Does this mean the US government can finally start treating Apple the way it treats Microsoft, etc when it does clearly anti-competitive things? They get away with murder sometimes and no one bats an eye. Even here on HN, it's full of people that turn a blind eye because they have a love for Apple. Everything as spun as "looking out for the user" as if not using USB-C, locking out RCS, the "Apple Tax" etc are anythin…
None of your examples are “murders”. They have been using USB-C in pretty much every non-iphone device for years, switching on a whim to USB-C would have just left a bad taste in the users’ mouthes (and millions of unused cables). RCS is just google’s fake open-source proprietary protocol with terrible security, I really don’t want any of that thank you very much. Apple Tax is as bad as any other similar app store —…
US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone
741–750 of 796 posts
Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone
#742Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yes, I don't care about getting updates. If they're important to you, that's fair. Hardware devices with embedded software couldn't get updates (or was a difficult job so didn't happen) until somewhat recently. It is unfortunate that the ability to do updates is used as a crutch to ship faulty software that then needs updates. A phone shouldn't ever need an update in its lifetime if it was properly built in the fir…
Hardware devices with embedded software used to be air-gapped. As soon as phones got Bluetooth, you got Nokia Bluetooth viruses that would spread via public transit, and you had to go to a service center to fix it since it wasn't designed to be updated. Even in the days of "software was complete on launch", security was absolutely abysmal and we just relied on most people being honest.
Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone
#743I'm part of this statistic. I've been an Android user my entire adult life, but it really has been a constant downward spiral over these past several years. My previous three phones from LG, Motorola, and Xiaomi all had major software bugs that were never fixed, the biggest being just incredibly poor network connectivity (across multiple carriers, mind you) resulting in at least several calls just not connecting to m…
I mainly used Samsung phones with KISS launcher and very few apps (not even Google Play); it has been more or less stable throughout the years.
Most people just want their defaults to be good enough but there's no reason to limit those that want something that works better for them.
Obviously iOS does some things incredibly well. E.g. gesture navigation on Android is objectively worse than on iOS.
Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone
#744Earlier quoted context omitted.
The are plenty of places in the US where people get by on $35k. But yeah if you're looking for a big city $35k probably won't cut it.
Even in the middle of nowhere, it's basically impossible to find a 1br for under $1000/month. That's $12k/yr. At $35k/yr, you have $2500/month post tax, so at $1000 you're spending almost half your post-tax income on rent (and that's not including utilities, taxes, etc). That math doesn't work, even in cheap places.
Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone
#745Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it just makes sense to pick an iphone instead of an android due to the ecosystem value Honest question: what ecosystem are you referring to? Apple watch? Additional hardware you bought? Or are you talking about software? Because my guess would have been that Apple users are typically embedded in Google's ecosystem as well (Chrome, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, etc). And it's not clear to me how using a MacBook would influe…
> And it's not clear to me how using a MacBook would influence your phone choice. The same reason you use Chrome and then also Google Maps and Gmail. Just swap a Mac with Chrome and an iPhone with Gmail. There are lots of little features like being able to copy on my iPhone and then it’s saved into a shared clipboard so that I can paste into my Mac. Those kinds of things (there are many, many others and you can look…
Yeah this is what I was thinking. Apple users will tend to use two ecosystems instead of one.
Personally, I wouldn't even think about my laptop when choosing a phone. But I would think about the fact that I use several Google services and I'd rather not duplicate them with Mac accounts/apps.
Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone
#746Earlier quoted context omitted.
If security is a concern, getting a newer Pixel and installing GrapheneOS is your best bet. It's still not perfect and nothing beats just not having a cell phone, but that's a choice very few are okay with today. The trick with GrapheneOS, or any privacy setup, is that it requires attention to stay reasonably secure. The OS won't matter if you enable Google services and install apps that track and sell all your data.
Ah yes, android is perfectly secure as long as you install an aftermarket os, and then don’t install google services or any android application which uses google services (all of them). Or you could just use the brand that gives 6-7 years of OS updates and 10+ years of security updates out of the box…
I just don't need that in a phone and am totally fine with the limitations of a degoogled device.
I don't recommend that for most people. I was simply responding to a question of what device to consider with regards to privacy/security. I even tried to include caveats that it isn't right for everyone and had real tradeoffs.
Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone
#747Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know if you meant to imply that a Macbook Air starts at $500-600, but if you did then you'd be incorrect based on https://www.apple.com/macbook-air/ . In any case, I think the switch from Intel to ARM makes any such comparisons meaningless until we start seeing more ARM-based laptops in the same niche.
They meant if the person was right, the PC would have to cost $500-600. A PC laptop being in that price range and equal or better than a MacBook Air is a fantasy. ARM and Intel laptops are directly comparable because you can compare what people can do them. Not all ARM processors are created equal, Apple's are superior in iPhones and laptops, there's no reason to expect that to change in the near future.
Hence the words "in the same niche" in the comment to which you replied.
Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone
#748Earlier quoted context omitted.
They meant if the person was right, the PC would have to cost $500-600. A PC laptop being in that price range and equal or better than a MacBook Air is a fantasy. ARM and Intel laptops are directly comparable because you can compare what people can do them. Not all ARM processors are created equal, Apple's are superior in iPhones and laptops, there's no reason to expect that to change in the near future.
> Not all ARM processors are created equal Hence the words "in the same niche" in the comment to which you replied.
Plenty of people don't care about how long you can run off the battery or processing per Watt in general, just performance. For those people, there are x86 laptops that can outperform Apple's ARM-based laptops (not to mention having discrete GPI options).
Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone
#749Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Android market is way way harder to pin down than the iPhone market. Manufacturers have been walking out software support horizons in the Android world, which should have an impact. To the extent that Android users have shifted toward Samsung and Pixels, that would also tend to walk out the software support window of the Android cohort. And finally, last year there were crazy sales that I don't think have been as…
Another sign of the HN bubble. Google only has lifetime sells of 27.6 million pixels over 6 generations https://www.phonearena.com/news/pixel-7-pro-6a-google-best-s... Apple is estimated to sell twice that many in a quarter https://www.statista.com/statistics/299153/apple-smartphone-...
This year I switched to a iphone because I need something I can rely on working wherever I travel. they will only fix your pixel while you're in the united states. I'd say they are effectively disposable.
Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone
#750Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m astounded by the pervasiveness of this meme, given its origins are really from a Mac vs PC internet flame war era that I would like to think we’ve moved past. I’m astounded by the fact that one can imply with a straight face no less that over half the market are status-driven dorks that have no legitimate reason to use an iPhone over an Android phone, the obviously superior for all people in all circumstances cho…
People just like to think they're special "thinking out of the box" rebels because they use android when the equivalent android phone costs the same as an iphone. There's very little price difference between the models for the main brands (you can off course find cheaper alternatives with their own issues) but if you get an iphone and a samsung side by side odds are they're at the same price range. And as a professio…
Girls absolutely covet iphones like sacred cows. some go as far as to not date guys who use android. its weird but I've seen it myself.