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I worry about the legacy we're leaving gen Z, and all of the people just coming online in developed countries, for whom mobile is their native computing environment. We can put our phones away and retreat to our "real computers" to scratch our tinkering itch, but that's not accessible or appealing to everyone. When I was a kid, just clicking all the things opened up new vistas of topics to explore, like clicking "view source" in Netscape Navigator leading to getting a book to learn about HTML. There's no "view source" option in Chrome or Safari for mobile.

> [W]hen I'm using my phone, I don't want to tinker with it, I want it to just work, and my iPhone does exactly that. Someone has made a bunch of intelligent design decisions about the way things work— much better than with android phones—

So you consider an iPhone works so much better and its design is so much better than Android phones that you allow Apple to choose what you can install? I hope you never end in a situation like in Hong Kong where freedom matters more than design.

> So you consider an iPhone works so much better and its design is so much better than Android phones that you allow Apple to choose what you can install?

Yeah. Lots of people do. Giving up control means a lot, I get it. However I give up control with loads of devices, appliances and services every day. In exchange I expect my iPhone, my gmail account and my Samsung TV to make my life easier. They (hopefully) can’t read my mind, so my choices will always lie on a spectrum between: Taking all control, but having to do all the work myself vs. giving up control (and risk being betrayed) but not having to do the work.

> I hope you never end in a situation like in Hong Kong where freedom matters more than design.

Absolutely, but I wouldn’t trust most alternatives out there either. I honestly don’t know what I’d do in that case.

If you think the fact that your phone runs Android is going to save you if and when the government crackdown comes, I have some bad news for you.

you realize android has custom ROMs, right? IOS doesn't.

Actually, it's a trade off. How much freedom vs how much control. A prime example is government regulators, they are there to 'protect ' consumers vs pure freedom of capital ventures. Pure unadulterated freedom never exists because one persons freedom can trample on another persons, e.g the freedom to be racist

All my Android phones 'have just worked'.

Mine haven't. Samsung's flagship Galaxy Note 3 got so laggy I couldn't even pick up a phone call before it went to voice mail, as one of many examples. My stack of iPhones have had their occasional problems, too. But waving our phone penises at each other isn't the point of the article, eh?

+1 for having no issues with android phones thus far. I've switched back and forth between android and ios/apple phones and while my apple phones would start great it would take them a year or so before they were almost useless. Plus my headhpones just work in my android phones.

Admittedly, the headphone jack thing on iPhones is f'ing BS. I hate it. Just give me the damned headphone jack, Apple.

I have Airpods and a set of Sony bluetooth noise-cancelling cans and I do not miss a corded headphone whatsoever, I don’t get what the big deal is here

Try taking a packed subway where everyone else is also wearing Bluetooth headphones.

Alright then. I have a little lightning adapter that goes to a headphone jack.

"just works" is different than works in ideal conditions or special proprietary adaptors.

https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Lightning-Headphone-Jack-Adapte...

You're right, $8.79 is a RIDICULOUS price to expect apple users to pay for the former ability to use wired headphones!

Except when you want to upgrade to the latest Android OS. Then, unless you have a phone made by Google, you have to deal with the sluggishness of Samsung or your cell provider... if you ever get an OS update at all!!

Unlike literally 100% of iPhone owners, who can upgrade the second a new OS is available (if they’ve had a phone made in the last 5 years or so)

This is especially ridiculous considering the adverse security environment we currently inhabit.

All of mine just didn't. I had to install alternate mail clients, alternate messaging clients, alternate web browsers, etc. etc. etc. The defaults looked terrible and were absolutely non-intuitive. With Apple I get a consistent, well designed interface consistently across any of their devices I purchase. Replace the phone? Don't have to think about it. Just sign in.

Same thing applies to me and my google branded phones (first nexus, now pixel). Just sign in after changing the phone and works like a charm.

There is no tinkering with android phones, not sure if you have ever used one.

Can you elaborate on that? Many Android phones can have their bootloader unlocked, allow installing alternate operating systems, have alternate app stores, and allow sideloading of applications.

100% of that is optional and entirely unused by most people, excepting maybe a single side-loaded app if they actually care about certain things.

This is of course scoped to here in the US, where most of the time Android phones have their OS entirely locked down apart from sideloading apps, ie no running different ROMs, upgrading out of what you're allowed by the network, rooting, running super user apps, etc

Can being the keyword. None of that is even close to required. You have the option to tinker, you aren't required to.

what planet are you living on? you can install custom launchers,dialers,sms, third-party app stores, & pretty much whatever else even without root or flashing a ROM. Not to mention the ability to sideload apps. The sky is the limit with root. There's widgets too, something completely foreign to isheep. There is plenty of tinkering available on android.

I meant in the sense of setting it up initially.

You're an obedient citizen that sees no need to go outside the box. China would have no problem with you.

Personal attacks will get you banned on HN. We've warned you about this multiple times before. Please don't do it again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Ok. I shouldn't have made it personal. I won't do it again.

The fact that you think you can intuit that based solely on a brief description of how I interact with my phone indicates that a) phones probably play a much more significant role in your life than mine, and b) your ability to extrapolate people's behavior based on limited information isn't quite as impressive as you think it is.

The whole point is that phones are playing "a much more significant role" in the protesters lives than yours. You live in a place where you don't have to worry about that, but what does that have to do with the article??