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Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

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Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long time Google fanboy here, and I'm honestly a hair's breadth away from buying an iphone 13. I have had nexus/pixels phones since the gnex. I have evangelized android to for almost as long. I did ground work for google by pushing people into google's services. I have a day 1 pixel 6 pro. I pay for cloud storage and yt premium. But to me google is just falling apart. I feel like they have lost their technology drive…

I switched recently, and honestly have found the experience on iPhone to broadly be worse. There are a few things that are a bit nicer, but the downgrade in the notifications system alone just tanks the experience. That said I switched for mostly privacy reasons, so won't be going back.

I have a company issued iPhone, and the atrocious notification system is enough to assure I will not buy an iPhone personally. If notifications in iOS were ever completely overhauled to the Android model, I would probably jump ship.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#212
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post #7

I’m not surprised. I used Android devoutly, had a Galaxy S4, then an S8 when that started showing its age. I upgraded to an iPhone 12 when AT&T ran the promotion to get a free one. I wanted to keep liking Android. The amount of time I spent arguing vehemently that Android was superior made the switch hard, but several factors came into play for me: - Extremely slow and fragmented upgrade of OS. This resulted in subst…

It's pick your poison. The only reason I'm still on android is because at least I can (still) have root there. I'm saying still because of safety net. But if apple let me have root, i'd probably prefer an Apple over Google. Mobile phones and their user hostility is a cancer. I'm seriously considering using a full GNU/Linux handheld for mobile things i can do in a browser, and keep an android phone for app garbage tha…

I switched from rooted Android to an iPhone that has the checkm8 bootrom exploit and use a tool called checkra1n[0] to 'jailbreak' it. It's been really nice, super stable (i.e. months between restarts) and unlocks so many little comforts for me coming from custom Android. To an android user, it's similar to Xposed, but with almost every change to the system going through Xposed instead of modules, random scripts, etc.

[0] https://checkra.in

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#213

I got my wife a new iPhone right before the war started, and I swear, every time the migration process gets worse and worse. I installed iTunes, took a full backup of her old iPhone, restored it to the new one, and it was still missing her music, her movies, her books, despite containing all of that judging by the file size. I had to resort to 3rd party software to rip the data out of it and shove it into the new iPh…

If you really used iTunes, it seems like you ignored the phone’s attempt to transfer data for you and forced through an ancient unsupported process. I’m pretty sure iTunes even warned you.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#214
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post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pick your poison. The only reason I'm still on android is because at least I can (still) have root there. I'm saying still because of safety net. But if apple let me have root, i'd probably prefer an Apple over Google. Mobile phones and their user hostility is a cancer. I'm seriously considering using a full GNU/Linux handheld for mobile things i can do in a browser, and keep an android phone for app garbage tha…

Call me crazy, but I think there is room for a third platform. Especially if this platform was bootstrapped in a smart way, for example with an emulation layer to be able to run applications from Android. Or perhaps WebAssembly will make it viable to do more things from a (mobile) browser. I really miss the N700-N9 series with Maemo and Meego. It was so elegant and simple.

You should take a look at SailfishOS. I switched from Android to Sailfish OS 8 years or so ago. The original Jolla Phone was really nice and the OS too. Later I switched to an Sony Xperia X with Sailfish OS, but it goes only downhill from there. I think the problem are the devices, the software might be okay. Now I'm with an IPhone and I'm still not happy, it's just something that is not horrible.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#215

It's been mentioned before in other articles, but I don't think it can be understated how much iMessage makes it difficult to be the "odd man out" if you're on an Android phone. And it's not just about teenagers, and it's not about "green bubbles". I recently went on a vacation with friends, 4 other folks on iPhones and me on an Android. Our group chat experience almost made me consider getting an iPhone. The inabili…

WhatsApp, Messenger, or even Instagram are all potential alternatives. All from the Facebook family.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#216
I'd use iOS if they let me install whatever apps I wanted ("sideloading" as a term feels weird, as if they deign their users to load apps on the side, by their good graces. No, it's our hardware, we should be able to run whatever we want).

Android lets me do that, so I use it. No way I'd be without Vanced (rip) and other such apps. Android also has more interesting form factors, such as the folding phones, which Apple does not yet have.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#217
post #210

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> - Adding a CA to the trust store to MITM yourself This is possible on iPhones isn't it? I definitely remember Fiddlering my self a few years back on my iPhone.

Yes, you can definitely do this on iOS. Mitmproxy for example works by installing a trust profile (or something like that, can’t remember the name).

You used to be able to do this on android, and then they changed it that you can only sort of do it, unless you have root.

Root is an insurance (to a degree) against apple changing their mind, like google did.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#218
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Googler, opinions are my own. I don't work anywhere near phone stuff. I assume your friend has tried all the debugging on this page? https://support.google.com/messages/answer/9363493?hl=en My wife's phone keeps failing to connect and we have to do the carrier services reset to make it work. A terrible solution to me requiring factory resetting your phone. But even then, I have a friend that was never able to get RCS…

Thanks, but I feel I am reaching a point where I need my friend to be able to go to a physical location where they either fix it or clone his phone onto a new one that does work. I can't be google's advocate twisting my friend's arm to troubleshoot their phone anymore. This is just a tiny sliver of my dissatisfaction too. I feel like the long time lover that sits down one night and after a lot of thinking gives pause…

Because those wonderful jingles made it so appealing! And keep you coming back for the "phone plan that can!"

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#219
Android may get an upswing once it finally adopts Fuschia with a "classic" Android compatibility layer (at least that's what I think they will do).

But they will certainly have to push for devices with longer support than 3 years to keep that upswing.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#220
I've never had a complaint against the OS but I've only used Samsung phones. My main complaint with Android is the marketplace and automated support. It should not be possible to remove a livelihood without some human review and interaction. What a horrible experience people have had. How is that appropriate for an OS that supposedly is "developer friendly"? I will never open the Android SDK again, it's just not worth it.

As to the green bubble fracas, Google only has themselves to blame. Maybe they should hire competent leadership to make an genuinely interesting or useful social product. Years of focusing on leetcode has rotted their brains.

My next phone will be an iphone. Sorry Samsung, it wasn't your fault.

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