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Comment by NoPicklez | Hacker News Reader

The iPhone has been such a good constant, high quality and reliable mobile phone throughout its years. I used to work in mobile sales during my graduate years and I attempted to jump from Apple to Microsoft (Lumia), Google Nexus 5X, Samsung S5 and the edge. I found more often than not customers who had problems with their devices were Android devices. Android problems were related to software errors and slowness, whereas Apple problems were related to more user error (backing up photos etc).

Appreciating these are older phones compared to those newer models of today but I quickly went straight back to the iPhone (3, 5, 6 plus, 7, X, 11). I now don't buy them every year, usually now only once the wheels have fallen off.

Looking back I don't even obsess over new mobile phones as they're hardly that much better year on year across any brand.

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I think it's important to keep the subjectivity of your industry in mind. If you worked iPhone support at Apple wouldn't you say more often than not people had iPhone issues? You may have seen a lot of issues specific to Android because it commands more of the market globally. Or more of the market in your neighborhood. Etc. Android being open source implies that issues are available to the public. Conversely Apple has an NDA protected internal kbase. Which operating procedure LOOKS like fewer problems? Clearly the latter. Which one actually has fewer problems is a more complex question.

He said he worked mobile sales, so I read that as he sold all models of phones to a wide variety of customers.

I think a lot of people would nod along with the idea that Android phones eventually have more issues. Certainly, between myself (iPhone user) and my wife (Android) it's her that has to change her phone every 2-3 years with escalating issues toward the end, and me that keeps using the same one for 5-6 with no issue.

Actually I'd say the same thing used to apply to Mac vs PC, especially laptops -- the Mac would be the one that keeps ticking basically forever while Windows laptops would encounter some kind of issue. But right now I'm on a 5 year old Windows laptop that works just fine (minus a few minor maintenance issues over the years), and I think that's not terribly uncommon. So it's not like Apple has some unattainable super-power, it's just the current situation in phone land.

Huh. Opposite story for my wife and I. I've been on Pixel/Nexus for many years, no issues. Her iPhones were always dying or restarting unexpectedly until she switched to Pixel. Of course, neither of these stories mean anything in the way of what's better or more reliable. And that was my point. He sold a lot of phones. Did he eliminate bias through some kind of psychological training to ensure he sold a proportion of manufacturers phones in equitable rates and then did he compare those rates to returns? Probably not, right? Subjectivity is more difficult to eliminate than most people think.

Important to point out that my comment wasn't about which device was most popularly sold, but it was around those that needed support. Which wasn't just after sale service but any customer of the telco who needed help.

You make a valid point regarding the validity of both of our experiences, but it's just that, one person's experience and shouldn't be taken as gospel. I think most people understand that.

You've got part of my point. Over time, Apple is gaining market share. Meaning; previously Android had the greater share. That means that the number of old devices are disproportionately Android. Your experience is a product of the shear number of devices. So beyond the obvious point that one person's experience isn't gospel, the frame of reference isn't sound for forming any opinion on those grounds.

Whilst I largely agree, the fact that there might be more older Android devices in circulation, doesn't mean that proportionately Androids didn't have more problems either.

It just makes it less likely.

Now you've got my point. Without controls in place, we can't say it's one way or the other.

To your first point that's exactly what I did

> If you worked iPhone support at Apple wouldn't you say more often than not people had iPhone issues? You may have seen a lot of issues specific to Android because it commands more of the market globally.

That's a fair question. In my experience, I choose to type on a mac because it sucks less than the alternative (used to be alternatives but really there's only two choices any more). On the server side linux for the same reason, but it's still, and presumably never, suitable for a lay audience without significant support.

But on the phone side I think apple has moved in recent years to "better" over "less bad". Not incredibly so, but to a significant degree. I tried using a bunch of android (Andy Rubin kept giving me phones to try) and the best of them were adequate -- I would have been satisfied using them had I not had an iphone to go back to.

Frankly though Apple has failed to meet the level of fit-for-function of the Palm Pilot. I don't at all mean it would be worth using these days! But at its time it really had a well honed and tuned experience, a testament to Jeff Hawkins' obsession with convenience and usability. Even before they had working hardware he would carry a piece of wood around and walk through the use cases, insisting that nothing should take more than three button presses to accomplish. The iphone is far from there, and getting farther away all the time.

I worked at a national telecommunications company in sales & service in a store.

It was a manufacturer agnostic telco where the overwhelming majority of phones in store weren't Apple, as naturally the store also had Sony, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Huawei etc. At the time Apple only really had two flagship phones.

Of course you can't take what I say as gospel for many of the reasons you mentioned, but it's my experience.

China is banning use of iPhone and the loss is $ 200 million to Apple.

That's absolutely not what's happening. The Chinese government directed officials not to use an iPhone for work.

So seemingly they can still use them as a personal device but they can't use it for work or bring it into the office.

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