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Comment by chewz | Hacker News Reader

iPhones are technological marvels, masterpieces of engineering. But Apple software is getting worse and worse.

I have recently started playing with my Mom’s phone which is some cheap Huawei Android and surprise - I can do the same on this phone as on iPhone - Google Maps, Google Photos, Google Inbox, Google Search, Google Allo, Google Drive, Firefox, bank applications, Spotify, MS Outlook - everything works OK.

The feeling is liberating like discovering Linux after years of thinking that Windows is the only choice.

I have stoped using Apple Maps, Apple Music, Apple Photos, Apple Mail app, iCloud etc because they are all half-baked and frustrating. At least Google is trying harder with their software.

So what is the reason - excluding vanity - to pay 1000$ for a phone when I can have the same functionality for 100 - 200$. I will spend the difference on books, coffee and really good headphones.

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Some areas iPhones excel in:

    - LTS Updates
    - HW quality
    - Relatively consistent UX elements
    - Foolproof-ish App store
    - Less features
        ie no App drawer, just homescreens
    - Forefront of security & privacy technology

The 5s was released Oct 2013, and still received iOS 11. It was also the first(?) phone with a Secure-Enclave device for fingerprint reading.

If iOS doesn't limit your glass-brick usage patterns, it's a very simple OS, with features that were thought about and picked for a reason. Or maybe more importantly, left out for a reason. This of course gets frustrating if you disagree with what Apple's designers have prescribed you.

But to a lot of people; Android phones these days feel creepy to be around, with the amount of Google-integration that requires much hoop-jumping and ignoring-of-gentle-pushes, just to get peace of mind over your data not being vacuumed from whatever crevices Google can find. And there are a lot of crevices on your personal smart phone.

If you're installing + maintaining LineageOS or something then you can get par with iPhones for the features that a lot of people in the HN crowd might care about, especially if you subsect for DDG-users.

>But to a lot of people; Android phones these days feel creepy to be around, with the amount of Google-integration that requires much hoop-jumping and ignoring-of-gentle-pushes, just to get peace of mind over your data not being vacuumed from whatever crevices Google can find. And there are a lot of crevices on your personal smart phone.

The way some people use their iPhone (my partner included) and all the (cr)Apps they have and what they do, it may as well be an android phoning home to google… also ignoring when its in airplane mode, telecos routinely connect through to the phone via baseband…

Even with all the conveniences, sometimes its just better to leave my phone at home… esp with all the times something is just trying to connect to apples servers.

> The way some people use their iPhone (my partner included) and all the (cr)Apps they have and what they do, it may as well be an android phoning home to google

The difference is that with the apps installed on a phone, you can uninstall the app. With Android you can't just "uninstall" the Play Store.

Sure you can. You'll need to uninstall Google Play Services as well but it is definitely possible to run Android without the Google-specific bits. It's is the first thing I do when setting up a new Android-device.

Out of curiosity, how difficult is this to do? Would the average user be able to do this easily?

It is distinctly non-trivial. Likely part of the reason why it remains possible. Chasing down bugs is the unavoidable result, but to a geek it's manageable. MicroG works very well once sorted. It is however astonishing how much processing power Play Services gobbles up. A de-googlefied phone lasts 30-40% longer on a charge. Once done, it works like a breeze. 3-4 year old flagships Androids are titans when de-googled and with custom roms.

This looks promosing - "New company called eelo will give you de-Google-ized Android so that you can keep your privacy"

https://www.phonearena.com/news/New-company-called-eelo-will...

If the phone can get LineageOS, then it is fairly easy - just don't install GApps when flashing LineageOS to the phone. Alas, phones that are thus open are getting rarer and rarer :( .

This is not trivial and is not akin to simply uninstalling an app (coming from a google-free Android user on a pixel).

I agree on hardware quality.

Security to me seems like a sales pitch - Apple is just as sensitive information greedy as Google. And I deal in this area with Google as well as I do with Apple.

But the inferior software quality is terrible drag for Apple.

Photos - their syncing with iCloud is out of control. There are bugs that haven’t been eliminated for years. I gave up when after deleting 50 GB of RAW photos Apple re-created then and synced back to mu Mac.

Google Photos is not only more open but also smarter and better at improving picture quality.

Apple Music - I gave up after a month of getting recommended Heavy Metal albums and playlusts everyday. Nothing in my Library, listening and followed artist suggested that I might like Metal. What kind of company can’t write simple recommender?

iCloud - Google Drive is just superior, more open, integrates and exchanges files with almost everything, Google Backup just works. iCloud backup is really inferior and again out of control for user.

Apple Mail stoped beeing developed and there are well documented frustrating bugs and quirks if you use IMAP accounts.

Maps - despite Tim Cook’s promise to users it never got on par with Google Maps. The quality difers wildly from country to country but recently I have re-installed Maps, used them for a week in my hometown and got so frustrated that I have deleted Maps and went back to using Google Maps.

Oh should I mention that touch interface is full of bugs. Try selecting a piece of text in iOS...

> Apple is just as sensitive information greedy as Google

As in Apple stores the information on their servers, forever? A lot of the sensitive information like a fingerprint or face scan is saved solely on the phone, as is a lot of the ML based features like content detection within a photo. Apple doesn't use a server farm to tell you there's a dog in your photo, it uses your phone.

There aren't good excuses for some of the bugs on iOS (the most recent iOS has been out for months and they still can't fix the emoji keyboard size issue, when this issue didn't exist in previous iOS versions?) but I trust Apple significantly more than Google with my data, in part because I know Apple's money isn't from my data, it's from the sale of their phone. This isn't true for Google and it will likely always be true that Google makes its money from advertising and user data. I also trust Apple to actually do some semblance of due diligence and make sure their app store isn't full of malware, something Google seems unable to do reliably.

I agree that Google is evil regarding data collection. I have no illusions about Google. But I am dealing with it through blocking Google calling home mostly via DNS, firewall and some custom extensions in Chrome or using Firefox Focus and on the go via Raspberry Pi router and my private VPN.

Apple however is calling home no less then Google and is quite secretive about why and what information is transferred so I am blocking most of it same as Google.

How do you generate an Apple IP blocklist while still permitting access to App Store, security updates, mail, etc?

> Security to me seems like a sales pitch - Apple is just as sensitive information greedy as Google. And I deal in this area with Google as well as I do with Apple.

I was scratching my head when I read this part of your comment. It makes me wonder if you ever owned or used an iPhone. iOS is end-to-end encrypted, and Apple doesn’t store any data on their servers, save for iCloud. And you don’t need to use iCloud to have a functional phone.

Have you ever observed amount of calls home from the iPhone?

I'll give you a couple here. You're right that Apple Maps is still streets behind Google Maps. Apple Mail should be better than it is, but Apple seems to be only interested in providing a bare-bones mail experience and leaving the fancy stuff to third-parties. And I just can get my brain around Apple Music, either.

The rest of it is either outdated or wildly inaccurate.

I have to use Android phones for work (one Sony, one LG), but I have an iPhone for personal use. I can tell you from daily use of both, the majority of iPhone software is vastly superior.

And you really need to stop spouting that line about Apple collecting information like Google. Anyone who knows anything about IT privacy knows that's wrong, and it just undermines your credibility.

Apple photos, Apple mail, and Apple Music are amazing in my opinion. Apple maps, disappoints however

I have been using Nexus phones for about the last 5 years now, and I would say that a iPhone is clearly a better piece of hardware than a $100-200 Android phone. But for the top tier Android phones I'd agree that the reasons for paying the Apple premium are dwindling.

Looking at something like the Essential phone that's retailing for $500, I think the many users would be hard-pressed to find an extra $500 of value out of the iPhone X. Then you look at a Pixel 2 XL, that's about $200 cheaper than the iPhone X while still featuring a very high level of fit, finish, and performance, and it gets to be a good deal harder to make the case for the iPhone X.

Android and particularly vanilla Android have really closed the gap on iOS while Apple has gone a bit backwards in some respects.

>> then you look at a Pixel 2 XL, that's about $200 cheaper than the iPhone X

And that's where the iPhone 8+ comes in.

Yep. I have to wonder whether the iPhone X is just Apple's way of taking advantage of the customer segment that is price insensitive and actually wants to spend more to get an iPhone that is rarer as sort of a status symbol.

The Wall Street Analysts may have just misunderstood what Apple was actually trying to do when they made their first sales estimates.

If you're anything like me, losing out on iMessages will be painful. I'm itching to get back to iOS.

Also being able to access all of the apps that I've purchased on my phone again will be a very nice plus.

I haven't been using iMessage for 2 years. And now I have unlimited SMS in most plans or taught my friends to use Allo.

Well, then you're not the same as me :-)

>I can have the same functionality for 100 - 200$

Because the $1,000 iPhone and a $100 Android don't have the same functionality.

Because you require a very small, Google-centric toolkit means that a $100 phone is a good fit for you. But there's a few billion other people on the planet, and some of them have different needs, wants, and desires.

But feel free to continue patting yourself on the back in public for your lifestyle choices, if that makes you feel better. Not everyone finds nobility in frugality.

I've been applying to Apple recently and I've submitted well over 20 applications and still no replies. Clearly, they don't think I'm a good fit for whatever they are looking for in a software engineer.

I was taking a shower this morning when I realized... Apple doesn't care about software. I realized almost all the software I use on my iPhone or Mac is third party (excluding macOS and iOS). I realized Apple Music is quite possibly the worst piece of music software ever created by man. I realized iOS 11 is buggy as hell. I realized Siri is the worst "assistant" in the market. Apple clearly makes amazing hardware, but they fall behind when it comes to software. Their hardware design is the best in the game, but their software UI/UX is horrible. I know a lot of good designers who work at Apple and I know for a fact that they do amazing work on their own, yet they are unable to show this in the final Apple product. This must imply these designers' talents are wasted at Apple and they are not given a platform to shine.

So I'm going stop applying to Apple because clearly we both don't see a good fit for one another.

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