- There is no reasonably sized android phone. They’re either huge (>6“) or tiny (<4“) and the smaller variant usually has ancient and slow specs.
- I passionately dislike google. And yes, it’s possible to use Android without Google but it’s quite a hassle. Big parts of that is privacy, which Apple might not care about as much as they should but Google isn’t caring about at all.
- I prefer the UI of most apps on iOS to the equivalent on Android. It’s fairly consistent, usually following certain standards (like the menu bar on the bottom).
- Most android phones I’ve used over the years have an ungodly amount of bloat. Why would anyone want to use a second, worse app store? Why are facebook and tiktok preinstalled and can’t be uninstalled?
- I also have a Mac and an AppleTV. The iPhone fits right in.
- I’m used to it. It works. As long as Apple doesn’t do a major privacy oopsie or someone releases a small android flagship phone again, I have no reason to leave because android offers nothing I desire beyond what I already have.
If u really care about privacy that much then why are u using the closed source system of apple. Also the bloat apps of android are removable,u dont even need to root, just use https://github.com/0x192/universal-android-debloater
Because it’s more convenient. I trust Google less than Apple and degoogling android is a hassle. Or rather getting all the apps you need with a degoogled android. I do want privacy but I also don’t want to give up useability.
Also, the point is less, that you can’t remove or deactivate bloat apps but that they’re there in the first place. I‘ve got a similar issue with Windows.
And the other factors still play a large roll. If I could have a reasonably sized, speced and priced android phone, I might consider it and maybe will in the future when my iPhone 13 mini gives up the ghost.
Fair enough,I misjudged ur threat model. But is there any reason as to why u trust apple more than companies like google even tho both are closed source and non auditable by the general public. Is it cuz of the privacy font that apple tries to show?
To some degree, as apple tries to appear privacy conscious, at least, while Google is very open, that all they want is your data. But that gets enforced by their business models. Google is first and foremost an advertising company. That’s how they make money. Less so with hard and software. Apple is first and foremost a hardware company. They do sell some software and services but it’s not their main business. Advertising even less.
#1 is the most legit reason itt. I had an iPhone for work. Perfect size even with a rubber case. Despise almost every other feature… Size was perfect. Now I’m stuck with 6" after 6" (gigiddy)… At least they’re cheap and fit in my pockets.
4 might be where people are getting their phone. Haven’t had this on the last 2 phones at least (unlocked, not bought from carrier)
They made a huge oopsie with Siri once, when it was revealed that audio was reviewed by real people without my consent. It made me question everything for a bit. But is it better at Google? I don’t think so. And Apple fixed the issue.
Same, no reason to switch. The iPhone just works and it actually never slow down while I had this problem with my parents android phones and my old android
Keywords there are ‘old Android’. I haven’t had a phone do that classic android slowdown in years.
Safety. I like the locked down ecosystem.
Because I’m already using an Android phone.
It’s so funny that this post was only a bit below this one: Google Wants To Start Tracking 300 Million iPhone Users Within 5 Years
I do try it from times to times. My last try was with a Pixel 7 and although I loved Material You on it, my main issue was that the quality of apps wasn’t great and most just didn’t feel nice to use (even Google’s own apps feel better to use on iOS).
Didn’t help that the Pixel 7 was way too big and I couldn’t get used to that either, among a few other problems.
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I absolutely hate the interface.
Huh? At least it can be changed.
But no matter how you change it, the overall experience in Android is inconsistent and sub par. Little things like flickering between switching apps or janky animation when the keyboard shows up is what causes poor Android experience.
Customisability is the bane of clean and consistent UI.
I’m not throwing this phone away before it breaks. And I don’t want android, I want a Fairphone or something.
Fairphones run Android, don’t they?
(Yes, they do!)
I don’t want to.
First thing: Privacy. I am aware that iOS is not entirely private too, but I trust Apple Photos much more than Google Photos. You can even enable end-to-end encryption iirc.
Second point is control over my data. I can easily export my photos from Apple Photos as files, whereas Google maliciously separates Photos and Metadata upon export. In my experience this is the same for a lot of other services as well. Being able to easily export my data enables me to escape the walled garden more easily should I get fed up with one system. I also try to use as many open source services as possible for this as well as other reasons.
Apple has a lot of malicious practices too, especially when it comes to EU citizens and third-party app stores, etc. - but in my experience Google is no better.
Lastly, I considered switching to an Android with Graphene OS (privacy focused Android derivate) a couple of times, but the added control over your data comes with a lot of other inconveniences. So for now, I’m just sticking to iOS.
Apple Photos is more private than Google Photos
Sure, but if you care about privacy at all, then surely you wouldn’t use either of them anyway? You’d use Ente Photos (available for both OS), or Immich (available for both OS), or any other private solution? So this shouldn’t really be a factor in choosing between Android and iOS. Same with the export point. Both have good options for photo backup, and neither Apple Photos nor Google Photos are one of them.
Pretty sure on iOS any other gallery app is just a frontend to the photo stock app. Beside, you can encrypt the whole thing on iCloud so it’s safe (which is what I do)
Yeah, all gallery apps show the same on-device photos, the difference is where they backup/upload them, which is the part important to privacy.
Apple iCloud having the E2E encryption feature is definitely an advantage over Google Photos. All I’m saying is that neither really have much to do with the OS. Google Photos isn’t even a preinstalled app on most Android phones, just one of many options you could install, same as on iOS.
Yeah but if you disable the iCloud upload for the photos app they are all on-device
Same goes for any other app, including Google Photos
Yes, but that wasn’t the point was it?
Except google photos will nag you every few days to enable cloud sync if it’s disabled when you open the app and uses dark patterns to nudge towards accepting. I doubt iOS does that.
I dislike this logic. It’s really a black and white / all or nothing approach. Also, I think the photos app is just a microcosm of a bigger consideration. That being which OS do I trust more overall if I trust some of the built I apps more?
Agree, you should look at the overall picture, not make a decision based on an individual app (which, in case of Google Photos, isn’t even built in unless you buy a Pixel or something, it’s just some app that happens to be available, for both iOS and Android).
Not entirely disagreeing with you but, what exactly is “malicious” about separating photo and metadata? It could be just how their servers process and stores those photos, with the added benefit of geotagging videos.
I use Google Photos and upload in original quality. When I download from takeout, the metadata is still in the original files. Iirc, only if you select upload in “high quality” where they compress it again, do you lose the metadata in the file stored in the cloud.
When you re-import the images into another program/library, they will not be displayed in the correct order and all other information will be lost as well.
Metadata in general is very useful and contains a lot of valuable information like location data, lens, focal length and device information which you have to manually re-integrate into each and every photo.
I mean yes, I could write a quick and dirty Python script for this, but why should I have to do this in the first place?
In my subjective opinion this is malicious as in it only being this way to make it as hard as possible to migrate away. I highly doubt this is the way their servers store the images as it is very inefficient and the images are likely stored in a database instead. This means in order to retrieve a file they have to process each image anyway, so why not follow the universally accepted and well defined standard and include the metadata in each file?
The fact that I’m fine with iOS? I actually like the “closed” ecosystem; I’m glad we can now have different browsers (instead of using the WebKit engine) and the only think I feel is lacking, right now, is the possibility to open local HTML files.
I use a phone just to chat, a bit of instagram, sometime writing and browsing internet, nothing too fancy… why would I want to mess that up?
US still gets webkit only 😭
I think there is a core reason for everyone. Strong reliable basics.
I want to FOSS everything and I moved to a Samsung phone as a start but even basic things such as weather app are not good. There is a weather widget for Samsung but no stand alone app for some reason.
Other things like apple notes, I don’t even know which cloud based note taking app can replace that, Obsidian is a hassle to sync, OneDrive is slow as hell, Google keep is pretty much the only viable alternative.
Then I have to look for a to-do list app again same problems, I don’t want a subscription and Microsoft To-do is literally the only option with online sync that I could find.
Now there are things like Apple’s Journal app, like… there is pretty much nothing that is both free and reliable. I am even open to one time purchase options but I feel everything is a free tier with subscription options.
Apple literally does one thing, strong reliable basics. Their notes app is simple as hell, but it works reliably and I know it is not randomly going to disappear/get dropped in 2 years.
My Samsung phone shipped with Samsung Notes on it, which works perfectly as a basic notes app and while not FOSS, so far as I can tell if you haven’t logged into a Samsung account the contents stay local. You can also just deny internet permissions to the app if you’re paranoid about it. But if you want a cloud sync it supports that with a Samsung account, can’t speak on that feature very much as I don’t use it.
Accuweather has both an app and a widget I’ve been using with zero problems for almost a decade.
I use Keep Notes for cloud sync notes and to-do lists shared in real time with my partner and family.
I don’t use a Journal app, but from some brief searching Obsidian seems to do most of what you’ll want out of it, and could also serve as a generic notes app.
I either already had all of these installed or, in the case of Obsidian, found it within about 2 minutes of brief searching. (Looked up what the Journal app does -> “hmm, this sounds like Onenote” -> there is no Libre office Onenote alternative -> didn’t Evernote used to be good? -> Evernote has enshittified, Obsidian is the best rated replacement).
At the risk of maybe sounding like an asshole, I really don’t understand your complaints here. All of these suggestions either came baked into my OS or were very easy to find on the app store. Keep Notes was the only one I had to be introduced to and only that because I had no use for a multi-user-sync list or notes app beforehand.
Thank you for a solid response. I hate that android users say their phone is better in every way and yet they can not mimic the simplicity of a bare bones Apple phone. I don’t need all the hacker shit that android users love to brag about.
History: I used/preferred Android until the iPhone 4S. I still have Android phones/tablets laying around for software testing.
- I’m a developer and as much of a PITA the App Store is to deal with, their APIs are really productive to work with, especially in the SwiftUI world.
- I’m a Mac user (have been since 1990) and the platform integration is really good.
One fun story: I had to implement the Google Pay equivalent of Apple Pay QR code passes and holy crap was that a shit-show. One Android phone I had had literally two different things called Google Pay, one as an app and one hidden in the Settings menu, with different feature sets and different passes. What the hell???
My family uses iPhones, and my wife and I got a deal on two when we signed onto Verizon after we got married and our parents booted us from the family plans. I’ll probably switch back to Android, to a Fairphone, when my iPhone goes kaput
I don’t really care about phones and my parents give me their old iPhones for free.
I originally switched because there was still a small flagship iPhone. However I stayed because it works just fine and iMessage worked better than SMS for whatever that time period was before people moved to other messaging apps.
Now I use an Android phone for work and don’t really see enough advantage for me to switch.
