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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

#211

Post by thefz »

toddrossdiy wrote: post #69

I was a big fan and supporter of Android all the way from version 2.2 up to version 8. The final straw was when my brand new 800 dollar motorola phone, which was owned by google at the time stopped getting updates barely a year after I bought it. I also noticed that everything I liked about Android was slowly being stripped away, and Apple was slowly adding all the things I felt were missing. Still not the biggest fa…

Opposite view: I will never ever buy an Apple phone after they have been caught throttling. At least on Android I can install another OS.

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

#212

Post by criddell »

kyrra wrote: post #206
criddell wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's a slow process. There were rumors of other stores opening, but it seems like the pandemic slowed it down a bit.

It's a slow process because it's low priority. I hope they continue though and really accelerate it. Every city should have a place where one can go to get help with Google products. How many stories have you seen blow up on HN that probably could have been resolved in 30 minutes if the person could talk to a Google person face-to-face.

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

#213

Post by thefz »

ascagnel_ wrote: post #142
parsimo2010 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For general consumers, the Apple ecosystem beyond just messaging is a legitimate reason. It’s not just messaging, it’s handoff of your browser from your phone to your tablet to your laptop so you can easily keep reading a website even if you swap devices. It’s Apple Pay. It’s Apple Music. Sure, there are Android apps for all of those things, but you have to spend time picking each app and setting it up. Starting a ne…

To add to this: Apple, like Disney, is generally pretty good at user experience (and, in my opinion, something they've both been faltering on as of late, just look at Genie+). I got a Steam Deck a few weeks ago, and while it's a very good device, there are some software shortcomings that other mobile devices don't have (eg: the device pauses downloads and updates in sleep mode, even when it's plugged in, while my iPh…

I mean, come on. Deck is in beta version, how can you ever compare it to a decades old OS.

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

#215

Post by coldpie »

rascul wrote: post #184
coldpie wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are zero Android phones that are usable one-handed. Apple makes two such models. I strongly prefer Android as an operating system, but if I can't physically use the phone, it's useless to me. So I'm on iPhone.

I've always used my Android phones one-handed. So, certainly not zero.

How do you reach the far corner of the screen?

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

#216

Post by parsimo2010 »

jrm4 wrote: post #136
parsimo2010 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For general consumers, the Apple ecosystem beyond just messaging is a legitimate reason. It’s not just messaging, it’s handoff of your browser from your phone to your tablet to your laptop so you can easily keep reading a website even if you swap devices. It’s Apple Pay. It’s Apple Music. Sure, there are Android apps for all of those things, but you have to spend time picking each app and setting it up. Starting a ne…

For sure. That's exactly what I was trying to get across with my first comment; but I suppose I was wondering for folks (especially perhaps us techy folks) who may not much require that kind of cross platform connectedness -- are there any other advantages?

From a technical standpoint Apple's processors are industry leading- they licensed the core tech from ARM, but their combination of getting them built on advanced production nodes and the tight design integration into the products makes them stand out. And Apple's software support is a couple years longer than most other brands- so an iPhone will continue to be useable in terms of speed and security longer than most Android phones. From a development standpoint, developing for Apple devices on an Apple device is a better experience.

I would say that most other things are on par with other devices/brands, and so you would trade on individual things that you prioritize- screen quality, battery life, compatibility with particular software, etc. And there are a couple small areas in which Apple probably doesn't make sense. For basic video editing, I might still use Apple devices. But if I was creating a rendering farm for an animation studio, I'd probably build servers with video cards and parts that weren't Apple.

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

#218

Post by LtWorf »

unknownaccount wrote: post #153
LtWorf wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old phones have stale batteries that do not last as long as newer phones. In my experience iphone users carry a powerbank with them.

Has there been some breakthrough in lithium ion battery technology in the last 2 years that Im not aware of? I have 2x 2020 SE's which I've used every day and the battery life is still great. Im always surprised how much time I have before shutdown while using my phone at 1%.

No breakthrough… batteries keep decaying, and old batteries have more decay.

2nd hand phones with non replaceable batteries are not worth paying much.

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

#219

Post by akmarinov »

tluyben2 wrote: post #122
kennysmoothx wrote: post #110

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 m…

I work on an app with 100k MAU. Android users are 3x iOS users, but those iOS users make us 3x more money on both ads and subscriptions than the Android userbase.

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

#220

Post by makeitdouble »

ethanbond wrote: post #87
makeitdouble wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't therr career subsidies already heavily at play ? Having the actual price partially swallowed in business rebates or scaled into years of monthly charges changes the optics in term of price and the option to afford "luxury"

It's probably that using an Android device remains an extremely poor experience. I was an early adopter, a root mod developer, and an open source believer. Even I got tired of hoping for the experience to rival iOS "next year" after 5 years or so. There's really nothing clever going on. People prefer good products over less good ones.

Not saying you’d like the current experience, but it’s a lot different from the early days.

I used iOS first and android here and then, keeping a middle tier device officially for testing, and privately to see what goes on on the other side. Up until around the last Nexus phone, I agree it was pretty bad. Not unusable, but with very little upside.

I completely switched with the Pixel 4a, and it’s a very good experience with very little downside. Still waiting to see what comes from Apple next week before buying my next phone, but I’m not seeing myself going back to Safari and iCloud if it’s just incremental improvements.

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