iPhone are so mainstream, so isn't so clear cut anymore.
More like the author pictures that. Maybe because that's how he would like to be projected, through his own iPhone-ownership?
I picture my grandma who would be confused by a more advanced and sophisticated interface and a device capable of true multitasking.
Also my boss, who needs help setting up video-mirroring in the conference room, every single time. Basically, when I think iPhone-owner, I think unsophisticated and technically inept.
But I'm willing to admit that this is my projection and I'm not going to be naive enough to assume this is how it's generally for everyone else. For instance every developer I know has Android, but again I'm not going to draw any general conclusion based on my limited data-sets.
My take on it is this:
With Linux, Windows and Android, when something goes wrong, you may be able to fix it.
For example, my wife's HTC One M8 received an OTA update that bricked it. I googled it, and started trying to fix it. 8 hours later it's still bricked, but I've found a couple more articles that I will try next.
The same happens when I use a Linux box and it goes wrong. Or a Windows box and it goes wrong.
When a Mac goes wrong, I generally spend no more than an hour trying to fix it. Either it works or I run out of options.
When an iOS device goes wrong, I generally spend about ten minutes trying to fix it. Google a solution, it either works or it runs out of options.
To some people, the Android situation is preferable - I can fix it myself and it's a problem I want to solve. So I'm happy to spend the time looking into it.
Personally, I spend all my working day fixing technical problems. I don't want to spend any more time chasing solutions. I'm actually grateful to iOS for giving me a binary yes/no answer within minutes.
If my iPhone was bricked by a software update and I couldn't fix it, I'd simply take it to one of the many nearby Apple Stores, and (going by previous experience), they'd fix it or replace it without fuss.
Try taking your HTC One M8 back to Carphone Warehouse if you ever get in trouble. I'd be interested to see how their service compares.
Which hooks up quite well with the aformentioned image of apple being more of an urban phenomenon. The only apple stores around here sell apples - and other fruit. The 'nearest apple store' would be about 70 km to the south, I guess.
In contrast, the USB port on my laptop is about half a meter away from me. Fixing an Android device would take me a few minutes - flash, reboot, restore backup. Having an iOS device fixed would take a significant part of a day, if not longer.
In other words, if you a) live in an urbanised area which b) sports apple stores you might be able to get your problems fixed. If you live elsewhere you'll be better off fixing those problems yourself - assuming you have the technical aptitude needed to do so.
Regarding problems that can be resolved by flashing the device, the same solution can be applied to iPhones BTW.
> Try taking your HTC One M8 back to Carphone Warehouse if you ever get in trouble. I'd be interested to see how their service compares.
I'd just load it up with fastboot and reflash the firmware image. No need to go to a store of any kind. 5 minutes and done :)
And yes that's my fault. I probably started out by doing the wrong things and wasting a load of time. But I'm not stupid, I just didn't know where to begin.
It's a very weak base for an article.
Like I finished my comment with: This is how I see things. But I'm not going to assume that applies to everyone everywhere, like the author of the linked article does. My comment was meant as a contrasting view just to illustrate how wrong broad generalizations like the author made can go.
Anyway, bad generalizations are bad generalizations no matter who makes them and no matter what they are about. The plural of anecdote is not data. Etc etc.
But if people instead wish to discuss how I see things and how those views are somewhat wrong... They should be free to do so, even though they're obviously also going to be doing the exact same "mistakes" they accuse me of.
I have the opposite experience. Every developer I know, and most people pursuing computer science, are big iOS / OS X users. The only developer I know who has chosen Android based his decision on the lower price. He says he prefers the technical underpinnings of iOS, but just doesn't want to spend so much on a phone. He owns an iPad and MBP.
There's a lot of hidden tech stuff in iOS, little things like the fact that Emacs hotkeys work in iOS text fields. I generally regard the iOS SDKs (Core Graphics/Text/Audio/Image/Media, UIKit, and so on) as more capable than what's available on Android. Though Android seems to be getting better all the time, and I don't develop for it that much anymore so can't make a good comparison.
I recall some developers being swayed by Apple's initial heavy contributions to LLVM way back, and more recently by Swift — a lot of the programming purists at my workplace felt that Apple had done something right with that language.
Most of the technically inept people I know use iPhones; but most of the computer science academics and professional developers I know use them too. They just appreciate different things.
It's almost the same thing why these days almost all developers and companies prefer OS X. Because it's the only one that gets the job done without unnecessary and non billable issues and still has awesome software support.
Assuming you can afford it, not everyone lives with US salaries and subsidized phones.
Patent nonsense. Most companies prefer Windows, and the bigger the company, the more likely it is to be a Windows shop - because Windows offers plenty of business-friendly options. OSX is far from "getting the job done" at an enterprise level. And on the server side, OSX is nowhere to be seen; it's all other unixes and windows.
I'm not a fan of Windows, but it's absolutely ludicrous to say that companies prefer OSX. Small companies in certain fields do, but it's still a Windows market.
There is some sens of "entitlement" and superiority that comes with the turf of using an Apple product, I get that feeling every-time someone starts talking to me about their Apple device.
I picture an iPhone user who's discerning enough to understand the engineering trade offs, and prefers multitasking to be tightly controlled and specialised as it is in iOS.
I remember when Android users proudly touted Android's support for Flash. I think we've all since learnt why Apple made the decision to drop Flash. A mobile phone is a battery-constrained device. I want a device that's optimised for its constraints, even if that means developers get fewer toys to play with.
No on countries where 500 euros is around the average salary and consumers have to pay full price for their devices.
Chinese smartphones here are dominating the market though. They're pretty much everywhere these days.
Point taken.
I guess I am guilty of having another cultural bias; I assumed pretty much everyone is getting their mobile device through a 24 month+ contract with their network. At least this is how I got my first mobile phone, over 15 years ago.