Hacker News Reader

Comment by ev1 | Hacker News Reader

it depends heavily, I carry both on a daily basis (the iPhone is the oncall/work-pays)

If you are not on the Pixel line, you're probably barely getting support measured in months. I absolutely despise most third party Android vendors. Samsung is one of the worst offenders for obnoxious unremovable bloatware, spam, etc. Rebadged AOSP browser vulnerable to everything. I don't think I've had LG phones supported for even one month after buying them. The Chinese phones are also wildly variable, like xiaomi not allowing bootloader unlocks without you signing up for their forum and begging them in a thread for months and it's entirely subjective.

I've had iPhone SE (1st gen) used for years, still running currently latest stable iOS and supported up to now.

View on HN

> I absolutely despise most third party Android vendors.

Years ago I got a Samsung Galaxy 8 which came preloaded with CNN and Facebook. After uninstalling those apps, I poked around with adb and found services still running for CNN and Facebook. Made me also despise non-Pixel devices.

For a long while my daily driver was a Pixel 4 (probably my favorite phone hardware of all time) running GrapheneOS and then eventually CalyxOS. If I were to ever switch back to Android I would 100% go back to Pixel running CalyxOS. I absolutely loved that setup.

Things that keep me on iOS:

- On-demand VPN. I use Wireguard and it is unnoticeable when it automatically turns on when I leave home. I was able to use Tasker on Android to unreliably replicate this functionality.

- Apple Shortcuts. Android could really benefit from a first-party automation toolset, Tasker is still pretty mediocre compared to Shortcuts from my somewhat recent tinkering.

- Apple is a decent steward of data and I'm encouraged by the continuing privacy features they release (Private Relay is awesome). Despite this, I try to avoid the walled garden as much as possible. Homekit is one area where I've totally invested into but could switch that out with HA if I ever switched back to Android.

Things I miss from Android:

- Sideloading. F-Droid is the best -- I miss sideloading so much and hope that Apple is eventually forced into allowing users to actually sideload (not the temporary 7-day renewal you are forced to do). Because of the ability to sideload you can embrace an open source ecosystem so much more than you can on iOS.

- Custom, debloated roms.

Aside from those drawbacks I am a big fan of both Android and iOS and find very little difference in how useful each OS is to me.

EDIT: fixed formatting and minor typo

This is pretty accurately my feeling. I trust Apple honestly not much, but more than Google, and I pay Apple for iCloud and know what I'm getting. Paying Google is a huge pain in the ass while Apple just collects every month off my balance - which I can also spend for physical products, which is nice.

I don't have many apps and I tend to curate those that I do have, so in general not much of a heavy user such as full screen mobile gaming.

My most recent experience trying to use Google Play for a purchase was "INSERT US SIM CARD TO CONTINUE" after applying the code. While in US, on a US cell tower (on eSIM). This is after applying the code, so it's been consumed and is now useless and can't be used to buy anything either.

Samsung is still probably my top hated OEM. Everything from a Bixby key you can't disable and marketing you can't opt out of (mandatory push notifications from an un-uninstallable system app that deliver fullscreen image push advertising their new products) to Samsung store taking over random shortcuts and containing nothing but shitware to put it nicely, inability to unlock phones, ludicrously bad security track record, all while trying to sell you a "premium" $1.5k device

> Everything from a Bixby key you can't disable

Bixby is probably one of the worst things about Samsung devices. I would take Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, Clippy from Windows XP, literally any virtual assistant over Bixby. I don't even have negative experiences using Bixby -- but Samsung's UX with Bixby is more irritating than any other virtual assistant I have ever come across -- and I hate all of them.

LG is abandoned. Samsung is one of the best vendor about long term major/security update that's beyond Google. https://9to5google.com/2022/02/09/pixel-6-three-android-upda...

Nice to see that they are actually trying now, looks like only the last two flagship models covered (more or less? Galaxy S22, S22+, S22 Ultra, Galaxy S21, S21+, S21 Ultra, S21 FE). My unpatched experience is around the S10 line. It appears they just skipped to 20s for model #'s right after.

S10 received latest Android 12 (very early) and receiving security updates. So it looks like your career was criminal to block updates. https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-galaxy-s10-plus-upd...

This might actually be part of the reason, interesting. Is this common in the states?

The Samsung line are the only carrier (full purchased, unlocked, not leased though) provided phones I've used. Pixel and iPhone bought from source directly.

Samsung phones get 3+1 updates. Regarding bloatware, there are few un-installable apps, but I am able to change launcher/SMS/assistant app to something much better of my choice. I don't think same can be done in iPhone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com