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> she's stuck using Safari and seeing ads. So, so many ads. Ads everywhere. I never see ads on my phone, but on hers the Internet is nothing but ads as far as the eye can see.

Purify is an ad blocker that works great on the iPhone. Content blockers have been a supported part of iOS for the last couple versions. Apple actually caught a lot of flack from websites for allowing them.

> But at least with Android I have freedom.

Freedom to send all your data to Google? Sure, you can install custom ROMs, but now you're squarely out of any normal user scenario.

> That's because with an iPhone there are no custom OSes and you're stuck with Apple's user-hostile features.

You're considering Apple user hostile when the only way to get around Androids lack of security updates is to go deal with custom ROMs? Apple tends to make the best decision for the largest amount of users. Do they always match up with my decisions? No, but they are close enough, and I don't have to deal with the Android mess when all I want is a working phone.

iTunes is user hostile. I might try an iPhone if not for the terrible experience of managing one on Windows.

I was also unimpressed by how difficult it was to get my family member's pictures out of their cloud offering, when asked to do so for relatives.

You know the iPhone has not needed iTunes for quite awhile? I'm not even sure about the last time I started iTunes on my computer. Even moving from an iPhone to a new iPhone is as simple as holding the 2 phones close together and signing in on the new phone.

iCloud also works fine with Apple devices, but can be mostly skipped. Google Photos will happily upload all the pics on the iPhone to Google pictures. The 5GB iCloud is then plenty for iPhone data backups.

>When she changes to another app, our video chats go dark

Which app?

>there's no Termux or GNURoot equivalent (that I'm aware of);

Does your girlfrind need a terminal on her phone?

>tapping doesn't move the cursor but instead selects words (I think that's it);

Tab and hold to move the cursor.

>she's stuck using Safari and seeing ads. So, so many ads. Ads everywhere.

Why she doesn't install an Adblocker? It's officially supported directly by the system since a couple of time.

> Which app?

Signal. She has similar issues with other apps. Apparently iOS doesn't support background processes as well as Android.

> Does your girlfrind need a terminal on her phone?

Need? No. But I'd like it.

> Tab and hold to move the cursor.

This is reversed between Android & iOS. For me, at least, I'm far more likely to want to move the cursor than to select a word.

>When she changes to another app, our video chats go dark; there's no Termux or GNURoot equivalent (that I'm aware of)...

LOL! At the point you expect 99% of phone users to know what Termux or GNURoot are, let alone use them, the argument has already been lost. I have several hundred Android devices for testing and about two dozen iOS devices. It has always struck me that the primary draw to Android is the hackability, but at the same time, it's the greatest weakness in the platform, that and the variability in hardware.

> The sad fact is that the mobile phone ecosystem in general is full of garbage. Neither Android nor iOS is exempt. But at least with Android I have freedom.

As a Windows Phone user, this is why I'm dreading the day I need to replace my phone and pick a side. It seems like there's no winning in the mobile world.

You’ve heard of content blocker extensions for Safari right?