I mean Android, and Samsung in particular, borrow from Apple all the time as well. Hell Samsung frequently bad mouths Apples for the anti-consumer choices one year then follows suit and does the same thing in a year or 2 themselves.
These kinds of takes are not the flex some seem to think they are in my opinion.
So what you’re saying is, if you want advanced phone features sooner buy an Android, if you want to be subjected to dodgy business practices sooner buy an Apple
Yeah remember when Samsung charged you double?
No ?
Yeah me neither.
Eh? Their bog standard device cost is usually pretty on par. And Apple definitely isn’t charging you double.
Which one is bog standard? Samsung has over 12 different models on production that range from 150$ to 1900$, including two models with folding screens. Apple has 3 phones, they’re all overpriced hardware.
The hardware is overpriced, absolutely. But it’s also typically better than Samsung.
By big standard I mean their “low end” device. The comparable Samsung of each generation is usually within ~$200 of the Apple model.
Better? The Apple hardware is always significantly worse than competition in the same price class. Most of the price of an iPhone goes to their excessive marketing and record profits, so they have to cut costs on hardware
You mean to say that the accidentally bendy phone is better than the actually foldable phone? Or that the accidentally bendy tablet is better than the tablet that is almost 20% larger, equally thin but somehow doesn’t bend?
Really? We going to ignore the accidentally not allowed on planes because they can explode phone?
Of course, as we know no Apple device has ever caught on fire, never.
The only thing iOS really does better imo is the quick settings menu
Holy shit it sucks on Android compared to iOS
It looks better, it has more options, it has better overview and grouping
except it’s basically made useless by the fact that wifi/bt toggles don’t actually toggle off their respective radios, but just disconnect from the current network
Like math notes. And handwriting fonts. And a customisable control centre. And phone mirroring. And locking apps natively. And pretty much all of Apple Intelligence (particularly Genmoji because I want a hyena emoji and Unicode doesn’t have one).
Hold on. This control centre thing is really annoying me over here on Android. iOS separates notifications and control centre into two separate groups. I have to swipe down twice on Android to do what took a single swipe on iOS. On top of this, clearing all notifications closes the drawer after a delay, automatically. Why? I can close it faster myself, and sometimes, I want it to stay open, but NOPE!
And then the control centre itself. Volume control just… doesn’t exist (key word: CONTROL). Brightness (which I use often) is all the way at the top, rather than the middle. Then, the control centre is split into PAGES at HALF SIZE, and they’re all just wide rectangular buttons. Then, no volume control. What the HELL is this!? I could long press to get an easy brightness slider for my torch, everything internet related was quickly accessible in a single square, and now you’re telling me iOS is even FURTHER ahead?
Did I mention there’s NO. VOLUME. CONTROL. I have to press a volume button, then a tiny on-screen button after that, and then I get sliders after I wait for the menu to pop up. Granted, that’s sliders (plural), but fuck me. This one HURTS. I sometimes find the buttons a little bit too stiff, so I usually use on-screen controls during screen on, and buttons while off.
So much for owning my phone, since I can barely change any of this, and I can only see the way my control centre looks after I’ve edited it.
FUCK!
This absolute abhorrence. The Gods forsake this wretched control centre design. It is genuinely agonising using this afterthought of an interface. This cannot stand.
I have to swipe down twice on Android to do what took a single swipe on iOS.
swipe down with two fingers
Wtf how have I used android for this long without knowing?
I guess one-handed phones are really dead now
I switched to a iPhone mini not long ago, and I love how well it works one-handed
You can even quickly swipe twice.
Yooo that’s fire
This… works. Ultimately one of the smaller issues (and different swipe regions are just easier), but it’s a little faster.
That doesn’t sound like my phone. Have you tried launchers? Or it could be specific to your manufacturer. That’s part of the problem with android - too many manufacturers wanting to customise their interface without a clear idea of what good UX is
I use Niagra. Launchers are home screen only. And, as long as I use anything related to stock Android, I’m stuck with this.
I hate Apple and love Android but I can see the value in all the stuff you said. Doesn’t make me want to change teams but just letting you know there is an Android fanboy that sees value in what you said.
This has been the case for at least 11 years.
Idk, I think Apple was first to do face unlock. That’s all I got…
I used to unlock my desktop with my face a long time ago (20 years or so)… No clue when it came to mobile devices, I could totally see Apple bringing that to mobile first.
Yeah, the tech itself isn’t new. Fingerprint sensors also took a while to come to mobile, and they’ve been around for ages.
I’m also not interested in face unlock. Passwords work fine, and fingerprints are more than plenty for lazy people.
I wholeheartedly agree, I thought it was cool until I realized the security concerns. FDE and pass phrases only please. If only someone could convince more companies to allow proper TOTP instead of wanting you to use their proprietary authenticator.
Yup, looking at you, Fidelity and Steam…
What about round corners?
Yes, but apple will market them better so people will think it’s new .
Good for Android, now if they’d only implement all of the Apple-only features that create the lock-in appeal then maybe they’ll get somewhere. When my Pixel Buds flow seamlessly from device to device to the third and fourth device then maybe we’ll talk
Exactly. Also memoji on Android would be nice as well as the better emoji content on iPhones…
The bedtime mode on iPhone is also very cool as well as the ability to set your contact photo which other iPhone users will see when they call you.
Plus I think Apple have done a better job with widgets because they look nicer and are stackable.
Imo as an android user, android has been neglected by Google for a while and apart from Samsung no other OEM’s are adding for software to rival Apple.
Which is one of many reasons why I’ll be switching back to iPhone. I see more and better user features being added to iOS.
The only thing Google has done with android lately is Material You, and it’s not as rich as apples customisation. And circle to search is a stupid feature which only benefits Google more than the user.
Presumably need Pixel everything for that but even then, as an android user I would rather be locked into an Apple eco than google.
My SO has current gen Pixel devices all around and it’s yet to materialize. To my mind, Google could sync Bluetooth pairing info across all Android devices if they put their minds to it. But even if they did, they would need to work with Microsoft and other vendors to get the kind of ambiguity that would compete with Apple’s product line. As it stands, if you buy the Apple product you get the best hardware and the software compliment is five years ahead than the competition. Google and Microsoft need to leapfrog
I have the Pixel Buds Pro and they kinda do that, but yeah not very well. I have them paired to my phone and my laptop, and sometimes randomly they’ll silently disconnect from my laptop and permanently pause whatever I was watching if my phone plays a notification. I can’t fix it until I disconnect from and reconnect to my laptop multiple times.
One time I was watching a video on my laptop and they randomly connected to my desktop! I hadn’t used them on my desktop in at least a year, until then!
All in all, they can flow seamlessly, but it’s 60/40 on if it works properly
At least the noise cancelling and passthrough are fun to mess with
How many devices do you switch between? For me, it’s phone, tablet, two laptops and my watch. I think that the Pixel Buds can switch between two without needing a re-pair. Meanwhile, I can stream my Apple TV audio to my AirPods as they’re also an audio source! Even if Google released basic support for this today, they still wouldn’t be able to fully catch up because they have no truly realized desktop/laptop OS so I’d live in a mixed ecosystem.
As much as I hate apple and google, I want a future where all these can be done locally without massive servers and sending all data to cloud . Apple clearly have a edge over google in that regards.
It definitely comes at a cost though. The private local models will be inherently dumber because of less compute and smaller data sets.
And, unfortunately, this is a hard thing to communicate to the public. All they know is that Assistant responded to a request better than Siri.
Ah, you mean like the sync that Palm OS used to have? Yup, that was neat, and I’m still waiting for Android to pick up some of the neat features from back then.
I miss palm OS. I think it had some undeniable jank but it also had great features and a bit of “charm”. I’m pretty sure I still remember most of the Graffiti alphabet!
I totally bought a Palm off eBay few months ago. It’s been fun to use Palm OS 5 again. I got a model that actually has WiFi, which was also interesting to set up a AP that was compatible with it.
One I got had a dead battery, ordered a new one, it was so much nicer to open the old tech and replace the battery. Just screw and little solder. No glue and impossible small stuff to work with.
My last brand new Pixel phone had debug strings in the user interface and the UI was not responsive. It’s the daily annoyances and details that made me get an iPhone. Comparisons have been stupid since the beginning of smartphones.
Can you elaborate on these problems?
And yet still no back button, the most basic feature that iPhones sorely lack :(
i still like my android but i do wish they would get back to prioritising widgets again, like apple has done - and get developers to do it as well.
i also like apple watch over my samsung watch. i think the apple watch is top in it’s class - that combined with apple fitness+.
if apple could set defaults, use actual browsers (like android), and have an open in menu like android, i’d switch. i don’t think i could ever get used to apple’s notifications though. android is still superior there.
I’ve switch between iOS and Android, but good news on one of those you can set your default browser now on iOS.
not the same, though; browsers are still webkit.
also you can’t set phone or messaging or other defaults. in android, i can not have a default and get a pop up every time (or use linksheet) to ask how i want to open something
I’m looking forward to iOS 18 as I have to run an iPhone for work.
From what I understand, this update is gonna bring a lot of things iOS was lacking in terms of personalization.
Now I would really want them to improve on how things are handled outside of their walled garden as I’ll never buy a new mac (maybe an old one to run Linux) and they’re never gonna convince me with their old tricks of keeping special features between Apple devices.
We need a Linux version or equivalent to iTunes to backup your phone, better interoperability with Windows/Linux…
The iPhone is a great product but I feel like the walled garden is preventing me from fully enjoying it.
On Linux you can use https://libimobiledevice.org/ for backups and management.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The iPhone’s next major software update will roll out later this year, featuring plenty of AI infusion—Apple Intelligence—plus other quality-of-life improvements across the platform.
At WWDC 2024, Apple announced that iOS 18 would finally let you place app icons wherever you want on the Home screen, freeing them from the stringent rail it was on before.
The iOS 18 developer beta shows that the color accents pick up based on your wallpaper and system theme.
Still, even though Apple quietly announced RCS support this week during its developer conference, Google doesn’t get its victory lap.
On the plus side, messages between iPhones and their green bubbles will be able to share features like high-resolution photos and Tapback animations later this year.
In Android 7, the Quick Settings in the notification shade added editable tiles, which were eventually opened up to third-party app developers.
The original article contains 888 words, the summary contains 143 words. Saved 84%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Yep, and Android also suffers from plenty of malware within the Play Store. I’d rather a company focus on combating that than worrying so much about minor features.
I’d rather have to avoid malware than to live in Apple’s version of heaven where I can’t do shit with a $1000 computer that I own.
This is a common argument and it always makes me wonder what people mean by it. No ill intent from my end here, I use and like Apple as well as FOSS, but I can’t think of anything I can do on Android that I can’t on iOS. I admit I’m a very basic user though, I prefer to do heavy lifting on a laptop.
I am genuinely curious. Do you have some examples?
Syncthing, Termux [X11], sideloading, a browser other than safari
Wait you can forward X through Termux? TIL.
f-droid, termux, new rom if you want that… not paying $100/y just to install an app you developed(I know you can do that without paying but it’s not without major hassle)
I agree that alternative app stores are definitely a boon and I can’t wait for the EU to nail Apple to the wall over dragging their feet on that. Competition is good and that 30% fee monopoly is bullshit.
There are iOS terminal clients (I like Termius). The ROM thing, yeah… I installed /e/OS on my Fairphone 4 just for the privacy aspect, but functionally it’s not better or worse than what came in the box. There might be reasons to do it but utility-wise I don’t very well see the point in this day and age.
I hadn’t thought of the developer license requirement to run your own software, I personally don’t do that but I can see it being a deal breaker. Thanks for your thoughts. :)
Yeah and it sucks that they are how they are. iOS is a nice OS and iPhone is a damn good device. But these things are just deal breaker for me.
$1000 computer stand*
Except one: be good at what does
Does your Android phone get 5+ years of software support?
7+ actually
*from the manufacturer
Yup. My Pixel 8 gets 7+ years from Google. That’s up from 5 from the previous gen.
That’s great, but you can actually thank Apple for it as much as Google.
Yeah, Apple has a good track record for software undates. I actually replaced a perfectly good phone just because it lacks updates.
Honestly, that’s why I want a Linux phone, for essentially endless updates. My old 2009 Linux PC still got updates when I eventually upgraded the hardware, and I want the same to be true of my phone. Unfortunately, Linux phones don’t meet my base requirements, but hopefully that’ll change by the time I need another.
That’s the thing. Apple has that track record already. This years iOS update will be available for phones released as far back as 2017. And that’s not a recent development - 4+ years have been the norm with iOS devices for a long time, while many Android phones have suffered from much faster obsolescence.
Google have yet to prove that they can fulfill this promise.
I’ll touch base with you in 7 years to see how that’s going.
