I never used any Apple products or services to begin with, so I won't be changing anything. I've always disliked Apple and their locked-down, consumer-hostile, "walled garden" approach, so this is a big nothing-burger for me.
Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
171–180 of 493 posts
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#1721. I just setup dual booting on my 16" Macbook Pro!
Didn't think it was possible because of T2 but then found the "T2 Linux Community" here: https://t2linux.org/
They have a step by step guide for Ubuntu and a helpful Discord group to walk me through.
I dug into Purism Librem and System76 Laptops. Dual booting Ubuntu buys me some time.
2. I also disabled iCloud and started NextCloud on a third party host. It's pretty clunky, still getting that setup. In the open source world it seems like there's less opportunities to pay for quality. Take my money!!
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are plenty of Android flavours that don't have Google apps, like https://lineage.microg.org/ In my limited experience so far, LineageOS works much better than it used to on my HTC Desire. Battery life has been better than any of my iPhones (3G, 4S, 5S, 7 and XS) ever had. That said, if I had to chose between a Google Android phone and an Apple phone, I'd still pick the Apple one. Luckily there are more choices…
android is no where near competitive with apple’s user XP. i was a long term android user until 3ish years ago. i’ll never go back to a fragmented device ecosystem again if i can help it.
It's like QWERTY vs Dvorak. The best one is the one you're used to. I personally find Windows and iOS frustrating, but I know it's because I'm used to Linux and Android.
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#174To be honest... None. It's a choice. You might wholly disagree, but recent events aren't enough to get me to switch yet, because I think the competition has too many tradeoffs. I can get my photos scanned against a CSAM database... or I can have Google tracking my location constantly regardless of what they say (as they've been proven to be misleading in the past)... or I can use a Linux phone and say goodbye to batt…
I find it funny how many people pick a random Chinese phone in their bid for privacy (???)
I think it's less about privacy and more about what the invading actor will/can actually do. People are less concerned about the Chinese government's reach vs. the NSA or other three letter agencies in the US. I suppose if you are important enough to the Chinese government whatever they have on you could be used as blackmail, but most 'regular' people don't fall into that category.
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#175To be honest... None. It's a choice. You might wholly disagree, but recent events aren't enough to get me to switch yet, because I think the competition has too many tradeoffs. I can get my photos scanned against a CSAM database... or I can have Google tracking my location constantly regardless of what they say (as they've been proven to be misleading in the past)... or I can use a Linux phone and say goodbye to batt…
I find it funny how many people pick a random Chinese phone in their bid for privacy (???)
By "random Chinese phone", are we talking about PINE, or the various OEMs that make android phones?
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every other cloud provider has scanned since 2013. We're already in the Orwellian dystopia.
Lineage and Linux exist and they're incredible. You've simply give up.
Lineage requires the Play Store to have paid apps or things I now pretty-much need for everyday life, at which point you've lost and it doesn't really matter whether it's Lineage or stock Android.
Linux is incredible... and still unusable for many everyday apps and workflows, and simply not an option for many people including myself. I've tried Linux distributions since 2011, they aren't there yet.
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#177It should be obvious that anyone who says “I’m concerned about privacy, so I’m going to switch to using Google products!” is not a serious person. If you’re actually going to switch to using open source hardware phones and whatnot, then good luck I guess. I can see where more progress in that area would lead to general improvements, so it’s not entirely tilting at windmills.
LineageOS and GrapheneOS are as close as you can get to freedom and privacy on your phone while keeping lots of features. Open hardware + software phones are in the budding stage so people investing in them and using them right now are trail-blazers - not everybody wants to be one.
Therefore Android phones with custom ROMs are the way forward for privacy conscious people. It's easy to mock if you aren't serious about getting away from walled gardens.
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would they have to do to lose your business? Literally get you arrested? You're financially supporting the creation of an Orwellian dystopia.
Every other cloud provider has scanned since 2013. We're already in the Orwellian dystopia.
Can someone explain this to me --
The whole premise is that Google and Facebook and everyone else are just doing this on the unencrypted photos you upload, in their cloud, with their own (presumably, but correct me if I'm wrong) undocumented algorithms and datasets.
Now here comes Apple, documenting almost everything except the dataset itself, and everyone is freaking out because it's happening on your own device. But then it's encrypting the whole thing and uploading it to Apple where they presumably do no additional scanning.
What is the actual difference if it's being looked for on-device vs. by the provider? Supposedly in preparation for a bigger push of encryption of the photos themselves, if they are not already encrypted in the cloud.
Am I missing something more than "but it's happening on-device!"?
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't used Android as a daily phone since the EVO (I know, its been a while). One issue I had with Android and custom firmware was the time involved. Being on a computer all day, and often times at night, having to deal with tech support issues on my device is a hard stop (for me, personally, plenty of people love it). That's the nice part of Apple's ecosystem - its pretty simple and requires minimum intervention…
To be fair, once you get past the initial setup, everything mostly Just Works™. But still, I completely understand not wanting to deal with installation and the potential consequences if something goes wrong. (I nearly bricked a device from a botched installation once, so I know how stressful that is.)
I don't doubt that it just works nearly as well as an iPhone, but I want someone else to be responsible if things do go wrong.
For similar reasons, I don't self-host important services like email despite having my own domain. If shit goes wrong, I want the company I'm paying to have their people take care of it. I don't want to have to rush to fix it myself.
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#180Also see these 2 previous discussions from the past week:
Phone-alternatives: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28164208 Laptop-alternatives: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28216287