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.
Americans don’t really value freedom. Not really. Americans pretend they like freedom, but they will give up all their freedoms for the slightest bit of convenience, and because social media told them so.
Am I talking about consumer electronics, or politics? Impossible to say.
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.
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.
As soon as you start flashing custom firmware the “just works” goes right out of the window.
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.
when you cant even have an app without a corporation’s approval
Apple has successfully positioned themselves as “the good guy”.
- Apple broke the monopoly of phone provider locks, and still prohibits phone provider bloatware.
- Apple seems like the only provider with any care for privacy, and many of their features and policies are privacy focussed
- Apple puts more effort than most software providers into usability
- you might think Apples constraints on the App Store blocks legitimate opensource and personal projects, but it mostly blocks commercial exploitation. It blocks behaviors that abuse customers or their privacy, that will give users a bad experience. I’ve read the requirement for a fee with a real credit card is actually the most effective strategy against malware
- every major app is available in the App Store
- its just a phone. My phone needs to just work, unlike my computer which needs to do whatever I want it to.
So maybe the root cause is lack of consumer protection in the US, but my experience with iPhone is much better than with Android phones. I’m not blind to corporate shenanigans but I do feel better protected in the Apple ecosystem. I do have freedom to choose almost any legitimate app, and I’m not particularly interested n futzing around with my phone anyway
I have no need for third party apps.
For anything beyond texting or scrolling, I have a desktop.
Defying mask mandates wasn’t due to a ‘love for freedom’ but due to delusions and selfishness.
So why not get a cheap android instead?
Because id rather pay more for a product than be it.
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.
Not an iphone user, but am intrigued by all the ads the apple people say are on androids. Literally have never seen one, and I’ve had adjusted androids since the og htcs.
Android has a lot more free apps with ads, while on iOS there’s a lot more “gimme $2” apps. It’s a trade off.
Apple requires like $99 per year to keep the app in the store. Google play requires like $25 one time fee.
Supposedly that’s a significant impediment to malware - requiring an active credit card and non-trivial fee.
Any commercial product of any size is not going to miss $100. So it comes down to: is it good to reduce malware or is it bad to block freeware?
• American company
• Secure
• Little to no bloatware
• Isn’t a google product
• Isn’t a google product
• Isn’t a google product
• same version of the OS in all devices
• customer support that actually answers the phone within a few rings and supports your device over the phone.
• isn’t a google product.That’s a few off the top of my head.
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.
- iphones are the first recognized “smartphone”.
- apple is an american company.
- apple has a massive fanbase that is completely dedicated to apple and all their products.
i’m not sure what the global usage of apple products is, but i think here it’s probably a lot higher than in other places. throw in the fact that there’s only one device capable of (legally) running apple’s mobile software, and there you have it.
also, their advertising didn’t hurt either. no one on the android side had the kind of advertising they did until maybe 6 or 7 years later and by that time you were probably already well established in the iphone ecosystem.
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).
For a secondary device, 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?
Until there is a better alternative to the new evil that is google/alphabet, apple is a lesser evil.
Why do most [insert country here] people use [insert brand from their country here]???
But like… that’s because most of the time it’s nationalism.
But the thing is America is supposed to be all about “Freedom”
I mean, Americans even defied a resonable thing like wearing masks, but then is okay with not having the freedom to install apps… Not sure how much people actually care about freedom… 🤔
But like… that’s because most of the time it’s nationalism.
But the thing is America is supposed to be all about “Freedom”
Freedom is nationalism to Americans
Convenience is nationalism
Damn. Why don’t more Americans buy Huawei phones that aren’t available in any stores? Must be nationalist!
Usamericans usually like to look for “the best”, whatever that means, and never accept “second”. I assume that they need that to feed their pride.
Apple has managed to make them believe that iPhone products were the best smartphones, and all of Apple’s marketing is focused on maintaining that belief.
My reasons:
- Because it just works.
- I can uninstall the trash apps that apple includes and use my own preferences.
- Don’t have to deal with bloatware from two vendors (Google and Samsung for example)
- Vendor lock-in. I started on iOS (iPod touch) and so I have a certain amount of app purchases that are iOS-only. This is the only one that galls me.
- longevity / platform support. I’ve had this thing for close to five years, and the battery is only starting to fail in the last few months.
- decent display. Samsung galaxy’s PCM brightness control gives me horrible eye strain.
Maybe it’s just Samsung that’s trash, I dunno. I tried hard to like android and in principle I should prefer Google’s more open ecosystem. But it just seems to enable every manufacturer of android phones to try to outcompete each other in how awful they can make the experience of owning their products, all in the name of trying to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
Fuck iPhones.
