (except taxes) are pretty simplified. And even for taxes, we can LITERALLY pay for services to simplify or do it for us ( like wtf, this is kinda stupid). Apple does a good job of making it an easy experience.
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easy to use - like an automatic car vs manual car.
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popular apps just work - I don’t think its a problem now but I remember when some social media apps were just broken on android vs iphone.
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a lot of the software looks pretty clean and fancy. Gives it a polished experience.
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HARD TO LEAVE - Apple products work better with other apple products. Once you leave, you basically lose out on all the purchases you’ve made over the years.
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Apple store support - life saver for most people
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Security updates more consistent.
Hell, trying to adjust from typing with iphone keyboard to android keyboard took longer than expected.
Also our government issues out iphones for fed employees.
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