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I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

joreteg.com

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Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nexus devices have pretty much proven out to be that way. I was going to move to a Nexus before abandoning Android (after about 7 years of using various phones) but they cut off updates way too early. My friend has one and overall I was just not pleased with it. Build quality as well. I ran Cyanogenmod on my phones usually and helped a lot but I'm still happier with my iPhone. I ended up moving to an iPhone 5S and I…

I'm still using an iPhone 4S and I have no reason to upgrade. a while back I called to see what it would cost me to upgrade through my provider, and I think I was quotes something like $600 (that's the cheap, 2 year contract version), and I just cannot fathom why it's worth spending an extra $600 for the new iphone. The only think I wish was better is the load times on the kindle app. We're talking seconds, so not wo…

We're waiting on hers to break too. But I'll be more than happy when that time comes to toss Apple their $600 or whatever they're asking for a iPhone6S Plus (that's what she wants) or 7 Plus. She's a heavy user of it, both games and calls. That little thing has seen a lot of "Cookie Run". :)

It's amazing too because the phone was originally Verizon carrier locked, then Apple/VZW sent out an update to unlock 4S phones through iTunes and now she's been using AT&T and before that, T-Mobile.

I sparsely use my 5S, and will probably replace it with a SE when the time comes. I'm more than happy buying apps from Apples store because of the ability to install on both our phones. My most expensive app was $20 for TouchDown (coming from Android I was using this for work email and liked it). She's able to use it as well. But given something with the right utility, I'd pay more than $20 if it's on iOS.

Apple made the right call in building higher quality devices, providing the best support they can, and then banking on the AppStore to pay off. Since there's only so many iPhones to optimize for, when we do buy apps they Just Work. I had a lot of trouble with certain apps on the phones I listed in my last post.

When she's missing on a Saturday morning I can see she just went to the store without hassling her. If I'm at a Python meetup or other user group, she can see if I'm still there without calling/texting. Just now I see she's 2 miles from being home from work. If she loses her phone, I can locate it or make it sound an alert, lock it, wipe it. iCloud is so nice as well for both backups and getting access to photos without even plugging it in. It's rendered iTunes useless for me, and I was never an iTunes fan.

Yes, a lot of these features are possible on Android but iOS got there first and they just work so well and built in from day 1. Zero additional apps needed. I'm also happy with iOS' interface. It's just ideal IMO. Then the build quality and support as mentioned before.

I use a NUC for my desktop, but she uses a laptop and I've never had a Mac or Macbook but we have absolutely no qualms in buying them when we need new machines. If I weren't 100% satisfied with the NUC, I'd strongly consider just buying a Mac Mini as well.

Anyway, sorry about that. I'll stop singing the praises of our experiences with an old iPhone 4S and 5S. :) But I completely understand how you're happy with a 4S. We're really that happy about our situation as well. And I hated smartphones before. I wanted to go back to no phone at all before moving to iOS.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#292

>I don’t know about you, but the idea of having a fully capable web browser in my pocket was a huge part of the appeal. A: Both iOS and android have fully capable web browsers, I'm not sure what's missing here ? >I’m talking about stuff that QA should have caught, stuff that if anybody at Apple was actually building ? apps this way would have noticed before they released. A: They do pass QA, that's why features are r…

> Thank god apple no longer allows that, how do you expect a tiny screen to have popups and switch web browser views when you click links ? this is a very bad UX. I don't think you realize what he's talking about. Any mobile app has the ability to open links either sending them to the default browser or using a webview overlay. How is not being able to open any links at all a better user experience?

1-You're wrong, any app can do that on iOS/Android. who says that you can't open links from an iOS app ?

2-He was specifically talking about webapps in "standalone" mode, he specifically mentioned using `target="_blank"`. that kind of behavior does not belong in mobile environments, actually i personally disallow that on my computer too, but that's personal choice.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>one company provides the hardware Nexus devices have a variety of manufacturers. The current 9 is made by HTC, the 5X by LG, and the 6P by Huawei >one company provides the software Nexus devices all come with unlockable bootloaders that allow you to flash custom Android ROMs such as Cyanogenmod. Past that, other operating systems such as Firefox OS and Ubuntu Touch could be flashed on Nexus phones such as the Nexus…

> Nexus devices have a variety of manufacturers. The current 9 is made by HTC, the 5X by LG, and the 6P by Huawei Obviously only the latest matters? And those are manufacturers, not the company designing it, which what matters. Otherwise Apple uses a variety of manufacturers too, not just Foxconn.

The Nexus 9 is a tablet, and the 5X and 6P were released within a month of each other. So they're all pretty relevant, and are targeted at different markets.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux user chiming in. This reminds of the people who complain about running Linux :-) When they run linux, they start tweaking all sorts of things: trying to run wayland master or run Arch (which is a great distro if you know what you are doing). And more often than not, they come out frustrated. Then the proceed to claim how awesome Mac is since everything just "works". So yeah, I totally get what you are saying :-…

On the other hand: Install Arch, do configuration once, keep installing updates but otherwise leave it. Yes that works these days. 2 yrs and running, with minimal tinkering. Can't do that on Android (it would require you to never install an update).

I have a laptop with in installation that's 4/5 years old, and still running. Except for the occasional things, no problems with upgrading (even transitioning to systemd went fine without problems).

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#295
post #133
post #70

I did the opposite and can't believe how much better my life had gotten because my iPhone is just a simple tool that I use for communications and don't think about it as a project. With Android, I always wanted to tweak silly things and run Cyanogenmod because the handset firmware was always so bad and vulnerable. On several occasions I'd bricked my phone requiring hours of recovery, or had transient failures of cell…

This is an annoying top comment because it has nothing to do with the developer topic of the OP. It's just another boring useless opinion in the fanboy flame wars.

[deleted]

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#296
post #209
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The website about 'progressive web apps' [1] has 3 demo apps. None of them work in Firefox 43 on Linux. The apps require JavaScript but fail to use the tag to tell the user. I've an iPad 1 on which I can install web pages as web apps by bookmarking them. If the page has the right meta tags [2], the app/page will open as fullscreen. This works fine with many web APIs e.g. WebAudio. I do not know if Android or Ubuntu p…

Are they broken if js is enabled?

Yes, even with js enabled they are broken.

airhorner reacts to mouse clicks visually but plays no sound. (Debug console says: "EncodingError: The given encoding is not supported.")

voice memos needs cookies or local data but does not inform the user about this requirement. With cookies / local data enabled and after a reload, it does work.

The weather app also needs local storage enabled but fails silently when it is not available.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#297
post #246
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maintainability is the feature of unreliable equipment. Not quite. The whole purpose of maintenance is to increase the longevity of a product by making small, cheap, tweaks to complex parts that can fail due to wear and tear. Everything lasts longer if you maintain it. A good knife, a high performance vehicle, a good pair of shoes, a couch, etc ... I don't know of any product that is "as good as new" after years of…

You don't maintain CPU's. 1,000,000,000+ parts and it just works.

Except for when you have to update the microcode due to bugs that freeze your system under certain loads. Or when certain calculations are incorrect and you could NOT maintain it and the whole CPU range had to be recalled

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/01/intel-skylake-bug-cau... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#298
post #248

>I don’t know about you, but the idea of having a fully capable web browser in my pocket was a huge part of the appeal. A: Both iOS and android have fully capable web browsers, I'm not sure what's missing here ? >I’m talking about stuff that QA should have caught, stuff that if anybody at Apple was actually building ? apps this way would have noticed before they released. A: They do pass QA, that's why features are r…

>A: Both iOS and android have fully capable web browsers, I'm not sure what's missing here ? Specifically he mentions his WebRTC video streaming app "just works" on Android Chrome and Firefox. http://caniuse.com/stream According to that, it does not work on iOS Safari. Not any version. Ever. Apple only allows Safari on iOS. Therefore, any application that would like to do streaming will have to be native on iOS. Will…

I saw that point yeah, sorry i missed mentioning it, but in my opinion, this is not even closely a reason to compare iOS to android, that's basic browser limitation, even though it's pretty recent on android, and your link marks it as "partial support", I wouldn't see it from a developer point of view nor from an end user point of view.

He was even comparing iOS to an old android phone, which definitely didn't support it either way and wouldn't even be updatable to support those new features.. and I wouldn't call a browser that doesn't WebRTC as a less capable one.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#299
post #70

I did the opposite and can't believe how much better my life had gotten because my iPhone is just a simple tool that I use for communications and don't think about it as a project. With Android, I always wanted to tweak silly things and run Cyanogenmod because the handset firmware was always so bad and vulnerable. On several occasions I'd bricked my phone requiring hours of recovery, or had transient failures of cell…

I agree so much. I'm never going back to Android, my entire family loves it. I'm not quite sure what I was thinking using android.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#300
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It amazes me when Android users say that the answer to fleeing a walled garden where one company controls the hardware, the software, and the app store is by buying a phone (a Nexus) where one company provides the hardware and software and if you want to stay safe, only use their app store.

I'm an iPhone user myself but I understand this impulse. Having safety and compatibility sorted out for you really is an important time-saver and convenience. However, when you want to do something that isn't part of the manufacturer's plan there's only one way to go. I probably wouldn't sideload many apps, but when there's one app that makes my life easier and app store rules prohibit it, I'd really appreciate the f…

> I probably wouldn't sideload many apps, but when there's one app that makes my life easier and app store rules prohibit it, I'd really appreciate the flexibility.

Apple relatively recently removed the requirement to pay for a developer account to compile and run apps on your own device. You can pretty much sideload apps like you can on Android, just with the added requirement of re-signing them for your device specifically (which is IMHO a nice security feature). A lot of the app store rules are enforced by human review (e.g. only being allowed to use background execution for certain things), not the sandbox itself, so you have a comparable amount of flexibility (one thing I still really miss is the ability to do JIT and dynamic code generation).

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