Interesting figure that comes out of the article: 87% of US teens prefer iPhones. Also the explanations given aren’t quite surprising, I guess it’s mostly because of iMessage. Teens will feel like outcasts if they get an Android phone while their friends still use iMessage because of the green bubbles.
It’s actually hilarious how we allowed consumerism to take us this far and that we have now peer pressure over smartphones.
“You’re telling me in 2023, you still have a ’Droid? […] You gotta be at least 50 years old.”
Teens will feel like outcasts if they get an Android phone while their friends still use iMessage because of the green bubbles
I know a 46 year old man who constantly complains about green bubbles in group texts. He doesn’t seem to realize that it’s his phone that isn’t following a standard and instead has chosen to refuse the RCS standard and lock him into proprietary bullshit.
Even worse. Over a decade ago, Google offered to integrate with their protocol for a shared improved user experience. Apple forbid it.
It’s not laziness on their part, or “better features” because they get to have control. They literally want the poor user experience to encourage just this kind of bullying.
Funny thing is that Google does the same thing all the time. Back when Microsoft released Windows phone, they had made a few really amazing apps. One of them was their email app. Google went out of their way to ensure Gmail would never work on it past the basic functions of reading and sending email. They also pretty much forbid YouTube from working on windows phones.
The email thing stuck out the most because Google announced they were dropping support to whatever protocol Microsoft was using to communicate with Gmail servers, then Microsoft announced they would use a different protocol and next week Google went “oh right we are also dropping support for this other protocol”.
That’s fair. As a developer that has been burned by Google dropping support for shit they created, I can’t say for certain it was malicious or just Google being Google.
They used to create a ton of tools and protocols and drop support a couple years later because it wasn’t worth it to them to maintain it. Lots of pet projects used to get promotions, but no budget for sustained support.
A big client onboarding and exposing major flaws could absolutely shine and unwelcome light and force them to take a critical eye and come to the conclusion of “yeah, everyone that worked on that has moved on, it’d take too many resources to revive it, and it’s just going to help our competitor anyway. Our business need for it is gone because does similar things. Cut the cord”
It sucks, and isn’t an excuse. I stopped using Google dev tools because of it long ago. Very unreliable. But I don’t think it’s the same intent as Apple by a long shot.
“On android phones you can get different messaging apps, and on some of those apps you can change the color of the text bubbles (both send and receive) to suit your needs. If the color is really an issue for you, just change it! Oh iPhones can’t do that? Shame…”
It seems we’ve come full circle. I remember early adverts for Android phones showing a line outside an Apple store waiting for the latest iPhone. An older couple ask the youngsters in front of them if they’re excited and they reply “oh no, it’s not for us … it’s for our parents. We use Android”.
My little brother didn’t like android because it was too complicated. I think some people just aren’t interested in having to go figure android out is all. I like the extra options but not everyone wants that.
You can get a cheap android (but don’t have to). You can’t get a cheap iPhone.
And are you really going to get your 12 year old the latest flagship android when there are cheaper options?
If every android kid got the latest Pixel, I bet they wouldn’t be seen as “the cheap phone”.
Plus Apple’s been pushing nearly every anticompeitive angle they can. The iMessage thing is 100% intentional. It’s not that the android phones aren’t capable of working with iMessage. It’s that Apple wants to make your experience worse when something happens that doesn’t involve giving them money. Because they want you to push your friends into an iPhone, and people are dumb enough to fall for it.
And are you really going to get your 12 year old the latest flagship android when there are cheaper options?
Looking at the kids I know, I think this is definitely one of the reasons they moved to iphones. A second line cheap android is basically a free phone, which is perfect for the first phone for emergencies and such as a kid. They break or lose it, it doesnt really matter. But the experience of having a crappy phone sticks with them and they want to move up to a “real” phone, which means “away from android”. Then all the kids get iphones about the time being in contact with friends is important, and suddenly imessage can tell you who is still using the “cheap phone”.
Not really, there’s degoogled ROMs that run on different smartphones: CalyxOS, DivestOS, iodéOS, /e/… But it is generally recognised that the best one for privacy AND security is GrapheneOS, which indeed only runs on Pixel phones.
I’d even say that Apple targeted teens from the start, because we all remember when we were all kids how those little details mattered and how kids can be really horrible to each other about that. Them including a social differentiator inside a texting app is just evil.
Exactly. Apple knows what they have been doing for decades. When I was a kid I “needed” a Mac because of their advertising campaign in schools. My father bought us an Atari st barely used. It was almost twice as powerful as the Mac of the same time period and he paid a quarter the price. I remember my peers at the time saying “what’s that good for playing pong?” No it’s good for programming, databases, word processing, but also yes it’s good for playing pong.
Yeah it definitely sucks… a significant portion of your social status is tied significantly to what you have (via your parents)… Probably because at that age almost nobody has actually done anything yet
I’m in my early 20’s and I just changed my iPhone for a Pixel, actually. Got fed up with a lot of the Apple crap, and the Pixel looked sick. Then again, I’m not American and I don’t use SMS anymore, so no one I talk to would ever know what OS I’m using.
The fact that Americans still use SMS is fucking bizarre. It’s like the Japanese still using fax in this day and age for some reason
I just dont want to see any ads on my phone. I can’t control a iPhone, but on android with f-droid I can see zero ads, newpipe, mull with ublock origin…
iMessage is by far the biggest hurdle for Android to overcome in the US. Convincing your friends to use a third party app just so you can participate in a group chat is next to impossible
Which Android does he have? I do see this happen a bunch, a kid will have a bottom of the barrel cheap Android phone (you don’t have cheap options of iphones) and hate Android, not the fact that it’s a budget $100 phone. Get him a note 23 ultra and he won’t have those issues. Then he can show off the spen features iphones will never have
This another factor why kids lean to iphone. Their parents buy them the shitty $100 android phone from the carrier store. Compared to a $1000 iPhone, it sucks pretty bad.
Install YouTube ReVanced, Firefox with adblocker and Emulators+Roms and if he still hates it disown his ass cuz I don’t know what to say. For me iOS is not an option.
My entire life I’ve been reading news that only iPhones are cool, yet my social circles don’t care and have never said anything like this. I feel like this is a ‘Hello fellow kids’ type of investigative journalism, that is a secret apple ad.
I mentioned it in another comment, but this was real in my experience. At least in highschool. It’s not like I was bullied or anything, but I was teased about it quite a bit and honestly it made me want to switch to iPhone just to fit in.
I’m 36, have had windows mobile pocket PCs thru HTCs and eventually Samsung Galaxies, and have absolutely been shamed several times by different friend groups over the last decade plus lfor not having iMessage. It def ramped up in the later 2010s
Can you expand on your experiences? Was the social pressure constant, or just a comment? Do you think it impacted your relationships with your friends?
Nah. That’s North America. iPhones in North America have become a status symbol, you have to be available on iMessage, otherwise they’ll contact you by SMS. I know a lot of people in Canada who have no other messaging app (WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, etc.). They only communicate via iMessage.
Unless you care about privacy (signal), why even have a second messaging app? I have the phone to make calls and send texts. The default shit works well on iphone and android.
Because SMS is unreliable. On several occasions, SMS messages have either been delayed by hours or simply never reached their destination. Mind you, that’s my experience here in Canada.
How often are you around teens though? My dad is a high school teacher and his students are always surprised and ask him why he has an Android and not an iPhone.
I’ve heard this is an American thing. I’m Canadian, and my kids are teenagers and only one friend they have has an iPhone, the rest are on Android (as are all of my friends now, the last one went over to Android last year)
Yes this is definitely a major American thing. There isn’t really anything equivalent to the green bubble shaming outside of America. And I would Hazard a guess that this is also more prevalent in more affluent coastal areas. As well as especially on the West coast. Apple’s back yard.
Eh, that was my highschool experience at least. It was never super serious or anything, like it’s not like I was being bullied lol, but I was regularly teased about it in my friend group.
I’ve never run into that, but I feel like it’s a good pivotable moment:
"Yeah Bob, this closed source walled garden isn’t playing nice with the group chat… good point, let’s move to Signal where everyone can have a good experience. "
Going from one app (iMessage) to two isn’t an unambiguous win though. All the iPhone users’ experience got worse.
To be clear, this is such minor shit that the real answer is, “ok, I guess we’ll live with it because that’s how we communicate with our friends now”, but it is certainly nicer for them if everyone is on an iPhone and they don’t have to solve that problem.
I hope Sup. will take off. That will get a lot more people using the Fediverse in a format they prefer if there’s a FB Messager alternative attached to it.
I have, in my dating life, gotten lightening charging cables to have around the house.
It’s never fun to have someone ask you for a charger, you saying “Sure, use the fast charger right there”, and not have the lightening cable for their phone. But it’s also a catch-22, if you DO have the cable they need then its “Why do you have this cable, you don’t have a iphone”.
“Why do you have this cable, you don’t have a iphone”
It’s like having some spare toothbrushes and women’s hygiene stuff just in case someone stays over. You’ll score points for being thoughtful, but on the other hand they’ll be like: waaait a minute …
When guests leave little reminders around the house, keep them in labeled zip loc bags, not in a general lost and found bin.
Far less awkward when they ask where their stuff is and you pull out a huge box of jewelry and clothing - “Can you describe your earrings for me?” - never goes down well.
Apple’s refusal to cooperate is both obviously profit motivated and infuriating. They’ve engineered this social gulf between iPhone and non-iPhone users. I often wonder about the collective social harm.
The low res photos and video are natural byproducts of squeezing modern media into an SMS message, but the ‘green’ bubbles take it to another level. The worst part is that the average iPhone user at best is apathetic. Meanwhile Cook suggested last year that we should just buy more iPhones as a solution.
I’m in the US and my thought is that it’s easier to use sms because not everyone uses Signal, not everyone uses Telegram, and those types. If they did… One person would prefer Snapchat, the other would prefer Signal… Too many choices. With SMS, it’s just your phone number, and everyone has a phone number.
Otherwise you gotta get usernames for different people for different apps… It’s too complicated.
Because it provides a better experience, weather it’s WhatsApp telegram, Signal threema or even discord or teams, they all provide a significant feature advantage over SMS. This starts with properly handling multimedia, not giving your number up to everyone else, proper groups, your messages living in the cloud for proper multi device functionality, your messages living unencrypted only on your device… There is plenty of real advantages with their associated side effects.
SMS as a standard is simply too old for modern expectations, this doesn’t make modern expectations stupid just because the standard is not being kept up to date.
I have not written a single SMS since 2013 or so, and my life is better for it. Also there is definitely open third party chat apps that provide an open standard that can just be installed as one of a few apps, the problem here is that potentially no one is using them.
The main advantage of a computer in your pocket against earlier phones is that you can fundamentally install any software you want, not just what the device manufacturer deems acceptable, so why would anyone not take advantage of this for messaging is beyond me.
You just listed mostly things that already exist with sms or should exist as a standard and some of them, Google has tried with RCS but companies like apple actively refuses adoption. Yeah, you can install apps but ideally you’d not be required to, it would be a choice. Sending a text message ought to be a standard process. This is a lot of hate for the idea of standards dude.
The thing is it’s a specific standard that just hasn’t kept up, you shouldn’t be married to any software, and you should be able to decide yourself what you use, I can’t change what big tech does with their software, but I can call people stupid for not using the ability of their computers to run custom software.
I despise the trend of people not realizing what they legitimately can do with their hardware, because they were just too scared to install software. I so often stumble upon people who can’t accomplish simple tasks because they are terrified of installing software, and this messaging thing is definitely one of these issues.
Essentially if you are given a library of software, and you have a problem that is solved by installing software, why would you not install software, it’s mostly free, and requires only the briefest thought about what you want and where you can find it.
You’re entirely missing the point. Communication systems ought to be standardized and mostly has been. You’re acting like you can magically install apps on your relatives and friends phones if you want to.
I have zero fear of installing incredibly custom software and honestly do so most days…
Not sure how someone this intelligent can so easily get lost on the idea that communication happens on a network, not on one device, and therefore standards help interoperability… It’s sort of bizarre
Yes I can’t do shit about communication systems not being standardized to the degree I’d like and with the features I’d want.
So what I try to do is try to bully people until they use an app that everyone can be relatively happy with, SMS is essentially the only one I don’t accept because it’s 20 years old and doesn’t behave sensibly for the modern area.
I can understand that standards help interoperability but realize that for SMS, obviously that has failed because apple has rejected RCS for now and developed a default experience that is better. I don’t control any of that shit. I can just tell people to install chat apps if they want to talk to me. And I can bully them if they don’t.
The network is a network of communicating software so the standard can be installed by default or after the fact, it doesn’t make a difference if everyone would just install software. Being angry at apple or WhatsApp or whatever for not writing a messenger you like is sorta stupid, they are companies they’ll never do what you want, being a angry at users that refuse to use options freely available to them can at least improve the situation for me because they can install what I, or they want to use.
Yeah but typically when people come into these threads going “huhuhu stupid Americans with their SMS” it turns out they’re on WhatsApp, like much of the rest of the world. Which is just hilariously stupid.
Welp, I am the only one in class using Android, so I get some laughs. If I am going to drop Android, it will be for full fledged GNU+Linux phone. Postmarket OS already officially supports Android apps via Waydroid.
I don’t see how I’d use something as restrictive as iOS. Not even being able to sideload apps without jailbreak, so Apple decides what you install.
There’s so much stuff I’d miss, I’d feel like using a modern day feature phone.
How is that cool?
Not simping for Apple (I use Android) but you can sideload without jailbreak. You can do it with a free Apple dev account or with Sideloadly.
I think it speaks volumes about Apple that some people’s knowledge about iPhones is based on years old info and negative experiences. Not that it matters to them.
Edit: for clarification, I think the fact you have to jump through hoops to put software on hardware you own is bullshit
Custom ROMs: A nice way to extend your phone’s lifespan, or just get a cleaner OS
Mifare Classic tool: I used that to clone my school lunch card for free
Minimum width settings: Maybe iPhones have this too, I am not sure. By increasing it from default 395dp to 705dp I have basically converted my phone to tablet. Apps consider tablet anything starting with 600dp.
LibreTorrent: Nice torrent client for Android, although you can’t really seed much with mobile data since you’re not connectable.
USB storage: I can connect a Flash drive or HDD to my phone. Cool.
Speaking of that, MLUSB mounter: Unfortunately paid and closed source, but mod APKs exist :) (unsafe). Since Linux kernel on Android is so limited, it brings support to extra file systems like NTFS and even UDF allowing you to use DVD or Blu-ray drive for browsing files on discs.
Speaking of USB, NokoPrint: Again, sadly closed-source app, but at least you don’t have to unlock features. It allows me to print on my old HP printer directly from phone via USB with all the settings HPLIP provides.
Robot36: If I happen to hear SSTV transmission, I can use this nice decoder. It is open-source.
noaa-apt: This one isn’t an app, but it can be compiled for ARM in Termux. It decodes APT transmissions from NOAA-15, 18 and 19 weather satellites they transmit in 137MHz band.
Termux: What I just mentioned above. And if I learn to configure it, Apache webserver, because why not.
Simple HTTP server: A slow but simple HTTP server app. Useful from sharing files to a full website on phone.
Matsuri: A really awesome proxy client
Android proxy server: Again, this could probably be done in Termux, but there’s an app for it. Useful for sharing a VPN connection with other computers. Or setup TCP relay to Orbot. Or both. Or maybe using your phone’s internet connection on school network with school computers. It allows for basic username password authentication.
F-Droid: More FOSS apps
USB Camera: Chinese app with ads that made me start using NextDNS. Allows me to comnect USB Composite capture card to phone and play NES games. Or a HDMI capture card from laptop. Or an actual camera. It can also run a server with the video feed. Easily allows changing between all supported resolutions and formats.
Screen stream: How about screencasting over HTTP? Sadly it doesn’t support audio.
Limbo x86 PC emulator: Slow but fun to play with. Why not try Windows 98 on my phone, right? Even Windows 7 somewhat ran on it.
J2ME Loader: Let’s replay those old Java games I played on my Sony Ericsson.
SDR++: Remember noaa-apt? How about recording it on your phone? A full on SDR (software defined radio) desktop experience. Although support for devices is limited on Android. Airspy, HackRF, RTL-SDR. I use it with RTL-SDRv3. The cheapest and most common SDR.
SatDump: A universal satellite decoder to use with your SDR. There’s also Meteor in 137MHz band transmitting digital imagery. And if you get a satellite dish and L-Band helical feed (with correct polarization - remember dish is a mirror, it reverses it) there’s a lot better imagery to get and additional satellites: Metop-B and Metop-C. But RTL-SDR isn’t optimal for these higher bandwidths anymore. Consider something like AirSpy Mini.
SDRAngel: SDR app that tries to do everything. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have scaling settings, so you’ll have a hard time using it on phone.
Welle.io: Does your country have DAB/DAB+ radio broadcast, but you don’t have a receiver? Well say no more! It is time to use your RTL-SDR for that. If you got the generic one (like $10) it saves you money that you would otherwise pay for a standalone receiver. The cost returns!
dump1090: An ADS-B receiver. Have you ever checked FlightAware or ADS-B exchange? How about getting that information yourself, directly from airplanes? Well you can do that with planes that are in sight.
Maybe I could find some more stuff, this is what I’d miss the most.
I tried a full phone cycle on Android. A Wileyfox Swift. I stuck with it for 4 years. I’ve dealt with a handful of Android tablets. I still have to wrangle Android on fire sticks.
I love to mess around with electronics but holyshit never again. These are devices that need to work and perform, I got so damn tired messing with Lineage and TWRP - the alternative being the zero updates from the manufacturer. The whole stack is a janky mess, and a moving target in terms of security and performance. Flagship phones that might stay current and perform well for a couple of years? Wtf?
So many android apps are dogshit. There’s no minimum bar to entry. Malicious apps sneak onto the play store. Out of date apps linger around.
My phone is not a project piece. It’s an essential device. Apple gives me a stringently vetted App Store, strong privacy controls, dependable hardware and performance. They expose the settings that I need and optimise everything else. My iPhone works and does it’s job with far less painful maintenance. I’m definitely willing to trade some freedom for that utility.
Not only that but Apple hasn’t tried to drm the open web lately. Are you sure this is consumerism and peer pressure? And not a dogshit software stack with poor performance, security and hardware driving away the users who are most engaged with their devices?
Do I care what phone you’re using? No. But I think bullshit click bait articles which effectively denigrate an entire demographic for the sake of instigating a tired back and forth about apples vs oranges should stay on the other side of the fucking paywall.
Did you really just compare an iPhone to some hacked version of an android phone? No shit it’ll perform better. And complaining that you can’t stop yourself from installing bad applications so you need Apple to stop you is kind of a weird flex. Just be a responsible computer owner. Don’t just install anything because it’s there. Be aware of what you install.
And it’s kind of funny how you denigrate the other phone yourself and get mad that someone else did it towards your phone. Dont try too hard defending your decisions.
No I did not and the Swift was (at the time) an official lineage target. It performed well, but the amount of work and effort it took to attain and maintain that performance was simply unacceptable to me. I like the concept of Android and I like how open it is but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be an apologist for it’s shortcomings. Of which there are many. I would love to be able to justify using an android device but it is just not a rational choice for me. And it would seem many others.
Denigrating something is by definition unfair criticism - and I don’t think even the most evangelical of android fans can support the mediocre manufacturer support and security history of the platform.
I think it’s a pretty fair comparison because in order to get the lifespan that I expect out of my hardware (3-5+ years), on Android I need to install a custom ROM just to get security updates.
Meanwhile Apple is still publishing updates for devices even 10 years old sometimes.
Yes, I know Google is starting to commit to 5 years of security updates, but if you bought a Pixel phone last year (like I did) then there’s a decent chance that yours still only came with 3 years of updates. So if you want a similar level of service then you end up having to do a lot of work yourself to make it happen.
You were pretty unlucky to buy a Pixel 5A in 2022. Every Pixel device that’s been released since October 2021’s Pixel 6 has had 5 years of security updates*, including the A line starting with the Pixel 6A in mid-2022. So the only phone Google still sold in the first half of 2022 that didn’t have that was the 5A.
At this point the Pixel phones specifically do have pretty decent support lifetimes. iPhones are still doing better, and Android phones in general are terrible about it, but for the Pixels in particular this has ceased to be a big issue. It sounds like you managed to snag the very last phone with this problem.
*They still only get 3 years of OS upgrades, but that hasn’t made a meaningful difference in several years.
Honestly the only thing Apple vets is that the app maker isn’t trying to weasel their way around Apple’s cut of the revenue. They’ll 100% catch it if you have a link to your sign-up page instead of using in-app purchase, but if you want to make an app called Threads and scam 300,000 people’s info, go nuts.
The Google Store is no better, but if I gave 1000 people money to spend on software, the ones who would be scammed out of the most are the people using these app stores. It’s an absolute travesty that Apple continues to get so much mileage out of their bullshit claims about their strict and thorough review process.
Also, I think it’s kind of hilarious that you just want a phone to work without you needing to mess with it, and then your phone cycle with Android sucked because you apparently picked something called the WileyFox Swift and started fucking around with bootloader replacements.
Whatever Apple is doing, you just don’t see this level of compromise on iOS. It’s not just that the google store is no better, it seems to be so much worse.
The Wileyfox Swift was a rebadged device from an ODM, and at the time was quite well known and liked because the company was UK based and touted responsive local support. The hardware was good and the software support certainly no worse than any other at the time. The frustration of using it came from the problems inherent in the android stack, not the device itself.
I wanted to use android and I tried my best to make it a rational choice. The issues I encountered applied all the same to phones many times the price I paid, hence making iOS my only option. All these years later most of those core issues persist.
My concern is with malware that exploits the software stack though, and those links pertain to scams that exploit human nature. Hence they don’t really support the argument that the iOS/android stack is more/less secure.
Scams that exploit human nature are an inevitable part of being online and there is no foolproof way to prevent them. I never said that either company was better or worse at reactive removal.
Scam apps require user interaction to achieve their goals. They largely aren’t doing anything that the user doesn’t allow them to do. So while I would always advocate swift removal, the onus is on me to protect myself rather than the store itself.
The links I posted related to software on the play store exploiting aspects of the Android stack to surreptitiously perform tasks without the users knowledge. If somebody downloads one of those apps they are able to do things that the user isn’t aware of and never allows. This is the kind of exploitation that is preventable by thorough fuzzing. And this is the kind of threat that iOS does a fantastic job at protecting against.
Put it this way: I can safely download any app from the Apple App Store knowing that it is highly unlikely it will fuck with my device. I know that if it does it’ll probably be noteworthy enough to make the news. I can’t say the same for the Google Play Store.
Those are apps that got through app review and silently did malicious things in the background with no user action aside from the initial download.
Who cares what the technical exploit was? The net result is that there’s an app in the store that if you download it, does harm to you in a way you can’t prevent except for uninstalling the app.
Phones have gotten to the point now where switching to an iPhone would be an inconvenience since I’m somewhat bought into the android ecosystem, but other than that, I genuinely wouldn’t care that much. It’s amazing how little there is between them now.
Just a note to all you can do the same thing with web.archive.org since archive.today (and all its associated other TLDs) is clearly doing with your info. They purposely won’t respond to CloudFlare DNS requests because CloudFlare doesn’t release extra information about you. The Archive owner released some half-assed story about per-country requirements, but DNS is the worst way to enforce that programmatically. So there is something shady there. Archive.today is shady in regards to your privacy. So if you’re using CloudFlare DNS, you’ll just get repeated captcha’s because Archive.today doesn’t follow correct DNS standards.
I’m of course open to edit and put a better alternative to archive.today, but web.archive.org doesn’t bypass paywalls, all it does is archiving, it won’t try all the things archive.today does like rendering the page inside a headless browser with some JavaScript disabled.
The people who actually care more about what phone their friends are using enough to peer pressure them into getting a phone of a specific brand or model are about as dense as a black hole and about as smart as a bag of rocks.
Are there supposed to be commas between those words? OR is Car clothes hair dog and job accent speech everything some new hip cool thing I don’t know about?
It’s fun because “clothes” and “accent” can be verbs, and given their position in the clause it almost looks like they should be but then you realize it makes no sense.
Also I’m very glad that Lemmy is a lot less US defaultism than Reddit is. It’s pretty tiring having to constantly hear about Democrats vs Republicans, or green bubbles, or Nissan cars bad, you get the point.
a lot less? front page of lemmy is just r/antiwork kind of thread bitching about the rich and gop non stop despite now the president is from democrat, I thought I can escape reddit very anti capitalism here yet here we are
It’s mostly just a cars subreddit thing. In big subs like r/cars Nissan cars are a popular target to hate on, because of their tryst with unreliable CVT transmissions in the past plus Nissan’s dependence of subprime lending in the US.
It is a thing in the UK… Lots of people have the iPhone 14 pro and call me poor for using android (I don’t even use android I use Ubuntu touch). Granted it’s just poncy twats but alot of people do have a bit of a superiority complex.
It’s OK, American kids have a lot to deal with: school shootings, adults that don’t give a fuck about the youth and actively shut doors to a better life with their dying breath, climate change, more diseases, and more. I can understand them being a little bitchy.
To be fair I am not a “kid”, but I have friends from highschool I still meet from time to time. And everybody used to have an android phone, now I am the only one left. A lot of them are company phones, but tbf I barely know anybody who doesn’t use an iPhone. And ykw, I get it. I get my phones second hand for the price of 10 kebabs, and fix them when needed, run linageOS, fuck around with magisk when needed and so on. But actually if you don’t want to do that, android phones are a fucking awful deal. They are no cheaper than an iphone, they are no more expandable, no easier to repair, come with no more accessories, and these days with safetynet and hardware based trusted boot no more open and moddable. on the other hand get way worse software support, get way shorter support, the servicing is usually way less streamlined, even the best are built worse, and they have little support for apple accessories, which are best in class especially the airpods pro being the biggest dealbreaker of the lot. Honestly a new android phone, would be a hard fucking sell for me as well.
That’s more or less true, counterpoint: there’s the Fairphone.
Regardless of that, for the purposes of the average person, any phone, iOS or Android from even 10 years ago is more than serviceable, while for those who game on their phone, maybe 2/3 years old phones are still holding up. The innovations in the space have been really flattening out for some time, so I’d say it doesn’t make much of a difference, because the average person doesn’t care about the newest OS versions for its up to date security, maybe for the features, but there hasn’t been something very groundbreaking recently IMO.
(Still, we should be mad at Google for allowing Android to be the ever out of date platform, but this was more a perspective of what the normal users need)
Well yeah the fairphone exists, but it is CATASTROPHICALLY expensive, (not that well made), and has a relatively old midrange chipset. And no headphone jack. I think 1 of these three would make it a very appealing product, 2 would make it worth considering, all three simply means, it isn’t good enough, even in a vacume. Sorry. And I really like the idea.
579€ for a phone that should potentially last you a decade or more doesn’t seem that expensive to me, chipset and jack are a pity though, I have to agree
I mean, let’s be real here. That decade is very theoretical. These midrange chipsets are kinda slow from the start. High end phones with absoulutely top of the line chipsets, with high powerlimits last a decade.
Edit: Also the parts are pretty expensive to be honest, and the price of the case is a fucking ripoff. 30 Euros for a case that isn’t even nice is just taking the piss.
Also 579 is for the entry version with only 6 gigabytes of ram, which is the amount that my note 8 had in 2018. You need to pay 649 for the 8 gig one, and if you want to keep the phone, you really want the 8gig one.
Edit2: Also you need to buy the more expensive 8/256 one, for the specled green back cover, which again is just taking the fucking piss. Not the mention the self admittedly chinese bought unrepairable TWS they were peddaling with it. IK IK you got it for free for a short while. Now however you have to pay for it.
Yeah, you’re right honestly, it’s not the best, but I do hope they improve and become more popular in the future.
Wishful thinking here, but if it picks up more, the prices might also drop a little alongside that
I’m in Europe and see the opposite of the article. Xiaomi (incl. Poco and Redmi), Samsung (the Z flip is popular here), Pixel (is pretty popular too) and others are everywhere. People rely on third party apps in Europe so the phone doesn’t really matter anymore.
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I know a 46 year old man who constantly complains about green bubbles in group texts. He doesn’t seem to realize that it’s his phone that isn’t following a standard and instead has chosen to refuse the RCS standard and lock him into proprietary bullshit.
Why do you know this person? Seems like you shouldn’t have to listen to anything he has to say anymore…
Even worse. Over a decade ago, Google offered to integrate with their protocol for a shared improved user experience. Apple forbid it.
It’s not laziness on their part, or “better features” because they get to have control. They literally want the poor user experience to encourage just this kind of bullying.
Funny thing is that Google does the same thing all the time. Back when Microsoft released Windows phone, they had made a few really amazing apps. One of them was their email app. Google went out of their way to ensure Gmail would never work on it past the basic functions of reading and sending email. They also pretty much forbid YouTube from working on windows phones.
The email thing stuck out the most because Google announced they were dropping support to whatever protocol Microsoft was using to communicate with Gmail servers, then Microsoft announced they would use a different protocol and next week Google went “oh right we are also dropping support for this other protocol”.
That’s fair. As a developer that has been burned by Google dropping support for shit they created, I can’t say for certain it was malicious or just Google being Google.
They used to create a ton of tools and protocols and drop support a couple years later because it wasn’t worth it to them to maintain it. Lots of pet projects used to get promotions, but no budget for sustained support.
A big client onboarding and exposing major flaws could absolutely shine and unwelcome light and force them to take a critical eye and come to the conclusion of “yeah, everyone that worked on that has moved on, it’d take too many resources to revive it, and it’s just going to help our competitor anyway. Our business need for it is gone because does similar things. Cut the cord”
It sucks, and isn’t an excuse. I stopped using Google dev tools because of it long ago. Very unreliable. But I don’t think it’s the same intent as Apple by a long shot.
Sheep come in many age groups. I have an iphone for work, and I have turned off iMessage.
“why don’t you have an iPhone?”
“I do, unfortunately. But turned iMessage off because it’s shit.”
“But now your messages come in green bubbles. It’s annoying!”
“Send your message in Teams”
“On android phones you can get different messaging apps, and on some of those apps you can change the color of the text bubbles (both send and receive) to suit your needs. If the color is really an issue for you, just change it! Oh iPhones can’t do that? Shame…”
Yup. And one that randomly assigns a color for each chat. It’s nice.
It seems we’ve come full circle. I remember early adverts for Android phones showing a line outside an Apple store waiting for the latest iPhone. An older couple ask the youngsters in front of them if they’re excited and they reply “oh no, it’s not for us … it’s for our parents. We use Android”.
My little brother has an Android (like the rest of my family) and he hates it. For the longest time he has been begging for an iPhone.
Does he hate it because it’s a cheap phone or because it’s not cool?
My little brother didn’t like android because it was too complicated. I think some people just aren’t interested in having to go figure android out is all. I like the extra options but not everyone wants that.
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Mostly because it’s a cheap phone, but I also think it’s because Android is percieved as “uncool” by his peers.
Sometimes his old phone would glitch out occasionally and he’d say stuff like “This wouldn’t have happened if I had an iPhone!”
You can get a cheap android (but don’t have to). You can’t get a cheap iPhone.
And are you really going to get your 12 year old the latest flagship android when there are cheaper options?
If every android kid got the latest Pixel, I bet they wouldn’t be seen as “the cheap phone”.
Plus Apple’s been pushing nearly every anticompeitive angle they can. The iMessage thing is 100% intentional. It’s not that the android phones aren’t capable of working with iMessage. It’s that Apple wants to make your experience worse when something happens that doesn’t involve giving them money. Because they want you to push your friends into an iPhone, and people are dumb enough to fall for it.
Looking at the kids I know, I think this is definitely one of the reasons they moved to iphones. A second line cheap android is basically a free phone, which is perfect for the first phone for emergencies and such as a kid. They break or lose it, it doesnt really matter. But the experience of having a crappy phone sticks with them and they want to move up to a “real” phone, which means “away from android”. Then all the kids get iphones about the time being in contact with friends is important, and suddenly imessage can tell you who is still using the “cheap phone”.
That’s why I will always chose Google because Google doesn’t do such things!
You dropped this:
/s
I recently moved from Chrome to Firefox, so I get that. But Apple is a hell of a lot worse about it.
Using the iMessage thing to create social pressure in kids is pretty evil.
Luckily good ol’ Google never targeted kids with their ads.
To a degree you can override Googles choices, including running your own private Android version.
With iOS you must take what Apple gives.
As I understand, to run a truly de-Googled Android you need to buy Google’s Pixel. I ain’t sending a single penny to an ad company.
Apple earns 4 billion a year from ads and growing.
Not really, there’s degoogled ROMs that run on different smartphones: CalyxOS, DivestOS, iodéOS, /e/… But it is generally recognised that the best one for privacy AND security is GrapheneOS, which indeed only runs on Pixel phones.
I’d even say that Apple targeted teens from the start, because we all remember when we were all kids how those little details mattered and how kids can be really horrible to each other about that. Them including a social differentiator inside a texting app is just evil.
Apple is the company who gave all the elementary schools free computers in exchange for putting their advertising posters up in.the hallways.
It was fully intentional.
Exactly. Apple knows what they have been doing for decades. When I was a kid I “needed” a Mac because of their advertising campaign in schools. My father bought us an Atari st barely used. It was almost twice as powerful as the Mac of the same time period and he paid a quarter the price. I remember my peers at the time saying “what’s that good for playing pong?” No it’s good for programming, databases, word processing, but also yes it’s good for playing pong.
Yeah it definitely sucks… a significant portion of your social status is tied significantly to what you have (via your parents)… Probably because at that age almost nobody has actually done anything yet
I’m in my early 20’s and I just changed my iPhone for a Pixel, actually. Got fed up with a lot of the Apple crap, and the Pixel looked sick. Then again, I’m not American and I don’t use SMS anymore, so no one I talk to would ever know what OS I’m using.
The fact that Americans still use SMS is fucking bizarre. It’s like the Japanese still using fax in this day and age for some reason
I just dont want to see any ads on my phone. I can’t control a iPhone, but on android with f-droid I can see zero ads, newpipe, mull with ublock origin…
I didn’t realize how big of a deal iMessage was until I spoke to a few US iPhone users. They make such a big deal out of it. Completely surprised me.
iMessage is by far the biggest hurdle for Android to overcome in the US. Convincing your friends to use a third party app just so you can participate in a group chat is next to impossible
Which is weird. The following two requests are not equivalent:
You should spend 45 seconds downloading and activating a free app (I prefer Signal) so we can all have a nice group chat experience
You should buy a new $800 phone so we can all have a nice group chat experience
Which Android does he have? I do see this happen a bunch, a kid will have a bottom of the barrel cheap Android phone (you don’t have cheap options of iphones) and hate Android, not the fact that it’s a budget $100 phone. Get him a note 23 ultra and he won’t have those issues. Then he can show off the spen features iphones will never have
Not sure exactly what model it is, but it’s definitely a Motorola phone.
Maybe if he had a Pixel he’d appreciate Android more.
I think a highish end Samsung phone is also a great experience.
I recently switched from Pixel -> Samsung -> iPhone. I think the iPhone might be the worst outside of battery life.
This another factor why kids lean to iphone. Their parents buy them the shitty $100 android phone from the carrier store. Compared to a $1000 iPhone, it sucks pretty bad.
Install YouTube ReVanced, Firefox with adblocker and Emulators+Roms and if he still hates it disown his ass cuz I don’t know what to say. For me iOS is not an option.
My entire life I’ve been reading news that only iPhones are cool, yet my social circles don’t care and have never said anything like this. I feel like this is a ‘Hello fellow kids’ type of investigative journalism, that is a secret apple ad.
I mentioned it in another comment, but this was real in my experience. At least in highschool. It’s not like I was bullied or anything, but I was teased about it quite a bit and honestly it made me want to switch to iPhone just to fit in.
Apple has a great advertisement department. They are great at pumping such news stories.
I’m 36, have had windows mobile pocket PCs thru HTCs and eventually Samsung Galaxies, and have absolutely been shamed several times by different friend groups over the last decade plus lfor not having iMessage. It def ramped up in the later 2010s
Can you expand on your experiences? Was the social pressure constant, or just a comment? Do you think it impacted your relationships with your friends?
I’m also convinced these are really just paid for by Apple ads. I’ve never seen anyone care about such a thing.
Most tech “news” is paid by the subject of the said news.
How do you do fellow consumer
Nah. That’s North America. iPhones in North America have become a status symbol, you have to be available on iMessage, otherwise they’ll contact you by SMS. I know a lot of people in Canada who have no other messaging app (WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, etc.). They only communicate via iMessage.
Unless you care about privacy (signal), why even have a second messaging app? I have the phone to make calls and send texts. The default shit works well on iphone and android.
My family uses Whatsapp and my work uses GroupMe. If we just text, things get lis5t or come in oit of order.
It’s called the network effect. The rest of the world (except China) uses WhatsApp so if you want to communicate with them you use whatever they use.
Because SMS is unreliable. On several occasions, SMS messages have either been delayed by hours or simply never reached their destination. Mind you, that’s my experience here in Canada.
Just off the top of my head…
How often are you around teens though? My dad is a high school teacher and his students are always surprised and ask him why he has an Android and not an iPhone.
High school teacher here, and I see this a bit (although I have an iPhone)
I’ve heard this is an American thing. I’m Canadian, and my kids are teenagers and only one friend they have has an iPhone, the rest are on Android (as are all of my friends now, the last one went over to Android last year)
Yes this is definitely a major American thing. There isn’t really anything equivalent to the green bubble shaming outside of America. And I would Hazard a guess that this is also more prevalent in more affluent coastal areas. As well as especially on the West coast. Apple’s back yard.
Eh, that was my highschool experience at least. It was never super serious or anything, like it’s not like I was being bullied lol, but I was regularly teased about it in my friend group.
When I was in highschool, the phone was attached to the wall in the kitchen. Simpler times.
When i was in school, you could throw the phone against a wall and the wall got damaged. Simpler times.
Who the fuck calls Android devices “'Droids” unironically? This couldn’t have been real teenagers. Not ones from the past decade at the very least.
What you are referring to as droids is in fact Android/Linux, or as I’ve recently started calling it, Android+Linux.
…
Good one! :)
Psst. Side bar.
I like retro stuff.
Oh my god. I didn’t even see that! Lmao
Motorola 👀
guess we can thank TikTok and Snapchat for that?
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I’ve never run into that, but I feel like it’s a good pivotable moment:
"Yeah Bob, this closed source walled garden isn’t playing nice with the group chat… good point, let’s move to Signal where everyone can have a good experience. "
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Going from one app (iMessage) to two isn’t an unambiguous win though. All the iPhone users’ experience got worse.
To be clear, this is such minor shit that the real answer is, “ok, I guess we’ll live with it because that’s how we communicate with our friends now”, but it is certainly nicer for them if everyone is on an iPhone and they don’t have to solve that problem.
Our group moved to a private discord. Solved that problem.
I hope Sup. will take off. That will get a lot more people using the Fediverse in a format they prefer if there’s a FB Messager alternative attached to it.
I have, in my dating life, gotten lightening charging cables to have around the house.
It’s never fun to have someone ask you for a charger, you saying “Sure, use the fast charger right there”, and not have the lightening cable for their phone. But it’s also a catch-22, if you DO have the cable they need then its “Why do you have this cable, you don’t have a iphone”.
It’s like having some spare toothbrushes and women’s hygiene stuff just in case someone stays over. You’ll score points for being thoughtful, but on the other hand they’ll be like: waaait a minute …
Top iphone tip, heh -
When guests leave little reminders around the house, keep them in labeled zip loc bags, not in a general lost and found bin.
Far less awkward when they ask where their stuff is and you pull out a huge box of jewelry and clothing - “Can you describe your earrings for me?” - never goes down well.
Yeah, much better to go: “What’s your name again? Ah Jessica, let’s see… Jade, Jane, Jasmine… ah right Jessica, here’s your stuff!”
[email protected], now also the best place for dating tips.
Personally, I would appreciate the thoughtfulness of it.
“it’s an ex girlfriend’s” is a good ice breaker.
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I’m amazed it’s 2023 and we’ve still not universally adopted a protocol better than SMS. Thanks Apple
We have all universally adopted Rich Communication Services, which is an open standard.
Well, except for Apple. They haven’t adopted it.
Apple’s refusal to cooperate is both obviously profit motivated and infuriating. They’ve engineered this social gulf between iPhone and non-iPhone users. I often wonder about the collective social harm.
The low res photos and video are natural byproducts of squeezing modern media into an SMS message, but the ‘green’ bubbles take it to another level. The worst part is that the average iPhone user at best is apathetic. Meanwhile Cook suggested last year that we should just buy more iPhones as a solution.
Mofo thinks we’re made out of money.
Crossing my fingers that the eu æaq that forces 3rd party app stores etc, on iphones, can fix it
Me too. I’m glad the EU is out there thinking about these things.
It’s 2023. Why use SMS in the first place? The world except the US has moved on years ago.
I’m in the US and my thought is that it’s easier to use sms because not everyone uses Signal, not everyone uses Telegram, and those types. If they did… One person would prefer Snapchat, the other would prefer Signal… Too many choices. With SMS, it’s just your phone number, and everyone has a phone number.
Otherwise you gotta get usernames for different people for different apps… It’s too complicated.
Because open standards that don’t require specialized software have many advantages… Why would you prefer proprietary software in the first place?
Because it provides a better experience, weather it’s WhatsApp telegram, Signal threema or even discord or teams, they all provide a significant feature advantage over SMS. This starts with properly handling multimedia, not giving your number up to everyone else, proper groups, your messages living in the cloud for proper multi device functionality, your messages living unencrypted only on your device… There is plenty of real advantages with their associated side effects.
SMS as a standard is simply too old for modern expectations, this doesn’t make modern expectations stupid just because the standard is not being kept up to date. I have not written a single SMS since 2013 or so, and my life is better for it. Also there is definitely open third party chat apps that provide an open standard that can just be installed as one of a few apps, the problem here is that potentially no one is using them.
The main advantage of a computer in your pocket against earlier phones is that you can fundamentally install any software you want, not just what the device manufacturer deems acceptable, so why would anyone not take advantage of this for messaging is beyond me.
You just listed mostly things that already exist with sms or should exist as a standard and some of them, Google has tried with RCS but companies like apple actively refuses adoption. Yeah, you can install apps but ideally you’d not be required to, it would be a choice. Sending a text message ought to be a standard process. This is a lot of hate for the idea of standards dude.
The thing is it’s a specific standard that just hasn’t kept up, you shouldn’t be married to any software, and you should be able to decide yourself what you use, I can’t change what big tech does with their software, but I can call people stupid for not using the ability of their computers to run custom software.
I despise the trend of people not realizing what they legitimately can do with their hardware, because they were just too scared to install software. I so often stumble upon people who can’t accomplish simple tasks because they are terrified of installing software, and this messaging thing is definitely one of these issues.
Essentially if you are given a library of software, and you have a problem that is solved by installing software, why would you not install software, it’s mostly free, and requires only the briefest thought about what you want and where you can find it.
You’re entirely missing the point. Communication systems ought to be standardized and mostly has been. You’re acting like you can magically install apps on your relatives and friends phones if you want to.
I have zero fear of installing incredibly custom software and honestly do so most days…
Not sure how someone this intelligent can so easily get lost on the idea that communication happens on a network, not on one device, and therefore standards help interoperability… It’s sort of bizarre
Yes I can’t do shit about communication systems not being standardized to the degree I’d like and with the features I’d want.
So what I try to do is try to bully people until they use an app that everyone can be relatively happy with, SMS is essentially the only one I don’t accept because it’s 20 years old and doesn’t behave sensibly for the modern area.
I can understand that standards help interoperability but realize that for SMS, obviously that has failed because apple has rejected RCS for now and developed a default experience that is better. I don’t control any of that shit. I can just tell people to install chat apps if they want to talk to me. And I can bully them if they don’t.
The network is a network of communicating software so the standard can be installed by default or after the fact, it doesn’t make a difference if everyone would just install software. Being angry at apple or WhatsApp or whatever for not writing a messenger you like is sorta stupid, they are companies they’ll never do what you want, being a angry at users that refuse to use options freely available to them can at least improve the situation for me because they can install what I, or they want to use.
SMS > Facebook
Don’t be ignorant. There are a lot more options, safer, open and with more features than sms/iMessage.
And there are many more options better than both
Yeah but typically when people come into these threads going “huhuhu stupid Americans with their SMS” it turns out they’re on WhatsApp, like much of the rest of the world. Which is just hilariously stupid.
In 2024 Apple and Google will have to figure it out because the EU are twisting their arms.
Welp, I am the only one in class using Android, so I get some laughs. If I am going to drop Android, it will be for full fledged GNU+Linux phone. Postmarket OS already officially supports Android apps via Waydroid.
I don’t see how I’d use something as restrictive as iOS. Not even being able to sideload apps without jailbreak, so Apple decides what you install.
There’s so much stuff I’d miss, I’d feel like using a modern day feature phone.
How is that cool?
Not simping for Apple (I use Android) but you can sideload without jailbreak. You can do it with a free Apple dev account or with Sideloadly.
I think it speaks volumes about Apple that some people’s knowledge about iPhones is based on years old info and negative experiences. Not that it matters to them.
Edit: for clarification, I think the fact you have to jump through hoops to put software on hardware you own is bullshit
The fact that official way is still to create an account, aka ask Apple for permission is dumb.
Don’t you have to re-certify the app every 2-4 weeks or something when you sideload it?
I’ll admit it’s been a while since I’ve looked, because I just don’t care anymore about what device does what how
While I agree with the sentiment, what are some examples of the “so much stuff”? The big one for me is the red tape around browsers.
Sorry for the late reply, but I was asleep.
Maybe I could find some more stuff, this is what I’d miss the most.
Well, he/she mentioned installing apks from anywhere you like, for example.
I was literally just looking 5’ ago for a white noise generator app in the Play Store and struggling to find anything not ad-supported.
Headed over to f-droid from my Firefox browser, did a search, downloaded and installed the apk directly and now I have it.
That’s a pretty awesome level of freedom.
I tried a full phone cycle on Android. A Wileyfox Swift. I stuck with it for 4 years. I’ve dealt with a handful of Android tablets. I still have to wrangle Android on fire sticks.
I love to mess around with electronics but holyshit never again. These are devices that need to work and perform, I got so damn tired messing with Lineage and TWRP - the alternative being the zero updates from the manufacturer. The whole stack is a janky mess, and a moving target in terms of security and performance. Flagship phones that might stay current and perform well for a couple of years? Wtf?
So many android apps are dogshit. There’s no minimum bar to entry. Malicious apps sneak onto the play store. Out of date apps linger around.
My phone is not a project piece. It’s an essential device. Apple gives me a stringently vetted App Store, strong privacy controls, dependable hardware and performance. They expose the settings that I need and optimise everything else. My iPhone works and does it’s job with far less painful maintenance. I’m definitely willing to trade some freedom for that utility.
Not only that but Apple hasn’t tried to drm the open web lately. Are you sure this is consumerism and peer pressure? And not a dogshit software stack with poor performance, security and hardware driving away the users who are most engaged with their devices?
Do I care what phone you’re using? No. But I think bullshit click bait articles which effectively denigrate an entire demographic for the sake of instigating a tired back and forth about apples vs oranges should stay on the other side of the fucking paywall.
Did you really just compare an iPhone to some hacked version of an android phone? No shit it’ll perform better. And complaining that you can’t stop yourself from installing bad applications so you need Apple to stop you is kind of a weird flex. Just be a responsible computer owner. Don’t just install anything because it’s there. Be aware of what you install.
And it’s kind of funny how you denigrate the other phone yourself and get mad that someone else did it towards your phone. Dont try too hard defending your decisions.
No I did not and the Swift was (at the time) an official lineage target. It performed well, but the amount of work and effort it took to attain and maintain that performance was simply unacceptable to me. I like the concept of Android and I like how open it is but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be an apologist for it’s shortcomings. Of which there are many. I would love to be able to justify using an android device but it is just not a rational choice for me. And it would seem many others.
Denigrating something is by definition unfair criticism - and I don’t think even the most evangelical of android fans can support the mediocre manufacturer support and security history of the platform.
I think it’s a pretty fair comparison because in order to get the lifespan that I expect out of my hardware (3-5+ years), on Android I need to install a custom ROM just to get security updates.
Meanwhile Apple is still publishing updates for devices even 10 years old sometimes.
Yes, I know Google is starting to commit to 5 years of security updates, but if you bought a Pixel phone last year (like I did) then there’s a decent chance that yours still only came with 3 years of updates. So if you want a similar level of service then you end up having to do a lot of work yourself to make it happen.
You were pretty unlucky to buy a Pixel 5A in 2022. Every Pixel device that’s been released since October 2021’s Pixel 6 has had 5 years of security updates*, including the A line starting with the Pixel 6A in mid-2022. So the only phone Google still sold in the first half of 2022 that didn’t have that was the 5A.
At this point the Pixel phones specifically do have pretty decent support lifetimes. iPhones are still doing better, and Android phones in general are terrible about it, but for the Pixels in particular this has ceased to be a big issue. It sounds like you managed to snag the very last phone with this problem.
*They still only get 3 years of OS upgrades, but that hasn’t made a meaningful difference in several years.
Pretty sure Samsung guarantees 4 years of upgrades and support.
Honestly the only thing Apple vets is that the app maker isn’t trying to weasel their way around Apple’s cut of the revenue. They’ll 100% catch it if you have a link to your sign-up page instead of using in-app purchase, but if you want to make an app called Threads and scam 300,000 people’s info, go nuts.
The Google Store is no better, but if I gave 1000 people money to spend on software, the ones who would be scammed out of the most are the people using these app stores. It’s an absolute travesty that Apple continues to get so much mileage out of their bullshit claims about their strict and thorough review process.
Also, I think it’s kind of hilarious that you just want a phone to work without you needing to mess with it, and then your phone cycle with Android sucked because you apparently picked something called the WileyFox Swift and started fucking around with bootloader replacements.
Except that somehow it just keeps happening to google:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/android-malware-infiltrates-60-google-play-apps-with-100m-installs/amp/
https://www.wionews.com/technology/google-deletes-50-apps-after-joker-malware-attack-users-should-delete-them-if-they-are-installed-501251
https://www.zdnet.com/article/android-warning-these-malicious-apps-had-over-a-million-downloads-from-google-play/
Whatever Apple is doing, you just don’t see this level of compromise on iOS. It’s not just that the google store is no better, it seems to be so much worse.
The Wileyfox Swift was a rebadged device from an ODM, and at the time was quite well known and liked because the company was UK based and touted responsive local support. The hardware was good and the software support certainly no worse than any other at the time. The frustration of using it came from the problems inherent in the android stack, not the device itself.
I wanted to use android and I tried my best to make it a rational choice. The issues I encountered applied all the same to phones many times the price I paid, hence making iOS my only option. All these years later most of those core issues persist.
Who still uses Google Play? Use FDroid please.
As much as I would love to only rely on f-droid, they do not have the same apps as the playstore or alternatives for everything.
Shout out to FDroid for being awesome. But realistically it’s not going to cover all the apps you’ll ever need.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/06/apple-app-store-scams-fraud/
https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tech/news/84-dangerous-scam-apps-found-on-iphone-app-store-your-stealing-money-check-full-list-of-apps-71658128703429.html
https://www.wired.com/story/chatgpt-scams-apple-app-store-google-play/
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/crypto-scam-apps-infiltrate-apple-app-store-and-google-play/
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/pig-butchering-scam-apps-sneak-into-apples-app-store-and-google-play/
https://www.laptopmag.com/news/84-scam-apps-still-active-on-app-store-steal-over-dollar100-million-annually
I could keep going down the rest of page one of the search results, but why?
My concern is with malware that exploits the software stack though, and those links pertain to scams that exploit human nature. Hence they don’t really support the argument that the iOS/android stack is more/less secure.
Scams that exploit human nature are an inevitable part of being online and there is no foolproof way to prevent them. I never said that either company was better or worse at reactive removal.
Scam apps require user interaction to achieve their goals. They largely aren’t doing anything that the user doesn’t allow them to do. So while I would always advocate swift removal, the onus is on me to protect myself rather than the store itself.
The links I posted related to software on the play store exploiting aspects of the Android stack to surreptitiously perform tasks without the users knowledge. If somebody downloads one of those apps they are able to do things that the user isn’t aware of and never allows. This is the kind of exploitation that is preventable by thorough fuzzing. And this is the kind of threat that iOS does a fantastic job at protecting against.
Put it this way: I can safely download any app from the Apple App Store knowing that it is highly unlikely it will fuck with my device. I know that if it does it’ll probably be noteworthy enough to make the news. I can’t say the same for the Google Play Store.
This distinction only exists in your head.
https://privacyis1st.medium.com/abuse-of-the-mac-appstore-investigation-6151114bb10e
Those are apps that got through app review and silently did malicious things in the background with no user action aside from the initial download.
Who cares what the technical exploit was? The net result is that there’s an app in the store that if you download it, does harm to you in a way you can’t prevent except for uninstalling the app.
Phones have gotten to the point now where switching to an iPhone would be an inconvenience since I’m somewhat bought into the android ecosystem, but other than that, I genuinely wouldn’t care that much. It’s amazing how little there is between them now.
Not if you want a foldable.
Just a note to all you can do the same thing with web.archive.org since archive.today (and all its associated other TLDs) is clearly doing with your info. They purposely won’t respond to CloudFlare DNS requests because CloudFlare doesn’t release extra information about you. The Archive owner released some half-assed story about per-country requirements, but DNS is the worst way to enforce that programmatically. So there is something shady there. Archive.today is shady in regards to your privacy. So if you’re using CloudFlare DNS, you’ll just get repeated captcha’s because Archive.today doesn’t follow correct DNS standards.
I’m of course open to edit and put a better alternative to archive.today, but web.archive.org doesn’t bypass paywalls, all it does is archiving, it won’t try all the things archive.today does like rendering the page inside a headless browser with some JavaScript disabled.
The people who actually care more about what phone their friends are using enough to peer pressure them into getting a phone of a specific brand or model are about as dense as a black hole and about as smart as a bag of rocks.
Exactly. But that’s the issue with everything these days.
People look down on you for all manner of things. Car clothes hair dog, job accent speech everything.
Vain is thy name. Get a grip of your life. Nobody should care.
If I don’t infringe on your life then what I do should have no impact upon yours.
Are there supposed to be commas between those words? OR is Car clothes hair dog and job accent speech everything some new hip cool thing I don’t know about?
It’s fun because “clothes” and “accent” can be verbs, and given their position in the clause it almost looks like they should be but then you realize it makes no sense.
Its like “man bear pig”
No. I couldn’t be bothered. I’m lazy. You knew what I meant and you are doing exactly the thing I mentioned.
Not sure if troll or just my point being made exactly
Man hook hand car door?!
*Why American Teen Hate Android Phones
Also I’m very glad that Lemmy is a lot less US defaultism than Reddit is. It’s pretty tiring having to constantly hear about Democrats vs Republicans, or green bubbles, or Nissan cars bad, you get the point.
Upvoted because this is why I’m feeling kind of annoyed right now.
a lot less? front page of lemmy is just r/antiwork kind of thread bitching about the rich and gop non stop despite now the president is from democrat, I thought I can escape reddit very anti capitalism here yet here we are
Yeah that still depends on the instance in which posts came from, imo here on c/Android it’s already a lot less US centric than r/Android was.
Sighs of relief in European
gracias a diós nasci en latinoamerica
As someone in the US, 100% agree.
Why are Nissan cars bad?
Nissan is bad? Wtf did I miss?
It’s mostly just a cars subreddit thing. In big subs like r/cars Nissan cars are a popular target to hate on, because of their tryst with unreliable CVT transmissions in the past plus Nissan’s dependence of subprime lending in the US.
Nissan cars bad? Is that a common US complaint? The others I hear all the time (as an American myself).
Just a r/cars thing. Mostly because of how Nissan relies on subprime lending to sell cars in the US and Reddit likes to makes fun out of it.
Great clickbait title from them. This is a US / NA specific issue and thankfully isn’t fully reflective everywhere else
It is a thing in the UK… Lots of people have the iPhone 14 pro and call me poor for using android (I don’t even use android I use Ubuntu touch). Granted it’s just poncy twats but alot of people do have a bit of a superiority complex.
Holy fuck, kids are cringe. I hate this blue bubble elitism so much. Glad it’s not a really a thing in Europe.
According to my 16 yo daughter it most certainly is a thing in the EU. She would never buy an android.
According to my 12 yo son iPhone’s are for dumb people. I’m not sure if that’s really his opinion or he just says it to annoy his big sister.
In either case, your son restores my faith in humanity.
For whatever reason the US never moved on from SMS… and Apple took advantage of that.
It’s OK, American kids have a lot to deal with: school shootings, adults that don’t give a fuck about the youth and actively shut doors to a better life with their dying breath, climate change, more diseases, and more. I can understand them being a little bitchy.
To be fair I am not a “kid”, but I have friends from highschool I still meet from time to time. And everybody used to have an android phone, now I am the only one left. A lot of them are company phones, but tbf I barely know anybody who doesn’t use an iPhone. And ykw, I get it. I get my phones second hand for the price of 10 kebabs, and fix them when needed, run linageOS, fuck around with magisk when needed and so on. But actually if you don’t want to do that, android phones are a fucking awful deal. They are no cheaper than an iphone, they are no more expandable, no easier to repair, come with no more accessories, and these days with safetynet and hardware based trusted boot no more open and moddable. on the other hand get way worse software support, get way shorter support, the servicing is usually way less streamlined, even the best are built worse, and they have little support for apple accessories, which are best in class especially the airpods pro being the biggest dealbreaker of the lot. Honestly a new android phone, would be a hard fucking sell for me as well.
That’s more or less true, counterpoint: there’s the Fairphone.
Regardless of that, for the purposes of the average person, any phone, iOS or Android from even 10 years ago is more than serviceable, while for those who game on their phone, maybe 2/3 years old phones are still holding up. The innovations in the space have been really flattening out for some time, so I’d say it doesn’t make much of a difference, because the average person doesn’t care about the newest OS versions for its up to date security, maybe for the features, but there hasn’t been something very groundbreaking recently IMO.
(Still, we should be mad at Google for allowing Android to be the ever out of date platform, but this was more a perspective of what the normal users need)
Well yeah the fairphone exists, but it is CATASTROPHICALLY expensive, (not that well made), and has a relatively old midrange chipset. And no headphone jack. I think 1 of these three would make it a very appealing product, 2 would make it worth considering, all three simply means, it isn’t good enough, even in a vacume. Sorry. And I really like the idea.
579€ for a phone that should potentially last you a decade or more doesn’t seem that expensive to me, chipset and jack are a pity though, I have to agree
I mean, let’s be real here. That decade is very theoretical. These midrange chipsets are kinda slow from the start. High end phones with absoulutely top of the line chipsets, with high powerlimits last a decade.
Edit: Also the parts are pretty expensive to be honest, and the price of the case is a fucking ripoff. 30 Euros for a case that isn’t even nice is just taking the piss.
Also 579 is for the entry version with only 6 gigabytes of ram, which is the amount that my note 8 had in 2018. You need to pay 649 for the 8 gig one, and if you want to keep the phone, you really want the 8gig one.
Edit2: Also you need to buy the more expensive 8/256 one, for the specled green back cover, which again is just taking the fucking piss. Not the mention the self admittedly chinese bought unrepairable TWS they were peddaling with it. IK IK you got it for free for a short while. Now however you have to pay for it.
Yeah, you’re right honestly, it’s not the best, but I do hope they improve and become more popular in the future.
Wishful thinking here, but if it picks up more, the prices might also drop a little alongside that
I’m in Europe and see the opposite of the article. Xiaomi (incl. Poco and Redmi), Samsung (the Z flip is popular here), Pixel (is pretty popular too) and others are everywhere. People rely on third party apps in Europe so the phone doesn’t really matter anymore.
This is what happens when you succumb to techno AIDS.
Just to be clear, when you say techno aids, you aren’t talking about the genre of music known as techno right?
Most of the people this is talking about do not listen to actually good music like techno (save for bullshit like business techno)
Consumer fetishism