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Comment by YetAnotherNick | Hacker News Reader

Almost all of the things that ios brings with update could be done with an android app update. I have been using ios since ios 9 and my usage is exactly the same since both in ipad and iphone: swipe or search for the app you want and use it.

I would be more concerned about security updates though. What percentage of ios and android have all security updates released say t-7 days before applied?

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This is probably a big part of why people don’t generally opt out of iOS upgrades: they’re basically just annual app upgrades packaged together (notwithstanding some pretty conspicuous Safari updates in recent point releases), anything OS level is mostly iteration on a mostly stable core and has been for almost a decade.

I do think they could and should be more aggressive with security updates. Both by releasing/messaging those separately from other kinds of point releases (improving but not great), and by notifying sooner/more frequently. It definitely irks me when I find out about a critical security patch over a week after it was available, and that the security content is a secondary link with no immediate conveyance of its urgency. And they should also make it a lot more obvious how to go find out if an update is even available in the first place.

Even today(?)’s rapid response, I had to read about it on some site and then remember the incantation to go look to see if the update was available. Of course it was, so I tapped download and install. After waiting a while, I switched to another thing. When I came back, it was downloaded and ready and waiting for another affirmative to do the thing I already requested. I should not need to do any of this when I have automatic updates on.

> I do think they could and should be more aggressive with security updates. Both by releasing/messaging those separately from other kinds of point releases (improving but not great), and by notifying sooner/more frequently.

Normies usually have their updates set to automatic, so they get the updates a soon as they're out.

I count over 9 security updates for iOS 16 [1] as of July 10th, with the rest of the year to go. I feel like as soon as any type of update is released by Apple, I'm inundated with the news from many websites, RSS feeds and the PGP-signed email from Apple with the news [2] [3].

[1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222

[2]: security-announce@lists.apple.com

[3]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201214

> Normies usually have their updates set to automatic, so they get the updates a soon as they're out.

I have my iPhone and iPad both set to automatic updates, as are some others in the family. I have noticed several times when my iPad will get an update and then a couple weeks later I'll be on another family member's iPad and notice it still hasn't done the update yet.

You can use a Mac to cache system updates for a local or home network [1]. That way, your devices will pull from the cache instead.

[1]: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/set-up-content-cach...

Have automatic updates on, and very frequently my iPhone will skip updating despite having left the phone plugged in and connected to the Internet overnight. I check it in the morning and it will say “failed to install update”. Then I’ll have to fight it for the next 5 minutes to get it to actually begin the download.

I think the promise of new emoji is often a compelling reason for people to update.

A few features I’ve found particularly impactful in recent updates, which do feel like they require a deeper change than just an app are:

- translate button on selected text (and the translation works sufficiently well)

- OCR + selection of text in images, automatic OCR and indexing of text in photos

- oftentimes if you select something in some units, you can select the text and see a conversion to other units (though it is a bit fussy about what it accepts, e.g. it doesn’t like 5’, 5’1, 5’2”, 5lb 3oz, but it is ok with 5lb, $1, 1$, or USD 1)

- Emoji are an app update away. Assuming your app is using the appcompat library in Android (it is almost certainly) you'll get all of the emoji the next time you auto update your dependencies. The latest version of this library works from Android 4.4 to Android 14.

- The translate button has been in Android for ages but it's using the standard context menu API. Not many apps use it and very few users care, but it's there. Very useful for sending a bit of text over KDE connect!

- OCR + text selection was brought to my phone by a Google Pixel Launcher update. I didn't even notice it until I accidentally selected text from the task switcher.

- I have no idea why OCR is not in Photos yet, I guess the Lens button is good enough for Google, which has worked for years now.

- I guess I don't have unit conversion built into my phone? I could probably install an app that does it from the context menu but I can't say I care. That's what Google Assistant is built into Android for.

None of these features require an operating system update on Android. They're often released around/after a new major Android release, but that's just Google's release schedule. Apple could probably apply these updates through the app store as well if they bothered, but they prefer collecting updates for a year and releasing the as new features all at once.

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