You're upset about them requiring hardware attestation in SafetyNet (I am too) so you move to a platform that is way less flexible and way more closed?
Not a troll, I'm really curious.
Not a troll, I'm really curious.
I love most things about iOS design more than Android, and I've used both, but have stuck with Android over the last 7-8ish years. Mainly because of the amount that I could customize things, freely make little app projects, install custom ROMs, etc. Over the last few years, it's gotten inconvenient to tinker, and I just don't find myself bothering with it anymore. I've run into issues where certain apps stop working because of root.
But also both OS's have gotten much better and need fewer (if any) tweaks anyways to be used effectively. Especially with the upcoming change to allow iOS to use a different default browser (finally).
If the main reason I've been drawn to Android is vanishing more every year, I'd rather use the more elegant OS (Apple), regardless of how closed it is. I have a Pixel 2 that's getting near EOL (only 2 years after buying it), and I'll be getting an iPhone SE as soon as I can justify spending the money.
I guess something that helps too is I've been on a de-googling kick these last few months where I've been switching off all their services because of privacy, another benefit of iOS to me
I get to use Firefox, it comes with nice tracker blocking out of the box, it keeps my history in sync with my other devices and I find the UI to be a little nicer (personal taste).
Of course I'd like the Firefox that's available on Android, with extensions capabilities and web push support. But having the ability to open links from Mail in iOS Firefox would still be nice and I can't wait for it.
Neither situation is perfect, but the browser's rendering engine is surpassed by other priorities when choosing a phone.
I do look forward to the day I can use something like Pine as a daily phone though
Syncing bookmarks, UI, tab handling etc tend to be bigger pain points for individuals, as opposed to the more dev-focused aspects such as supporting a certain API in Javascript.
- Extensions support, so uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, the best ad-blocking combination that far surpasses Safari's content blockers, which are pretty shitty; and extensions are useful for more than ad-blocking — e.g. I have another one on my tablet that turns all web pages to dark mode, whether they support it or not
- Web push notifications
- (Up until very recently) webp format support
On Android I wouldn't even install many apps, like Facebook, or Twitter, or Fastmail, I'd simply use them as PWAs (web apps), in Firefox with ads blocking on, because I could.
I still use Firefox on iOS for the history / bookmarks syncing, but it's a shadow of actual Firefox.
Except that for many/most people it's equally important to have a market choice which drives product improvements by competition. Not being able to choose a fully opensource browser engine (not even Firefox!) on iOS is a severe blow to opensource as a whole and browser engine competition in general. It's way worse than it ever was in times of IE6 - you never needed Microsoft's private signing keys to switch to Firefox or Chrome.
You seem to state it as a fact but I believe it is your opinion .
- OS Frameworks are not designed for the next year's IO, rebooting last years best practices, rather have long term roadmaps.
- The build system has stayed mostly the same, instead of having had multiple reboots
- C and C++ are integrated with the rest of tooling instead of feeling like an burden that has to be supported to keep game devs happy
- Everything that matters on iOS development is available in XCode, instead of being a mix of Studio templates, stuff dropped in Github that we are supposed to build ourselves and apparently official APIs (e.g. Oboe, Vulkan)
- Back to frameworks, while iOS offers high level frameworks for common workflows, Android offers Lego blocks that everyone fits in different ways with lengthy discussions on what is good Android code, MVP and whatever is the fad of the month on /r/androiddev
- When Apple does game development sessions, they actually talk about game development tech and do provide related tooling, Google talks about Play Store console and advertising for gamers. Notice that main GDC 2020 theme for the Google talks was to try to show that they are listing and trying to change, pity it came 10 years later.
- Most APIs in iOS seem to have had some though placed into them, in Android you have stuff like Animations that have had multiple instantiations, or others that have deprecated stuff even before reaching a proper release.
- When Google decided to drop Eclipse they had nothing to offer for NDK devs, almost two years later JetBrains decided to create CLion and then they had a solution. Otherwise most likely there still wouldn't exist an alternative to this day.
Did you leave a word out here?
I assume you were going to write default keyboard?
I went to Windows Mobile for a while, it had more apps than a non-Google Android phone as it was, but obviously that's dead now as Microsoft has left the consumer space and literally told everyone to go buy Android phones.
Until antitrust happens, iPhone is really all that's left. I've got a PinePhone too, and I'm pretty excited about it, but it'll probably be a while until it reaches Windows Mobile-level of app availability. I've been pleasantly surprised by Apple's pro-privacy moves since I bought it, and if they're opening up changing default apps this year too, really the most problematic limitation is going to be gone.
This is an interesting experience in what a fully functional phone not from Google/Apple can be like. It may not be able to run the usual apps though, unless you install the playstore manually.
As a citizen you have rights guaranteed by the law in your own country. That's the very definition of citizenship. As a citizen you have leverage over your government, even if small, because you can organize yourself with others, e.g. in class action lawsuits, you can vote, you can convince others to vote, etc. Foreign governments and companies couldn't give a shit about your rights, the only rights you have are those defined weakly by trade agreements.
Not only that but data can be traded or leaked. A foreign company thousands of miles away, collecting data about you, could always leak that data to your local organized crime organizations.
N.B. I know that big companies like Xiaomi also have a presence in the US. With a big enough presence, the US government could coerce them just as easily, so if you fear the US government, it's a double whammy.
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So this is a non sequitur. Even if you fear the US government, as a US citizen, you should either pick US solutions, or solutions from countries that have a culture and laws for preserving privacy, such as Switzerland or Germany.
Frankly as a US citizen picking products and services from a country with disregard for basic human rights, because you don't trust the US, is just stupid.
True except for some people like protesters or whistleblowers who do not enjoy "rights guaranteed by the law", or at least not reliably.
> Even if you fear the US government, as a US citizen, you should either pick US solutions, or solutions from countries that have a culture and laws for preserving privacy, such as Switzerland or Germany.
Are you aware of any smartphones from those countries without involvement of Apple or Google?
The only difference here is that in Android you can actually separate the two.
>Although most microG components are far from complete, users are amazed by the results.
What users are amazed by what results? And if you read this carefully, it clearly states its missing swaths of the APIs, so its not 1 to 1 compatible and is very likely out of date in at least one reimplementation, per this [0]:
>This is alpha-grade software and not yet ready for production use. Do not use if you don't know what you're doing.
I don't think this would hold up to being what I'd use as a daily driver. I just want my phone to work not fiddle with troubleshooting weird edge cases for apps I want to use.
I applaud the project, but its hardly a simple as saying 'you can replace it' and that's the last you'll have to think about it.
[0] https://github.com/microg/android_packages_apps_GmsCore/wiki
I also have to say that to me, even if apps that require SafetyNet don't work anymore after unlocking, it certainly doesn't make the phone certainly useless. But I don't want to live with the inconvenience of not being able to use some random apps.
Is its source code available (including for any TrustZone component), maybe as part of AOSP?
I am OK with the concept and I can value it also as a protection against advanced malware, but only if it is totally transparent (to me!) what data it collects and relies upon.
I'm actually fine with that.
I didn't realize it was such an issue. I'll make a note to investigate how difficult it is to migrate away.