Setting up phones is a nightmare • Hacker News Board

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#21

Post by sentientslug » Sun, Mar 01, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

nvartolomei wrote: post #15

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…

eSIM transfer also typically doesn’t require any intervention, usually it just goes across to the new device

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#22

Post by bigyabai » Sun, Mar 01, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

latexr wrote: post #10

DiabloD3 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That type of rhetoric won’t get you what you want. Don’t dismiss something just because you don’t like it. iOS devices are not toys, and even if they were there is value in toys, and even if there weren’t it is provably false that “nobody wants those”. Furthermore, if Google dropped Android it is misguided to believe “the FOSS community” would handle it and everything would be roses. What you’d have then are a couple…

> iOS devices are not toys

iOS devices are. My iPad is the most useless piece of technology I own, calling it a "computer" is an insult to the actual computers I own. It's a toy, and not even a fun toy compared to my Nintendo Switch.

Android handles serious workloads fine, macOS takes software seriously. iOS is the only operating system that treats gatchapon as the pinnacle of high-performance workloads.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#23

Post by dismalaf » Sun, Mar 01, 2026, 4:48 PM UTC

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.

This article is a disaster. Beyond logging into your Google account nothing they described in the article is required to set up an Android phone.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#24

Post by lnrd » Sun, Mar 01, 2026, 4:48 PM UTC

Giving an Android phone to elderly/non-technical people is asking for trouble imho. They will eventually tap their way into installing suspicious apps, adware or even straight up malware. It's inevitable, they are not aware of what they do and how to avoid the many risks of the digital world. I remember having the same struggles of OP when setting up a cheap android phone for my grandma, the amount of bloat, adware and misleading content I had to remove was incredible (and some couldn't even be removed). The irony was that after a few months of light usage, the phone was in a state even worse, full of downloaded apps and opened suspicious websites in the browser. She would swear she never even noticed any of those.

This is one of the cases in which giving them an iPhone with its walled garden has great benefits. You can also setup parental control on top of that already locked down ecosystem.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#25

Post by dismalaf » Sun, Mar 01, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

Pikamander2 wrote: post #7

iberator wrote: post #5

It is not. Takes like 30 seconds

If you want your brand new phone to be filled with adware apps and obnoxious default settings, sure.

Customizing it to your liking is different than "setting it up".

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#26

Post by microtonal » Sun, Mar 01, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

lnrd wrote: post #24

Giving an Android phone to elderly/non-technical people is asking for trouble imho. They will eventually tap their way into installing suspicious apps, adware or even straight up malware. It's inevitable, they are not aware of what they do and how to avoid the many risks of the digital world. I remember having the same struggles of OP when setting up a cheap android phone for my grandma, the amount of bloat, adware a…

FYI: you can also set up parental controls on Android.

Parental control is a also a hot buggy mess on iOS currently. Our daughter has an iPhone with parental control set up and a bunch of apps that are whitelisted regularly refuse to start at random moments (blocked by parental controls). We hoped that iOS 26 would finally fix it, but nope.

It doesn't really matter, both phone ecosystems are a mess, but in different ways.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#27

Post by 1970-01-01 » Sun, Mar 01, 2026, 4:55 PM UTC

Setting up enshittified devices is the nightmare. Don't curse out on all phones because they made a poor purchase decision. You're literally buying it wrong. Next time go with a slightly used device that's fully supported by GrapheneOS and marvel at the frictionless setup.

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#28

Post by ray_v » Sun, Mar 01, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

Is it not clear that's it's just the well-known phenomenon, "enshittification" at play?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#29

Post by microtonal » Sun, Mar 01, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

jraph wrote: post #17

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 cur…

I think they also provide backups

Sort of. They use SeedVault, but a bunch of apps are not backed up. When restoring another set of apps do not properly restore

Re: Setting up phones is a nightmare

#30

Post by mhitza » Sun, Mar 01, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #13

DiabloD3 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

For many people around my area, iPhones are a status symbol choice. Not a coherent or direct software+ecosystem choice.

I've seen arguments around chosing iPhone for their camera. But the vast majority that is tech iliterate stops around that argument.