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Comment by naoqj | Hacker News Reader

I've always used Android, thinking that it would improve with age. But eventually I had to face the fact that Android is always going to suck. On top of that every year it gets more and more locked down. Why not buy an iphone instead? At least it works well.

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What sucks about Android?

Performance, battery life, dependence on Google, inconsistent UIs from different manufacturers, bloatware from networks, networks control updates, most phones don't even get much in the way of updates.

Even the Pixel software just feels like a knock-off of iOS. Same UI paradigms, gestures, etc but everything feels cheaper.

They are both copying each other.

I don't think that was his point. Companies take features from competitors all the time.

But even with that "feature sharing", Android's flagship phone still feels like more of a knockoff compared to any iPhone.

Having owned every Pixel and the Nexus predecessors, they have about a 3 year lifespan, software is slow and freezes start after a few updates, the battery isn't great to start but shits out after year 2, then oled burn-ins.

But I got $5 for my Nexus 6P bootloop class action settlement, so there's that I guess...

When your reviews are nothing by lies why should I believe anything else you said?

But when Apple copies your feature, your feature gets better. When you copy Apple's feature, it feels like a cheap knockoff.

Google's swipe typing is better than Apple's clone of it.

What are you doing on your phone where performance matters, or what Android phone are you comparing to a relatively new iPhone?

I have a 2 year old mid-level Android and have had 0 performance issues or crashes (aside from Android Auto).

Browsing the web, using normal apps. Things are just snappier on iOS in my experience. It is not a big deal. But it is one area that android could be improved.

Android phones seem to know when you're in an urgent situation.

Need a quick photo? Is maps giving you a direction? Oh let me freeze up! Let me hide the soft keyboard until you restart! Let me get into a bootloop!

Just using Google maps was super slow on my flagship galaxy phone compared to an iPhone SE.

Or rather, stuttering was the bigger problem in those cases. I’m sure the geek scores were similiar in raw performance

This is always interesting. I don't even buy phones anymore if they don't support Lineageos. It fixes all those issues. It still surprises me when I see stock Samsung devices and how utterly rubbish they are. And they are sold as premium flagship devices. The amount of bloat and garbage is incredible.

waves fist at sky

Oh sure. All that was typed by a lineageos user. But such a small minority is likely to use that in the grand scheme. Hence why I thought it relevant to evaluate the "stock firmware".

> dependence on Google

This is silly considering you can de-Google an Android phone. You can't de-Apple an Apple phone.

But apple is not an advertisement company (and I don't have iPhone for information)

Few people go to the trouble of installing new images on any device they own. Android is quite the exception, not the rule.

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