Hacker News Reader

Comment by QuikAccount | Hacker News Reader

I've been heavily considering getting an iPhone because of how terrible the Android experience but my problem with Apple is that you are either fully in their ecosystem of you aren't a worthy enough customer in their mind. I have no desire to use iCloud or Apple mail or have an AppleID. I just want a small phone that gets updates, has maps, and has a decent music app.

View on HN

I've been using an iPhone without any apple services for the last year and a half and it's been a pretty pleasant experience. Gmail, Google Maps, Spotify all work fine and there's nothing prodding you to switch back to apple services. It's much improved compared to ~5 years ago when I last tried iOS.

You need an apple ID for the app store, but that seems pretty reasonable.

I'm sorry, but I fail to understand your argument here.

Either you are Edward Snowden or Elliot, there is no written rule to use every single Apple services in order to use iPhone.

I've been using iPhone for almost a decade and the only feature I only ever use is Find My Iphone for obvious reason.

> I just want a small phone that gets updates, has maps, and has a decent music app.

And what stops you for doing that in iPhone?

Can you install apps without an AppleID? Can you pay for things in apps without using Apple's payment system?

I’m a happy Apple hardware customer for all of my devices, and while you will want to have a (free) Apple ID/account for the App Store if nothing else, you don’t really need to use any of their real services. I have iCloud mostly turned off, I use Apple Pay and Apple Music because I like them, but that’s all. Most of their paid services are garbage and I use alternatives.

I use an iPhone with no Apple services. My computers are all Linux, except for my wife’s Mac. No complaints or problems.

Is it easy to buy a degoogled android phone? Aiui you need a google account to use the play store.

Any of several alternative OSs have small-to-no ties to Google, though Google is a heavyweight in the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). E.g. my phone runs GrapheneOS, and it is doing that while I am not logged in to a Google account, running any Google-branded software, or seeing any pings to the panoply of xxx.google.com sites. Check out CalyxOS or DivestOS as well.

Okay, but did you buy it like that or did you put in work to de-Google your phone? You mention GrapheneOS. Is your phone manufacturer Google? Do you run Google Play Services?

Bought a stock p5a, stuck on Graphene through the web installer, added apps from F-droid and Aurora. No Google stuff. A hell of a lot of apps run without even installing the Google services framework, and Aurora sure helps: anything requiring GSF is noted in the app descriptions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com