Comment by djfdat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by djfdat | Hacker News Reader

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Switched from Android to iOS 2 years ago. I'll try to keep this limited to where iOS features is specifically ahead of Android.

Password API works with third-party password managers. Not perfect, but LastPass works pretty well this way. Security Code autofill is also great for 2FA SMS things.

Device performance/reliability, mostly related to launching the camera, although this probably applies all-round. There's nothing worse than trying to take pictures for a group and your camera app just... won't work.

Feature polish (although limited). There are a lot of features that I wish existed, and features that I wish I had more control over, but the overall polish on a feature's functionality and feel is great.

Airdrop. Supposedly Android has a good competitor coming?

Share Wi-Fi password with contacts.

Sign in with Apple + Auto-hide your email.

:( Shortcuts. This is great, except writing them sucks for anyone even slightly code-proficient. Next to impossible to set up on phones. But again, polished but limited vs Android.

Facetime. I really wish Duo was better integrated into Android and marketed.

I'm sure I'm missing some, and I'm purposely not listing the things I miss from Android. There are other Apple-specific reasons that I've decided to stick with iOS for the time being that are also good to consider.

- Autofill API works great on Android, I've been using 1Password for a while

- Camera is usually device-specific, but my Pixel/OnePlus devices have usually been very good at this

- Google released the "Nearby Share" feature a couple weeks ago

- Wi-Fi sharing can be done with standard QR codes, but I don't know if this OS-specific

- Tasker is different from Shortcuts, but a viable option. Very powerful, but more complex too

- I agree with the Duo point. It's a great service, but not well known. Google being Google I guess.

(To be clear, not disagreeing with you, just adding to the conversation)

> Google released the "Nearby Share" feature a couple weeks ago

...and insisted to bring it to the top of the share menu without a way to disable it.

I don't even think it was malicious intent, like growth hacking or something. It's just a sloppy implementation.

... like Googles camera and photos apps that stopped respecting the accessibility setting not to use haptic feedback and enabled it for some rare and random ui elements, like tilting an image or changing camera modes.

Or how Android 11 new (and random?) background animations during notification bar pull down does not honor disabled animations, another accessibility feature.

... or the new button right next to the screenshot button in the app switcher that just does not appear to do anything? It just makes the app switcher unresponsive until you press the "x"-button. They probably just forgot to add a feature there.

What device are you using? I'm using a OnePlus on Android 11 and it's just one item in the share sheet, nothing special about it. This is likely device-specific

Good point. I didn't think of device differences.

It's a pixel 3a. There it got a full, dedicated column above all regular share sheet items.

I have to scroll past it many times a day, which feels like some form of absurd punishment.

- I always had trouble with the Autofill API and LastPass. I wonder if it was a LastPass specific issue, but I'm not too willing to change password managers at the moment.

- Nearby Share looks great! Looks like its only Android -> Android or Android -> Chromebook right now. Hopefully we get Windows/MacOS/iOS support.

- What is the workflow for sharing a Wi-Fi password as a QR code? I looked in to this a while ago, and Android doesn't even let you access saved Wi-Fi passwords without root, and the stock camera app didn't have a QR reader built in.

- Tasker was pretty powerful, but the polish and user experience was lacking. Haven't kept up with Tasker's development, but I hope they take some inspiration from Shortcuts/Workflows and streamline their interface for general cases. There was a lot of additional features that were separated out into separate apps, which also made it more difficult to manage.

Thanks!

My OnePlus let's me see QR code and passwords for Wi-Fo networks without root.

- Duo is integrated into default dialer on non-Skinned and Samsung OneUI phones so I'm not sure what better integration could be possible. It's on par with FaceTime already.

- Nearby Sharing has already started rollout across even older Android devices as a feature equivalent to Airdrop.

For Duo, Samsung UI was probably the culprit, which is unfortunate.

Not advocating for either specifically, but some counter points:

- Android password api integrates with 3rd parties. Android SMS app does security code copy thought not native autofill (apps implement it themselves)

- AirDrop equivalent is nearby sharing: https://www.xda-developers.com/google-nearby-share-file-shar...

> apps implement it themselves

By asking access to all of your text messages last time I checked.

Definitely want improvements on most of those myself but some of them are already here.

Third party password manager autofill has been around for a few years now (Android 8), and their Airdrop clone was released last month: https://blog.google/products/android/nearby-share/

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