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I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

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Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#161

Post by Silhouette »

hackuser wrote: post #22

A bit OT: I'd like a mobile platform that provides confidentiality (from both government draget and commercial spying) and end-user control. These seem like fundementals of any platform, at least as user options, but I haven't found it: * iOS seems to have some confidentiality, though are users really protected from commercial spying? Of course end-user control is very limited. * Android provides some end-user contro…

I'm curious whether Blackberry's Priv locks down the OS in addition to the hardware.

So am I, but when I read their site about it around the time it launched, there were so many loopholes and weasel words in the information about security features that I ran away.

FWIW, the most obvious warning sign was that they were very hot on telling you about potentially insecure things being done on your device, but I couldn't find a single definitive statement that their software actually let you do anything to prevent those things from happening, nor any reference to tools or controls that seemed like they might do so, on their entire site. It also appeared to be based on an older version of Android that didn't have some of the more recent advances in per-app per-function privilege controls, suggesting that they might actually be worse in this respect than recent devices from other providers would be just with the latest off-the-shelf Android release.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#162

Post by codehalo »

vecinu wrote: post #127
Swizec wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cars also followed this pattern, come to think of it. I remember my dad complaining all through my youth about how the more modern that cars get, the less serviceable you are. That in new cars you need special computers just to tell them that yes, you did fix the problem and the car can stop complaining now. 10 years later ... man, if I have to even think about opening the bonnet and poking at something, I assume t…

> Maintainability is the feature of unreliable equipment. Not quite. The whole purpose of maintenance is to increase the longevity of a product by making small, cheap, tweaks to complex parts that can fail due to wear and tear. Everything lasts longer if you maintain it. A good knife, a high performance vehicle, a good pair of shoes, a couch, etc ... I don't know of any product that is "as good as new" after years of…

I think his point is that the goal is to make equipment that minimizes having to make "small, cheap, tweaks to complex parts that can fail due to wear and tear".

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#163

Post by xd1936 »

butThenThis134 wrote: post #128
taesu wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These things that you mentioned, you didn't really have to do. Buy a nexus, and it's as clean as it gets. What you're saying is that you left the freedom of your device to jail yourself into simple interface...? I do agree though, that those samsung/lg/etc phone have lots crapwares + carrier crapwares.

> Buy a nexus, and it's as clean as it gets. Until it gets infected with malware that requires a firmware reflash to close: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/03/rooting-bug-in-andro...

Ugh. $100 to anyone who actually knows somebody who has been exploited.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#164

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

untog wrote: post #24

I agree with pretty much everything in this article - I firmly believe that we're due a "post-app" world where progressively enhanced web sites provide 95% of the functionality we require. But we're not there yet - I'd love to see better WebView integration into native UI components (UINavigationController and the like), to provide things like swipe-to-go-back, which is monumentally hard to do on the web. But hey. Ma…

> I firmly believe that we're due a "post-app" world where progressively enhanced web sites provide 95% of the functionality we require.

I don't think we are. Apps provide users with better performance - compiled native is going to be faster for almost everything and should also use less battery - and provide Apple + Google with control over the ecosystem.

The latter makes it possible for (e.g.) Apple to claim that it won't unlock a phone for the FBI.

It doesn't matter whether or not the claim is true. It matters that the claim is possible at all.

>If Apple lets us.

Apple won't. Nor will Google. It's a political decision, not a technical one.

There will be a post-app world one day, but it will only happen when there's a new platform and a new kind of OS - probably something AI-based like Echo/Alexa that has no concept of separate applications.

I'd be interested in a composable OS where you could build processes from free components and then share them. This is how a lot of web development works already - see also left-pad and NPM - but if a friendlier, simpler version was available in UserLand, that might start to chip away at the walled gardens around app dev.

Of course neither Apple nor Google are likely to support something like this.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#165

Post by lewisl9029 »

mortenjorck wrote: post #87
_kp6z wrote: post #70

I did the opposite and can't believe how much better my life had gotten because my iPhone is just a simple tool that I use for communications and don't think about it as a project. With Android, I always wanted to tweak silly things and run Cyanogenmod because the handset firmware was always so bad and vulnerable. On several occasions I'd bricked my phone requiring hours of recovery, or had transient failures of cell…

Did you click on the article? All your points, while valid in a vacuum, have nothing to do with the author's argument about the two platforms' approaches to web apps. I appreciate and even agree with your view, but you might as well be talking about OS X versus Windows given the topic of the submitted post.

Threads like these (completely off-topic, but somehow ends up at the top and takes up 1/4 of the page) are why I wish the official HN client could collapse threads.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#166

Post by takno »

matwood wrote: post #146
takno wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting on case usage. I'd say virtually everybody I know with an iPhone has it in a case, but for other devices it's maybe 20% of people I know who use one. All anecdotal, and every mall I go in has a hundred shops selling them, I've just always wondered who's buying them

I've never used a case on any of my phones whether iPhone or Nexus. I did use the iPhone 4 bumper they gave out because it was free and I liked the little ridge that let me lay the phone face down.

I'm using a bumper-style case myself just because it came with the phone, and the phone has a glass back and razor sharp edges which is really just bad design.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#167

Post by gt565k »

taesu wrote: post #78
_kp6z wrote: post #70

I did the opposite and can't believe how much better my life had gotten because my iPhone is just a simple tool that I use for communications and don't think about it as a project. With Android, I always wanted to tweak silly things and run Cyanogenmod because the handset firmware was always so bad and vulnerable. On several occasions I'd bricked my phone requiring hours of recovery, or had transient failures of cell…

These things that you mentioned, you didn't really have to do. Buy a nexus, and it's as clean as it gets. What you're saying is that you left the freedom of your device to jail yourself into simple interface...? I do agree though, that those samsung/lg/etc phone have lots crapwares + carrier crapwares.

I struggled with the same issues. Running CM roms that were just damn unstable and broke shit left and right.

Finally settled for the Nexus 6P, and I'm loving it. No need more dealing with crapware!

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#168

Post by bunnymancer »

taesu wrote: post #78
_kp6z wrote: post #70

I did the opposite and can't believe how much better my life had gotten because my iPhone is just a simple tool that I use for communications and don't think about it as a project. With Android, I always wanted to tweak silly things and run Cyanogenmod because the handset firmware was always so bad and vulnerable. On several occasions I'd bricked my phone requiring hours of recovery, or had transient failures of cell…

These things that you mentioned, you didn't really have to do. Buy a nexus, and it's as clean as it gets. What you're saying is that you left the freedom of your device to jail yourself into simple interface...? I do agree though, that those samsung/lg/etc phone have lots crapwares + carrier crapwares.

  What you're saying is that you left the freedom of your device to jail yourself into simple interface...?
You should be a JavaScript developer.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#170

Post by krzrak »

Sidenote: I checked the Google's Project Fi - damn, it's expensive. For $20/month you get unlimited calls and texts, but you have to pay extra $10 for every 1GB of data.

Here in Poland for $10 I get the same unlimited calls and texts plus 4GB of LTE included (and then you're limited to 1 Mbps - but you can take the $13 plan and get unlimited GBs too).

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