Hacker News Reader

Comment by aeontech | Hacker News Reader

Can you give some examples? Things being broken in life is usually one or more of:

- lack of time to implement (this would be great but we have three people on a team, and five features to deliver...)

- lack of people who care enough and have the resources to fix it (this would be great, but manager has other priorities that are more important at the moment)

- conscious choice as expression of philosophy or style (like flat UI)

- conscious technical trade off (like on-device photo analysis)

What are some of the things you think are wrong and would be easy to solve? Openradar links would be useful too :)

View on HN

So, my single biggest daily aggravation: I turn off bluetooth/wifi frequently.[1]

There is no way to make the &%*#ing thing stop whining about lack of wifi - it literally waits until I'm trying to do something else to throw up a shitty dialog trying to annoy me into turning it on.

I turn connectivity off for a reason, and no, Apple does not know better in this instance. It is incredibly user-hostile and irritating, and I hope the engineer that wrote that code gets pink eye[2].

[1] I know, I'm a weirdo. Trying to explain how I'm Doing It Wrong will lead me to ignore you.

[2] I kid. It is really annoying, though.

I don't think you are doing it wrong but in 90% of the cases that's on the app developer. The OS usually doesn't ask for wifi randomly but many apps do. They check for connectivity and if wifi isn't available they prompt the user. It's not hard code to write but it shouldn't be used often. I'm actually writing similar code right now but for a pretty good reason, I'm working a feature that might use the presence of a wifi network to indicate proximity to an IoT device.

Presumably, you're trying to do something that requires a network connection when it prompts you? If that's not a case the behavior is likely a bug.

Under Settings > Wi-Fi, turn off “Ask to join networks”

Above all else, I can't develop for my own device without rebuilding weekly.

I can't run real Firefox.

I can't route all calls through Google Voice.

I can't run CarPlay without a head unit.

I can't open all map links in my preferred maps app.

I can't create restricted accounts for my kids.

It's essentially unusable as a "smart" phone.

Any claims about privacy fall apart after investigation. Google will still get my location on iOS if I use Google Search, exactly as it does on Android.

> I can't develop for my own device without rebuilding weekly.

Well, unless you pay, or use Swift Playgrounds.

> I can't create restricted accounts for my kids.

Does the standard set of restrictions not do what you want?

> Google will still get my location on iOS if I use Google Search, exactly as it does on Android.

You don't have to use Google…

> Does the standard set of restrictions not do what you want?

Separate accounts have separate data, not just restrictions.

> You don't have to use Google…

That's the point.

>I can't route all calls through Google Voice.

This is on Google now. Apple provides ways for app developers to use the native phone UI now. If I set up my number with the Google Hangouts app, I can get calls from my Google Voice number via the Voice app or the native UI. You can't do this with the Google Voice app but I have a feeling that's because they haven't updated it to support this API.

I'm talking about calling out, not receiving calls, which doesn't require any support from the phone as Google Voice can forward to any phone number.

What do you mean you can’t call out on a Google Voice? You open the app and make the call.

If Google Voice has Siri integration which has been around for awhile, you can say “Call X using Google Voice” and it will call using GV and activate the phone Bluetooth protocol if you are connected to your car’s Bluetooth system.

I mean click on a phone number in my contacts app or on a web page and have the call go through Google Voice or dial in my default phone app and have the call go through Google Voice.

And it’s somehow harder to go to the Google Voice app and call especially when you can import your contacts?

What’s the fundamental difference between clicking on Contacts and making a call and clicking on the GV app?

If the GV app has been updated to take advantage of the latest APIs, calls to and from the GV app will show up in your call history along with the native dialer.

If you like GV, why use the native contacts app at all? Any app that adds to contacts will automaticallly be added to GV.

You entirely ignored the part about clicking on phone numbers in web pages. It's the same with any app. I should be able to use whichever contacts app I like, whether it is a unified contacts app, my LinkedIn contacts, my Facebook contacts, the maps application, etc. Any time I click a phone number to make a call, it should appear to come from my Google Voice number. Copying and pasting is horrible experience just to make a call.

Blame that on Google. If you use Chrome on iOS, they already give you a choice of which maps app to use and which mail client to use. There is no reason they couldn’t give you the choice of how to handle Tel links.

If Google wanted to since they already have all of the apps, you could completely stay in the Google ecosystem on iOS - Browser, mail client, google voice, etc.

I should be able to do it from any app as I stated earlier (not just Google's) just as I can on Android.

And have all of the security issues that go along with it....

https://gkbrk.com/2017/05/android-dialer-packets/

You're grasping for excuses. There are security issues with running any app on your phone. A maps app could do nefarious things with your location. A browser app could do nefarious things with your browse history. That doesn't mean Apple blocks all third party apps.

If I trust a phone app enough to use its dialer, I should be able to route all calls through it. If I trust a maps app enough to use it manually, I should be able to set it to open for all address links. It really is that simple.

You can deny Google Search location services and iOS blocks far more tracking cookies than Android, so I don't think you can support that claims about privacy falling apart.

You can also disable location in Google Search on Android, in addition to switching to entirely different search providers and assistants. On Android, you can block tracking cookies in all apps, not just the web browser — without having to "jailbreak" your phone (relying on a rootable security vulnerability) or even unlock the bootloader.

For somebody who is seriously privacy-conscience, Android is strictly better.

All claims about privacy appear to stem from using fewer Google apps by default. Those default apps (like Safari and Siri) are inferior to their Google equivalents for most users, and for the people who don't want to give Google information, Android users can choose to use non-Google apps as well (like Firefox and local assistants and maps).

That's not at all were all the claims come from. You can block all ads without jailbreaking on iOS and iOS collections an order of magnitude less tracking data[0] than Android. Apple has pioneered the differential privacy algorithm's on top of that. Apple has a ton of features pointed at user privacy especially in the latest version of Safari. Android is in no way strictly better for privacy and saying so is irresponsible IMO.

[0] https://digitalcontentnext.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/DC...

> You can block all ads without jailbreaking on iOS

You can't block ads across all apps without running your own ad-blocking proxy, jailbreaking, or paying Apple for the privilege of building an ad-blocking app on your phone. You can on Android by just installing an app (one example: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.blokada.alarm/).

> and iOS collections an order of magnitude less tracking data[0] than Android.

iOS collects the same data that Android collects. The difference is how much data the default apps collect that go to Google as I stated earlier. The Google apps are strictly better than the equivalent Apple apps for most users (maps, assistant, photos, mail, etc.). For the relatively fewer users who care more about privacy than about their apps doing things for them by knowing about them, Android has more and better options as well (Firefox, local apps, system-wide ad blocking, etc.).

How has apple pioneered differential privacy. MS started it and Google has used ot before Apple ,even open sourced some portion of it,iirc. Google is also doing research in federated learning(ian goodfellow)

> You can also disable location in Google Search on Android, in addition to switching to entirely different search providers and assistants.

Nope. Google was caught collecting location data even when everything was turned off:

https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locatio...

They also made their settings very misleading: https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/13/17684660/google-turn-off-...

Your second link is about data collection that Google apps also do on iPhones. It doesn't happen if you use a different search provider or disable sending your location for Google searches, as I stated and you quoted.

Your first link is about accidental collection that no longer occurs according to the article.

All valid point and I would add ignorance to it. They simply don’t know or care.

I file radars when applicable, my gripes are more general:

- No universal 3D Touch puts it in a weird spot. I like 3D Touch! Why not say we equip all models with 3D Touch, similar to when they made ips display the standard even for entry level MacBooks.

-prohibiting self signed applications. You have all the right to keep Steam Link off your shop, but not off my device. And if I had the desire to install Alex Jones’ app I would like to do that. You’re not my mom Apple. I’m still hoping the EU will fix this at some point.

-iTunes. I use it. It’s awful. If they would at least kill it off I’d know not to use it anymore.

-Seriously lagging behind in standards like PWAs, wireless charging or NFC.

-iMessage and Airdrop are awesome. Too bad I can rarely use them because the majority around me use Android.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com