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Setting up phones is a nightmare

joelchrono.xyz

151–160 of 257 posts

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#151
post #12
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.

Heck, I own a zflip 6 right now and the ONLY hard requirement out of everything in the article I gone through was the google account. And I know of a way to get rid of it too, it would just break a couple of things.

I had mi phones before and they had only one hard requirement of needed a xiaomi account for developer mode. I circumvented it.

The article isn't just a pathetic piece of writting in general, it's also operating on tip top tier redditor-brained US-defaultism where "Android = Pixel/Samsung". I have no idea why the crowd here is letting it stick around.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#152
Just like always, average Android phone users get the worst of both worlds. Android is supposed to be the freer option, but in reality only very tech savvy users are enjoying the freedom (and they install custom ROMs anyway).

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#153
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly what I was going to say. I don't use iPhone because, well, it's iPhone. And until, like, this year, it was strictly more prohibitive than Android. Also, it was honestly just worse of a device than some Android flagships, and the tradeoff is only worth it if you are a lazy USA-ian, who doesn't use any "sketchier" non-mainstream apps, has an Apple account and owns a bunch of Apple devices anyway. Oh, and all yo…

I have 5 years old iPhone SE2020 that is relatively cheap having in mind that is 5 years old. None of Androids served me that long. Only Motorola tried, but water killed it. Water has not killed iPhone when my son threw it into pond. Which Android is that good, practically speaking?

My wife uses a OnePlus 8t (about as old as your phone) daily. It's survived drops, tubs, etc.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#154
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m very much the inverse of you. I don’t use Android because I don’t want to have to worry about all the fiddly stuff that is involved with Android. I like that it’s not a big deal to migrate to a new phone, that I don’t have to worry about whether I’ll be able to get security updates in a year, or have to spend time disabling telemetry. If I did want to do a lot of fiddling with the phone then sure, Android would b…

For me a new phone is a forced cleanup. I don't migrate anything automatically.

Speaking for myself, I've been auto migrating since I got an iPhone 3GS in 2009. The only thing that needs serious cleanup is my music library.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#155
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly what I was going to say. I don't use iPhone because, well, it's iPhone. And until, like, this year, it was strictly more prohibitive than Android. Also, it was honestly just worse of a device than some Android flagships, and the tradeoff is only worth it if you are a lazy USA-ian, who doesn't use any "sketchier" non-mainstream apps, has an Apple account and owns a bunch of Apple devices anyway. Oh, and all yo…

I have 5 years old iPhone SE2020 that is relatively cheap having in mind that is 5 years old. None of Androids served me that long. Only Motorola tried, but water killed it. Water has not killed iPhone when my son threw it into pond. Which Android is that good, practically speaking?

I have a S21 which was released in early 2022. Bought it new in late 2023 for 430€. I don't see any reason to get a new one currently. Had to service it twice for water damage to be honest but service was free

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#156
post #12
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.

Samsung phones are the most bloated pieces of shit I have ever seen. Mine came with an app just to view the msn.com web site and it couldn't be uninstalled. You have google and samsung in a tug of war over every single thing the phone does. I thought my home button was breaking because of how unresponsive it was, but it turned out it just waits for a sequence to trigger such and such unwanted AI assistant or whatever the hell. It's a crapshoot whether you accidentally launch google assistant or bixby or some other crap service you never even heard of. There are touchwiz sound effects that I hear in public and to this day it sends a chill down my spine because it brings me back to so much miserable time spent with that abomination of electronics.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#157

I am an iPhone user myself, but the number of "this is an android problem" and "just use iPhone" in response to the author's complaints surprises me. I thought HN was more anti apple in the past? Maybe we are all old now and tinkering with our devices is out of fashion, but this doesn't make the author's complaints illegitimate. And if we zoom out a bit, iPhones are only 20% of the global phone market. The overwhelmi…

I don't use Android because iPhones are more expensive. In fact you can get Android phones that are as expensive and sometimes more expensive than iPhones. I use Android phones because it is a much more flexible ecosystem, where I can choose my browser, for example.

Or sync your contacts to a CardDav server. Or record a phone call. Or develop your own software (for the time being).

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#158

Another thing that annoys me on Android is the setup experience itself. All my recent device presentcthe same behaviour: login with a Google account, transfer data, setup voice assistant and some other defaults,done. Then after the first app updates is done, a notification comes with "let's finish setting up your phone" and again asks to setup voice assistant, check defaults and whatever else is in the flow. Has no o…

I noticed that as well, I thought it was just a bug or a conflict because I used Smart Switch instead of a "built-in" Android tool.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#159
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried it, Graphene isn't really a good alternative because the built in apps are so bad that you end up needing to install the Pixel/Google versions anyway. If I have to install Google Messages for RCS, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Pixel Camera (which forces you to use Google Photos for basic functionality), … where is the benefit? If I have to turn Graphene into a Pixel to make it usable, and I did, there’s n…

> Pixel Camera (which forces you to use Google Photos for basic functionality) I disabled Google Photos but I didn't notice any issues with Camera except for not being able to open the photo just taken from the camera interface. Am I missing something else?

You can install this to fix it, btw

https://github.com/lukaspieper/Gcam-Services-Provider

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use Android because iPhones are more expensive. In fact you can get Android phones that are as expensive and sometimes more expensive than iPhones. I use Android phones because it is a much more flexible ecosystem, where I can choose my browser, for example.

I don't mean to dismiss your opinion but I doubt this is the reason android has such a huge market share. I doubt the average person even knows that apple forces every app to use apple's own browser. The countries where android dominate are also the ones where you can get phone plans with free data for WhatsApp and Facebook. There is an entire world outside our techie circles where price and UX trumps having principl…

lol I even didn't know that I couldn't use Firefox in iPhone. Does this really fly in EU as well? How?
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