Apple would really have to mess something up, and another vendor would need to be more committed to their hardware than I’ve seen
I would probably jump on the dumbphone luddite trend before going back to android
Apple doesn't get it right all the time.
iTunes wasn’t a secret. Apple didn’t bait you. It was well known you needed to use iTunes.
On Android you have regular apps that turn into Malware. Samsung will sell you a phone/TV then introduce/increase the amount of ads/malware with a software update.
The problem isn’t that there are ads. The problem is that the ads are introduced after you’ve already purchased it. This doesn’t happen with Apple, and that’s something many people value more than being locked into a walled garden.
On Android with pre-loaded software you can to the research up front, figure out everything is OK and BOOM a year later you're getting ads from a non-removable application.
Only if you were already in the Apple ecosystem.
Many years ago a coworker was gifted one of the more basic iPods, which was his first experience with the Apple ecosystem. It didn't go terribly badly, but I do remember him not knowing about iTunes at the time.
well you’ll be elated to know that not much has changed on that front, except that generations of people now don't really care for self-custody of music. Compressed formats are good enough, streaming is good enough, and stored formats in walled gardens are good enough.
There is some burgeoning sentiment that some music is disappeared from the face of the earth, but nobody really cares.
e: Yeah looks like Apple Music, Apple News also, soon Apple Maps & Apple Podcasts
At some point an iOS update added a “Smart Stack” widget to my homescreen with some common app widgets (contacts, maps photos) (I assume it was automatically added, I don’t recall ever creating it, it seems to be a new iOS 14 feature.)
In iOS 15, iOS got something called “Widget Suggestions”, so apps you haven’t added to smart stack will automatically appear. (And this got automatically turned on for the smart stack on my home screen.)
Result: I got the App Store automatically suggested in my widget stack and displaying an ad for some Disney thing. (Which I assume I wouldn’t be able to access without either paying, or watching more ads.)
Android at the very least have OSS options and after installing one on the aforementioned Samsung it was fine.
I’m glad to hear grapheneos is useful for someone as I was skeptical, sounds like the same “file system freedom” sentiment android users have led with for a decade, to which I should remind all that iOS users are aware and an uncompelled
I mean I guess I'm "uncompelled" in the sense that these stupid iOS restrictions aren't quite enough to get me to jump ship, but the restrictions are still pretty insane nonetheless. For example, I'm very happy that the EU is going to force iOS to allow for side-loading.
There are also foss Linux phone OSs like postmarketOS, however hardware support and os are definitely in alpha or beta depending on the exact combination of hardware and software you use.
However if you don't mind tinkering with Linux they do the basic job.
FYI I wrote this from a PinePhone running postmarketOS (for Linux enthusiasts/tinkerers only, you've been warned)
No bloat, no adds, no bullshit. And a solid experience for years on end.
I know some people have issues with banking apps refusing to work but it has never been an issue for me.
Jailbroken iOS was heaven though. I hear its more difficult now (which is why Apple has lost my business since IIRC the iPhone 6).