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Ask HN: What do you do on an Android phone that cannot be done on an iPhone?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you do on an Android phone that cannot be done on an iPhone?

#141

Post by sametmax »

tugberkk wrote: post #139
sametmax wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the comment I wanted to write. I'd add: - kde-connect. It's awesome to be able to control my computer for my phone, especially while watching a movie. - alternative stores. Being able to use aptoid and f-droid let me use the full potential of the phone without tying it to an email account. - productivity concepts arrive first on android. We had wifi hot spot. Quick wifi/bt/3G switch first. Etc. With apple, you…

[quote]- my phone will still work in 5 years. No "oh the home button is broken" scandal.[/quote] I don't think this is a standard, not every iphone button will be broken in 5 years; or no phone (with android os) has hardware guarantee for 5 years.

I'm referring to that time where iPhone 5 buttons where breaking all over the place, Apple said it was hardware and that the only fix would be to buy the iPhone 6, but then rooted versions of the iPhone could use a non official software patch to fix the issue.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do on an Android phone that cannot be done on an iPhone?

#142

Post by Jemm »

VOIP/SIP integration in the dialler is the big one for me.

There are VOIP apps for iOS but they generally do not work nearly as well as the integrated VOIP system in the dialler. iOS’ obsession with control and killing background apps makes it almost impossible to write a decent VOIP app.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do on an Android phone that cannot be done on an iPhone?

#143

Post by mvanbaak »

Fradow wrote: post #116

- the big one is to have SMS on my computer (with Airdroid). On iOS, you are limited to Apple ecosystem with iMessage. Keep in mind iMessage is way better than Airdroid, but the convenience of being able to receive and send SMS from my Windows desktop trumps the ease of use of iMessage. - direct file access is useful to transfer things in and out of my Android devices, compared to the dreaded iTunes blackbox. - there…

If your desktop/laptop runs macos, or you use an iPad, you can send and receive SMS using iMessage. You can link as many devices as you want, they just need to login to the same iMessages account.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do on an Android phone that cannot be done on an iPhone?

#144

Post by wtmt »

haydn3 wrote: post #99

>Price >Less 'idiot-focused' UX >Better company running it >Better apps/less locked down 'app store' >More freedom/choice in phone companies and customisation >About the same locked-down OS There's really no other choice

>Better company running it

Nope, I disagree. Google is certainly not a better company than Apple when it comes to data collection, making it confusing (and sometimes impossible) to prevent data collection, and profiling user behavior to target them for ads.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do on an Android phone that cannot be done on an iPhone?

#145

Post by JofArnold »

obarthelemy wrote: post #91

- Widgets on the actual home screen, no swiping required. Every app has widgets (except Skype !), so you can have whichever info you need most right there - true browser, true addons. Unlike iOS, Android doesn't limit 3rd-party browsers to reskins of the OS' Web engine, but allows desktop-like from-the-ground-up browsers. You can get Firefow and put uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger on it. - sideloading w/o rooting. E…

As a both an Android and iOS user those are all good and accurate points. Except perhaps Files.app which is pretty advanced these days handling cloud (first and third party), local and external cards etc. I use it daily to manage all my files and actually I quite like it. The built in support for files of different types is excellent - I especially like the video player despite how basic it is.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do on an Android phone that cannot be done on an iPhone?

#146

Post by mdrzn »

poloniculmov wrote: post #115
ssvss wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't dual apps a miui only feature ?

Samsung has it too.

and there's plenty of 3rd party apps on the PlayStore that will allow you to that on any other Android.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do on an Android phone that cannot be done on an iPhone?

#147

Post by Yizahi »

I won't go into detailed list of pros and cons but essentially it sums up to (in my opinion) - Apple is anti-consumer (anti-choice to be specific), and Google is anti-privacy. If you need certain features iOS doesn't have then it's Android. If you are fine with iOS feature set and want more privacy (but not complete privacy) - then iOS.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do on an Android phone that cannot be done on an iPhone?

#148

Post by wtmt »

senectus1 wrote: post #49

Backup my Signal history. Use the phone without getting stupidly angry. Use my Samsung Level U Pro properly. MicroSD card (though admittedly my note 9 with 512gb storage doesn't need it.) PIP with you tube i think doesnt work on iphone. a bunch of other things.

> Backup my Signal history.

That was only because Signal prevented (and continues to prevent) data from being backed up. This was a terrible drawback with Signal, for which it brought out a (better?) solution after several years on Android. It hasn't done that on iOS yet. Since Signal has not addressed this for years, one can only presume that Signal is not geared toward people who change devices.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do on an Android phone that cannot be done on an iPhone?

#149

Post by jraph »

I was in a bus and one website I needed to access was blocked on the bus Wi-Fi (maybe a technical issue).

I opened a SOCKS tunnel to a server, ran the desktop version of Firefox on my phone (that I had installed in a Debian chroot) and set it to use this SOCKS tunnel.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do on an Android phone that cannot be done on an iPhone?

#150

Post by vbezhenar »

ToFab123 wrote: post #101

After many years with Android and windows phone i got my first iPhone a couple of weeks ago. The biggest ( and almost only) complain is that you cannot configure a different browser to be your default. You are stuck with safari which lags an incredible amount of features. Safari is so bad that my next phone will not be an iPhone Edit : my desktop os is Windows and now my browser on the phone and on the pc is not in s…

Download iCloud for Windows [0], iCloud Bookmarks Chrome extension [1] and enjoy seamless synchronization. I think that it works for history as well. The only thing that I miss is Reading List synchronization, Chrome does not have it, but you can use a dedicated bookmark folder as a replacement. It should also work with a Firefox, but I did not try it myself.

[0]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204283

[1]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/icloud-bookmarks/f...

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