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Comment by matt-attack | Hacker News Reader

My assumption (as an iPhone user) is that if you're on Android, you absolutely have a phone that can do the same thing, but it also tells me you're not someone who obsesses about the details. Good enough. If you truly obsess about details, you would recognize that the Apple hardware/software ecosystem is worth every incremental penny.

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Oh yeah, what details are those? That for the longest time, Apple thought too little of their users to allow them to store files on their phone? Or the fact that the iPhone massively over-processes photos, to the point where you can instantly tell that a photo is taken with an iPhone (and not in a good way)? Or the fact that they still use lightning connectors, which they have held a cramped grip on until they are forced to switch to new technology? Or the fact that the App Store, XCode, ObjectiveC and related docs are widely regarded to have the worst DX in the industry? Or maybe that you don't own your phone enough that you can sideload apps? Or the detail that you pay 10000% markup if you choose to buy a phone with extra storage?

> Apple thought too little of their users to allow them to store files on their phone?

So where do you think these files that are used are stored?

I was actually wrong on this. iPhone still does not have proper files. I can't add files on my iPhone and have multiple apps read them.

You definitely can. You can attach any standard USB drive to an iPhone/iPad and it shows up in the Files app as a storage source along with every other data storage provider you have installed (Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, Google drive, iCloud, the local device, etc.)

Every app that reads and writes files shows your standard file picker that lets you load and save files that can then be shared across applications. This has been the case for years.

I daily an Android phone and use Macs exclusively for personal and productivity use, with some Linux machines for personal play as well.

If you start to really 'obsess about the details' -- and this'll mean different things to different people -- you'll start to run into the walls that Apple puts up. It's a very one-sided "my way or the highway" dynamic. It's easier to work around on their laptops, but impossible (or at least unreasonably impractical) on their phones. For context I gave iOS a shake twice, once with the XR and once with the 13 mini.

I've always felt that iOS is the platform you go with for:

- unparalleled high-quality integration with the Apple ecosystem

- a very strongly (and unavoidably) opinionated experience (where the opinions are usually more-or-less correct)

That's a bad assumption. I obsess about the details and I don't like iOS. My wife obsesses about details but doesn't give a damn about tech or phones. As a person, my assumption is that if you judge people by the phone they use you might not be very nice.

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