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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

#121
post #114
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Youtube Vanced (even in its now dying form) and Spotify from APKMody or similar are the main reason I dont move. Its two extra monthly subscriptions.

Do you find it reliable or is it whack-a-mole with constants updates required as the main service providers close exploits? Spotify surprises me because I would think the API is locked down and requests are authenticated. I guess it's abusing the free tier and spoofing the request to avoid rate limits?

It is indeed abusing the free tier, and in my experience it's very low maintenance. I now have a subscription though.

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

#122

For me what keeps me on iOS vs Android is app quality. No matter how many times I try to switch to Android completely, the lack of quality apps on the Play store always bums me out. The best apps on the App Store are unique to iOS, and Android apps always feel like an after thought, and many of the best iOS apps do not have Android counterparts. Apollo for reddit, CoPilot for money management, Flighty for flight trac…

> quality apps on the Play store

After 10+ years of making apps, the discussion with new clients is still the same here (EU/USA) every time:

Client: we want an app

Me: iOS or Android or both?

Client: both

Me: Ok, which one first?

Client: iOS, I have an iPhone 13 Pro max, make it work on that!

... app designed and built in close co-op with the client

Me: What do you think?

Client: Great! Publish it! Let me put it on my phone!

Me: shall we do the Android design? On which phone types should it work; premium or also mid or budget?

Client: Who cares, just do something and publish it whenever. Here is money, Bye!

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

#123
post #31

Are there any "real" (come on, techy people, you know what I mean) reasons for going Apple besides I suppose the genuine convenience of fully interoperable phone/messaging across devices (which I fully concede is probably a big one for a good number of people?) The price differences between Android and Apple still strike me as absurd. On the other side, I went from "picking an Android very carefully for rooting" grad…

1) Not being locked in into the Google ecosystem and being tracked by that company. You need to be logged in into your Google account for the play store, which means you're looped in to Gmail and Google calendar. In iOS I can choose to use different providers for email, calendar, and password management or remove the apps (for the first two). 2) Long support which makes the price really reasonable. I've been using an…

You need an apple account to use their store or? You can also use a different Google account (or account generally) for every app, on non botched stock android at least. You can also remove all apps with stock android, also Google apps. Samsung really skewed the view by shipping the worst possible android.

My Google account for my phone is just for that nothing else. My last phone cost $120 and lasted 6 years, it still works but doesn't run my banking app anymore. my current one was $250 and last for 2 years without issues already.

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

#124
post #31

Are there any "real" (come on, techy people, you know what I mean) reasons for going Apple besides I suppose the genuine convenience of fully interoperable phone/messaging across devices (which I fully concede is probably a big one for a good number of people?) The price differences between Android and Apple still strike me as absurd. On the other side, I went from "picking an Android very carefully for rooting" grad…

> I went from "picking an Android very carefully for rooting" gradually to "what's on sale at Best Buy for about 150" with no major shift in experience or quality. Well a lot of people can very clearly tell the difference between a middle of the pack iPhone and a $150 Android device. That you experienced no such variation among the Android lineup is why people prefer Apple. It "feels like" a premium product, is price…

iPhones aren’t even that expensive anymore. You can get a like-new iPhone SE 2020(which has the same CPU as a 13 Pro Max) for a mere $200 online. There is no Android phone that comes close to the price:performance ratio. Even the cheapest Android phones any prepaid carrier sells retails for $150. It simply blows every other comparably priced Android out of the water.

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

#125
post #119

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…

Wait, you use iMessage instead of Whatsapp in the US? I tried iMessage with some friends and I feel like the experience is so much worse, not to mention not having my entire contact list there.

Anecdotal, but I don’t know a single person who uses WhatsApp. Everyone I know with an iOS device uses iMessage here in the US.

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

#126
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I attribute most of it to marketing. Both companies make pretty great phones that do more or less the same things equally well. Apple is better at selling phones. Aside from better ads, they have prominent stores in most major cities. If you want to see the latest Pixel phone, you're going to have to visit a carrier store or Best Buy. As bad as an Apple store might be today, stepping into a T-Mobile store is worse. I…

Googler opinions are my own. Google has a NYC store, with a second one also in NYC that recently opened. Seems like they want to keep going there. https://store.google.com/magazine/locations?hl=en-US

I don't think Google is serious about stores.

I'm in Austin and Google has a sizable presence here. They have offices (I've gone to seminars they host), it's a Google Fiber city, lots of schools use Chromebooks and Google Classroom, and it's become a tech hub.

There are Apple stores in malls and those malls all have lots of vacancy. It's a no-brainer that if Google were going to have stores anywhere, they would have them here.

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

#127
Its crazy how many left leaning socialist types are on here, yet everytime apple, the second most profitable company in the world and largest by market cap is brought up, they come out of the woodwork to defend their disgusting lock-in and infantilization that they force down the throats of their mostly unknowing consumers, who then use it as status symbol against poor people and tech literate people who understand apples lock in and don't want part of it. What upsets me is the HN also takes part of this even though they are tech literate. And some of these people even claim to want to "fix capitalism" or whatever. Apple fanboys will respond something like "we don't like lock in but android is just to yucky for me" or "we don't like lock in but my grandma might be scammed otherwise." Back on topic im disgusted to see this trend continue in the US, though I am not surprised

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

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fall exactly here.. I used Android for a long time, until I got tired of my phone becoming non-functional after just a year or two. Switched to iPhones, and now they’re lasting 4+ years. I miss the flexibility of Android and iOS is full of bugs and design-based papercuts, yet it still manages to beat Android in just about all the areas that truly matter to me.

You might want to check out Pixel phones. I'm still rocking a Pixel 2 and it still works great.

It hasn’t received updates, not even security updates, for years. It’s unacceptable for me to use a phone that doesn’t have security updates. On the other hand the other day Apple released a security update for the iPhone 5s, released in 2013.

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

#129
post #31

Are there any "real" (come on, techy people, you know what I mean) reasons for going Apple besides I suppose the genuine convenience of fully interoperable phone/messaging across devices (which I fully concede is probably a big one for a good number of people?) The price differences between Android and Apple still strike me as absurd. On the other side, I went from "picking an Android very carefully for rooting" grad…

> I went from "picking an Android very carefully for rooting" gradually to "what's on sale at Best Buy for about 150" with no major shift in experience or quality. Well a lot of people can very clearly tell the difference between a middle of the pack iPhone and a $150 Android device. That you experienced no such variation among the Android lineup is why people prefer Apple. It "feels like" a premium product, is price…

You literally just gave no reasons.

Edit: So to clarify, you could be saying "there is something better about Apple" or "Apple people are complete suckers." Which is it?

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

#130
post #58

Switched from Android to iPhone a few months ago. Hard to believe the difference. Android is really bad at many things, and I had a good brand (One Plus 6). Taking a picture on Android is an awful experience. The Camera app takes about 3 seconds to open, and freezes for a second when taking a picture. The Camera app on iPhone opens instantly and takes photos instantly. The quality of the pictures taken on the iPhone…

Oneplus is a good brand since when? They are a Chinese manufacturer like many others.
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