Ask HN: What do you do on an Android phone that cannot be done on an iPhone? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What do you do on an Android phone that cannot be done on an iPhone?

118 pointsbelltaco226 comments

Not trying to start a flame war. I am finally switching away from my trusty Nokia Lumia 920 because the browser wouldn't load m.uber.com and WhatsApp says app will be gone at the end of the year. I like the snappiness of Windows Phone and iPhone UI. Haven't checked Android phones recently but years ago the UI was laggy and no one except I seem to notice.

Also know that sideloading apps, blocking ads in apps etc. is much easier on Android so I am hard pressed to decide between the two.

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- Widgets on the actual home screen, no swiping required. Every app has widgets (except Skype !), so you can have whichever info you need most right there

- true browser, true addons. Unlike iOS, Android doesn't limit 3rd-party browsers to reskins of the OS' Web engine, but allows desktop-like from-the-ground-up browsers. You can get Firefow and put uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger on it.

- sideloading w/o rooting. Exiting the Walled Garden (not recommended) doesn't require compromising the whole security setup by rooting, flasing a new ROM.... just activate Sideloading from the developer menu, and live only semi-dangerously. Reins in Google's censorship.

- Regular File management, incl. internal Flash, SD card, Network, and Cloud. On of the first apps I install is Asus's File Manager so I can easily move stuff around my LAN etc.. Also makes it easy to use different apps for similar content: I've got my podcasts, audio books, and music in different folders and a separate app for each.

- Plenty of storage: if you get a phone with an SD slot, you can have oodles of storage for dirt cheap, which is very handy if you wander out of cities.

- much more choice about everything: all apps including Phone, Keyboard, Mail, Browser, Text, Homepage (Launcher), Maps,... can be defaulted to any 3rd-party app. This makes for a steeper learning curve (I prefer HERE MAps over Google Maps and Waze; Nova Launcher; Google Messages ...) Only Notifications and Settings are hard-linked to the core OS.

- You get a choice of hardware. You can spend $500+ if you want to or need really good pics, but the $150 Redmi Note 7 or Realme 3 Pro are fine phones. The Note even have FM Radio, an IR blaster... no NFC though.

On the flip side, mu iBrother made the transisiton to Android about a year ago. His major pain points were: - no iMessage. It's not particularly good or different compared to whatsapp, Skype, Messenger... but it's not available on Android and people are used to it. - in case of an issue, the solution is brand+model-specific. For some reasons he wanted a Notifications widgets, you get that differently for a Samsung or a Huawei (or you get an app). - it takes some effort to extract max. benefits from the switch. At a basic level things are very similar, but if you want to really make the most of either platform, you need to dig into things. As often, the hard part is not googling up how to do something, but simply discovering something is possible at all. Yes, you can hook up some phones directly to a monitor over the USB-C port. Or put a DAC on them. And use almost all xbox/PSx BT/USB Gamepads.

where did my line breaks go ?

https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

You need to leave a blank line to get a new paragraph.

I think the switching cost is the same which ever way. I own a Pixel, and have an iPhone for work. I cannot be bothered to invest any time in learning IOS beyond the basics and generally don't enjoy it. I never really have confidence that my intuitions will be right. Simple things like pressing the big button will exit the app, makes me unproductive. I'm sure if it were my only phone I would be more proficient.

I have this same issue on a work-provided macbook pro. They want to standardize on laptops for the dev team, but I spent months just getting up to speed on using the damn thing, and I still don't feel comfortable on it. And when my personal laptop and desktop and file server are all linux, the switch is annoying and makes me less productive on both systems (take a bit to switch from "OSX mode" back to normal after getting home).

There are apps that allow you to use iMessage on Android.

know of any apps specifically?

That's the comment I wanted to write.

I'd add:

- kde-connect. It's awesome to be able to control my computer for my phone, especially while watching a movie.

- alternative stores. Being able to use aptoid and f-droid let me use the full potential of the phone without tying it to an email account.

- productivity concepts arrive first on android. We had wifi hot spot. Quick wifi/bt/3G switch first. Etc. With apple, you only have what Apple though about, or could copy later. With Android, the community can implement many things.

- USB-C charger. I don't want yet another charger/adapter

- my phone will still work in 5 years. No "oh the home button is broken" scandal.

[quote]- my phone will still work in 5 years. No "oh the home button is broken" scandal.[/quote]

I don't think this is a standard, not every iphone button will be broken in 5 years; or no phone (with android os) has hardware guarantee for 5 years.

I'm referring to that time where iPhone 5 buttons where breaking all over the place, Apple said it was hardware and that the only fix would be to buy the iPhone 6, but then rooted versions of the iPhone could use a non official software patch to fix the issue.

Similarly, there was the time iOS 11 crippled my iPhone 6+. Apple's response of "you're imagining it, maybe buy a new phone" instead of "oh, ya, just replace the battery" soured me on Apple.

- USB-C charger. I don't want yet another charger/adapter

This for me is a downside as the USB-C landscape is a disaster of poorly-implemented designs. I'm less inclined to trust a USB-C adapter than a dumb USB adapter, and I would never plug a laptop charger into my phone. At least with dumb USB and micro-USB, you know you're getting 5 volts (excluding serious hardware failures).

- my phone will still work in 5 years. No "oh the home button is broken" scandal.

I'd argue the opposite, many Android phones are built to be as cheap as possible and their longevity is really hit and miss. If you want build quality, you need to buy flagship phones - my Galaxy S5 is still working after 5 years, sure, but many cheaper phones are just disposable; I'd have smashed several screens by now if I'd bought something cheaper. There's also the issue that most manufacturers give up on Android updates after 18 months; my S5 officially maxxed out at Android 6, but I'm running 9 via LineageOS. This means I get security updates to the OS, at least, but the low-level firmware has been abandoned by Samsung and if there are serious vulnerabilities, they won't be patched.

I use my laptop charger for my phone all the time. May I ask what has you scared to do so, because you have me concerned now.

USB-C charging relies on negotiation between both sides. A laptop charger can supply 20+V if it determines there's a high-power device on the other end. I'm not particularly trusting that a cheaply-made power supply won't hit the wrong condition on a case statement and supply 20V to my phone.

Implementing USB-C wrong seems to be a passtime of all major manufacturers now. Nintendo got it almost completely wrong with the Switch. The RPi 4 is also wrong, as it bridges two connectors that shouldn't be and identifies itself as an audio device to some adapters. The whole ecosystem is a farce and I wouldn't trust it as far as I could throw it.

It's worse. Both sides need to negotiate properly, and the cable needs to follow specs, which many don't. Where micro USB has QC and QC2, there's a whole suite of PD (power delivery) and data protocols that cables may or may not support.

https://www.theverge.com/2015/11/5/9674462/usb-type-c-google... is dated coverage of a Google engineer testing for out-of-spec cables. See also: https://twitter.com/laughing_man.

I already encountered such cable. Red cables from Oneplus phones rated for dash charge tech (5V, 4A) won't charge regular phones (e.g. Samsung A8), despite being rated for higher current.

> The RPi 4 is also wrong, as it bridges two connectors that shouldn't be

Do you have a link or some more info on that?

https://www.scorpia.co.uk/2019/06/28/pi4-not-working-with-so...

Nice. Thanks a lot!

As a both an Android and iOS user those are all good and accurate points. Except perhaps Files.app which is pretty advanced these days handling cloud (first and third party), local and external cards etc. I use it daily to manage all my files and actually I quite like it. The built in support for files of different types is excellent - I especially like the video player despite how basic it is.

If you need really good pics the pixel 3a will do it for $400 (I got mine with a $100 rebate so $300).

My new Android is an Google Pixel 3a. Cost me $399 ($430-ish with tax and/or shipping). It's quite nice, and likely the best phone under $500. The camera is quite nice, too. Battery life seems decent enough, it lasts me the day with moderate-to-heavy usage. With Cricket Wireless, it $50/month with unlimited data on AT&T's network. I'm pretty happy!

I'm using my third Mi phone now (Note 2, 4, and now a 6), and IR blaster is amazingly helpful. From turning volume in TV to turning A/C on my hotel I paid the fan-price for!

They last just as an expensive phone would (I trek often and get screen cracked in a couple weeks).

Termux. https://termux.com

I've got an actual userland Linux shell and package ecosystem, with 1,231 available packages (compare against ~6k for Red Hat / CentOS, 70k for Debian), including standard shell tools, editors, and scripting languages, plus several Android-specific tools and APIs. The scripting tools open up broader archives via pip (python), npm (node.js), and cpan (perl). Many of the "Linux" shell and scripting examples I've posted to HN over recent years have actually been run on and via Termux.

This replaces other Android tools, including console, SSH, audioplayer (mpv/mps), backgroundable and playlistable YouTube audio (mpv, mps-youtube), remote sync (rsync, scp, mc), editors (vim, emacs, nano, etc), and other tools. An sshd daemon allows remote (ssh-key-only) access to the tablet itself, useful for admin and substantial tasks at a bigger screen and better keyboard.

The develooment is active, response to bugs (I've found several) prompt and satisfactory, and growth in packages available (~500 when I first installed Termux) impressive and assuring.

This is by no means a full Linux system replacement, for numerous reasons, but it very much, and more than any single other feature, makes Android Not Completely and Utterly Suck (which it otherwise largely does).

Coupled with a Bluetooth keyboard (another long tale of frustration), a tablet becomes a surprisingly capable (albeit still frustrating) laptop adjunct. The biggest frustrations remain Android-imposed: Lack of full filesystem access and unpredictable process termination, by Android.

The lack of an equivalent IOS feature utterly kills that platform for me. I'm very much looking forward to Purism's tablet offerings.

Here's a silly photo from a Nairobi hotel room. The tv is hooked into a raspberry pi b, $75 2014 phone running android terminal, and a laptop... The phone iirc was providing internet and local network for the other two. (And I was trying to compile Sage on the pi, which ended up, at the time, taking close to a week, due to one memory hungry dependency...)

https://inventingsituationsdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2014/0...

Nice! Interesting blog: https://inventingsituations.net/2014/07/

There's iSH for iOS, that tries to be similar to Termux. I don't know if it has feature parity or not since I've only heard about it, not used it myself, but I don't want to say this area is an Android-only feature.

Thanks. Apple makes such tools far too hard to find.

Does seem quite preliminary though, yet.

That’s just because it’s not released/stable yet. Its developers have made the decision to make it only available as a TestFlight beta, not Apple.

Sure, and I get that.

Point remains that availability of similar capabilities to Termux does not really yet exist on iOS.

I do appreciate knowing about the tool thogh, thanks.

So... when I jail-broke my iPhone 3G S years and years ago, I remember using an SSH prompt natively with all the fixings, including native BitTorrent over comparatively slow 3G speeds.

These days, though, there are apps and websites to do everything under the sun. If you need the power, why do the heavy lifting locally? Just use these cloud-friendly devices to connect to an SSH server via Panic’s Prompt app, or use the Shortcuts app to run Pythonista or an SSH-executed command via Siri or at a certain time (prompted). If you need something more advanced than Pythonista can support, perhaps for push notifications, you’ll probably have to use a third party app, or write your own with a Mac to set it up, but iOS is really more extensible with each new release.

This exactly. I have complete access to any resource I could imagine for my job by spinning up what I need in our dev AWS account or at home with my personal hobby AWS account (which admittedly I hardly ever use). I have unlimited data and tethering (albeit slow 512Kbps.

I’ve even used AWS Workspace app in a pinch with my iPad.

Flexibility, power, maturity, lack of distractions, data control, offline continuity, tool continuity, and 30+ years' experience and proficiency with the toolset.

For starters.

The apps often aren't all that, and search costs alone in trying to find one exceed time to complete of a typical task. With no additional overhead for bugs, incompleteness, ToU, privacy policy, or EoL / business continuity concerns.

Sooo... offline continuity is the only example I can think of that wouldn’t work with a remote SSH session. Everything else is a simple configuration setting away, whether it’s disabling apps and distractions or continuing where you left off (which is enhanced by SSH sessions, I would think...) And while iSH is one attempt at a local shell, and jail-breaking another, I’d say it’s only a matter of time before Apple suggests running the occasional Mac app using a pen on an iPad Pro, via some virtualization APIs. Those same APIs could make it trivial to simply pick and instal your own Linux OS of choice, or maybe even Windows on an iPad, natively. Sure, it’s not there yet, but OS-as-app (or WSL) doesn’t seem that crazy in hindsight.

End-user audio and video experience for mpv on AWS is generally poor.

As is direct interaction with your own device via CLI environment.

Sometimes being there is the best way to be there.

Assuming you wouldn’t use a local SSH server hooked up to a TV instead... If you want mpv on a Mac, use https://iina.io/ and for iOS, libmpv is available and someone’s compiled it and wrapped it in a UI at https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/outplayer/id1449923287 or use Plex which is less integrated with the iOS Files app but is multi-platform: https://www.reddit.com/r/appletv/comments/9zd9p5/plex_beta_i...

You can interact with your device with multiple accessibility mechanisms including voice control, software buttons, voiceover, Siri shortcuts, Pythonista, and wirelessly or remotely, including Safari automation. If the only problem you have is you have to use the Files app with your fingers and a GUI instead of typing “ls” and using a non-touch-optimized UI, well... maybe a phone with a touchscreen isn’t the right device for you. Perhaps the original android concept with a keyboard (like BlackBerry) would be preferable?

Or, you know, a shell environment rather than app one-offs for everything.

The tablet has a display and speakers. Or I can plug in -- yes, it has a jack, iOS fans -- headphones. Why not just use those?

Because that's what I want.

Rather more practicable than lugging around a a TV and generator.

And yes, the tablet's got Bluetooth and can stream to other devices. Or from an DLNA server. It's not as if Termux suddenly breaks that.

You and a few others keep suggesting apps and variations on remote hardware or servers. What such responses fail to acknowledge is that those are specifically the requirements that Termux allows me to avoid. Those are massive disutilities.

Becuse that's what I don't want.

Standard, simple, text-interfaced, local, consistent, and diverse tools, with a single (or small set of) install and update mechanism, and high levels of interoperability. That's the winm that's the goal, and any set of app, hardware, and/or remote-cloud-system solution rapidly destroys the very benefits and characteristics which make Termux so goddamned insanely great.

And that's what I want.

Louis Armstrong's comment fits very well here, I suspect.

My point has not been to dissuade you from what you prefer to use, merely to highlight the alternatives. And with how you're describing Termux it sounds like it doesn't need a package manager (app store), anything more advanced to describe files than ascii/binary pipes (share sheets), doesn't need to natively interact with the cloud (fopen vs Files app APIs), definitely doesn't need a GUI outside of ascii art or whatever random xwindowing GUI is supported...

I will say there's innovation in a platform that's completely untethered and allows processes to run as root. Jailbreaking on iOS early on provided much innovation. Similarly diverse hardware gives you lots of options too.

But let me know how other apps -- native Android ones -- interact with that app. Can Google interact with it? See, that's the difference an OS standard makes. The app you're describing, Termux, builds on top of existing Linux standards, including GNU utilities and distributions building and packaging apps. If you jailbreak on iOS, you can install deb packages too. It's not like the kernel doesn't support these features. All we need, obviously, is a virtual machine or emulator powerful enough, and you've got your Termux on iOS.

I'm absolutely not arguing against it, I'm just saying, "it's an app!" And the platform features on iOS are more widely distributed, adopted and often more innovative, than the equivalent on Android, and that's where the power comes from. Sure, one app, like iSH or Termux, will give you superpowers, and rooting or jailbreaking can give you even more control over your phone. But if the platform's not innovating, 90-95% of users won't benefit. And if you haven't found advantages to touch screens, cellphone form factors, music subscription services, and other forms of interaction beyond terminal, well ... I'm sorry we haven't made much progress technologically since Unix time sharing that you find useful...

Termux can use Android intents (termux-open), and interact with the system in multiple ways, see pastebin of commands:

https://pastebin.com/raw/4e7UwM57

Primary app-to-termux interaction is via the filesystem and saved content -- downloads and the like. For obvious reasons, arbitrary command access to Termux from apps would be hazardous, much as it is on any desktop OS. Android filesystem access restricts this somewhat, though the system Downloads and "My Documents" directories are globally accessible.

There is also clipboard integration (termux-clipboard-get and -set), which I've aliased to xc and xp, respectively, much as I do similar OSX and Linux commands. So "xp | vim -" is a thing.

Very handy use is a titlecase script which converts strings, especially all-caps, for HN submission:

    xp | titlecase > tmpfile && xc < tmpfile && rm tmpfile

(The script handles numerous edge cases.)

As for Google accessing Termux: Why would I want that? Google already has its (badly crippled) Android userland, as well as OS APIs and features. Termux is principally a userland -- a shell and utilities for user-initiated and directed interactions.

See by comparison Debian's Social Contract, Policy, and other guiding documents. Key among their principles is that the project's focus is its users, and that its policies serve to constrain the developers as to what they must provide, and must not do. Though Termux lacks such specific language its spirit (and Debian heritage) strongly suggest a similar orientation and philosophy.

As for "it's an app", that's both solipsistic and utterly fails to recognise that this app is singularly powerful and expansive in the spirit of the original Unix,[1] in ways that effectively no other single Android app (save other user command shells) can even hope to be.

________________________________

Notes:

1. See K&P's The UNIX Programming Environment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unix_Programming_Environme...). My 'Tyranny of the Minimum Viable User" addresses the distiction as well: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/69wk8y/the_tyr...

I just love the way they describe the app features:

"Have you ever sat on a bus and wondered exactly which arguments tar accepts?"

"Can you imagine a more powerful yet elegant pocket calculator than a readline-powered Python console?"

Man this is really cool thanks

> unpredictable process termination

Settings - Battery - Battery Optimization (dropdown menu upper right, three dots)

Change it for the apps you don't want Android to terminate.

Thanks, though no such option.

I use YouTube-DL with it, works like a charm.

It allows me to have mostly the same toolkit on my phone and on my home server, which is nice.

You might also appreciate mpv with its '--ytdl' option (enables the youtube-dl library). This enables you to directly stream YouTube (or any other YTDL-supported source) audio or video, rather than downloading.

mps-youtube (mpsyt) is another streaming tool, which gives the option to interactivley request, search (by title, description, genre, or channel) YouTube (only, this time) content, and create, save, and recall local playlists. A great way to explore topics or speakers, or music. No ads :-)

youtube-dl,mpv, and mps-youtube have been transformative.

mps-youtube is really nice! Thanks for sharing! Never thought this was actually possible to do from an android terminal app.

Real Firefox and Real Chrome. The iOS versions is just a wrapper around the painfully bad mobile Safari.

I thought Safari had the best power to battery consumption ratio of all the browsers. I certainly notice it on desktop where I switched to Safari last year, but that's pretty massive on mobile.

Safari seems to take this seriously instead of the race to the bottom on performance and resource consumption. I also like features like how Safari extensions are now 1st class apps and its declarative content blocker (1Blocker X being best in class imo).

What makes Safari so bad in your eyes?

It does indeed win in terms of performance, however the situation in terms of add-ons is depressing. There’s basically no add-on API other than a very limited content blocking API (which doesn’t allow you to do powerful things like uBlock Origin can).

(full disclosure: I am a happy Safari user, and the content blocking API is good enough that I tolerate it but I do miss uBlock for sure)

I added to my comment just as you responded but I ended up looking at the declarative content blocker as an upside after developing my own. Have you tried 1Blocker X? I haven't missed uBlock Origin when using Safari. Though I can certainly appreciate the power of an onRequest(req) at-runtime API that you definitely lose with declarative rules.

But for example I have a script that can convert Adblock format rules (like Easylist) into content blocker rules.

1Blocker X is a disaster, and I’m saying this as a customer of the original 1Blocker and an early adopter (pre-order) of 1Blocker X - it appears they’ve given up on updating their block lists and weren’t ever clear on where the lists were sourced from (I want EasyList and I kind of assumed that’s what they used but I could never be sure). I’m currently using AdGuard Pro instead which uses EasyList/EasyPrivacy and can import and convert (to the best of its abilities) uBlock-style lists.

The problem with the declarative API is that 1) it’s just not as flexible as uBlock, especially in a world where billions are being poured into bypassing blockers and 2) each blocker extension is limited to 50k rules which is not enough (some apps work around this by registering multiple blocker extensions, but frankly this limitation is BS and should not exist to begin with) and 3) blockers don’t run with the browser, so you have to open the app every so often to update the blocking rules.

>What makes Safari so bad in your eyes?

The rendering engine is poor. It's probably the browser I have the most trouble with when doing frontend work. iframe scrolling is broken, it's historically suffered from some frustrating flexbox bugs (see https://github.com/philipwalton/flexbugs#flexbug-11), its Can I use... score lags behind Firefox and Chrome. For a while, it didn't support service workers properly.

I could go on.

What makes it "painfully bad"?

Please do not confuse MobileSafari, an application with features, and UIWebView/WKWebView, a rendering API.

I like to customize my phone to be exactly what I need from it.

Things I do that are only possible in Android: 1) I script some behaviors using Tasker. One example is that I have a script that takes it out of vibrate mode and turns on the ringer if I'm home (GPS), the phone is plugged in, and it's between the hours of 9am and midnight. 2) This requires root, so it might not be worth the trouble for you, and it's not available on every phone. But, I've managed to make my default home screen completely blank. My primary "launcher" is an app called "Pie Control", which doesn't appear unless you touch an area of the screen, which you can set. I can also swipe up to get a screen with all of my apps - The default behavior of Nova Launcher.

It's not just customization. Really, the sky is the limit when it comes to what you want the phone to do. With an iphone, the limit is the constraints of Apple's design.

Apple has shortcuts which is actually better than tasker and has system wide support and new shortcuts can be easily shared and can easily do some of tasks mentioned above. https://www.imore.com/macstories-releases-archive-150-free-s... seriously amount of ignorance that Android fans about ios is breathtaking.

And don’t forget that in iOS 13 shortcuts can run shortcuts automatically based on location, connected WiFi networks, toggling system settings, etc.

and don't forget that tasker can do those things too

1) Notifications are much better. Taking direct action to read and archive/delete emails directly from the notification is great. Not sure if iOS has this yet, but last time I checked iOS Notifications were primitive by comparison.

2) Direct sharing to/from ANY app. iOS is frustratingly limited. On a similar note, being able to assign default apps for specific types of content.

iOS notifications have gotten a lot better. With 3D touch you can quickly respond from the notification.[1]

3D touch is rumored to be replaced with long-presses.

[1]https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/view-and-respond-to-n...

Sharing is better now that there’s an actual Files app to manage documents. Sharing links and web stuff works fine across basically every app using that universal share button. Sharing to different people works great with airdrop (but do keep that limited while in public lest you get run over with incoming requests to send memes).

The default app thing could be improved for sure.

I always found the iOS notifications to be a bit odd. I never owned an iPhone but my wife is now at her 4th. She always forgets she received a notification because she has a lot on her mind (she's a doctor and we have two kids) and all the notifications get "half dismissed" whenever she opens her phone (text, call, browse, whatever...). Somehow, it's assumed that when you open your phone you automatically have time or want to read all the notifications. They will not be shown again until you explicitly go into the submenu (pull from the top, I believe). I think that's not realistic. I like that on my Android phone the notifications stay there until I specifically clear them or interact with then (tap to go to app). They won't automatically disappear just because I want to see the cat meme my friend sent me...

There are two options for notifications in the Home screen. One removes the notification when you unlock your phone, the other requires you to manually remove the notification. Have her use the second option.

1 is what I really miss, we only got notification grouping like last year lol

> 1) Notifications are much better. Taking direct action to read and archive/delete emails directly from the notification is great. Not sure if iOS has this yet, but last time I checked iOS Notifications were primitive by comparison.

This has changed but it's up to the developer to define the actions one can take on a notification.

> 2) Direct sharing to/from ANY app. iOS is frustratingly limited. On a similar note, being able to assign default apps for specific types of content.

The sharing popover is quite universal in iOS at this point and can be found basically wherever it makes sense.

I install lots of apps from F-Droid, which is an alternate app repository for exclusively free software. There's nothing like it (and can be nothing like it) on iOS, and while I know there are some free software apps in iOS, they're much harder to find there.

I think because Apple sublicences software, GNU GPL–licensed software can't be released on the App Store. Probably other copyleft licenses are similarly incompatible.

I can plug my phone into my computer and copy files to and from it like it was a regular USB drive. Honestly, once I realised this wasn't possible on an iPhone my decision was pretty much made up.

iExplorer (even trial version) gives almost same experience

Does iExplorer run on Linux?

As no one’s mentioned it yet, the stock Android Dialer supports VoIP to a degree that most iOS apps do not. If you use a SIP provider that doesn’t support a native iOS app, Android will likely give you a nicer experience out-of-the-box.

Also some Android tablets have half decent OLED screens, though stock iPhone OLED will out-perform them.

Android has USB-C support that iOS is only now starting to get with the iPad Pro and iPadOS 13.

Re. Intercepting text messages on Android, theoretically that’s going to be more locked down as the OS gets more privacy-aware, but iOS will likely always take the lead. Certainly it’s impossible to do Content Blocking in Chrome the way one can on iOS.

So... there’s trade offs... my preference is to recommend cheap Android handsets for non-smartphone family members and friends and relatively expensive iPhones for anyone actually checking their email on their devices, etc. due to the superior security & overall fit and finish. The only folks who can have trouble with Apple’s limitations of iMessage on Apple products only, etc., tend to be folks who use both Mac and Windows. If you only use Windows, you don’t know how the clipboard integrates smoothly over iCloud, that you can answer text messages and calls from your computer, and so on. Microsoft plans on making Android as integrated with Windows as an iPhone is with macOS, but they haven’t succeeded yet and it’s been two years since the first announcement in this direction. So... we’ll have to see.

Oh and Apple Watch support is also a vote for iPhone right now. And Bluetooth music has been historically much better on iOS, though I imagine that has improved on Android handsets in recent years. Android devices might still have headphone jacks, of course, but I prefer BT these days anyway.

You should try a different browser. Brave or Opera can do much more regarding blocking content than chrome. (Google is an ad company after all)

> it’s impossible to do Content Blocking in Chrome the way one can on iOS.

Firefox with uBlock Origin or just about any other add-on will work kn Android. It's the best solution there is.

One probably very niche thing is availability of a terminal along with full linux-y environment (including package manager for all the usual tools) on Android via the termux app. Pretty useful if you want to, for instance, make minor code changes (in vim or similar) or deployments on the go.

I googled around out of curiosity if such a thing exists on iOS and turned up nothing, which seems reasonable considering the more open nature of Android vs iOS - could be wrong about this though, happy to be corrected.

iSH (https://ish.app/) works well for this, though it's in a public TestFlight beta currently.

Cool, thanks! Looks great, and I'm glad it exists because this is a useful enough thing that it might have stopped me switching to iOS, something I'm tempted to do for my next phone.

One thing to keep in mind that drives me insane is that the default animation speed on android, 1x, is very slow. It makes the UI feel heavy. Turning this to .5x, or even off, makes it feel more performant.

First thing I do on any new Android phone. It's also a great parlor trick, people are almost always amazed you can make their phone "faster" in under a minute.

For those who don't know, enable Developer Options, then change "Window animation scale", "Transition animation scale" and "Animator duration scale" all to "0.5x". It should really be the default and I'm surprised there isn't a "0.25x" as of yet.

i can't find these settings anywhere on lineageOS

Tap on build number (about page) 7 times.

Go to settings > about phone, and find the section that shows the "Build number". Tap it a bunch of times until it enables the Developer options for you. I don't know if it's different for Lineage, but that's how you do it for Android phones.

By far the best feature for me is DUAL APPS: separate copy of an app that runs absolutely separated from the parent app. This way you can have e.g. two Slacks or two Facebooks or LinkedIns logged into two profiles without endless switching.

Other sweet things: support for WireGuard VPN, customizable keyboards (I'm a big fan of "finger slide" typing pioneered by, I think, Swipe), giant Google Calendar widget on the main screen...

Isn't dual apps a miui only feature ?

Samsung has it too.

and there's plenty of 3rd party apps on the PlayStore that will allow you to that on any other Android.

There's always island https://island.oasisfeng.com/ which uses Android for Work to duplicate apps and allow different accounts.

And if you want something OSS, https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.typeblog.shelter/ which does the same thing.

OnePlus has it

iOS supports Wireguard [1]

[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wireguard/id1441195209?ls=1

That's another big issue: as a user in China, AppStore doesn't have a lot of apps, mainly VPNs and some other apps. On Android I can always just sideload or use APKPure or whatever. On iOS I have to jump through a lot of hoops to get a working VPN app in China.

What app do you use for wireguard?

Using this one right now: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.wireguard.android/ - but it could be better. Someday I'll flash a kernel with WG support (how about that, iOS? :) and it will be faster. Seen the difference on another phone.

You are correct about dual apps and widgets, but iOS had customizable keyboards for a while, and iOS 13 adds a built-in swipe keyboard.

Right. In a way, Android in 2019 feels like more forward, experiment-friendly environment. Some Android features get adopted into iOS later. It contradicts Apple's branding, but it is how it is. For Apple it's more about stability and privacy now.

Besides the already mentioned things (ff+adblock, termux, etc):

1. Aard2 Dictionary

Offline Wikipedia for eg. travelling. Other Mediawiki dumps are supported as well. Bonus: if you deactivate image loading you don't leave any trace online.

2. use old saved app versions

3. USB-CDROM-emulator via usb gadget mode and a USB-CDROM drive app that "inserts" .iso files off your sdcard (eg. Win10 install disk, Grml.org live CD, servicepack disks etc)

4. rtl-sdr radio scanner, handy for eg. checking AirBnB homes for "bugs"

5. 400GB microSD cards for 60$ (e.g. on newegg)

6. the existence of specialty distributions like Kali Nethunter edition for Android phones

[1]: https://aarddict.org https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=itkach.aard2

[3]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.softwareba...

[4]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mantz_it.r...

can you elaborate on #4 sdr sniffer--what bands do you look for? sounds interesting

433Mhz, ADS-B, DAB, etc.

https://www.rtl-sdr.com/tag/android/

As with many gadgets it sits in a drawer for some time now.

Basically if your personality is such that you like to adapt your environment to suit YOU, you'll probably hate iOS and Android is the way to go.

If on the other hand don't mind adapting your workflow to someone else's conception of design which many people find ok iOS will suit you.

Technologically, there's very little difference between top of the line Android and iPhone though you do get more interesting featuretrade-offs to choose from in Android (eg. Samsung Note 9 has a great stylus, Huawei P30 has by miles the best camera in any phone, Pixel is stock OS etc) - which again kind of links to personality.

Firefox with uBlock Origin. I'll never switch to a phone that doesn't support that combo. Super smooth scrolling and various other eye-candies are nice, but I'll sacrifice all of them, without a second of hesitation, for it.

I can buy Android phones that do nothing to stop me from rooting them or unlocking the boot loader (OnePlus). I have to fight Apple for root access, and frequently I will lose.

You can do anything on an Android phone that requires root access. None of that is possible on iPhone unless it's been out for quite awhile.

"Install a ROM that respects my privacy" is right up there at the top.

I'm attempting to do that, but I've bumped up against an issue in which I have no radio access from the custom rom. Need to be picky with the hardware, and the stuff most likely to be supported is the most expensive.

Sucks. :/ I assume you've installed the vendor.img and flashed the radio-[phone model].img from the stock package for your phone model?

Possibly not. I was reading somewhere that I should actually get an older stock rom image and flash that first, but no I just flashed the rom zip and that was it.

That might be your issue then. It varies from phone to phone, but for my old one (Nexus 5X) I had to get the stock ROM from https://developers.google.com/android/images#bullhead and extract vendor.img, bootloader-bullhead-bhz31b.img, and radio-bullhead-m8994f-2.6.41.5.01.img (or whatever the matching versions are for your Android version). Then after installing the ROM archive, reboot into the bootloader and install them:

(install TWRP and custom ROM package)

> adb push vendor.img /sdcard/

(Go to 'install' in TWRP and install vendor.img)

> fastboot flash bootloader bootloader-bullhead-bhz31b.img

> fastboot flash radio radio-bullhead-m8994f-2.6.41.5.01.img

That's the quick version of how I set mine up and it works. :)

You've pretty much covered the bases. The snappiness you describe is because iPhone is more strict with it's app quality. You've also nailed the main use cases for customisability.

The big question is, are you ready and willing to root and/or custom rom your phone? If not, the advantages you described on Android are not as substantial as you may hope. Yes, you can use Netguard, but the approach is janky (out of neccessity). It will not stop ads in all apps either. For example, on the youtube app, which does not use DNS based advertisement delivery. For youtube specifically, you can get NewPipe though, but it's not all that slick.

iOS is very, very particular about what gets to run in the background. This is a major differentiating factor between iOS and Android. On Android, it's easy to write apps to run in the background, but on the flip side it's easy for someone else's app to accidentally (or intentionally) run in the background and suck up your battery and/or data and making your phone slow. On iOS, apps can only run in the background for very specific (but gradually expanding) purposes; many other features (like push notifications) that appear to be "background" functions are really handled by Apple or the iOS system itself with minimal app intervention and thus minimal system impact. This contributes to the snappiness of iOS.

This may be posted already, but I love that wherever I put my finger in a wall of text, the cursor goes there. I don’t have to press and hold, the cursor doesn’t jump to the start or end of the word, the word isn’t selected... the cursor just goes where I pressed. The middle of the word, the letter after the first, the letter before the last. Awesome. I hate typing on my iPhone or iPad and have to edit, the stupid battle trying to get the cursor to go where I want it is soooooo troublesome. But on my asus tablet, my pixel, easy peasy.

Agree. But. Pressing anywhere on the iphone keyboard to drag and aim the cursor is awesome. So I can’t really decide which of the two is better in this dimension, now that “aiming” comes instinctively.

You can scroll your thumb along the spacebar to "aim" the cursor on android. I do like the knobs of android better than the zoom-and-select that iPhone does.

I did not refer to that magnifying lens but to this: https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/a-hidden-feature-on-iphone-...

It seems that 3d-touch (hard press) can be emulated qith the spacebar.

Like others are saying here, there's more access to the underlying system than iOS. There are applications on Android to record calls and there's the ability for applications to send texts (you can send texts from your web browser with MightyText for example)

I’ve used both Android and iOS (Android: Nexus 5, OnePlus One; iPhone: iPhone 6S, most recently iPhone XS). I use Android devices for my work on occasion as well.

Try both - if you find that you like the iOS UI and experience, I’d say use an iPhone; otherwise, get an Android and customize it to your liking.

- Basic stuff works equally well on both. You can reply to notifications now on iOS (since a few versions back), you can have a global content blocker (I use 1Blocker, which works great). Sure, all browsers embed the same WebKit engine, but that’s not the same as all browsers being literally Safari. Firefox works fine and I sync most of my stuff there.

- If you’re a dev, side loading is equally easy on both platforms, but being a dev on iOS requires a Mac. (And money; IIRC apps sideloaded from free dev accounts only work for 7 days before requiring a reinstall?)

- Get an iPhone if you want something to use for a long time; iPhone 6 (2014) is still perfectly viable for most things and runs the latest iOS 12. (Custom ROMs exist for old Androids too but those can be iffy sometimes)

- For customizability, I run Pythonista on iOS, a paid (but worthwhile!) app that puts a full Python interpreter on your phone. You can install a shell environment (I use Stash) and interact with all the iOS APIs. You can sideload whatever custom code you want and run it. Heck, it even supports CoreML and NumPy, so I even used it to train and test ML models right on the phone recently.

- The hackability of Android is nice; some of my work involves replacing kernels to get at low-level hardware, and that’s absolutely impossible on iOS.

In addition to the other things mentioned, like Firefox, launchers and Shell access:

1. Real multi-user, with fully separate profiles

2. Apps on SD card

3. Side loading

4. Connect to monitors on Samsung phones

5. Use USB-C card readers

6. Run torrents, run in the background

I forgot about the running in the background thing. Arguably a strength and a weakness, depending on what's actually running.

After many years with Android and windows phone i got my first iPhone a couple of weeks ago. The biggest ( and almost only) complain is that you cannot configure a different browser to be your default. You are stuck with safari which lags an incredible amount of features. Safari is so bad that my next phone will not be an iPhone

Edit : my desktop os is Windows and now my browser on the phone and on the pc is not in sync which creates a big annoying mess

You can have chrome be in sync if you login. (Chrome on iOS is basically Safari, but you can sync all the stuff in your profile like bookmarks.)

True, but you will still end up in safari constantly. If you save a URL to the home screen, open a link from your email, it opens in safari.

Download iCloud for Windows [0], iCloud Bookmarks Chrome extension [1] and enjoy seamless synchronization. I think that it works for history as well. The only thing that I miss is Reading List synchronization, Chrome does not have it, but you can use a dedicated bookmark folder as a replacement. It should also work with a Firefox, but I did not try it myself.

[0]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204283

[1]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/icloud-bookmarks/f...

Really lock down privacy if you want:

1. Don't send location or app install data anywhere.

2. Route phone calls and SMSes through encrypted communication services automatically.

3. Develop and run applications without telling anybody.

4. Ublock Origin in the browser and adblocking across all apps (not just browsers).

Most people care about usefulness instead of privacy, and Android beats iOS there as well:

1. Install apps from the Play Store using your desktop web browser.

2. Start Android Auto on your phone when connecting to the car's Bluetooth automatically and use it directly on the phone without buying a separate headend for the car.

3. Upload photos automatically to photo services in the background.

4. Route outgoing calls automatically through Google Voice, so when people call back, you get transcripted voicemails for free.

5. Multiple user accounts, so you can set up a restricted kids account on your phone and hand it to them for entertainment in a pinch.

6. Install apps from other app stores, like Amazon's, that also run deals for free apps.

7. Game console and calculator emulators.

8. Browsers that aren't years behind in standards support, so you get installable PWAs for Twitter, WebRTC, etc.; and you don't have to put up with bugs for years until the sole renderer vendor fixes them (e.g., iFrame scrolling on iOS).

Let's see up until recently they didn't have a dark mode.

You can't switch owners of shared family purchases on an iPhone. You need to rebuy the apps under a new family owner after dissolving the previously family which is not easy or seamless.

Plex picture uploads don't work in the background on Apple so you constantly have to take the screen to keep it active.

Basically if you like having someone else make all your design decisions for you Apple is actually a great way to go. Defaults are generally sane, but if you run into something that they haven't sorted out yet, it's going to be painful and you won't be able to fix it. My wife and daughter love their iPhones. Apple generally curates their software well and there's a good chunk of great software only available on Apple. I was constantly fighting with mine to get it the way I wanted and in the end I have up and bought a Samsung Galaxy phone. I could do what I wanted almost immediately and have had no issues. I can't remember if Apple has the ability to add a swipe keyboard either. My wife is always jealous of mine.

iOS 13 shipping in a couple months (but available now in public beta) adds native swipe-to-type keyboard functionality. As a Microsoft app, the third-party Swype keyboard has been available for years. (Since iOS 7’s custom keyboards if I recall correctly...)

The new iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 really brings iOS forward into the future, with downloads available in safari, native USB file management and more. You can even save video files now. I’d predict a rather blurry line between Macs and iOS within 5-10 years...

Swype is dead. Swiftkey is the one Microsoft bought.

Ah... good point. I merged the two mentally, thanks for the reminder :)

"Native swipe-to-type keyboard functionality [...] downloads available in safari, native USB file management [...] You can even save video files now."

As someone who hasn't used iOS in years I couldn't immediately tell if you were being sincere or 'damning with faint praise,' ironically pointing out how crippled iOS has been.

I will say that like copy and paste it has taken forever for iOS to catch up in key areas, but... this is not faint praise: they’re nailing it. Every implementation done to “catch up” to Android has been very well executed and superior in many respects. If there’s a downside to the Apple delayed-until-ready approach, it’s that apps need to be redesigned every two years to keep up with the pace of change. On Android the cycle of redesign is slower, maybe 3-5 years.

It's really funny how many of the things I disliked are being fixed now. There are definitely advantages to the right person using iOS. I really enjoyed their MacBooks for a while, and the iPhone wasn't garbage, I'm just not the target audience because my use cases didn't match up with what they were providing. I'm really not sold on Safari bedding a good browser though. It was universally a bad experience every time I used it. I probably installed one of the Swype style keyboards for myself, just was something I disliked and mentioned and I'm surprised Apple hasn't built naively yet.

I really want to like Apple. I'd love to simplify my life. My wife refuses to get a MacBook because there's no touchscreen and I really can't justify the expense of an iPad with the cost for value.

iOS has had inverted mode for as long as I can remember. I think since iPhone OS 1.0

Grayscale mode came in iOS 8, Night Shift in iOS 9. iOS 10 added a red screen filter. iOS 11 added Smart Invert.

Android didn't get Dark Mode until last year. To imply Apple has been behind in this area is very misleading.

Android may not have had a system wide dark mode but I could change the launcher to one that had one literally in Jellybean or earlier.

Inverted mode is not dark mode I tried it. Even at the lowest possible brightness with nightshift on iOS was still too bright for my eyes at night. Either way my switch happened before dark mode was implemented and I admitted as such. It's also a preference so I'm not sure what exactly you're defending here.

If you're doing big uploads, I would probably just set the screen lock to "never" and stick it on a charger. I've done that before with a long-running Pythonista script and it works great.

Sorry to hear about the family purchase stuff. How does family purchasing work on Google? Is it easy to switch owners there?

Can't test family purchases on Google as my wife is still in her iPhone as is my daughter and they are both very happy with their phones as they got the type of people who like decisions made for them. Also same issue with the screen lock though it's not just the lock but having to keep the app open in the foreground, which is a boon for battery life just sucks uploading 1k pictures. It's definitely an idea to check but her security practices are already poor and I don't want to encourage further erosion.

I've been using Swiftkey (swipe keyboard) on iPhone for years. No need for your wife to be jealous.

- the big one is to have SMS on my computer (with Airdroid). On iOS, you are limited to Apple ecosystem with iMessage. Keep in mind iMessage is way better than Airdroid, but the convenience of being able to receive and send SMS from my Windows desktop trumps the ease of use of iMessage.

- direct file access is useful to transfer things in and out of my Android devices, compared to the dreaded iTunes blackbox.

- there are midrange Android that are way cheaper than iPhones and run anything I need without issue

- side-loading means I can use F-Droid instead of the OS store whenever an app exists there. It also limit planned obsolescence, since I can side-load an older version of an app when the newest version is no longer compatible with a device (I did use that capability recently for a 5+ years old Android tablet, while I'm out of luck for functionning older iPads).

- you can replace the Launcher, and generally customize the UI much more

- recently found out how to block ads at the DNS level.

There are definitely drawbacks, and if not for SMS, I might have stayed on an iPhone.

pulsesms is a good alternative to airdroid for the desktop sms experience. Still not on par with iMessage, but way better. Also, kde-connect has a better integration for remote desktop/phone control.

In the end, I only keep airdroid for sharing files and contacts.

Thanks! I'll definitely try that, since I only use Airdroid for SMS, and it has some issues (especially MMS that are not handled, and the link is often broken and don't reconnect automatically)

If your desktop/laptop runs macos, or you use an iPad, you can send and receive SMS using iMessage. You can link as many devices as you want, they just need to login to the same iMessages account.

> If your desktop/laptop runs macos, or you use an iPad, you can send and receive SMS using iMessage. You can link as many devices as you want, they just need to login to the same iMessages account.

Fradow specifically mentions the requirement of sending sms via windows desktop.

I won't go into detailed list of pros and cons but essentially it sums up to (in my opinion) - Apple is anti-consumer (anti-choice to be specific), and Google is anti-privacy. If you need certain features iOS doesn't have then it's Android. If you are fine with iOS feature set and want more privacy (but not complete privacy) - then iOS.

Consider the security aspect, as well. Apple is generally considered much more secure than Android phone.

For example, see this Ted talk that describes how this security gap is a civil rights issue. Basically, Android phones are cheaper. But, they are much easier for the police to hack into. People with more money buy Apple, and it's much harder to hack them.

https://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_soghoian_your_smartpho...

As another data point: in the last few years there have been a few high-profile news cycles about the FBI trying to hack into an iPhone of a suspected terrorist, and not being able to. They were pressuring Apple to get access, and Apple was pushing back. But the bottom line here is that the FBI couldn't get in to an iPhone.

I haven't ever seen a similar news report for Android...

There's only been one case like that, so it's not really useful to say you've never heard of one for the Android. And they eventually did hack in, and the firm that did it offers its services to anyone who can pay. During the whole incident there were quite a few police depts that said they had a lot of phones, both Android and iPhone, that they were hoping to get a ruling allowing them to force the manufacturers to make it easier to access.

Of course they managed to hack in before a ruling came down. If iPhone does become unhackable in the future, we'll get a ruling, and if it's in the government's favor it won't matter how secure your phone is.

I am not affiliated with these apps, I just use them all the time and are apps you probably won't be able to find apps like these on the app store.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.clownface....

- map the sides of your phone to actions like slide volume and brightness.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.synapse.al...

- batch your notifications to specific times of the day.

All in all I find android apps just offer more functionality for the power user.

- Share apps with other people

- Write apps for the iOS platform in Linux/Windows/etc.

- Extend storage with SD Cards

- Live download/upload speed meter on the status bar

- Use phone as a wireless hot-spot without installing a SIM card or enabling data (2G/3G/4G)

I missed these when moving from Android to an iPhone.

I too noticed and was very annoyed with the UI sluggishness of my Android phones (LG something or other and Samsung S7) but decided to give it one last chance. I picked up the Pixel 3 with stock Android and I've never looked back. It's smooth and fast and hasn't seemed to slow as time goes by which was a huge problem with my last two devices. There's such a huge difference between stock Android on decent hardware and "custom" Android (LG and Samsung both apply themes, among other things, to their Android flavors to make it unique) on any hardware, even the best.

Custom keyboards - on iPhone, long-pressing the mic button in Gboard has to run as a separate app instead of integrating directly into the keyboard. Also on iPhone "secure" screens (that use logins and passwords) never yield to 3rd party keyboards; instead they always revert back to the iPhone keyboard.

Browser plugins - as you pointed out, browsers on iPhone are not allowed to run plugins, so no ad blockers in the traditional sense - you can install a system-wide ad-block engine.

Not allowing third party keyboards for passwords is a security feature.

Run emulators (easily), as they are not allowed in the iOS app store.

That's pretty much the only thing that I am sad to miss using an iPhone. It's not enough to make me switch though.

Iphone user. Recently i tried to find an app to manage torrents on a server. Nothing for iPhone but it looked like there are options for Android.

Do you mean control another computer running bit torrent to initiate downloads, view and change status?

If so, at least with Vuze, you can do that by going to remote.vuze.com and pairing it with your computer running the vuze client.

>Do you mean control another computer running bit torrent to initiate downloads, view and change status?

Yep!

>If so, at least with Vuze, you can do that by going to remote.vuze.com and pairing it with your computer running the vuze client.

Yeah I use a webui for Deluge when I'm accessing it by desktop, it's just not optimised for phones at all. Hard/impossible to click some buttons. I might have to give something else like vuze a go and see if its ui is better. Thanks for the recommendation.

Apple appears to hate torrents and basically any torrent-related app because I guess they enable piracy. They're not wrong - that would be the #1 use of any torrent app - but I do find that restriction repressive.

That said, many torrent servers support a web-based interface which you should be able to control easily with Safari. If you need something more custom, there's plenty of good SSH clients on the App Store and most will support fancy screen/tmux/TUI interfaces so you can control your command-line torrent client.

And, well, there's always the option of slapping something together with Python, using the Pythonista app; if the protocol is popular odds are someone's written a Python package to interact with it, at which point you just have to decide how much of a GUI (or TUI) you want to put on it.

>That said, many torrent servers support a web-based interface which you should be able to control easily with Safari.

Yeah the deluge webui is what I use on the desktop. Doesn't play nicely with ios safari at all though.

>If you need something more custom, there's plenty of good SSH clients on the App Store and most will support fancy screen/tmux/TUI interfaces so you can control your command-line torrent client.

I ended up just installing an ftp client. 90% of what I wanted to do was add torrents and I can do that just by uploading to a watch folder.

Although your mention of ssh reminds me that I first tried to set up a shortcut that ssh'd the torrent over instead, which would be a preferable set up if it worked. It creates the file on my server but the file size stays at 0 bytes and the shortcut never finishes running. Any idea what I did wrong?

https://i.imgur.com/dbjZtEH.jpg

Yeah, shortcuts aren’t like UNIX pipes, so “cat >” will create the file but cat will hang forever waiting for data to come in over stdin. I’m guessing you’ll need an scp-type command rather than an ssh command since you need to copy a local file over to the remote end.

Unfortunately Shortcuts only allows for running scripts over ssh, not just general terminal commands. I might be out of luck on this one.

Have a fully functional ad-blocker. Firefox + uBlock Origin is the only thing that makes mobile browsing tolerable.

IPhones don't let you install add-ons in browsers, so you're stuck with rule-based content blocking, which has caps and can't do some of the things add-ons can do.

I'd love to switch to an iPhone, but this feature is a deal-breaker for me.

This is the one thing that could make me switch from iOS.

For Android AOSP, you can fix the bug yourself. Can you do that on iPhone iOS other than filling a Radar?

You're right. But can you imagine the patience of a power user to do that?

They'd have to identify what the bug is, get the source, make the changes, test it, build the OS for their own device, upload the fix to Gerrit for review, go through multiple rounds of code review, get it merged in.

I've probably simplified some of those steps.

You could do it, but would you? Remember, not every power user is a developer.

A very "me" reason and certainky not very common: launching a simple HTTP server and mounting a folder on my fs to be served by it. Easiest way to transfer files sans email. Great when at a random friend's house and I need to send them something larger than 25mb

As a fellow lover of the Windows Phone I went through your pain a few years ago and have lived in both the iPhone and Android ecosystems. I found it was the little things not mentioned here that made me stick with Android.

- My android displays the time and temp when docked. I never found a way to do that on iPhone.

- My android shows that I have texts/mails/etc. waiting without me having to touch it or pick it up to see.

- My android has a back button. It is always there and always in the same place.

- Widgets are nice (and mentioned elsewhere) but I love that my phonetop is not cluttered with icons, just useful info.

Usability wise apple is stuck in their own version of 10 years ago. Android is the better choice of the two. But I still weep for the loss of live tiles and the app menu.

USB Tethering. Internet is down in the office? No problem, just connect the phone and share internet access. It's a killer feature when there is something wrong with WiFi drivers on laptop/router/internet cable.

This is possible on an iPhone: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204023

iPhones work as a cellular modem and can be tethered by USB, WiFi, and Bluetooth.

It works especially seamlessly when tethering your Mac because the Mac can signal the iPhone to enabling tethering mode.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204023

I feel like Android's overall quality in the past couple of years has dramatically improved. Any modern half decent phone will be quite snappy nowadays, and the software has been polished up a lot.

Yes. In particular (for me) One UI by Samsung. Their new S10 phones are a fantastic upgrade, and the new software is a major part of that. Last versions of Touchwiz weren't too bad, but One UI lifts the experience to a new level.

I agree, One UI would definitely win for "most improved" of the skins. Even stock (Pixels) is really great now.

I use a Pixel 2 and I felt the phone extremely sluggish compared to my old iPhone 7 from day one. The Pixel 2 was supposed to be a flagship model, so it makes me reluctant to ever buy an Android phone from another manufacturer; I can only assume non-flagship phones are slower than the official Google one. Is this a correct assumption?

The most frustrating thing about Android is its excruciating scrolling performance. When scrolling webpages you can see the animation isn't synced: the bottom part of the screen struggles to keep up with the top part, and it feels like the text is made up of a bunch of dancing ants, especially if you scroll slowly. iOS's scrolling is flawless. Reading stuff a primary use case of smartphones, why hasn't Google addressed this? Fortunately, Chrome on Android has decent scrolling performance and it's the only reason I haven't thrown this phone in the trash.

I bought my son a Moto G last year because that was suppose to be a good mid range phone. It was an awful experience - far from snappy. The performance was sluggish. He happily “upgraded” to my old iPhone 6s that was 3 years older and it was a lot faster.

Of course, the iPhone 6S is faster in the same way as a 3 year old 3500$ SSD and top-of-the-line i7 equiped MBP is better than a new 600$ Acer laptop with a magnetic HDD.

What's your point though? If iPhone 6s for its 3-4x the MSRP price wouldn't be better than the low-end Moto G, it would be pretty sad.

The 6s in 2018 was still being sold for maybe $449. Not too much more expensive than the Moto G. A discontinued new 6s can still be found now for around the price of a Moto G and in real world usage is still faster.

Backup my Signal history.

Use the phone without getting stupidly angry.

Use my Samsung Level U Pro properly.

MicroSD card (though admittedly my note 9 with 512gb storage doesn't need it.)

PIP with you tube i think doesnt work on iphone.

a bunch of other things.

> Backup my Signal history.

That was only because Signal prevented (and continues to prevent) data from being backed up. This was a terrible drawback with Signal, for which it brought out a (better?) solution after several years on Android. It hasn't done that on iOS yet. Since Signal has not addressed this for years, one can only presume that Signal is not geared toward people who change devices.

Termux and Emacs on the go has made me never want to go back to iOS. Orgmode capture templates for everything synced by git is my favourite note taking solution.

There are a few things listed in this thread. For me, my favorite Android tweak (once rooted) is to modify ro.sf.lcd_density to pop the phone into tablet mode (for most apps.)

Jailbroken IOS 9.3.3 had Little Brother, and there is a way to do it by modifying system files -- but if you mess up, you're totally screwed. With ro.sf.lcd_density, its as easy as taking the number and breaking it down by 5% increments until you find a sweet spot.

I have a Transmission gui on my phone, set to be the default opener for magnet links. It's easier to download torrents on my phone than my laptop.

Copy files from any pc and use on my android is awesome

Especially video and audio

Using apps for free. I use the app "1 second everyday" quite extensively. My friend tried it out on iPhone and lo and behold, a lot of the free features I take for granted on Android are paid features on iOS. What a strange result of the different perception of willingness to spend on the two platforms. (Or perhaps it's the result of having a more open app platform?)

You're not concerned that they're making up the revenue in a different way?

Where i live most people use android and it's hard to transfer files via Bluetooth. I wish ios support universal Bluetooth protocol.

I can build it how I like it. For my daughter's play phone, I can remove all the things she doesn't need at this point: Bluetooth, GPS, dialer, federal alerts, etc. I sideload apps and tighly control what she can access (she's a toddler). For my phone, I can make similar changes and extract as much Google as possible. You cannot do this with Apple.

I believe some of this is available on iOS:

https://www.imore.com/amber-alerts-your-iphone-what-they-are...

https://www.imore.com/how-to-use-parental-controls-iphone-ip...

I enjoy the money I saved by not buying an iPhone.

tasker would be the biggest thing for me (along with plugins like autoinput and autotools) but that had been mentioned a few times so ill go with some less obvious things.

syncthing (or resilio sync either) let's you sync any folder on your phone to other computers. either a two way sync or as a backup with things like photos going from your phone to your computer only. when I come home from talking photos for mapillary/openstreetmap the photos start syncing straight away and it's really fast since it's only syncing over the network and not going to the cloud.

I have another folder that syncs across osmAnd's app folder so all my gps traces are accessible from my laptop

I had an iphone for a few months but sold it because I found it to be too restrictive and wouldnt let you have this kind of a setup

swipepad. let's you swipe in from the side of the screen to launch apps. this means you don't have to go back the the home screen every time you want to open something which is really inefficient way of doing things. you can also launch shortcuts (another android only thing as far as I know) that go straight to a certain part if an app instead of the main screen. like going straight to writing an email or sms, or start sound hound listen straight away. start an audio recording without opening the app. call a certain contact. run a tasker task. there lots of other similar launchers like swiftly switch that can be used at the same time.

I also didn't see nfc being mentioned anywhere. has iPhone added nfc yet? i have lots of them all over the house that I use to toggle lights, start timers or add things to my shopping list or start music playing. (most of these are programed with tasker as well so they can do a few things at a time instead of just one action)

you also don't need to install itunes just to do some basic things. huge plus :)

Primarily the custom launchers. But to be honest, the novelty of that is quickly waning with all these "Hey, how'd you like Home Depot?" notifications that I can't turn off without crippling the android experience. NOYB, that's how I liked it. I'm probably going to be in the market for an iPhone next time around.

What app gives you those notifications? What do you have to disable to stop them?

(I haven't seen them so I assume I already have whatever turned off, though I'm not sure what experience I'm missing out on!)

Stock google maps. It appears from the comment above they can be disabled. My problem with it is that google maps is not open, I did not ask google maps to send me to home depot. It just detects that I'm there and asks for a review.

If you slide the Google Maps notification to the right, a settings gear will pop up. From there you can disable some or all Google Maps (or any other app) notifications by category, so you still get the ones you want.

Install apps that are not available in the store, block ads system-wide, use custom keyboard and launcher, view files of wide selection of formats (e.g. my audio files collection is in OPUS and I don't know how do I load the files to an iPhone and listen to them) and manage them the same way I do on my laptop.

Having a hardware keyboard. I just can't get away with it so I'm still using my 3 year old BlackBerry Priv.

Blackberry KEY2 is quite good, with timely security updates from both BB and Google.

Until that keyboard breaks. Quite a few reported issues for both the KEYone and 2 where the space bar and fingerprint reader just stops working, thanks to TCL build quality. And they are terrible with upgrades, KEYone only got Oreo, and certain versions didn't even get that upgrade at all, in particular the CDMA version, both locked and unlocked.

I've heavily typed on a Key1 and Key1 Black Edition since their respective launches and haven't had any hardware problems. Both phones have been very durable and CPU performance hasn't seemed to degrade over time.

I have a Gemini from Planet Computers - it's an Android 'phone in a clamshell PDA format with a keyboard like the old Psion 5.

https://store.planetcom.co.uk/products/gemini-pda-1

I use a DAP for all of my music and purchase most of it via bandcamp. I can barely buy music on iOS but I can (and still do) all of my library management, music purchasing and file management on a One Plus 3T using a usb c to micro sd dongle.

File management is so tricky and app centric on iOS so I dont think this will ever work.

I'm late to the party, but I think I have one that hasn't been mentioned. I don't think it's possible on IOS but I like having the ability to edoy my hosts file. I download a popular block list and port it over to my phone, plop it into to the /etc/ folder.

The suite of business applications I work on communicate and augment each other behind the scenes depending on which the customer is paying for using intents and content providers. It allows us to also develop bespoke apps that integrate with them. This is a power we wish we had on iOS.

VOIP/SIP integration in the dialler is the big one for me.

There are VOIP apps for iOS but they generally do not work nearly as well as the integrated VOIP system in the dialler. iOS’ obsession with control and killing background apps makes it almost impossible to write a decent VOIP app.

I was in a bus and one website I needed to access was blocked on the bus Wi-Fi (maybe a technical issue).

I opened a SOCKS tunnel to a server, ran the desktop version of Firefox on my phone (that I had installed in a Debian chroot) and set it to use this SOCKS tunnel.

I have a question for the Android people, as this feature alone would make me switch from iOS to Android:

Can you set up Android so that you can press and hold volume up to skip to the next song, press and hold volume down to go to the previous one?

Develop apps for it in a nice environment on a good PC, without fear of the app not being good enough for the overlords.

I already have an expensive overspeced PC taking up a lot of room, there's not room for two even if I could get a comparable Mac at a descent price. I eventually did buy a MacBook to develop on, but since my work area was already laid out, I'd either have to reorganize everything, or put it in a crappy spot. And since even my main PC is quite expensive, it was either buy something that's just enough to get it done, or shell out more than I'd could afford, and for less value for the buck.

If I were getting paid to develop, that'd be another story, but I only develop phone apps for fun. So to develop iPhone apps, I'm stuck in a cramped position, on a relatively crappy computer that I paid out the nose for.

Google Voice native integration with the system dialer. When I click a phone number on a webpage or in a text, I can dial it from my Google Voice number. It doesn't seem as seamless on iOS.

Store things i dont use often on a cheap MicroSD card? iPhones are sold with locked in storage, and the "model up" to add more storage isnt really priced correctly.

You can detect wifi network strengths and channels with Android.

I have a TI-89 emulator running in my android and it's pretty awesome. I think there are a few other emulators like N64 and other game consoles.

I have a bookmarking website.

I share an interesting site to the app, tag it appropriately and press submit.

I love it

Otherwhise, a decent browser, Google apps and flexibility ( widgets, Tasker, ... )

i can headphone jack (for now anyways...)

Use an app connected to a computer to send sms messages. That’s the only thing I want back after switching.

iOS has significant restrictions in the realm of Bitcoin wallets compared to Android.

I didn't know that. I've been using Bread/BRD wallet on my iPhone for a few years. What are the restrictions?

Change the display size and also decrease font size far smaller than iPhone allows.

Use Syncthing. Really wish this was on iPhone as I don't use android.

* Home screen widgets!

* Hacky apps like N64 emulators.

* More raw access to files.

* MicroSD card.

* More native Google experience.

there seem to be more open source apps on android, where an app can be put into the play store for free, vs the apple store which costs $100/year

>Price

>Less 'idiot-focused' UX

>Better company running it

>Better apps/less locked down 'app store'

>More freedom/choice in phone companies and customisation

>About the same locked-down OS

There's really no other choice

price, yes.

UX, no. Android, well material design is just a horror to use. especially if you have any visual impairment.

Company, its a matter of taste.

App store is a double edged sword. There is more malware on google apps store, but more freedom.

More competition is normally good.

I'm in two minds on this. I loved the nokia n900, it was full linux, but with decent support and GUI. That obviously fied a death, mostly due to android.

I amd frustrated that I have to learn swift if I want to write stuff for IOS. I really can't be arsed. On the flip side, iOS being locked down so much means that apps are less able to steal my stuff.

I think its much more nuanced than that, really.

>Better company running it

Nope, I disagree. Google is certainly not a better company than Apple when it comes to data collection, making it confusing (and sometimes impossible) to prevent data collection, and profiling user behavior to target them for ads.

Nonsense. It is impossible to prevent Apple from knowing every app you install on your phone, and you can't even develop for your own phone without deanonymizing yourself with payment info. Any app that requests location also causes that location to be sent to Apple, and there is no way to turn that off. On even Google-flavored Androids, you get to choose what information gets sent to Google, and sending location info to Google for every location request is opt in instead of impossible to disable (as on iOS) or merely opt out.

To make the point really obvious, even Google-flavored Android devices are perfectly usable without a Google account (install apps, etc.). iOS is unusable without an Apple ID.

Develop without having to buy a Mac.

RTLSDR through the usb-c port is pretty cool, easier to manage music on an sd card, real FM radio (as far as I can tell from a quick google search, not available on iPhones), and much of the stuff others have mentioned

Over the years, I've found myself using my Android phone more and more like a normal user than like a power user. Price is probably the main reason I wouldn't switch to an iPhone.

I used to have Tasker to do lots of fun automation things, but getting root for some things was problematic and Tasker was a battery hog.

I used to put custom ROMs and Kernels, but somehow stock versions of the system were always more stable.

I didn't really need a terminal on my phone cause I'd have to squint a lot to type stuff.

I don't really connect my phone to a computer anymore. I have cloud storage that syncs my Desktop and Documents. It's more convenient to just upload a file to my Desktop folder and have it magically show up on my computer.

I don't explicitly download music or backup photos like I used to. Google Photos and Spotify have me covered there.

I don't keep widgets on the launcher. I keep only one home page and I like it to be minimal. I also find it better to access the feature filled app than a dumbed down widget.

I used to keep live wallpapers but they're pretty big battery drains. My wallpaper is just black cause my phone has an OLED screen.

Blocking ads across the OS is pretty good and I really do miss it, but I've often found that the more battery efficient option is to get the premium versions of these apps which are ad free. As for ads while browsing, I don't really have a good answer. Live with it?

Also, if you get an Android, I would recommend not getting one that's not heavily customized - Samsung, LG and the likes. A stock version of Android will allow you to customize with greater degree - especially when it comes to obtaining root.

IMO, I would consider Android not for any of its power features, but for normal features that should be allowed in iOS but aren't.

Examples of those are: * Setting default apps * Some decent home screen customization (hiding apps is useful) * Installing apps from other sources

Android is customizable. I've seen it myself. But with that degree of customization, I found myself tweaking incessantly and never being happy with the end result. There's always more to do and it often didn't look as polished as I would have liked.

Personally speaking, I'm sort of done fighting Apple and Google over customization and privacy concerns. I just want to get things done. If it's slightly inconvenient or the convenience comes at the cost of some data sharing, then so be it. I've read through some of the comments and I see some people that (in my opinion) are very aggressively defending their right to customization or privacy. Having tried a lot of customization on Android and owning a Mac, I don't get that anymore. By the end of the day I just end up using WhatsApp, Chrome and a few other choice apps. Those are available on any OS.

Tasker

Torrent

I've thought about this, and unfortunately with mobile data caps the way they are, a phone isn't a great torrent client (well, unless you have effectively an unlimited-speed unlimited-bandwidth connection, which no US carrier offers). Connected to WiFi, the situation's better, but you're probably going to get better speeds from a computer, and if you're going to do serious amounts of torrenting a VPS torrentbox (controllable via any SSH app or web UI) is probably just a superior option anyway.

Not have to use iTunes

daydream

I can write software for it on a Linux machine

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