Comment by n8cpdx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by n8cpdx | Hacker News Reader

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Android is definitely the superior choice as long as you have no expectation of privacy and never need to dial 911 in an emergency. [1]

More serious problems blocking a transition to Android: instead of developing Health Connect in 2015 or before when Apple made HealthKit, Android waited until the mid-2020s, and many apps do not support it. And the implementation is busted if you use multiple devices. Meanwhile on iOS, I have a perfect database of all my health information going back years, and all the apps interpolate nicely - my nutrition tracking app can see my exercise and blood glucose, my glucose tracking app can show exercise on the timeline, my training readiness app can read my sleep data and HRV/RHR from the watch.

And as far as I know Android still doesn’t have Focus Modes, which I rely on to customize my phone and watch. It works really well, integrates with apps, and is easily automatable.

[1]: edit - I thought this was old news, from years ago, but it turns out Android not being able to make emergency calls is an evergreen story. At one point it was Teams’ fault [2] - can you imagine that? Teams being so bad it can block your phone from calling 911? But really it’s android’s fault such a thing is possible. https://www.androidpolice.com/google-pixels-most-dangerous-b... [2]: https://medium.com/@mmrahman123/how-a-bug-in-android-and-mic...

Android is strictly superior to iOS in terms of privacy. On iOS, you can't even get your location without sending it to Apple or install an app without telling Apple which one. Unlike iOS, you can even replace your default maps app with a fully offline app. User choice is the key to ensuring privacy.

Google Fit was released in 2014 and implemented data migration to Health Connect when that launched. Similarly, Samsung Health synchronizes data with Health Connect.

The long-fixed bug tickled by Teams was in functionality iOS still doesn't provide. If I use Google Voice, Skype, Signal, or some other telephony service, Android lets me route all outgoing calls through that service automatically.

Google Health Connect is still not mature. Believe me, if it was, I’d have likely at least attempted to switch back to Android by now. [1]

Apple Maps can be uninstalled, and many people rely on Google Maps. There are plenty of alternatives. I like how convenient the iOS APIs make it to choose alternatives. The Transit app can read the address information from my calendar (a caldav calendar self-hosted on Synology) which makes it really easy to navigate to appointments.

Re:privacy: https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/03/meta_pauses_android_t...

[1]: https://www.androidauthority.com/android-health-connect-usel...

Re: privacy. That same system for violating privacy works on iOS. Just run a local web server, and there you go.

The big difference is in what Apple won't let you do, like get your GPS location without telling Apple or install an app without telling Apple. It looks like Apple finally allowed changing the default navigation app this year, but only in Europe: https://www.androidpolice.com/make-google-maps-app-default-i.... If you want to change the default voice assistant, you still can't do that.

I wonder why meta chose not do the whole localhost thing on iOS. I guess their engineers aren’t creative enough.

The defaults aren’t really relevant because they don’t come up. You can disable Siri and use the action button to use any other app as an assistant.

iOS apps can not create a network connection without explicit consent from the user.

And given all the privacy breaches Meta's engineers did manage to succesfully execute on iOS until now, given the sandbox restrictions, they are in fact pretty creative if you ask me.

Don't believe for a second you are safe from these fuckers on either Android or iOS.

> I wonder why meta chose not do the whole localhost thing on iOS

Presumably, they have a simpler way to tie the same ids together on iOS.

> The defaults aren’t really relevant because they don’t come up

If you ask your phone to navigate for you, you cannot use another app with better privacy. You have to use whatever Apple forces on you. The same with hotword-triggered assistants.

But yes, these are minor compared to the fact that you cannot get your GPS location at all in any app without telling Apple or the fact that you cannot install an app at all without telling Apple. These are egregious privacy violations done simply because Apple can.

Re: Google Maps - I really like Organic Maps as a open source privacy friendly Google Maps replacement. They use geographical data from OpenStreetMaps so "pretty good" is a understatement.

They have developed a Android app (available through different and aforementioned distribution channels, ofcourse), but they have one for iOS too!

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/organic-maps-offline-map/id156...

Droid - Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.organicmap...

Droid - Obtainium: https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/wiki/Installing-O...

Droid - F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/app.organicmaps/

I am switching back to Android after nearly 10 years and:

- no native CalDAV support

- third party open-source DavX offers that, although it's hacky and the push support is even more experimental

- but, most importnatly, your Google account's calendar (which you need for Play Store) is still a default and any 3rd party app adding an event to your calendar will adds it to the Google one. You don't get to change the default calendar, you don't get to disable it!

- you ned to give Gemini full access to your Google Calendar (again) to get it to save your appointments or reminders. You can't use it with non-Google calendar.

None of these were an issue on iPhone, I was able to use my NextCloud instance to host all my events privately and securely, including with Siri.

I am actually super frustrated and find it odd that this is even legal in EU, because it definitely looks like protectionism.

> - but, most importnatly, your Google account's calendar (which you need for Play Store) is still a default and any 3rd party app adding an event to your calendar will adds it to the Google one. You don't get to change the default calendar, you don't get to disable it!

That seems like a bug in Google's Calendar app. Can't you simply install a third party calendar app like Fossify Calendar and set it as the default for handling calendar intents?

Are calendar intents handled by the designated calendar app? This particular app adds event directly to calendar, no modal dialog is shown. I assumed therefore this is done on the OS level?

I'll try your approach, though, and report back.

I don't even see an option to to set a default calendar in Settings, it's just not on the list. I can change the digital assistant or a browser, but not Calendar. You sure it's a thing?

As long as an app registers itself as a handler for ics files and calendar intents, you'll see the app picker when you get one of those. There is no notion of calendars in the OS. Apps just register with the OS what kinds of intents and URIs they can handle.

I don't think that's entirely correct? Calendars are part of the OS: https://developer.android.com/identity/providers/calendar-pr...

They get stored in a system table and you add accounts this way as well, right? This is also how DavX provides CalDAV support: it downloads the calendar and syncs it with the system tables.

In any case, at no point was I presented with an option to choose a default Calendar app or nowhere do I see a way to change that.

You would only get presented with an option when an Intent has multiple possible handlers. If you install a new app that handles the insert event intent, then you'll get prompted the next time that intent is started. I just verified this by opening an ics file after installing a new calendar app.

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