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Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

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Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#171

Post by herbst »

kramerger wrote: post #152
toddrossdiy wrote: post #69

I was a big fan and supporter of Android all the way from version 2.2 up to version 8. The final straw was when my brand new 800 dollar motorola phone, which was owned by google at the time stopped getting updates barely a year after I bought it. I also noticed that everything I liked about Android was slowly being stripped away, and Apple was slowly adding all the things I felt were missing. Still not the biggest fa…

To be fair, Moto got sold to Lenovo and overnight went from poster child to black ship of the Android family. Also note that your issue is not with Android, it's with moto.

Like the majority of people here name issues about Android that are more or less exclusive to Samsung and other, mostly dying, brands.

Pixel, Huawai in the past, Xiaomi all allow to use stock android and remove any apps.

Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#172

Post by anthonyhn »

bpoyner wrote: post #81
Macha wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows Phone apps were absolutely mostly shovelware, which had a not insignificant contribution to it's failure I feel. Never used PalmOS to comment. I think third place these days is Tizen which is in a worse place than the two big ones for apps, and then fourth might genuinely be GNU/Linux but there's massive dropoffs between third and fourth, and between second and third.

But you may have used the Palm OS successor, webOS, which is used by LG smart TVs. It blew me away that Palm OS is still around in some form. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebOS

There is also LuneOS [0], its sort of a successor that is built using a combination of Open webOS components and android components, and uses a web rendering engine (Qt WebEngine) for UI and app development.

It's available on a few devices (I have it running on a pinephone; also tried running on a galaxy 4 but got stuck in a boot loop). The wiki is a bit out of date, but there is an active community on their IRC [1].

[0] https://www.webos-ports.org/wiki/About

[1] https://www.webos-ports.org/wiki/Contributors

Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#173

Post by unknownaccount »

spaghettiToy wrote: post #163
unknownaccount wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhone 2020 SE, which cost me $200 in grade-A+ condition on ebay. They have the same processor as the 13 Pro Max. vs. every Android phone I ever touched. I work for a phone company and helped people setup and fix problems on hundreds of different models of Androids.

I can't get used phones for the (hardware) security risks. I have some pretty important stuff on my phone that is worth around 7 figures. On a similar note, Pegasus has me unable to get an iPhone even if I wanted to.

You don't think NSO group has a Pegasus equivalent for Android?

Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#174

Post by herbst »

iconosynclast wrote: post #162
BallyBrain wrote: post #145

Must say I'm a little surprised with many of the comments from a tech focused site/forum like this one. I find that Android is a far more open system with a great community that rewards the inner hacker (no matter how much of a novice they may be). I have a Samsung Galaxy S4, it is still a very usuable phone and is running a modern android version and gets regular updates. Sure it is a bit slow and I had to flash a c…

Android is more customizable for sure but the default behavior does matter and the default state of android devices almost invariably feels advesarial and cheap. Bloat wear, ugly launchers, horrid camera apps, all sorts of dark pattern. Used to be that nexus devices offered a no BS android experience but having just switched to a pixel I feel like these days are gone too

The most expensive phones you can buy right now are all android, by far. I highly doubt they have a low build quality and a botched slow OS.

Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#175

Post by flanbiscuit »

BallyBrain wrote: post #145

Must say I'm a little surprised with many of the comments from a tech focused site/forum like this one. I find that Android is a far more open system with a great community that rewards the inner hacker (no matter how much of a novice they may be). I have a Samsung Galaxy S4, it is still a very usuable phone and is running a modern android version and gets regular updates. Sure it is a bit slow and I had to flash a c…

> I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 ...

> ... I had to flash a custom rom (/e/os) ...

> ... 10 years old, but still gets updates

It's e/OS that's getting regularly updated, right?

If you had never flashed a custom rom and stayed with Samsung's Android that came with the phone, would you still be receiving regular updates?

> can run most apps

Curious to know what apps haven't run on your phone?

Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#176

Post by the_only_law »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #133
hsn915 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if this is supposed to be a serious comment. Everyone I know who uses an Android is frustrated with it all the time. I'm sure the people who make Android also think it's fine. You just tap the button and then an app opens. Who cares if it's janky and freezes half the time? Certainly Android developers don't seem to care.

Not really my Android experience. Any bad Android vibes come two things. Apps that go from good UX to terrible UX or apps that intentionally behave badly (looking at you MS Outlook & your Bing Search poison)

> Apps that go from good UX to terrible UX or apps that intentionally behave badly

At one point, I remember certain google sites displaying differently (and in an obstructive way) when I would browse from Firefox, but not from Chrome.

Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#177

Post by endtime »

hsn915 wrote: post #118
criddell wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched a few months ago and I can't believe the lack of difference. They are very similar. If I want to see the weather, I tap the square with a cloud on it. If I want to start Spotify, I tap that icon. I turn it on and off with a button on the side and turn the volume up and down with the other buttons. The camera takes pictures and I can use the map to navigate in my car. Maybe the Apple camera is better this y…

I don't know if this is supposed to be a serious comment. Everyone I know who uses an Android is frustrated with it all the time. I'm sure the people who make Android also think it's fine. You just tap the button and then an app opens. Who cares if it's janky and freezes half the time? Certainly Android developers don't seem to care.

I have been using Pixels for many years and have never been frustrated with them.

Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#178

Post by oats »

iconosynclast wrote: post #144

I think a lot of it is the UX and design feeling so advesarial and frankly cheap. I'm a long time android user but lately I've been wondering if it's still a reasonable choice. I'm writing this from my brand new pixel and I'm frankly shocked how bad the UX is. one of the most blatant dark patters is the impossible to remove (without installing a third party launcher) google assistant/search bar that takes up the most…

It's a band-aid solution really, but I can recommend you check out the launcher Lawnchair. It looks and behaves much like the stock launcher, but is far more customizable, letting you change the things you mentioned. Thankful that Android will still let you change out the launcher, at least.

Re: Apple overtakes Android to pass 50% share of smartphones used in US

#179

Post by ehzy »

unknownaccount wrote: post #108
londons_explore wrote: post #7

I attribute most of this to iMessage and the associated lock-in effect. You don't see the same trend in the rest of the world where 3rd party messengers (Whatsapp, Viber, Line, snapchat, etc) are mostly used for comms. The inability of iPhones to easily host 'cracked' apps also acts as an anchor to adoption - theres a lot of people hooked on their cracked ad-free spotify or youtube apps, or games with 'everything fre…

Yeah totally must be iMessage and not the fact that iPhones just feel significantly smoother and less laggy, have a way better looking interface, and way better security overall(Android doesn’t even have full disk encryption lol..)

This is misleading. Android implemented full disk encryption around Android 5 (it's on 13 now), and later transitioned to file based encryption because it's a better fit for mobile phones.

You might be surprised to hear that the iPhone also doesn't have full disk encryption - it used file based encryption as well.

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