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Comment by pngwen | Hacker News Reader

This change has served me well! I have been a Mac OS X users for years who used an android phone. As soon as google announced their impending walled garden status, I went out and bought into the ios eco system. I have really been enjoying my iphone, ipad, and apple watch.

You see, the only value that Android really offered me was the ability to run my own code on my own device. Since they are taking that away that just makes it a crappier shadow of the vastly superior apple experience. And, as it turns out, ios is less restrictive than it was 18 years ago when I left them for Android!

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Even after Google puts this crap in place, you can still uplodad your own apps to your own Android devices, using ADB. Doing the same for iOS, using Xcode, costs you USD 100 or more (depending on country) per year.

I'm in no way defending Google here, just pointing out you're going from bad to worse and think it's a good thing.

This is not true, running your code on your phone with Xcode has always been free.

With a free account, it needs to be reinstalled every 7 days because the signature expires. It's hardly convenient for personal use.

Most apps can be a PWA nowadays. A Hetzner VPS costs roughly the same as the Apple dev membership. Saying this as a native iOS dev since iOS 4. For your average pretty json printer you don’t need to go native.

Offline PWA sites are very limited on iOS. If you force close Safari, look at your phone funny, or don’t visit the site regularly, the cache is cleared and you are stuck at a loading screen until you have internet again.

That’s what forced me to finally bite the bullet and pay Apple yearly so I could develop an app for my friends and I to use. Would have much rather kept it as a PWA.

Yeah they can’t make it too easy to bypass the App Store :( I don’t think that’s a super strong argument though. Native apps have downsides as well.

even worse - if you need to build some app with entitlements or some features likes push notifications etc then you need non-free account

I would like to mention that although I’m aware of the limitations, I think it is worth designing and advocating for web app standards that could even at some point become a viable competitor to native apps, especially for apps that really don’t need to be native/wrapped apps in the first place since most are CRUDs anyways.

Maybe this will be a catalyst towards further evolution of the web app as Android devs want to carve out some freedom from the world domination corporate shadow government walled gardens.

You're not wrong, but it will always be the case that the web platform lags native. There will always be stuff you can't do without a native client. The proportion of apps that it's viable to run as a PWA will probably increase over time, but the platforms have both the ability and incentive to stay out ahead.

>free

You forgot to factor in the cost of a Mac.

You don't need a computer to develop Android apps?

All you need is a phone: https://github.com/atamshkai/Android-Studio-On-Android-Phone

I remember running kali linux once on my phone with (termux+vnc) and a vnc viewer app watching some random youtube videos a few years back

So I feel like, Something like this was/is possible but its immensely hard for something like this being used especially when a desktop os on a phone is so bad ergonomically speaking unless you have a keyboard mouse connected

A better option iirc is to use something like kivy[0] directly with termux, not sure if java might have direct options too or not.

[0]: https://github.com/kivy/python-for-android

You can use _any_ computer to make Android apps. For iOS you strictly need a Mac.

You aren't even limited to android apps. You can install termux and write and compile your own code to run from there or to copy and run anywhere else.

Even free-er with Expo and React Native. Course then you have to touch JavaScript ;)

What an insane song and dance to run software.

This is not true either. At some point you had to pay. But it’s been a long time since they made it free (with caveats).

While not equivalent to a true iOS app, PWA is a decent option that allows you to circumvent the app store restrictions. If you are trying to build apps primarily for yourself, it's a decent option.

Doesn’t that require you to host it and have it available on the open web, though? Is there a host that allows you to, for free, not only HTML/CSS/JS but also access to arbitrary tools and bespoke scripts on the backend?

Yeah it stands for Progressive Web App - but there are lots of hosting solutions with generous free tiers.

As a lark, I built a set of personal productivity apps that are delivered as standalone local webpages. Works surprisingly well on Android, haven't tested on iOS.

For free? No, but if you built a native app that needed a backend, you'd still need to host the backend somewhere too. I host my own web apps from a cheap mini pc at home and access them over tailscale for personal use.

I host a bunch of my own PWAs on Cloudflare using Pages and Workers. It's been free so far.

I host my app on GitHub pages for free. But yes, it's just static which is really all you need with how powerful wasm and JavaScript are.

That's true for most things where you don't need users to share or collaborate on updated data. But if you need so much as a highscore board for your casual javascript game, you need some kind of backend. The parent's assumption that it should be totally free to run arbitrary server code somewhere is mildly ridiculous.

I'm pretty sure that if you build your PWA in a way it works offline through caching (which is easy if it's just a static website), you could host/serve it temporarily and just install it once.

Have PWAs stopped working on Android, or something?

Actually I have been tinkering with PWA as a way to remake some of my toy apps. Though a lot of the automations I made for Android can be replicated through Apple’s Shortcuts app.

The biggest loss for me was Termux. I had lots of scripts and such that I ran, plus just having a Linux environment in my pocket was nice. Luckily I found ish which gives me alpine Linux on top of a virtual x86 machine as provided by a JITC layer. I can host PWA apps out of that environment for local use. Of course I can also ssh to my unix like machines from there too.

I am starting to tinker with swift a bit more too. As with google, I could buy a dev key to deploy my own apps only this way I have all the window dressing and end to end encryption on cloud storage.

I love PWAs. I just hope they never get too popular, or Google will kill them.

Isn't keeping ADB enabled (most people who do this don't enable it and then promptly disable it) a huge security problem? ADB enabled means an adversary can completely own your device and "back it up" by simply plugging it in.

This is much worse than nagging about "untrusted sources".

No, there's a trust-on-first-use procedure where you have to accept the computer's key on your phone.

Apple has the same thing, but for some reason added Developer Mode which you must enter on the iPhone first. It’s quite involved, with a restart and 3 confirmation dialogs. That had me wondering why they are suddenly so cautious around this.

Not only is it TOFU but that comment is doubly wrong because you can't really back up much other than the bulk storage directory without adb root (which requires a custom build, which obviates the issue to begin with).

>ADB enabled means an adversary can completely own your device and "back it up" by simply plugging it in.

each adb host has to be individually white-listed by an unlocked device. also the current behavior is that it auto forgets any white listed host that hasn't connected within 7 days.

No it's not. Your computer creates a unique ID and you have to accept that on the unlocked phone the first time (or every time if you choose to).

So even when adb is on an attacker can't just plug into your phone and use it. Besides, I just switch it off when I don't use it

Sorry, even as a developer, "but, you can use ADB" is a big big copout.

What's the next step when ADB requires some hoops to enable? Will we say that but the eMMC has an unencrypted EXT4 partition, we can just desolder and write into it?

As a dev, i'd say having to use adb is a minor inconvenience.

Still unacceptable, a better option would be to use something like lineage or some other aosp distro without the google services (hoping that nothing makes you dependent on them).

This still doesn't address the vast majority of people though (and that's what I'm concerned about the most).

What we need now is:

- short term, work on pushing apps not to depend on the google services so phones preinstalled with something like /e/ become a viable option for most people. Push our public services to stop mandating Google and Apple OSes for random stuff.

- longer term, work on making alternatives to Android and iOS viable options for most people (stability, usability and availability of services people use). The best candidate for that today is Linux mobile.

Breaking network effect around proprietary services is one of the strategies towards this.

Another one is reducing our reliance on computers (of any shape) altogether, maybe.

There are ways to wrap adb in a friendly interface. I can totally see a desktop based manager and marketplace for phone apps as a workaround.

It's not a copout, it's a comparison to iOS. You're seeing an argument they didn't make.

Not. You don’t need to pay $100 to upload your app to an iPhone, even with XCode for iOS 26

Technically not but the devil is in the details. Having to reinstall the app every 7 days and a limit of one app doesn’t even pass the bare minimum.

Jolla has a prelaunch campaign, decent phones for 200€. I might just as well grab one. Sick of having a phone which is more expensive than my laptop but I can barely use.

The limit is 3 apps AFAIK

Imagine Windows limited you to three apps. How is this acceptable?

Imagine Windows was free.

Imagine if you paid for Windows and didn’t get adverts.

Wait, I can download and run iOS on my own hardware? Not that I have tried, but I always thought Apples whole schtick was you were only allowed to run their software on their latest X revisions of their hardware?

Yeah but where you were losing a lot, you're now losing only a little bit.

And on the other side, the benefits of using iOS over Android spyware outweighs the cons now.

I haven't seen new data from celbrite in awhile, but I believe that grapheneos was the only truly secure phone from it for both bfu and afu as of a couple years ago.

Apple lost my confidence after they removed Advanced Device Encryption for British users (plus implemented age verification for them).

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/14344-cellebrite-premium-ju...

I think it's been said that nobody has yet cracked Apple's Lockdown Mode, but that's likely not truly comparable?

How is then law enforcement getting what they need from people's iphones? Because I understand they do, in some way. And I'm not asking about forcing people to hand over pin or fingerprints, but just by themselves.

Here is one example how: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47716490

Lockdown Mode is focused on reducing the attack surface from Safari including the WebView and Apple services including iMessage/FaceTime. It does nearly nothing to protect against non-browser/non-messaging attack vectors in the OS or other apps. It's up to app developers to implement similar restricted modes and also baseline exploit protections. App developers need to explicitly opt-in to using the standard exploit protections used in many parts of the OS and Apple discourages doing it:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/Xcode/enabling-enh...

iPhones with Lockdown Mode enabled have definitely been exploited which is confirmed by leaked documents and statements from commercial exploit vendors. Lockdown Mode primarily reduces attack surface in Safari and from Apple services. It does very little to protect against other attack vectors such as messaging apps or physical data extraction.

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/105120

You're thinking of Apple saying they haven't detected a case of a device with Lockdown Mode exploited in the wild themselves. Extremely few devices use Lockdown Mode and Apple has very little insight into successful exploits so there isn't much opportunity for them to detect it in the first place. Lockdown Mode bundles everything together and has very inconvenient changes many people won't accept. That greatly reduces usage even by people fully aware of it who want a lot of what it provides. For example, there's

Apple has said they haven't seen a case of a device with Lockdown Mode being exploited which is extremely misleading. Apple doesn't have that much visibility into devices being exploited and would mostly seen failed attempts. All of the Lockdown Mode functionality being bundled together contributes to it barely being used. There's no opt-out system for most of it beyond disabling it as a whole. Only a subset of the Safari restrictions can be partially disabled per-app and per-site which doesn't fully restore web compatibility. It's more that hardly anyone is using it and that Apple doesn't have much insight into apps and the OS being exploited successfully in the first place. Lockdown Mode is definitely useful but people should read about what it actually does and compare that to how devices get exploited. Apple's memory corruption exploit protections aren't tied to Lockdown Mode.

iPhone security is a myth. This is because you can't scan iPhone for threats, so Apple can pretend they don't happen. iOS is probably the least secure platform there is thanks to the security by obscurity approach by Apple.

You can use iPhone being blissfully unaware it has malware on it even in Lockdown mode (which is essentially cope mechanism and Apple way of saying "we care about security, trust us bro").

You really think Apple doesn't gather data on what you do on your devices? This notion that Android == spyware is so old and boring but HN just loves Apple.

Google gets nearly all of its revenue from targeted advertising, and Apple does not. Apple has an incentive to restrict or completely deny third-party data collection, because they’ve made privacy a major part of their brand marketing and there is major reputational risk to Apple for being caught lying about this. Apple’s “Ask App Not To Track” feature made such a measurable dent in the revenue of various surveillance tech companies that they complained about it, loudly, including Meta paying for a full-page ad in the New York Times about it.

There are multiple objective reasons to believe that Apple is a more trustworthy actor here than other companies, including vulgar capitalistic reasons.

You can just say “pfft, wow, you really believe that?”, I guess, but if that’s your position there’s no reason to argue about this with you.

Apple's ad revenue is growing massively past few years, projected to be 13 billion revenue stream next year. Where do you think those ads are ending up, and do you really believe they are non-targeted? So while your statements are still somewhat valid, not that much and not for that long.

Also, for anybody from outside of US, its US 3-letter agencies that pose biggest actual security risk since US laws treat us as sub-humans. Apple is as translucent to those as Android. But I get it, its still much easier to make PR campaign based on security for Apple than Android.

I'm sure they do collect data but not to the point that they hamper functionality. They still focus first and foremost on usability, functionality whereas Google focus on collecting data, serving ads and then on functionality.

But yeah, there is no doubt in my mind that they both collect as much as they can.

Can I plug iphone via usbc and access photos and videos directly and rest of the filesystem directly? Thats my flow, I am not buying a phone which has this artificially disabled 'for my own good', while being unix under the bonnet. Insult to my intelligence and all that.

No. You can upload your apps on your iPhone for free. You just need an Apple ID.

Here is a table I just made (edit: changed to list as HN wraps code blocks now), of iOS vs Android (now) vs Android (after Sep 2026 or 2027 or whenever these announced changes take effect):

•1. Where most users can install software from:

↠↠ iOS: official store (App Store) + (in EU) other stores

↠↠ Android (now): official store (Play Store), other stores (e.g. F-Droid), arbitrary APKs

↠↠ Android (after changes): official store (Play Store), other stores (e.g. F-Droid), arbitrary APKs

•2. Who the developers of software can be:

↠↠ iOS: registered developers ($99/year)

↠↠ Android (now): any developer

↠↠ Android (after changes): registered developers ($25 one-time) + hobbyists (small distribution) + any developers (for advanced users)

•3. Installing your own apps on your own phone, without becoming a registered developer:

↠↠ iOS: using XCode: need to reinstall every 7 days.

↠↠ Android (now): using ADB

↠↠ Android (after changes): using ADB

The second row (•2) is what is changing in Android. I think "the ability to run my own code on my own device", narrowly speaking, is closest to the third row, which is not changing.

Android does indeed still look better. But, I would not consider having to send a copy of my government ID to Google, or having them be able to block apps when so ordered by government, to be acceptable.

I agree it’s not acceptable. so then iOS is just as not acceptable as it has all the same issues and worse. this thread started as switching to iOS

Yeah but the situation used to be you don't need to jump through flaming hoops on android and you do need to jump through flaming hoops on ios for installing. Now it's you have to jump through X flaming hoops on android and X+Y on ios for installing. If I'm not going to jump through flaming hoops then I'm not installing so it doesn't matter what Y is in the equation and I'm not taking into account installing when comparing those devices, which mean ios might be a better proposition.

Alternatively if the difficulty of moving from 0->X is not negligible but moving from X->X+Y is then I may still be installing but I'm not considering the Y in the comparison then either. i.e. If I have to show my id to google once and apple twice it's the initial showing that is the turn off, or if it's the action of getting my credit card out in the 1st place rather than the cost difference that concerns me.

I agree with you that iOS is just as not acceptable, and don't plan to switch to it myself.

Comment about point 2: As a CEO who recently tried to make personal Android and iOS Dev accounts for my hobby apps on my +20 year old Google and Apple accounts, let me just say that the processes are alot more complicated to apply than is pointed out here.

The key difference being that when I needed help I called Apple Support who transfered me once to their EU Developer support who, while I talked to him, setup and approved my Dev account. While my Google account still is in pending limbo with their new verification system with no support to contact... I have since giving up getting access after multiple tries.

So Google changes do hit alot harder than the summery makes it seem.

Nitpick: It’s written Xcode. Lowercase c.

> stop being yours

As if most android maker phones don't already fully own your device - preventing you from unlocking of bootloader and installing an OS that actually doesnt enforce the restriction google is introducing in their flavour of android.

To pretend that with this change android becomes exactly like iOS is... ridiculous? I can pick any 10yo old android phone from my drawer and develop for it, no problem and without asking for permissions. And if I'm already this motivated I'm certainly motivated enough to wait 24hs on future (more locked down) devices.

Do you think people who download NewPipe and alike - to circumvent ads and enable premium features - would think twice because they need to wait 24hs? Will NewPipe devs stop developing (anonymously) because of a small fraction of users who refuse to (or won't) go through unlocking steps?

Show me all these "rebel" apps on iOS ecosystem that can be easily distributed on any channel: fdroid, github, telegram groups, etc.

But sure, if you thinking moving to iOS is the same, sounds like you never really made use of any of the freedoms android used to and will continue to provide

In the words of a Great American:

  "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Lincoln?

Benny.

AFAIK there is more to that quote and it is usually misrepresented.

I think the excerpt fits well enough for my intent.

I hear what you're saying, especially around just moving to iOS not being a better argument. However with > And if I'm already this motivated I'm certainly motivated enough to wait 24hs on future (more locked down) devices.

But I don't think that's the point. It's a continual erosion of people's ability to use hardware _they own_ in ways _they want_ under the guise of 'security' - which to be fair google does fuck all to actually prevent malicious, scammy and misleading apps from appearing on their play store.

Like, why make it harder _at all_? I develop Android apps for a company that is used only internally. I don't want to have to release apps to the play store so that they have to go through a bs review period before I can get them out the door users. Currently I have a <10m turn around from starting the build to having an app in user's hands, ready to go... Every other time we've had to use the play store it's 2+ days, and they don't test or verify anything meaningful.

I recognize my experience isn't universal, but I'm pretty opposed to changes like this. I'm not American so I don't really have underlying rhetoric around freedom etc, but this is an impingement and part of continuing anti-consumer trend. Google's not the only one, but certainly the one under the spotlight here.

> It's a continual erosion of people's ability to use hardware _they own_ in ways _they want_ under the guise of 'security' - which to be fair google does fuck all to actually prevent malicious, scammy and misleading apps from appearing on their play store.

A lot of people don't seem to understand this and point out that Android is still more open and free than iOS, but iOS has never been about openness and freedom. People believed in Android, and in Google. Now they either see Google betraying them (once again) or only see the Android vs iOS comparison, forgetting about the implications about autonomy, agency and about the future of Android. Many people don't care which actors control their digital lives and what motivations they have. People should be made aware that Google is on their side and that they have shown many times that they have no honor.

> People believed in Android, and in Google.

I wonder why. The last time I considered believing in Android was in 2008 when I was choosing between getting an Android phone or Openmoko phone. Went with the latter and never regretted, as Android quickly turned out to be a disappointment. This is just the continuation of the slow crawl they've been on since 20 years ago and it's been really obvious that it's going to happen. The answer is to reject Android just like iOS, not to keep hoping that inevitable isn't going to happen.

It's the slippery slope that's the issue, 24hrs is just the first iteration of the restriction. After couple of iteration of restrictions, they could force everyone to have govt-id approved by goog to install any app.

No, Android still offers way more features than iOS.

Replace the lock screen with a custom app

Replace the home screen with a custom app

Set default apps for SMS, phone service, assistant, camera, photo gallery. all things you can not change on iOS

Always on widgets and dynamic wallpapers

It has a much more customizable inter app communication system so that you can get more apps to be the default viewers

At allows true background tasks like say a BitTorrent client

It supports shared storage like SMB and a user accessible file system

Custom NFC apps

USB host mode

Multiple users/profiles

And about 70 other things

As a wise man once said - Android when you want to do thing TO your phone, iOS when you want do to thing with your phone.

I will do the same if they lock down Android. If I must be in a walled garden, then I'm going to choose the better kept garden, and it sure as hell isn't Google's. There is absolutely zero reason to tolerate the shittiness of Android if they take away the relative freedom it gives us. GrapheneOS is the last hope of the Android ecosystem, and if Google keeps locking things down that's not going to last either.

GrapheneOS is the answer. Apple's software is really buggy compared to Android and Linux.

Or /e/

GrapheneOS is significantly more secure, more private, and more free. Not sure why you would use /e/.

and limited to one type of device that not everyone can get or wants.

Only because this is the one family of the devices secure enough to even bother with software security.

It's not their fault (plus since 2027 we expect the first Motorola handset secure enough tu be supported by GOS)

And at least they don't cheat on patches :)

Well, for one you can actually buy an /e/ device right now.

Also, once you have it, it just works.

Some people like that.

If there's one thing I've learned about the custom Android community (and to a lesser extent, the Android community) it's that "it actually works" isn't really important or convincing to them.

>Well, for one you can actually buy an /e/ device right now. Also, once you have it, it just works.

Does that not apply to GOS?

You get a device that still runs proprietary Google blobs in privileged processes (for Play Integrity), talks a lot with Google, gives certain Google applications (like Google Maps) higher privileges than normal Android apps (you can find the signing keys of apps that get elevated privileges in the source code of the /e/OS microG fork), uploads your speech to OpenAI for speech to text, uses a shady middleman (which they do not want to reveal the owner of) for installing F-Droid apps [1], and is hopelessly behind on Linux kernel versions, firmware blobs, and Android security patches (remember that Android Security Bulletins only have backports of high/critical patches).

I wouldn't recommend anyone to use /e/OS. Either they are very incompetent or they are very shady.

[1] https://info.cleanapk.org

That link you shared in your other comment actually counters your "runs google blobs" argument.

Speech to text is afaik completely anonymized and if you care that much, it actually is possible to just not use it, rip it out or even replace it with something that runs locally in your home.

> hopelessly behind on Linux kernel versions

Can you substantiate that? Given that many OEMs still run linux 4 and 5 in their Flagship ROMs today, I'd like to see how open source does so much worse.

Because in order to use Graphene, you have to financially support the same company that is making Android less free.

Google could invest in Graphene as a hedge.

they're working on it. GrapheneOS has serious plans to get a phone made for them. even more serious now that Google has become openly hostile to their project by no longer publishing the Pixel device tree when new releases come out.

At the end of the cycle of a Pixel model, they are heavily discounted. So much that it's probably close to hardware + development cost. Google probably expects to make a profit from Google One subscriptions, Play purchases, and ads.

By installing GrapheneOS, you are giving them nothing.

I can see the alure of having a very secure mobile device and can understand why you personally wouldn't see a reason to use anything else.

But Graphene requires too much fidling to get spouse approval.

/e/ might not be as secure as GrapheneOS but it is at least as secure as everything else. Plus it actively helps you preserve your privacy and use self hosted services.

/e/OS is not (y)our friend. The CEO of Murena says that security hardening is only pedophiles and spies:

https://mastodon.social/@GrapheneOS@grapheneos.social/116353...

https://www.clubic.com/actualite-604786-murena-e-os-intervie...

They spread the same narrative as the governments/organizations that push Chat Control, age verification, etc.

Weird way to promote the /e/ project.

Your first sentence and that last link are practically at war with each other.

I still remember how Google execs were using the word "open" almost as a comma. Android was Open, Google was Open, this was so different from the Closed Apple World. Everything would be Open!

I hope we will remember this lesson and learn from it. Calling something "open" doesn't make it so, and anything owned by a large corporation will eventually succumb to the direction taken by the corporation. And large corporations have goals where you, the user, are not a consideration, you are just a part of their money-making machinery.

Now you just have to deal with Apple's hostile repairability situation. Cryptographically-mated parts are just the beginning.

So you moved into a walled garden in an attempt to escape what's essentially a 3 foot picket fenced garden.

If you cant beat them join them

If you are stuck in a walled garden either way, might at least try to get the benefits of it.

Includes status symbol and ecosystem lock!

So does Android, but without the status symbol, the high res screen, or the integration with your laptop.

I haven't found the need for deeper integration with my laptop beyond what KDE connect is capable of, and my Pixel has a high enough resolution that I can't notice pixels :)

If it is a status symbol, it really ain't working for me. I must be doing something wrong.

It depends where. In Spain people use it for that because iPhones are incredibly expensive here compared to the standard of living. What doesn't help is that the SE/e models are also way more expensive than in the US.

As a result it's mainly rich people and tourists that own them. Most people use budget android phones, the kind that still come with 3,5mm jacks. You still see wired earphones a lot.

The iOS app store is like the craigslist personals of online markets. I feel incredibly dirty just going on there. I have to scroll down 3-5 options just to find the exact match for what I searched for, many of the prioritized options being look-alikes that could easily fool people into installing some malware-esque garbage.

I love my 13 mini as a phone, but I don't understand how anyone could compare the two app stores and think iOS comes out on top. At least android has f-droid.

I almost never go to the app store to find an app, but I can understand how that would be really frustrating. Sounds like they need to get serious about curating the app store content.

From my perspective, the walled garden value I get is predominantly in the integrations between my phone, macbook, and watch. And to a lesser extent (because it's a bit buggy at times) the family integrations.

Integrations makes sense, but I'm 100% sold on linux/PCs at this point and I don't care about wearables so my phone is just a phone. Luckily I'm not on the app store much, but if the walled garden is a cesspool already then maybe opening the gates a bit isn't such a bad idea.

It's probably worth mentioning that as far as i know this change does not affect AOSP phones[1]. I'm currently living with a Kyocera flip-phone[3] for the past few years. I even got F-droid installed, though it turned out to not work all that great on a flip. I wish more people wrote apps for flips. I keep intending to look into writing my own APK if i ever get the chance. As i understand it, it's a bit like The Wild West, though there are places where you can get flip-phone apps[2] like maps, media players, messengers, etc.. i just never seem to have time to look more into this(and i'm a little concerned about getting scammed). I did manage recently to successfully tether my old touch-phone to my flip for a car trip i took, so i could get data to the touch and run maps(i feel somewhat clever to have sidestepped Big Tech on that issue). Hopefully i'll get some time one day to look more into flip-apps.

[1] https://source.android.com/

[2] https://www.apkmirror.com/

[3] https://www.kyoceramobile.com/rugged-devices/duraxv-extreme-...

If there are two walled gardens, you might as well choose the prettier one.

Or choose freedom. I've been enjoying GrapheneOS for a couple of years now and recommend it.

Do you run into issues with apps not supporting it? Things like banking or auth? That is the main complaint I see for alternative phone OSes, and I don't know if that has gotten any better.

My bank detected someone logging in with my password from a GrapheneOS phone and made me change my password and scan my face. That was dumb.

With that out of the way, and the device now seemingly authorized, it still doesn't work, because when I log in, the app restarts. That could be a real compatibility problem.

Yeah, I tried that out last year when this whole debacle was announced for the first time.

I'm not going back to paying without my phone. So yeah, I'm not going to a free platform either.

the choice really is mostly down to Google's Android or iOS - unless you're ready to make sacrifices. If you are... More power to you! I'm not (at this point in my life) right now.

There are essentially two separate issues here.

The first is the anti-trust angle. Some subset of bank apps don't work because of attestation and that's a significant barrier to adoption for switching to competitors, so it ought to be an anti-trust violation for the platform to do that.

The second is, you try it and discover that your bank doesn't work. If you want it bad enough you can switch banks, and the fact that it doesn't work is a signal that your bank has a weak security team who is just cargo culting deleterious vendor nonsense without evaluating whether it has any real security value.

(The use case for attestation is completely orthogonal to bank apps because it can't prevent credential stealing from compromised phones running a fake app since the fake app won't require attestation, and it can't prevent attackers from using stolen credentials to transfer funds because once they have the credentials they can just use a normal phone, and that's the case even if the attestation was completely airtight, which it isn't. Meanwhile the devices that can pass attestation are generally more vulnerable because it implies they're running the more-likely-to-be-outdated OS that came with the device rather than a third party upgrade with more recent patches, so they're essentially encouraging their customers to not upgrade their OS. Banks that do this are wearing clown makeup and you have to ask if you trust them with your money.)

I've been dailying GrapheneOS for more than 2 years. I haven't had any issues with any of my bank apps. Although there are apparently some that do block usage on non-google-certified OSs. The only limitation in my use cases pre-GrapheneOS that I've found is not being able to make NFC payments through Google Wallet, but I found a bank in my country whose app implemented NFC payments, and made an account with them to be able to convenintly pay with my phone.

edit: and I'd like to add, GrapheneOS brought me back the joy of using my phone. Since 2018 or so I started to dread my phone (and the internet) more and more. Installing GrapheneOS brought back the joy on using these marvelous computers (and self-hosting brought back the joy of using the internet)

Whatever issues I've run into I've been able to work around. I don't use tap-to-pay with the phone at all so that's not an issue. The things I get in return for using GrapheneOS all outweigh any downsides.

The replies whenever this question is asked remind me of when I used to have a Windows Phone and was trying to convince myself it was the best phone on the market. Yeah, I couldn't use YouTube because Google blocked Microsoft's YouTube app; and I wasn't able to deposit my paychecks because my bank didn't have a Windows Phone app or mobile deposit support on their website; and sure, using Messenger or Snapchat (which was exploding at the time) meant using somebody's reverse-engineered WP version of those apps...

But look at all the information I can get from the Live Tiles! Oh and isn't Cortana neat! A little more self-flagellation for the penitent ones who've traded corporate app stores for daily inconvenience.

GrapheneOS user here, on my only phone, aka my daily.

I love my phone and when I replace it, I will be flashing GrapheneOS again. This is my second phone with it so far, and roughly year 4 or 5.

With that said, it isn't for everyone. I definitely remember some issues upon first install, a learning curve if you want to call it that. I also introduce intentional obstacles in certain "workflows" in my life that dissuade certain usage, like excessive social media use. With that said, I no longer remember what I introduced myself and what was an OS characteristic. I do remember having frustrations with most banking apps IF I didn't log into the play store mirror. Since I'm "hardcore" and am not willing to sign into a Google product on my phone, they just don't work. However I don't think they would be an issue for most people.

If you are on the fence, you can make a backup of your phone, try it out, and if you don't like it, you can reinstall the default Android and restore your backup. I've done it before when I used my previous GrapheneOS phone for store credit for my next phone, and figured they'd want a factory reset default OS on there.

Graphene sounds great in theory. Until you read the device compatibility page and see you're still at the mercy of Google. In order to support graphene you must first pay Google for one of the most expensive android devices on the market. Oh and Google never sold this device in my country so I guess I'm out of luck even if I wanted to do that.

My plan is to follow and hop on this train, hope it’s available in other countries also:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47214645

This will not help you in your country, but in places where it is sold, you can buy used one of the prior generation phones, which are also supported.

> Until you read the device compatibility page and see you're still at the mercy of Google.

Alternate take: good. I'd rather the GrapheneOS team pick standardized (if limited) hardware configurations to support and then spend their (many multiples less than Google) resources on the platform rather than device compatibility.

The Android OEM diversity mean the time/economics of supporting every phone with a non-Google OS were never going to work, and I'd rather have it working well on a limited number of platforms than poorly on more.

Firmware engineering and patching sucks and delivers little value to the user, because best case (you solved the issue or patched the hardware errata) something basic that a user expects is now working.

Nobody is going to switch to a platform because a phone can now make calls. Even if there are 1000+ human hours in patching some cheap clone LTE chip it uses.

Motorola devices that match the GrapheneOS requirements are coming next year. It's good thing they're not compromising on hardware requirements that would undermine the goals of the project. If there's anyone to blame it's the dismal state of affairs on the hardware security side of my most Android phone manufacturers.

Unfortunately, there is no way to use Google Pay on it. I'm all for trading some convenience for privacy, but not having to carry all my cards is too much of a convenience for me :(

I've heard of people using curve pay instead.

Uh huh. Freedom. In some empty rhetorical sense. Meanwhile you still have 99.999% of the usual obligations.

Go freely walk out your local supermarket without paying.

But your Android phone is unlocked #winning

>Go freely walk out your local supermarket without paying.

that's your definition of freedom?

It's an example of constraints that still apply.

Don't pay taxes. Steal cars, punch Trump, call a black person the N-word ... see how it goes

Paper and pencil offer a far more blank canvas compared to the very specific hardware constraints of a phone, and ecosystem of software limited to the common languages

Software dev and use is, comparatively, heavily constrained and on rails compared to sitting by a tree and imagining

To buy the phone ones agency is coupled to the subset of legitimate options to make money

Same for electricity to charge it, battery replacement, screen repair if it breaks.

Really just quickly becomes a ball and chain

So free!

Are you comparing installing apps on your phone to theft?

GrapheneOS.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I use Android and iOS regularly and while Android's ugly, it's slightly less ugly.

For an Android user, iOS offers better privacy (which can change at any time), but it also comes baked in with better support for some open protocols. (SMB on Files, and CalDAV/CardDAV for Calendars/Contacts/Notes integration). This has been the case for years, while aspects of the 'walled garden' have eroded over time.

It's natural that this huge Android regression might be enough for someone to dip their toes into the other side.

> iOS offers better privacy

No, it markets lockin dressed up as privacy. Convincing you that they are the same thing is the real magic here.

No, it might sound smart, but it's incorrect to equivocate. You don't need to "lock in" to Apple's services either. Apple has a meaningfully better track record than Google on privacy in many regards.

(Apple's Terms of Service is also much better, for not having an arbitration clause anywhere except the Apple credit card, with a very easy opt-out flow.)

I used to own a house, I could decorate it the way I wanted. It was hard work, but it was mine!

Then they locked it, so I went to live in a luxury hotel, it's more expensive, I can't decide how I want it and I don't own anything, but it's such a superior experience!

Some want ownership, some want experience. People differ, who might have thought.

it's not the choice, it's the argument: OP seems to be happy to give up freedom (he or she initially cherished) because everything now is crap anyways, so let's just bathe in shit and celebrate it...

> the vastly superior apple experience

After switching away from GrapheneOS to iOS after RCS stopped working for me, I can safely say my experience has been the opposite. The camera is the only thing better for me on iOS - everything else is buggier and worse. A few of my favorites:

1. Safari is buggy as hell, and requires installing apps to run things like ad blockers.

2. The settings are ALL over the place and very hard to navigate

3. The gestures are clunky - often have to try a couple times to get one of the settings quick menus to drop down

4. Why is the date not displayed at the top of the screen with the time outside of the lock screen?

5. The pin unlock is horribly broken - I have to slow way down to use it compared to Android.

6. Apple maps is hot garbage. I had to install Google Maps anyway to get decent performance.

7. The handling of audio devices seems intentionally malicious - like if I call someone from my car through car play, it shouldn't send the audio out through the phone earpiece. If a call begins with phone earpiece audio and is underway, it shouldn't switch several seconds in to bluetooth headset half a house.

I'm going back for my next phone.

I'm considering switching to GrapheneOS... What's this about RCS not working?

If you don't want to invest in getting your contacts on Signal, you can try OpenBubbles. It gets iMessage on Android devices and works fine.

I highly recommend switching to GOS, it is wayyy better than iOS UX-wise and obviously better privsec and freedom.

One thing that I had to do when I first got GOS, to get a better experience, was find all the Open Source apps that I needed. Otherwise, it looks rather bland and the apps are mid. Once you find the right apps and launcher, everything works much better.

RCS can be hit or miss on GrapheneOS, but they have made significant progress recently. It requires using Google Messages rather than any other messaging app, and may require enabling an ICC authentication option that is disabled by default. And it may depend on your carrier. RCS is kind of a pain in the butt but the messaging improvements over SMS are substantial which is why I wanted it.

When I first tried last fall I had it working for a few weeks then it stopped entirely delivering messages and I fell back to SMS only. After the recent system updates and enabling the ICC option it has been working well for me.

The official page explains briefly, https://grapheneos.org/usage#rcs

There is a very long discussion threat going back several years that is now considered resolved, which seems to be the case for me. https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/1353-using-rcs-with-google-...

I've found that RCS works ok-ish on the Owner user, but doesn't work at all on any other (it appears as an empty message). Moving to the Owner account you can tap to redownload the message and then it appears correctly in all accounts. It's a mess that makes daily driving a secondary account not worth it

RCS barely works on regular Android.

In the last week or so, multiple people have told me they cannot text me. I found that I was getting a "verification limit exceeded" error (perhaps because of my unusual behavior of usually being at work or at home, both which have known wifi networks, and sending maybe half a dozen texts any day?). I got the error to go away for half a day and they were still unable to message during that time, and now that I have it disabled I still appear as online on RCS (yet still unreachable?) so they still cannot message me lol.

I've been on the other end many times across multiple Android devices across multiple years, being able to send messages to some RCS users, being unable to send messages to other RCS users, not being able to receive messages in group chats entirely comprised of Android users, etc.

SMS/MMS: Handled by carriers, you can send messages to people who are offline and they'll get the messages when they turn their phone back on.

Telegram/FbMessenger/Whatsapp/etc: Handled by individual corporations, you can send messages to people who are offline and they'll get the messages when they turn their their device on.

RCS: Handled by both Google and carriers at the same time for some reason, maybe 80% chance of being able to send a message to somebody who's online, let alone offline.

I'm sure there are multiple reasons it was challenging, but Google and friends have not risen to the occasion at all. Truly a garbage protocol.

SMS is pretty horrible yes but I don't know anyone that uses it anymore. The only ones I get are spam from my phone provider and some MFA systems that are stuck in the past. Oh and the odd shipping notification.

RCS I didn't even bother to set up. I don't want to use yet another system. If people want to reach me they have WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram to choose from.

RCS is proprietary so it only works on GrapheneOS if you have Google's Messages app. At least, that was the case a year ago, but I'm assuming it hasn't changed.

On the bright side, Messages works without linking to a Google account

Everyone's using Subversion now ...

(4) is 100% you having a particular user preference and not a real bug with the system.

Fine, the whole post was explicitly "my experience" but I think it's a reasonable gripe - why is it not configurable, and why did it take me so long to sift through the impenetrable settings structure to figure out that it wasn't configurable?

Agree and many more. I had an iPhone 15 Pro for about six months last year and one of the most infuriating things was that you can't get to Camera settings from Camera, you have to go out to Settings.

> Apple maps is hot garbage. I had to install Google Maps anyway to get decent performance

I hear this and wonder how much must be regional. I'm experiencing the opposite. Apple Maps has gotten quite good, while Google Maps seems to just be rotting away. Both do work reasonably well in my home area of the PNW, but Apple Maps is a bit more polished. But in some places, like recently when I was on a business trip in Austin, Google Maps was comically terrible at routing. I get that partly this is probably because Texas has interesting ideas about designing a road network, but still, Apple got it working just fine.

Same. Google Maps quality has gotten noticeably worse these past 2 years for me. It routinely tries to navigate me to making impossible turns or taking weird and sometimes more dangerous routes just to shave off a potential minute. I started using Apple Maps at the advice of a colleague and it’s given better directions. This is all local. I have no baseline comparison for using maps while on trips.

I'm on this path too. Waiting a few more months to see what happens. If they indeed block my 4 apps on my phone (which aren't published anywhere), I will simply move to Apple.

Will your 4 unpublished apps be in your android-alternative apple device?

Android will still have the ability to install non-google-distributed programs. The problem is the ominous momentum, but it is still more open than the apple alternative

I'm not the commenter you replied to, but I'm doing the same math they are and coming up with the same answer.

From my perspective iOS is better than Android in a number of ways but Android always won out overall for me, in large part because of the freedom regarding software. Remove that freedom from the equation, I think the balance tips towards iOS.

I always wonder what these unspecified ways that iOS is better than Android actually are.

These posts always have a few comments like that, but they never actually say what they find to be better on iOS.

I'll bite.

For me, Google services are not an option, so my Android experience is sans-Google.

Until September 2025, I'd say iOS had actually gotten better than Android.

CalDAV, CardDAV, and SMB are baked into iOS, whereas these are onerous to set up on Android. These are very very nice protocols, and I use them all daily. (Contacts, Calendars, Notes, Reminders, and Files.)

Apple's developer ecosystem lacks the FOSS devs that make F-Droid so good, but they do have a number of devs who release paid apps with zero tracking, which is very nice. It's often the case an app exists on iOS as a $5 one-time fee with a two-paragraph privacy policy for which one does not exist on Fdroid.

Shortcuts work well enough, homescreen customization is good enough, etc. that a number of the original Android draws are gone. There are a number of points where iOS and Android are equals now.

iCloud's E2EE photo backup is something I reluctantly started using and found to be very nice, after having had de-Googled in 2018. I miss having my photos auto-upload and be available on other devices, and Apple has had iCloud Web for awhile. This is nicer than the options I have on Android.

And while Android's notification-panel tiles have gotten worse over the years (down from six to two controls on the first swipe, this was what alienated me and got me to try iOS), iOS now has a much denser "control center".

The big caveat is the gigantic regression that is iOS 26. The phone is slower, it kills battery, the native apps are constantly crashing, the lockscreen and homescreen often have broken navigation flows, etc. It's a travesty that never should have been released and iOS is easily worse than Android right now. If someone needed a phone today, I couldn't recommend an iPhone, but that might change with iOS 27.

>CalDAV, CardDAV, and SMB are baked into iOS, whereas these are onerous to set up on Android

I can only speak to SMB but it is not hard on Android. I use a longtime third party app so not sure what the state of native support is but it works just fine for me, including over VPN

Which app?

I would guess DAVx⁵.

Sounds like you're Apple now, but would love to hear what you're actually using for DAV on Android if at all?

DAVx5

Yep, AFAIK this is the only working choice on Android. (I could be wrong!)

Install anyapk. It uses a wireless ADB bridge to install whatever you want.

Its more about the principle for me.I know I can jump through hoops for google but I prefer to say no-thank-you.

The long term fear/plan for google is that they know they days of SAAS and Apps are obsolete. People will just write their own platforms, apps, websites all from scratch using AI, which means the app stores becomes obsolete, which means no more ad revenue from shitty ads and no more control and unfettered tracking of your behaviour. AI will make these guys obsolete, they know it, this is them fighting back.

You should switch to GrapheneOS instead.

You mean buy a Google Pixel?

How many people can afford one?

Motorola + Graphene coming 2027. I'm at least waiting to see what comes of that before making any decisions on my next phone.

I am hyped for that partnership—they should have a flip phone supported(don't quote me), among other cool devices.

Not going to be cheaper than Pixels. The chips they need for the hardware security are the flagship Snapdragon chips iirc.

I love my Pixel now, I would have to see where Motorola is better than the Pixels other than the more computing power.

hell yes. I'm glad they found an OEM to work with them.

If you're considering buying an iPhone, you can definitely afford a Pixel

Yes, but no pixels in my country.

eBay International exists and I've shipped my laptops from the US to Bolivia, Guam, Sweden, and before the war, Russia. You can definitely get a Pixel unless maybe you live in the DRC or the PRK

It's all vector graphics?

In the USA, I think most people can easily afford a Pixel 9a at $56/year of device support starting from today.

Calculator checks yearly cost based on device support: (https://ibb.co/xq82YQCw)

Sources for device lifetime from calculator: (https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-lifetime)

I used a New+Unlocked+Pixel+X on eBay to find a rough price of the phone.

Most people get scammed by their carrier and pay $25-45 per month just for their wireless subscription, and many more get caught up in the device bundles which gets you the "latest and greatest", at a huge price. So people are paying, per month, what you can pay, per year for a Pixel.

You can use Silent Link to pay by the gigabyte with no expiration date. Most people don't need unlimited—I use a maximum of 5 GB per month, and my average is around 3. At $1.60 per month, that is $60 per YEAR for me.

Swap in https://jmp.chat for another 60 dollars per year for calls/texts and you get a $120/year phone bill which is just $10/month.

I will be moving from US Mobile to Jmp.chat once my plan expires.

You could also use US Mobile for $17/month which is unlimited and is user friendly. They also often have Pixels for a significant discount with no lock-in.

Don't have pixels in my country. Apple only alternative. And a bunch of chinese brands which I wont touch in this scenario

I bought an 8a new when it launched for the express purpose of installing GOS. It cost like $450, and will last me most of a decade. If you are using a phone that costs significantly less than that (and I am speaking from personal experience! I had an Obamaphone that I got at a foodbank for many years, as well as a number of crappy used Androids!) your phone storage is so limiting that you are struggling to install more than a few apps.

I've bought Motorola phones that cost less than half of that and still last for 3-5 years and I've been able to install far more than "a few" apps. Having an SD card slot is great for offloading the big storage uses like photos/video.

> If you are using a phone that costs significantly less than that (and I am speaking from personal experience! I had an Obamaphone that I got at a foodbank for many years, as well as a number of crappy used Androids!) your phone storage is so limiting that you are struggling to install more than a few apps.

The only phone I've ever had trouble installing more than a few apps was one with 512MB of storage. If I go check the second result on amazon for android phone it's a solid motorola option, unlocked for $127 and with 128GB. That's more than enough; even some flagships have 128GB.

The "just over $100" range has multiple options with good storage. Below that is a sea of locked/refurbished phones that are also good options in many cases.

Digging deeper I eventually hit a "BLU" brand phone for $50 with only 16GB, and that leaves you with not very much after the OS takes its space. But then you can add $10 to get another 16GB and have more than enough room for apps.

So you have to go really low to have the problem you're describing.

I have never had a cheap phone where OS updates did not make the category in storage swell to take up most of the phone's space.

Hardware may be cheap enough now that budget phones are more useable--32 GB for <$100 is a major improvement.

I'm used to fixed partition sizes. The OS eating into user space sounds pretty ugly. And updates to builtin apps since the last OS update eat space, but only so much.

Regardless, since they have a 16GB model I strongly doubt the 32GB model would ever have less than 16GB of usable space.

I get you. I used to buy Nexus devices as well as some of the first Pixels, until at some point the prices shot up to ridiculous levels for a phone and I went with other brands.

Last year though the Pixel 8a was selling for 350€ and I got one. Luckily, given the recent developments. Will be installing GrapheneOS.

That's £105-£150 for first two pixels 6a on ebay.

If you consider getting iPhone you DEFINITELY can afford something much newer than that.

A Pixel 9a is ~350 Euro here in Europe and it still has better device security (separate secure enclave, MTE, etc.) than pretty much any other phone besides iPhone and other Pixels. Pretty great cameras for the price too. Still supported until 2032 (so presumably also on GrapheneOS).

I have recently made the same move... mostly because it allowed me to stop using my google and microsoft accounts. Moved all personal (and family domain) and business from google workspace / O365 all into fastmail. Bought an iPhone (already worked with macs and an iPad for more than a decade. Not about particular preferences but this setup allows me to only be dependent on one bigcorp. Android still requires a google account, the rest was not necessary but I have above all else made a mental switch to simplify.

I do not feel iOS is particularly better... some things are, some things are not. Yes android was more customizable, and yes the universal back and home buttons are still better than the multi tap and hidden gestures on iOS. But overall some pleasantries such as shared clipboard, seamless headphone switch over, and overall simplification so far, is working very well for me.

I simply need a phone on a major platform, as my job (and life) requires to have certain apps which only run on (non-rooted) Android or iOS phones. And I am tired of fighting and adapting.. so I now just use most of the default apps everywhere, and whatever does or does not work, I take it mostly as-is. For now it seems to allow me to just worry less about it and focus on the things I actually want or need to do .. send email, read message, visit a website, listen to a podcast and not fret about the tiniest of UX details.

I would love to live in a world where I could run around with a customized linux laptop and some sort of privacy respecting phone (e.g. Graphene) but the hurdles are not really worth it to me anymore. Sad in a way, as without counter pressure.. things will not necessarily get better, I know. The 22C3 talk by Rop and Frank I think was depressing, and true.

We lost the war.

https://events.ccc.de/congress/2005/fahrplan/events/920.en.h...

So basically—both Apple and Alphabet love the way you think.

Apple still doesn't allow you to control individual app volume to silence/dim certain applications in multi-play mode though, right?

As someone who hates disturbances this is the killer feature that has kept me with samsung - well that and fdroid which is currently endangered.

iOS still more locked down than Google. When I started reading this I thought you were going true open source

You have bought a walled garden lock, it can be picked with a walled garden lock.

They are absolutely not taking away your ability to run your own code

But he needed an excuse to buy an iphone

> the only value that Android really offered me was the ability to run my own code on my own device. Since they are taking that away

Except they are not. And you can actually do that on iOS.

Dumb question, can you explain the benefits of IOS? I've only tried using an iPhone ~10 years ago before I got into tech

It's unbelievably useful within its own walled garden. There are lots of instances where commands, tabs, and other pieces of data transfer seamlessly between your phone and computer. You can bring your phone up as a digital version ON your laptop so you can call, text, etc. straight from it while your phone sits in the bedroom charging or whatever. Everything works really, really well. Their walled garden has always been pretty top-tier.

So would you say that the value of Apple products increases as you have more of them (higher than just the linear benefit of more products)? I've used them, but always as one offs.

For example, Ive had a Mac(book? The one that you connect periphery to use) as a work computer at a previous software job, the iPhone because of a girl I dated who wouldn't be with a green bubble man, and iPad also in a previous job, so never together or actually adopted in personal life, so I didn't get sold.

Yes, significantly. That’s a great way to put it. My dad is all-in, and I’m pretty surprised at how nice things can be.

Still, it’s like a credit card with a fee. It’s great so long as you can pay, but oftentimes it’s a nightmare to get out of if times are tough.

You just proved that the ability of installing whatever apps you want isn't that vital, don't you?

You're in an even worse ecosystem now, an apple phone never even has been yours.

Leaving one abusive partner for another is hardly a win. It's pathetic.

I did this too, but it happened almost 10 years ago when Google started locking down Android in the name of battery life. I saw the writing on the walls and said if Android is going to be just like iOS because we collectively can’t have nice things, then at least I’ll live out that sad reality on better hardware.

Ah yes macOS, the notoriously open platform.

I'm so tired of this false dichotomy. Sent from my daily driver Librem 5 running GNU/Linux.

This is literally the dumbest take I have seen!

iOS charges you and limits your custom app until a few days and you have to "renew" Even before this change, I have my custom apps running forever.

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