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Comment by Longhanks | Hacker News Reader

I can definitely relate to that. Using iOS at this point frustrates me so much that sometimes I pull out my iPhone 4S running iOS 6 to remember what a wonderful UI and UX that was.

The bigger problem is the lack of alternatives. Android is such a mess of inconsistencies and bad UX, added to that are the problems with system updates, lack of a proper flagship device (the Pixel is a joke compared to the iPhone 6s in my opinion), and the fact that I don't like the Google ecosystem very much because of the way Google handles my data.

I really hope Apple gets back on track with iOS or Google finally nails it with Android so there would at least be competition. But at the moment, using 'mobile', for me, is more frustrating than it was in 2012.

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So much this, damn. 2016 felt like everybody was just walking backwards.

I share your sentiment about Google. They look like they only do the minimal effort possible for Android not to die -- and since they get a lot of user data and ad revenue, they're not trying very hard since they're not taking hits in the wallet. That's not good enough for me, and IMO many other people. I personally have been witness to 3 tech-savvy businessmen who were excited to support Android finally give up and go full Apple. It was a pretty sad story listening to their motivation but I can't blame them because I found myself in 99% agreement with them.

I have the Exynos S7 Edge which for me is pretty much the one and only Android device which is close to perfect. I plan holding on to it until I see something that really excites me, until the release of iPhone 7s / 8 that is. If I like the 7s / 8 I'll just buy that and honestly call it quits with smartphones for at least 2 years.

Had enough of being milked for money for practically no upgrades at all for quite a while. Only Samsung and Apple are really trying -- mostly in the internal storage space.

"They look like they only do the minimal effort possible for Android not to die"

I can understand some Android users have frustration over carrier issues. But every version I have used has been a significant improvement over the prior, especially under the hood. I suppose one can argue that Android allows for too much end user customization (directly or by third party) but I would rather suffer that than the alternative.

Android also runs on old harware. My LG G2, ancient by many measures, runs Android 7.1.1 via AICP and is more responsive in every way than the original stock 4.3. Unless I shatter the screen, there is no reason to replace this phone. Granted, custom ROMs are beyond grandma but for anybody with marginal tech know-how there are step-by-step guides to upgrade. Yet, iPhone owning friends with older models first complain about iOS updates being 'slow' and then eventually run to the store to "upgrade" their phone to the latest iVersion.

IMHO to say Google does just the minimum, especially compared to iOS, is not really the case.

Android is an awful offender in terms of allowing every app under the sun to run in the background however. Does stock Nougat have a system app that allows you to white/black-list which apps can/cannot run in the background?

Samsung's SmartManager allows you to do so and it improved my battery life. Not by 100% but having in mind how notoriously bad Android's standby battery life is, even 2 more hours of SOT is a huge win.

What I am trying to say -- and I don't disagree with all your arguments, please have that in mind -- is that Google can step it up a lot more on the front of the housekeeping, yet they don't.

How long is gonna take for all us techies to realize that the non-tech people hate maintaining tech? Why doesn't Android (and iOS) have mechanisms for never allowing the device's cache to exceed a certain amount, for example?

Again, I don't disagree with you: your arguments are fair, but I believe mine are too.

EDIT: One of the things that seriously alienated me from Google's "vanilla" take on Android is them never allowing mobile Chrome to have content blockers. The amount of trash scripts and popups/popdowns out there on the web is astounding. Actions speak louder than words. I guess they don't want their scripts being blocked as well. That, or they are incompetent.

Yes. It has a high degree of control for that. I use many of these features; am running stock 7.1.1 Nougat on a 64GB Nexus 6P.

Would you point me at a web source? I'm considering a Nexus 6P with Copperhead OS, not Google's vanilla Android however.

I am very curious to find alternatives to Samsung's SmartManager.

BTW I am not talking about the "Data Saver" feature. I am talking about iOS-level of disallowing apps in the background -- they are killed and not allowed to run a single millisecond on the CPU, no questions asked. The "Data Saver" is a very minor and niche improvement.

"the Pixel is a joke compared to the iPhone 6s in my opinion" That's a very unusual opinion. Most reviews I've seen contradict this. Hell, you could compare the 6p with the 6s and the iPhone would win (in my opinion) but it wouldn't blow it out of the water. I haven't had hands on with the Pixel yet so I'll reserve my personal judgement but I have owned the 6s, the 6p, and the iPhone 7 (daily driver). Furthermore, it made be different in your use case but most iPhone users have all sorts of Google apps making the ecosystem argument irrelevant.

I have a pixel and an iPhone 6. Several close acquaintances with 7s. I have no idea what OP is talking about, but everyone I've talked to that sees the pixel and has an iPhone tends to have the reaction of "Wow, I'd actually consider dumping my iPhone after seeing that". Heck, one buddy actually returned the 7 and bought a Pixel because he was so frustrated with the 7 (didn't like the new home button, lack of headphone jack, buggy iOS updates, etc).

I'm not sure what about it he considers a "joke", but it's one of the best phones I've ever owned. It's what Android was always meant to be.

> I pull out my iPhone 4S running iOS 6

Does iOS still spam you multiple times per day to "upgrade" to the latest version of iOS? That sort of constant nagging has me seriously thinking of ditching Apple products entirely.

It annoys the hell out of me when apps do this, but I'm very forgiving when it comes to operating system upgrade prompts. The reason is simple: unpatched/out-of-date operating systems tend to have a lot of security exploits. This is also why I've learned to live with Windows 10's mandatory updates.

It would annoy me a lot less if Apple (and the rest of them, to be honest) didn't just change stuff for the sake of change. Like oh hey, let's change four finger swipe up gesture to not be a toggle. Just because. Or, oh hey, let's just remove your battery life indicator. Ugh. Makes me scared to update anything.

Is it really just because? I've seen this mentioned before, but there must be some reason right?

I've never owned an iPhone (or any i* devices), so I have no experience here, but aren't the folks at Apple likely to do stuff for a reason? Or are things really that bad?

They've recently screwed up enough things badly enough to severely abrogate user trust, and I don't think they even realize it.

I try very hard to understand why they do some things, and come up short. With a lot of the minor UI tweaks, it's certainly not based on any real-world research, because some of the tweaks go against what's already established or being published in journals.

They probably do have reasons, but as to what they are, no idea. And as to whether their reasons are beneficial to the user, in many cases I can say no, absolutely not.

This happens because you have the iOS 10 update (or whichever version) downloaded but not installed. If you delete the update from Settings -> General -> Storage & iCloud Usage -> Manage Storage, and turn off automatic app updates so it doesn't get downloaded again, the prompts go away.

Worked for me on iOS 9.3.5 after another HN user recommended it, anyway. Older versions I'm not sure about, but it can't hurt to try.

Serious question: why do you not use the "upgrade during off-hours" option? With my iPad it usually takes a few times because it's not on the charger that often. I always assumed a phone would be (I'm on Android).

Because just blindly upgrading is a REALLY bad idea, as with OS X. I wish I could downgrade some of my iDevices to an earlier OS.

made the mistake of upgrading a friends \phone thinking it needed it like an android device...nope basically bricked it. I mean the 4s worked but but it was essentially not usable at that point. Gotta love planned obsolescence.

I assume they don't want to upgrade. I wish I had just put up with the incessant upgrade nagging/trickery because of how much I dislike iOS 10, especially with how much they changed basic stuff that I have muscle memory for.

I actually wish I could go back to iOS 6, but I've never been a fan of the flat UI style.

Isn't Apple just as bad as google with user data?

I feel that all of them, apple, google, facebook, amazon, they all disregard our privacy.

Actually no, privacy is a point of difference between Apple and the other companies. Apple has very different philosophy regarding user data. Generally they try to keep it on your phone and they don't suck everything up into their datacenter, as they aren't in the business of selling ads. That's why their "intelligent assistant" stuff isn't as good as Google's.

Google sells your data for $$. It is their main income stream. Apple doesn't. They don't want your data and don't enter markets in fact because they don't want to monetize you or your data.

Google sells access to your data for $$ (i.e., ads). They wouldn't sell the data itself, that would devalue it.

It's somewhat reassuring seeing Apple stand up to the FBI, which I haven't seen any other company of their size do. There may be other examples but I've missed them.

Potentially relevant (although less so with no more fire phone)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/...

Didn't Apple recently start selling targeted ads for the app store?

Not the same as Google/FB of course but the fact that they can target an ad based on some profile means they have the data.

They're not really targeted. You just purchase keywords for your app and then they can display it at the top if someone searches for those words. They're not doing anything fancy like seeing what other apps you have or using any of the information they may or may not have about you.

http://searchads.apple.com

They could hardly be more different. See:

https://www.apple.com/privacy/

Pff. All bullshit.

  Finally, I want to be absolutely clear that we have never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will.

Did they forget that they participated in PRISM since 2012???

All empty words if you ask me.

I feel that all of them, apple, google, facebook, amazon, they all disregard our privacy.

You feel that?

Don't get me started on Google. They are so huge only because they had a halfway decent search engine. Their Android OS as you note is a mess. And you think that's bad? You should try their TV/DVR app on their Google Fiber service. It is a complete tire fire. Google absolutely SUCKS at UI.

I won't argue about Apple, they are not perfect, they are after all human, but for the love of $DEITY they seem to be the only ones capable of decent UI. It always needs polish, OS X, iOS etc, but its much better than the tire fire alternatives out there.

And people complaining about the lack of headphone jack, Samsung, as usual, copied apple right after and removed it too. So, whatever.

> Google absolutely SUCKS at UI.

My favorite Google UXs (by FAR) are Chromecast and Google Home. Especially together, they're magical. Is it a coincidence that there's no GUI there (OK, there kind of is for Chromecast, but only just)?

Google Home can pause/resume anything playing on any Chromecast or group of Chromecasts, even if Home didn't start the playback. It (play/pause) even works with apps like Plex which Google Home knows nothing about. It's gotten to the point where I'll find myself getting up to go to the bathroom at the movies and almost saying "OK Google, pause theater" (I'm not being hyperbolic, the thing which stopped me was not knowing what word went at the end of the command). Great UX, but no GUI.

Update: I use and love Android, but I wouldn't call it magical. It fits my usage patterns, but it definitely has some rough edges.

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