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I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

joreteg.com

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Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#381
post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if the original poster had chosen a better title for his HN submission, like "Android's good for progressive web apps" he wouldn't have started a flame war. "I ditched iPhone for Android" is always going to rekindle the iPhone vs Android flame war. The original poster is to blame. It's a pity Android fans always feel the need to compare everything they do to Apple's software and devices. I guess it's the impo…

I didn't read it that way at all. He's calling out that Apple isn't doing a great job supporting the web and this fact is so important to him that he's willing to switch platforms. And 'blaming the poster' is classic victim shaming. Not reading a post and then flaming based on the title is exactly what the web tends to do far too easily (and what we need much less of)

It's completely subjective that you and the poster think "Apple isn't doing a great job on the web" - for one, I think they're doing brilliantly. Safari is extremely fast and well-optimised on iOS, certainly a better experience whenever I've compared iPhones and Androids of similar vintage side-by-side.

And I'm relieved that web gizmos like bluetooth support aren't built into iOS Safari. I can't think of a more inviting attack vector.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#382
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.

Don't buy a Nexus. I have and it's a huge disappointment. I had a perfect Nexus 10 device running KitKat. And then it keeps nagging to upgrade to Lollipop, so I did. Ever since that, it runs every application slow as hell. If you allow the battery to run out, prepare for pain. Once you fill up the battery and it restarts it will start "optimizing" all installed applications. I have about 80 applications and this take…

Sounds like you have a buggy or faulty device.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#383
post #110
post #89

I am always surprised when people say things like CHROME is bringing X API. Take a look at these HTML5 Web APIs : https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API They have been here since sometime now! and Mozilla built a whole operating system around them which is has "Progressive Web Apps" in its core!

Primarily because Firefox on Android doesn't yet support any of the technology being discussed in the article, or indeed most of the technologies on the page you linked to.

Also no one uses it

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#384
post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every web app I've used has required a painful sign-up process, which is usually where I bail out of the process. Way more friction than an app store install. Support for password managers like LastPass is one of the areas where Android shines compared to iOS. Also, you seem to imply that most apps downloaded from the app store don't require a sign-up process. I beg to differ. And I note that the sign-up process is…

For what it's worth, iOS and OS X both have Keychain built into them, basically LastPass but blessed by the OS. ex: http://imgur.com/YJXCWxz

On iOS Keychain works relatively well for Safari, but needs to be explicitely supported for native apps, which means basically never.

Also as far as I know there's no first party app to directly view your keychain items in iOS, which makes it useless when the domain detection fails (it's the most painful when the same service has two clearly different domains for desktop web and mobile web, which is a pretty common case)

I use keychain but end up duplicating a lot of entries in a Lastpast like app just to cover these cases.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you find an engineer willing to argue in favor of non-maintainable equipment, he's not a true engineer, but some failed engineer who's moved over to management and is more interested in profitability than in users having a quality product that allows them to keep their TCO low by being able to maintain it themselves (or by an independent professional) and keep it for a long time instead of throwing it away early.…

> If you find an engineer willing to argue in favor of non-maintainable equipment, he's not a true engineer And probably not a true Scotchman either. I mean, obviously only a failed engineer would ever propose not maintainable products -- everybody should use old maintainable razors for example, and not (recyclable) disposable ones. /s

What is a scotchman? My best guess is somebody made of sticky tape

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#386

Meanwhile, on the desktop google music doesn't work without flash installed, and there's no desktop client in sight. Great times.

Google Play Music is why I installed Chrome. If I play music from Firefox, after 6 hours, my machine gets choppy and slow. Looking at Task Manager (in Windows 10) it will show me that Firefox is using around 1.4 GB. So, I use Chrome for music. Edit: And printing. When I need to print I always use Chrome because Firefox's printing is pretty broken.

Yeah but at least they're FINALLY getting rid of add-ons in Firefox.

Priorities, you know.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#387
post #78
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'd rather have few, good functions then many poor functions.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#388
post #7

Wow. I'm a long time Android user and probably pay more attention than most, and I had no idea web apps had gotten quite this nice. Currently the only web app / web shortcut I have installed is the HackerWeb app[0], which is nice but clearly not taking advantage of all of the functionality it could. I "installed" Flipkart Lite and the Voice Memos demo app to see the state of the world. Clearly it's possible to build…

Actually, let me piggyback on your comment and ask a usability question: Has anyone written an OS X app to make OS X play nicely with Android phones by syncing contacts, emails, calendars, and audio? I ask because Apple did something supremely annoying with an iTunes, OS X, or iOS update a while ago: Contacts and calendars no longer sync directly from OS X to iPhones and vice versa. This is monumentally annoying. iPh…

Note that this feature was added back to OS X circa Mountain Lion or Yosemite.

You can sync your calendars and contacts only to and from your Mac if you want to.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was enough of a problem less than four months ago that phonearena.com published an article about it: http://www.phonearena.com/news/How-to-change-your-Android-ph... I don't think Chrome is as ubiquitous as it should be. Do new cheap tablets (like the Kindle Fire) even ship with Chrome? New phones from Samsung don't have Chrome set as the default browser (not sure if it's even installed by default).

I don't think that really serves your argument - phonearena.com post a lot of stuff like that either as reference for people who Google the right question, or because the writing effort:ad revenue ratio is working in their favour.

Oh, ok. I really had no idea.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't buy a Nexus. I have and it's a huge disappointment. I had a perfect Nexus 10 device running KitKat. And then it keeps nagging to upgrade to Lollipop, so I did. Ever since that, it runs every application slow as hell. If you allow the battery to run out, prepare for pain. Once you fill up the battery and it restarts it will start "optimizing" all installed applications. I have about 80 applications and this take…

In 2010, I was considering getting into Android development, so I paid full price for an unlocked Nexus S when it came out (I think it was about $500). At about the same time, I bought an iPhone 4 for my wife. That Nexus S became slower after each upgrade until it was nearly unusable. The UI was so janky that making or receiving phone calls was difficult, and wasn't even worth considering using the browser. The iPhon…

Honestly the Moto g is probably the best value phone available. Even the earliest version without 4g or the SD card would still serve my purposes perfectly at a great price point.
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