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Comment by conroe64 | Hacker News Reader

It had me until she wrote (when comparing to iOS) " Android is obviously out of the question since it's just a different flavor of the same garbage". How can an opensource OS be just another flavor of the entirely closed and walled off iPhone?

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iOS: sell your soul to Apple.

Android: sell your soul to Google.

The thing is, I already did the second one to a far greater degree than most people ever do. I'm not about to repeat it.

> Android: sell your soul to Google.

Nobody is forcing you to use Google apps on an Android device. If the market decides that the Google experience is subpar, they will be replaced. This has already sort of happened with the Kindle Fire. It forced Google to respond with a better device (the Nexus 7).

In fact, you could unlock the bootloader on any Nexus device, load Cyanogenmod, and not deal with anything Google aside from the core OS, using fdroid to get free software apps.

You actually don't even need any connection to Google even on their own Nexus devices.

> If the market decides that the Google experience is subpar, they will be replaced.

"The market" has done no such thing (the atrocious Kindle Fires excepted) so if you have a beef with the "Google experience" (I personally don't) you're pretty much screwed.

There are no good, Google-free options for Android. I don't find that to be a problem but I can understand why others would.

> "The market" has done no such thing (the atrocious Kindle Fires excepted) so if you have a beef with the "Google experience" (I personally don't) you're pretty much screwed.

Because the market has decided that it likes the Google experience.

"The market" being willing to purchase something is not a referendum on quality or on individual desirability. It is a measure of acceptance, not like; by that sort of assumption, "the market" also "likes" having their bowel movements tracked by Facebook. Maybe people don't know of alternatives to the Google experience. Maybe the alternatives are too different, as with the Fires. Maybe the alternatives are badly executed. None of this means that the holy market likes the Google experience, only that they are willing to buy it.

And let's get one thing really very straight: the rhetorical appeal to "the market" is a bald-faced attempt to discredit differing opinions. It's argumentum ad populum fanboy crap. Stop it.

What about the Ubuntu Phone? It might also make an offer for your soul, but I think it will let you say no. (Not that we have too much information about it yet.)

Oddly enough, that was my first thought. My takeway from the article was that the real annoyance in her life (therefore the itch that a programmer has to scratch, and thus help the rest of us) was iPhone related.

Rachel-by-the-bay is a dyed-in-the-wool linux-sysadmin so I gather from her Web pages, and has recent experience with software defined radio. Ubuntu phone is 'proper' linux but at a very early stage of development, see

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/23/ubuntu_tablets_first...

Sounds like rachel-by-the-bay's skillset fits Canonical's development plan.

Say what you like about Shuttleworth and Canonical, but you won't have to sell your soul to them and the development will be handled in public through the bug tracker and mail lists. They do respond to feedback. Shuttleworth needs to transition Canonical to profit/self sufficiency hence all the Amazon integration, but I think they learned their lesson over the Unity search integration. There will be an off switch in any future experiments of this nature I'm sure.

PS: my new year's resolution is a Web page per week which I owe to rachel-by-the-bay's Web site.

Have you heard anything to suggest an off switch for the Amazon integration? I love Amazon, I like Ubuntu, and I even liked Unity once the performance issues were fixed, but I don't want to see Amazon advertisements unless I open my browser and navigate to amazon.com.

Edit: Thanks guys. I wasn't aware that we already had a work-around.

sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping

Ref: http://askubuntu.com/questions/192269/how-can-i-remove-amazo...

12.10 Ubuntu has a system setting about privacy. There is an OFF button there. Can't remember the precise location but you can switch off the Amazon integration in the Home search.

I'm using an Android phone without Google.

It is business phone, so all the mail-contact-calendar data live on Exchange server, not on Gmail.

The only one thing that you really need google account for is the Play Store. If you do not need anything from there or can get the applications from elsewhere, I cannot not see why you could not use Android phone without google account.

Apparently you can install Ubuntu on the Galalxy Nexus and the Nexus 4. Might be an option? Firefox OS is also coming up...

natermer, FYI, your comment is marked dead.

Maybe because of the last three words?

Natermer, that comment should not be dead. Indeed, it makes little sense that any of your comments are dead, save that you took unpopular opinions (I practice I support in general).

So, please allow me to register my sadness on this matter. It is poor form for anyone to be ignored, and certainly not OK for them to be ignored based on their opinions on a board called Hacker News. Its not surprising (we're much better as a species at saying stuff than we are at living up to those words) but it's still sad.

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