US iPhone market share up, in declining market, as people switch from Android
9to5mac.com
9to5mac.com
Android development, in my experience, has been a complete shitshow. I remember getting started by following tutorials on the official docs that would fail to build with cryptic gradle errors. Like, the very first intro project.
There are numerous languages and frameworks that are options to use, and it’s not clear which are the best or most future proofed. If you’re getting started, what are you supposed to use? The base sdk, which can’t even work properly on the happy path? Jetbrains compose? React Native? I personally opted for flutter, which at the time was positioned to be the flagship framework for developing UIs on their upcoming OS, Fuchsia. RIP.
And last but not least, I would like to extend a single digit to Google for the hoops they make you jump through to ship a mobile app. I had the pleasure of having one of my apps rejected with only a vague explanation that I couldn’t make sense of.
I politely asked them to explain more about the issue and how I could bring the app into compliance, and I just got the original vague response copied and pasted with a random meaningless sentence highlighted. I tried one more time, same deal, and I gave up.
I since gave up on android development and switched to iPhone for my personal device.
Xcode is the worst ide I've ever used, laggier than an electron app, weight 12gb and the appstore doesn't understand how to resume downloads when it fails, it has a terrible config file which plays badly with git. The iOS app upload itself is so broken in it that apple themselves released a thirdparty tool to bypass it.
And don't get me started on appstoreconnect (the web portal) which looks like it hasn't been updated since 2012, the funniest bug might be the race conditions when you reorder images.
I'm sure Google could figure out how to make it play along nicer (they already implemented reactions, so don’t give me bullshit telling me they can’t improve it more) or - better yet, create a more solid alternative.
That's not really Apple's job. They made a superior piece of software and reasonably want to use it to encourage people to their platform.
You might not like it - but it is allowed.
If you'd like the features Apple offers, you're welcome to move to their platform. :P
No different than if you'd legally like to watch Star Wars at home, you'll need Disney+.
Disney isn't somehow required to also offer it on Netflix. :P It's called a feature of the platform. If you'd like that feature, use that platform.
Your cousin doesn't have D+? Well, I guess y'all aren't chatting about the new episode of 'Andor' that dropped that week.
They don't have an iPhone? Guess y'all have to deal with green bubbles.
That's part of how platforms - necessarily - differentiate themselves from one another to encourage users to them, just like console exclusives.
When I was a kid, if you liked Sonic, you had a SEGA. If you liked Mario, you had a Nintendo.
Nobody in the world in the 90’s was expecting a Sonic game on a Nintendo console or vice versa.
I don’t know what changed that people are suddenly freaking out about this, lol.
It shouldn’t have to be explained in a group as highly intelligent as this one that this is simply basic anti-competitive practice.
If iMessage was everywhere it would be a monopoly and y’all would be clamouring for some alternative anyway. :P
There’s literally just no pleasing some of you, lol.
Yes, this is how ridiculous the Apple ecosystem sounds from the outside.
Group chats also work fine if we’re all using Messenger - group chats work just fine if we are all using Signal - it’s almost as if software works as expected if it’s being used as expected.
Mind blowing, I know.
There is no other major chat platform that offers interoperability with services the platform owner does not own.
(Messenger and Instagram just got some sort of interoperability, but since they are both Meta properties, it only helps prove my point.)
What’s beyond ridiculous is to expect a SEGA Genesis cartridge to just run, unmodified on an SNES, which is what you’re demanding, here.
Yeah, a group game of Super Mario Kart 64 works awesomely on an actual N64 with a real cartridge and four controllers - but hey, why doesn’t it work the same on my PS1?
Well, fuck Nintendo for not opening up their game to other platforms! They have awful business practices!
…
…now that’s ridiculous shit, and what you’re almost literally saying; word for word, just with different hardware and software.
(The PS1 doesn’t even have 4 controller ports out of the box, even if it could run N64 software unmodified. The PS1 also had its own exclusives and benefits, such as Final Fantasy 7. Both platforms had their advantages and disadvantages. The N64 was far more powerful, but was hampered by cartridges, whereas the PS1 used CD media and could store much more, but push far less polygons.)
Why on Earth would it be Nintendo’s responsibility to make sure Kart 64 plays great on a PS1?
Isn’t half the point of a first party software release (either Kart 64 or iMessage) to provide a reason for users/players to choose that platform instead of whichever alternative?
Should GarageBand/Logic or iMovie/Final Cut suddenly be ported to Windows or Linux as well?
At what point does the ridiculous demand for interoperability stop? What do you want, only one monopolistic set of hardware and software for everything?
Personally I'm very happy for my Telco to just be a dumb pipe that supplies internet bits. Especially because that means I can get at my bits anywhere, not just on blessed networks. They're not however, they want lucrative "value add" features. Features that will have all sorts of strings attached.
But anyway, luckily RCS is dead. I'm not sure how they thought marketing "RCS" against WhatsApp could possibly work. Sure SMS was also a complex acronym but it only took off because there was nothing else. Acronyms are eschewed now by the mainstream. And even as a tech person I'm really happy not having to say "double you double you double you" anymore.
iMessage is ok, but it’s hardly the pinnacle of messaging software.
1) Who is being abused? The platform? Can you elaborate?
2) Can you give an example of the corporate brainwashing you’re referring to?
3) What are you glad about specifically?
There are several companies that already solved it, the world moved on, but only certain groups are harping on Apple and Google, nothing else. Why? Just use something else, Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram, they all work beautifully and are significantly popular.
There is a duopoloy in phone offerings and people in the USA just do it this way. If Google wants their market share - and to push back against Apple's offerings and prized position socially marked via bubble color - then it's on them. No other app is going to overcome the social issue here.
I'm saying that there's no reason why messaging should be put into hand of platform owners. The world is bigger, and if a third party makes a good entry, why ignore it and insist, that only Google and Apple are allowed?
Nope, Apple intentionally blocks anything like this to encourage people to buy iPhones. Basically what is happening is intentional.
Whenever I ask someone the point of using Android, I always get back an answer of "oh, it's because it prioritizes user choice, I can sideload APKs, it's cheap" or something along those lines. But I'm old, I just want a device that mostly works and nothing more than that, and Android (historically) hasn't been it. Worth noting that my iPhone 8 plus still receives updates, a support cycle that long is something unheard of in Android circles.
Why is Apple or Google the only messaging option for you? Those are not the only services on the market. I feel like you're missing the forest from the trees here.
Europeans, latin Americans and other large demographics, don't have the bubbles struggle because people don't default to iMessage but cross platform messaging platform to not discriminate anyone. Crazy, I know.
The social issue exists in the USA and that is what they're complaining about. It does not matter what the rest of the world does when this thread is based on that - in a thread about US iPhone market share, no less. Cross-platform-apps would've been the solution for this already if they had any shot of doing so.
I have friends from Africa and India, and they use whats-app when communicating with people in their home country because it costs money to send regular SMS.
SMS is just so outdated.
The only problem with the apps is that people use different ones. But I use matrix with bridges to unifi them all into one. Very much like beeper.com .
I can't really start a campaign to get people to switch to Signal, I don't have that much social capital to burn with my friends/family. And I personally would never use WhatsApp, and while I understand the history of its ubiquity, I can't bring myself to pull myself back into Mark Zuckerberg's ecosystem.
I bet they are still getting updates Chrome, Gmail, Maps, and all the other core functionality from Google, though. Notably, the most security sensitive element is the system web browser. This also gets updated even when the base OS does not.
Android and iOS are different worlds. For most users, the update lifecycle differences are not large.
This is 100% self inflected damage and they should have stuck with the original open/source based gchat. They went propriety and played themselves.
Also, most Googlers in the US use iPhone for personal and corp.
Is this why (as I understand it) Google has historically launched new apps/features on iOS first? I know firsthand that this is true for Google Voice (including before, during, and after the lengthy detour to Hangouts).
I don’t think it’s intentional, it’s just harder to provide a consistent bug-free experience on Android, even for Google’s own flagship device.
My work issued phone is an iPhone 11, which was released in 2019. It is running the latest version of iOS and it is still buttery smooth and a joy to use. The equivalent Android phones released in 2019 would be a Samsung Galaxy S10 (last update was to Android 12) or a Pixel 4 (last update was Android 13).
What is a crucial difference between Android and iOS: older Android releases do have updates for all apps, including those, that in iOS are bound to the system release, like the browser. So even old Android are getting current Chrome (or Firefox, if that's your choice), mail client, calendar, etc. With Android, new system release for existing device is just a number, as none of the critical apps are bound to it.
Everyone tells me that there are these mysterious kernel bugs that are super dangerous, but, tbh, I have yet to see evidence of that. The more important app layer still sees many updates, including a lot of key system components.
If people want to compete with Apple on iMessage, they need to offer a product that isn’t obviously inferior. The longer they wait, the harder it will be to displace iMessage in the iOS environment.
iPhones also last for several years making them ideal to pass down to teenagers and children, so it’s no surprise that 87% of teens in the US have an iPhone.
Apple has been playing the long game.
I recently purchased an Android (Galaxy S20) for testing a cross platform app I've been working on and was shocked at how much worse it's gotten over the years.
If you have a choice, and you do - (just buy a used iPhone a couple generations back, I got an iPhone 8 recently for $100 CDN) - I can't fathom why you'd choose Android, especially with Google's telemetry.
The iOS OS itself is incomparably easier and more pleasant to use (even my 120hz Galaxy S20 device has animations that are choppy as all hell) - and that's not even getting to the borderline unbelievable difference in hardware quality.
I paid $250 CDN used for this S20, and $100 for the iPhone 8 I recently snagged. The 6-year-old iPhone 8 runs incomparably better than the 3-year-old S20.
Because Google lets you remove their telemetry, and Apple doesn't?
I'll reconsider Android phone only when manufacturers start providing as many years of software support as Apple does. Planned, premature obscolence is unethical and sucks.
If I bought an iPhone I'd have to buy Apple storage to do all of that, and I don't want to. My Google One account has Youtube Music and Youtube premium along with the storage. I never see Youtube ads which alone is worth every penny.
Other than that I really don't miss one thing from my old iPhone. Smartphones are so good these days all iOS competes on is sugar on top.
Sounds[0] familiar[1]...
That being said, I can use open-source projects like Syncthing or Owncloud to handle my syncing, and skip the whole mutual trust part. Though I'm sure the NSA does a wonderful job auditing Apple's private codebase, for whatever sense of security that offers.
(I know Apple is inching down that path too, but so far they have simultaneously maintained their privacy focus.)
- Android is just cheaper and runs on more hardware
- Android is freely licensed and offers secure transparency that iOS does not
- Android doesn't claim authority over being able to install apps
- It has actual desktop-grade APIs like Vulkan and Linux syscalls
Apple is expensive if you’re constantly upgrading to the latest and greatest, but at the mid range longevity is more important than initial price alone. People replace their phone enough the important bit is how much your paying per month not the actual device cost.
“Whether it's the smaller battery, the demands of the Tensor chip or some other factor, the Pixel 6a fell flat on our battery test, in which phones surf the web continuously until they run of power. The Pixel 6a lasted an average of 6 hours and 29 minutes, which is more than 3 hours behind the Pixel 5a's result on that same test. Even worse, the Pixel 6a trailed the iPhone SE (2022), and we consider the 9 hour, 5 minute time that Apple's phone produced to be below average for a smartphone.” https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/google-pixel-6a
That’s the trend, a new model Android phone has near iPhone prices for a device that’s comparable but will have a shorter lifespan/ worse resale price. Buy an older model and you save money today, but need to replace the phone even more frequently.
Further, in each case I did so after three to four years of use. The one exception is an iPhone 8 I a) bought used from Sprint/T-Mobile, and b) traded in after 18 months to the same carrier for an incredible deal toward a new iPhone 13; otherwise I would still be happily using it.[1]
There is no way that any used Android phone, even the most expensive flagship model, would ever be worth anywhere as much. And that's not including their lack of software updates. Meanwhile, the iPhone 5S I sold in 2017 after four years of use believing that it would soon lose software updates a) did not lose active support until 2019, and b) still is getting security fixes (the most recent four months ago)!
[1] More happily than the iPhone 13, really. I hate Hate HATE Face ID.
On the other hand, almost nobody I know outside the tech sphere gives a crap about security updates. OnePlus is a very popular brand with an atrocious update policy, but it delivers much better value than something like an iPhone. Xiaomi is also getting very competitive in this market, often ignoring or rescinding their software update promises but handing you an excellent phone for super cheap. The cheaper iPhone models also offer this, but often with weirdly outdated designs and comparatively inferior screens.
Basically, a device that’s got a 30% price premium for equal hardware, but lasts 50% longer saves me money.
PS: I would suggest a battery replacement at year 3 or 4, that dramatically reduces the issues with older phones and can push you well past that 50% mark.
- Browsers with add-on support, to make browsing the internet bearable
- DNS-level adblocking, to make app usage bearable
- Sideloading apps, to access software which Apple nor Google would condone
All of these are dealbreakers for me.
OS upgrades are less of a concern on Android, where apps tend to support very old versions of the OS (5.0 is not at all uncommon to be supported, which was released 9 years ago), as opposed to iOS, where it's common that only the latest two OS versions are supported. This fact alone makes it so that an Android device might even be useful for longer than an iOS-device, which is entirely locked out of basically all of the app store after 6-7 years, with no way to salvage the device any more.
I use both platforms, and they have strengths and weaknesses, but for the average user Android is going to provide a massively worse web privacy experience.
it's possible with AdGuard Pro and similar apps on iOS, although it's obviously not possible to run these apps with root privileges, like AfWall and others.
On iOS content blocking can be done on a very low level by ad blockers posing as local on-device vpns. This doesn’t require root and is super easy to set up. (e.g. https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdguardForiOS)
Very few reasons to stick with Android *for someone who isn't technical or succumbs to pubescent peer pressure
But that said the Android constantly-changing API's, device compatibility/fragmentation is a bit of a nightmare.
Snark aside, Apple is really nice and if you're used to it, great, I don't have a strong opinion anymore. But I bought the 14 Pro then went back to my S21 despite the apple being much better hardware. The gesture nav and experience was just annoying to me.
My wife and I don't give two sticks about that. Most her friends use FB Messenger, mine Whatsapp or plain ol SMS.
Once that's out of the way, the 'which is better' becomes less clear. I don't like how locked down IPhones are, and feel Samsung has better cameras. What would an IPhone buy me, at that point?
2. WhatsApp is intentionally kept as a separate brand. Half of its users wouldn't even know that it's owned by FB.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140412064444/http://blog.whats...
But if Apple goes their own way with search (they’ve started taking baby steps), decides to take Microsoft’s money for default placement (more likely now that Bing isn’t dogshit), or is forbidden by the DOJ to take payouts (highly likely), Google is in a world of hurt.
I'm holding my Android phone upgrade (5.5" screen - it's been 7 years), waiting for the market to offer me a reasonably-sized screen that I can hold in my palm (single palm, not both).
* AirTags, but for android. Even called "find my device". Not "locate my device" or even anything different!
* Live Photo wallpaper, but for android.
* Emoji wallpaper, but for android.
* RCS features to bring it closer to parity with iMessage, for android.
in other android news this week, WhatsApp turns the microphone on all night to listen to you snore or whatever: https://9to5google.com/2023/05/09/whatsapp-android-microphon...
Clearly what the iPhone needs is a real competitor. Google's got a lot of great stuff going on, maybe they should pass the phone baton to another company.
"Clearly what the Android phone needs is a real competitor. Apple's got a lot of great stuff going on, maybe they should pass the phone baton to another company."
I can't say I know what an emoji wallpaper is. From what I can find, it's just another type of live wallpaper? I guess the new Android version may integrate better with the system UI colour theming?
RCS is an absolute failure. It's better than SMS but so is Signal, and with Signal your ISP can't read your messages. With the EU forcing companies like Apple to interoperate, Google should really be looking towards initiatives such as MIMI rather than try to force this stupid phone carrier-based protocol down everyone's throats.
The new Pixel phone seems to be doing things well. It's well-reviewed, despite its comparatively mid-range processor, and the new Android theme seems to fit the device well. These new Pixel devices all seem pretty good, to be honest. If Google can manage to keep supporting these devices (sounds impossible, I know!) I think they have a find product range on their hands.
I don't know what the Whatsapp bug has to do with Google, though? I suspect that's just WhatsApp's calling functionality not giving up a microphone lock after the app is dismissed into the background.
RCS has end-to-end encryption.
I don't think E2EE is even part of the standard, I think it's just a hack Google built on top of RCS for their own app.
And RCS is something that would get copied by Apple, if Apple wasn't against it for business reasons.