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Comment by GeekyBear | Hacker News Reader

I've always found this experiment to be revealing:

>Specifically, after explaining briefly that I was the editor of a tech news site, I would ask iPhone users “why do you use an iPhone?” and Android phone users “why do you use an Android phone?” My phone was always in my pocket when I asked, and I made sure to never mention a rival platform at all.

In about three months I ended up asking 219 different people this question, including 112 iPhone users and 107 Android users. I wasn’t terribly concerned with the features of each platform that people liked most. I just wanted to see how many people, unprovoked, would mention a rival platform in a negative way when offering their responses to a complete stranger.

http://bgr.com/2016/10/25/iphone-vs-android-survey-takeaways...

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Thank you for sharing. Here's the tl;dr:

47% of Android users sampled (51 out of 107) « said things like “iPhone users are a cult,” “I hate Apple,” “only stupid people use iPhones,” or “I hate the iPhone” when explaining to me why they chose an Android device. Seriously, people actually used the word hate »

5% of iPhone users sampled (6 out of 112) « said something negative about Android or about a specific Android phone manufacturer. Not a single person make a negative blanket statement about Android users in general. »

Yet anyone that is commenting something on this thread which could be interpreted as anti-Apple is downvoted quite harshly.

Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments? You're now taking this thread far off-topic and to a less interesting place.

They're downvoted because they don't offer anything interesting to the discussion, not because people think they're anti-Apple. They're thinly-disguised attacks on the article's author.

I can sort of understand that sentiment from Android users. They tend to value control/customization. I've tried Android several times for this reason, because it is compelling. I've always gone back to iOS though, and it's basically just been for a combination of performance and polished UX. My issues with Android were basically:

* Little visual stutters and other relatively minor things bother me more than they should

* High rate of passive battery drain. Android devices seem to typically have much larger batteries, but they chew through power a lot faster when they're not being used than iOS devices. Heavy users probably get better battery life on Android overall, though.

* App quality. This gap is getting smaller and smaller, but it's still noticeable.

* Build quality. iPhones tend to be a lot more durable these days, at least since the iPhone 6 was released. Android devices have been cheaper feeling and more fragile in my experience.

* Bloatware. Most Android devices come with a bunch of shit I don't want and can't easily uninstall.

But all of these things considered, if I was a part of this survey, I would probably have just said something like "I use an iPhone because Android is for poor people" just "for the lulz".

I use the Copperhead ROM with F-Droid apps, and it addresses nearly all your bullet points. Excellent battery life, surprisingly high quality (and FOSS!) apps, and zero bloatware whatsoever.

This is the first I've heard of Copperhead. From their install page [1]:

"You can obtain the adb and fastboot tools from the Android SDK. Either install Android Studio or use the standalone SDK. Do not use distribution packages for adb and fastboot. Distribution packages are out-of-date and not compatible with the latest version of Android. An obsolete fastboot will result in corrupted installations and potentially bricked devices. Do not make the common mistake of assuming that everything will be fine and ignoring these instructions. Double check that the first fastboot in your PATH is indeed from an up-to-date SDK installation"

Great if it works for you, but this is clearly not a viable option for the great majority, nor is it an example of "polished UX."

[1] https://copperhead.co/android/docs/install

I bought a preflashed phone direct from them and didn't have to follow those steps.

Even so, it's probably not for everyone but I think it deserves a shout-out.

> I would probably have just said something like "I use an iPhone because Android is for poor people" just "for the lulz"

this is why we can't have nice things. when people's response to someone doing research about their opinion is to lie to the researcher 'for the lulz' there is something wrong...

I use Android because iPhones are too expensive for absolutely no additional functionality. How does that figure?

My next phone isn't likely to be Android or iPhone, but Linux, assuming Purism pans out.

So it sounds like Android users resent Apple's tactics/platform, while Apple users don't resent Android's tactics/platform?

That is definitely interesting.

You're making the case that Android users choose out of resentment while iOS users choose what they like.

Or that one platform has a lot to resent and the other is fairly innocuous.

Funny how easy it is to pick your own narrative.

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