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Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

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Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#451
Long time iOS user and spare-time developer.

Switched from iPhone 13 to a Google Pixel running GrapheneOS for my phone and Samsung Fold 3 for mobile Internet. I love the freedom to develop and sideload apps.

Syncthing for Android is amazing! (all my pictures/music/files are synchronized between devices without any cloud service, no longer Apple Music deciding to delete some of my music and replace it with less ).

Gadgetbridge is amazing too. No more accidental cloud sync ...

SwiftUI is a mess and for the small apps I write for myself Flutter/Dart makes much more sense, it was easier for me to understand, learn, and write quick apps.

Don't think I will ever go back to Apple's ecosystem.

The fold 3 is the future formfactor of phones for me (I don't need a tablet after I got one, I can read/annotate papers, watch lectures using vlc on the go ...). The only negative point is the battery life, yet I get over the day.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#452

I'd use iOS if they let me install whatever apps I wanted ("sideloading" as a term feels weird, as if they deign their users to load apps on the side, by their good graces. No, it's our hardware, we should be able to run whatever we want). Android lets me do that, so I use it. No way I'd be without Vanced (rip) and other such apps. Android also has more interesting form factors, such as the folding phones, which Appl…

Do you have a folding phone?

Have a Fold 3 and love it ... stopped using the iPhone 13 and switched (for phone/messaging a pixel 5 with graphenOS for the rest the fold 3).

Apple is no longer innovating for me in terms of interesting features in a phone. The camera is the only thing improving.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, my choice of car determined my smartphone choice. I decided I was more interested in the particular vehicle (Porsche Macan) than the particular smartphone (Pixel 5a vs iPhone 13). Both CarPlay and Android Auto are worlds better than the OEM head unit software crap I've found in any of the cars I've owned (Audi, Porsche, VW, Ford, Chevy, Kia) for both navigation and music/podcast listening. I was hesitant to swit…

My $10k Toyota Corolla has android auto. What happened?

Luxury automakers have often been more restrictive and exclusive about features, mostly because they can be. BMW was known for their annual subscription CarPlay option which required ongoing payments for what was clearly a one-time software update. Porsche likely has even more brand loyalty driven by other elements of their cars, so I’m not surprised that they’d choose to negotiate some exclusivity with Apple CarPlay or otherwise just not bother adding Android Auto until 2022.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#454
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain your comment? I don’t really follow android development. Was Fuschia the new OS Google was writing from scratch? Why do you think that will make a big difference?

Yes Fuschia is the new OS from Google, and I believe (and I may be wrong) they will eventually use this as the basis for newer versions of Android, together with a compatibility layer to provide a smooth transition. From what Google, and other knowledgeable people who have studied the project (it's open source) say, the big differences will be in performance, memory efficiency, and security. I'm not knowledgeable abo…

Most importantly Fuchsia isn't gpl'd like the current system, so there's a high propability we can wave the whole custom os scene goodbye.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a company issued iPhone, and the atrocious notification system is enough to assure I will not buy an iPhone personally. If notifications in iOS were ever completely overhauled to the Android model, I would probably jump ship.

Funny. Samsung notifications are a reason I will never buy a Samsung phone again. iOS notifications can be customised to suit my desire.

That makes sense, but I’m not sure that’s what the GP comment was talking about. For instance, both Samsung and non-Samsung Android devices have threaded/serial message notifications (?) which are very helpful for conversations, whereas iOS still has the primitive notification-per-message system. I’ve learned to live without it now as I prefer iOS for its advantages, but I’m frequently expected to make sense of several notifications out of order for each conversation when one would suffice.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I did not. I am running the Fairphone, which is guaranteed to be updated for 7 years.

My Pinephone and (soon) Librem 5 are guaranteed to have support for the lifetime.

Is there any practical difference between 7 years and "lifetime" or you just want to get into a "let's see who supports FOSS more" measuring contest?

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#458
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm well outside the US (Eastern Europe) and have never needed WhatsApp. I can talk with all the people I know over Google Hangouts or Facebook Messenger. Perhaps it's also an age thing? I guess the youngsters use WhatsApp.

Also from EE, now in central EU. Everyone uses WA and Telegram, nobody on SMS How far east are you?

Oh I'm not very far East, actually I'm from Central Europe. The Brits kindly told me there was no such thing as Central Europe, just West/East, so I stick to saying that on the internet :)

I'm from the Czech Republic and often spend time Poland. No one I know forces me to use WA or Telegram, everyone's either on G Hangouts or FB messenger.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched recently, and honestly have found the experience on iPhone to broadly be worse. There are a few things that are a bit nicer, but the downgrade in the notifications system alone just tanks the experience. That said I switched for mostly privacy reasons, so won't be going back.

I switched as well and it's actually such a "pick the lesser evil" situation and I hate that. I'm gonna write a quick comparison as I've switched between platforms several times (still miss my Windows Phone tbh though): I've found that no matter which Android "iphone camera killer" phone I got, the camera was unreliable and always ended up having crappy results. Meanwhile, my iPhone pics are constantly a decent quali…

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm considering this too as many others in thread.

The camera thing drives me nuts. My pixel 6 can't take a reasonable photo of a flat piece of paper due to spherical distortion causing blurring of text. Sure you can go 2x and hold the phone further as suggested in online discussions but it's nuts that this made it past any attempt at QA and testing.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#460
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm well outside the US (Eastern Europe) and have never needed WhatsApp. I can talk with all the people I know over Google Hangouts or Facebook Messenger. Perhaps it's also an age thing? I guess the youngsters use WhatsApp.

Whatsapp is the number one app in most EU countries. It's not age but the fact youve clearly never socialized outside of your country (or with foreigners).

> It's not age but the fact youve clearly never socialized outside of your country (or with foreigners).

You couldn't be more wrong. I've lived in Czechia, Poland, the Netherlands, and the UK. I've played go competitively at a European level and have travelled a fair bit and socialized with nerds all over. Name a European country, chances are I know several people there.

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