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Setting up phones is a nightmare

joelchrono.xyz

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Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#11

Post by jeroenhd »

butILoveLife wrote: post #4
addaon wrote: post #2

The article is about how setting up /Android/ phones is a nightmare. Contrasting it to my experience setting up iPhones is… dramatic.

To be fair, they are doing with a Samsung phone, and Samsung is the Apple of Android (Big marketing budget, mid quality if we are being generous). Samsung as a company is a universal No Buy. The fact OP bought Samsung makes me raise an eyebrow. Credit to Apple where credit is due. When I unboxed my first iphone, I was happy to give Apple all my personal information, birthday, emails, ssn.... It was bizarre, I'm usual…

Samsung's UI and software behaviour may be shitty in general, but they're one of the few manufacturers reliably offering timely long-term security updates. When you go beyond Samsung, you quickly end up with brands promising "quarterly updates" or having months-long delays fixing CVEs.

Plus, when they do something novel, they do it quite well. Their flagship phones have great price/performance if you buy them a month or two after launch (often for three quarters of the launch price + free earbuds/smartwatch + cashback), their software suite is quite complete and generally well-localised, and they have support channels non-English support channels available.

I do wish they'd fix some of their terrible software design crimes and stop the endless race to the bottom shoving product placement into their apps, but it's hardly a no-buy to me.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#12

Post by monooso »

addaon wrote: post #2

The article is about how setting up /Android/ phones is a nightmare. Contrasting it to my experience setting up iPhones is… dramatic.

A Samsung phone. I've owned several (not Samsung) Android phones, and have never had to deal with such nonsense.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#13

Post by mikestew »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #3
addaon wrote: post #2

The article is about how setting up /Android/ phones is a nightmare. Contrasting it to my experience setting up iPhones is… dramatic.

Yes, its a nightmare because Android is becoming more and more like iOS: anything that the user used to be able to do... they can no longer do. Android phone manufacturers want $1200 for something that is a toy, just like the Apple iToys. Nobody wants those, and nobody wants this. Google needs to get out of the business and let the FOSS community handle it.

Nobody wants those, and nobody wants this.

Just because you don’t want it doesn’t mean a billion or so people don’t want an iPhone. Or rather, a phone they don’t have to dick with straight out of the box.

OTOH, I don’t really even know what you’re on about. Android is a nightmare because…it’s like iOS, which is “take phone out of box, restore from backup, sorted”? That doesn’t even make any sense, especially in light of what TFA describes.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#14

Post by hollow-moe »

I fear every single time I have to switch phones. Being degoogled means I first have to choose hardware based on custom ROMs compatibility, and fight the thing to just install the ROM. Then the fun begins, for every single stupid feature I have to install and setup a solution (app) optionally restoring a backup individually. Contacts, calendar, files, maps, passwords, airtag protection, email, IM, keyboard, weather, notes, smart garbage:tm:, alternative YouTube client...The state of current tech is pityful, if it wasn't what I was doing to put food on the table I wouldn't want any of this garbage 10 meters near me. Edit: Before any of the geniuses here says "at least you can use alternatives" I don't want to hear your copium, it's obvious this won't last.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#15

Post by nvartolomei »

Upgraded to one of the latest iPhone recently. First time I clicked on “transfer data from old phone”. I’m used to reinstalling the operating system every couple of months from when I used Windows. It took maybe 15 minutes with close to 0 interactions. Everything was transferred. I was already authenticated in apps. What took manual steps was eSIM transfers.

I don’t remember exact steps so there could have been a bit more. But it was an impressive experience and I told my geek friends about it. They were surprised this is the first time I used this feature.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#17

Post by jraph »

sonofhans wrote: post #8

“Phones” in the title is doing lots of heavy lifting. “Android phones” is the key missing piece. I love Free software too, and I wish I could run more of my life on it, but it’s no longer my hobby. I like cars, too, but I don’t work on a hobby car. The author’s experience is why I use proprietary stuff like Apple for these parts of my life. A new Apple device is usually a non-event: charge it, authenticate, wait for…

A lot of the complains expressed in this article are distinctly from the proprietary parts.

Stock Android, and especially stock Samsung, is far from being a free software solution.

A turnkey solution based (almost exclusively, and except the driver blobs) on free software would be to buy a phone running something like /e/. I think they also provide backups.

Of course, stuff requiring SafetyNet (or whatever Google current oppressive attestation system) may not work (though microG makes some of it work).

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#18

Post by hagbard_c »

sonofhans wrote: post #8

“Phones” in the title is doing lots of heavy lifting. “Android phones” is the key missing piece. I love Free software too, and I wish I could run more of my life on it, but it’s no longer my hobby. I like cars, too, but I don’t work on a hobby car. The author’s experience is why I use proprietary stuff like Apple for these parts of my life. A new Apple device is usually a non-event: charge it, authenticate, wait for…

What is it in your life which makes it 'impossible' to use free software, Google-free AOSP-derived Android distributions being part of this? I run close to exclusively free software and have done so for decades and have yet to feel the need to change this. Of course there are exceptions, e.g. I need to run proprietary applications for banking and electronic ID but those are the exceptions to the rule. My server runs only free software, on desktop I sometimes run an older version of Sketchup to start modelling things but that's the only non-free package I use there. We have children, a cat, a dog, 4 horses, a farm, a large forest, the works. We have multi-device backup and restore as well. Things work fine, using free software, not using 'the cloud'. Where are the sticking points for you and what would it take to take those away?

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#19

Post by dismalaf »

This is literally the midwit meme...

Here's how you actually set up an Android phone:

- log into Google account

- select a few checkboxes (basically just if you want to restore apps or not)

- done, everything else is automatic

All the fuckery they decided to do because they think they're tech savvy wasn't required.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#20

Post by dismalaf »

sonofhans wrote: post #8

“Phones” in the title is doing lots of heavy lifting. “Android phones” is the key missing piece. I love Free software too, and I wish I could run more of my life on it, but it’s no longer my hobby. I like cars, too, but I don’t work on a hobby car. The author’s experience is why I use proprietary stuff like Apple for these parts of my life. A new Apple device is usually a non-event: charge it, authenticate, wait for…

95% of what was written in this article isn't required to set up an Android phone. You can literally log into your Google account on first boot and everything is done for you, automatically.
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