Skip Navigation
45 comments

  • I prefer android until there's a linux phone I can afford.

    I used to love android. Then google dropped the don't be evil motto and started fucking us even harder for data.

    Now, it's only the fact that I can mitigate some of that that makes it better than iOS. Well, that and the horrible ui/ux of iOS.

    • The UI/UX on iOS has improved dramatically in the last few years (especially for springboard, which was what I most hated). Coming from Android to iOS, my phone looks so different from everyone else I know who uses iOS, since their home screens have evolved over years and mine was, “how can I, in 2022, make an iPhone look as much like my Android Home Screen as possible?”

      I have one screen with a giant weather widget, and some folders for my most-used apps, plus I have four on my dock.

      To the left of the main screen is the “Today View” where I have a number of useful widgets that get me quick access to specific things.

      To the right of the main screen is the app drawer equivalent, whatever they call it. To be honest I never use it.

      Most of the time when I want to launch an app I just swipe down and type the first few letters. That’s usually sufficient. I find having used this phone for a little over a year I’m now as efficient or more efficient than I was on Android, at least for the task of getting from the home screen to whatever app I want.

      This was huge for me, because in my previous experience springboard was TERRIBLE unless the device was jailbroken. Now it’s really nice.

  • Android.

    If I own a phone I think I should have the ability to do what I want with it, like installing sideloaded apps and customizing it however I want. There's also much more choice in hardware.

    That said, there's some neat features on iOS that I'm a little jelly of.

  • Android for me. I just don't like feeling stuck to use Apple products.

    • Interesting, the very Apple ecosystem that is often considered a huge positive is a negative in your case, interesting, I get where you are coming from though.

  • Android. I have an ipad and I hate how restricted you are in iOS. There’s no (official) sideloading of apps (yet).

    Browsers suck hard. Everything is basically Safari with a skin. I wish I could get Firefox with full extension support.

    I feel like I’m constantly battling the OS when I want to do something that seems really simple.
    Case in point: you cannot remove photos from your photostream (or whatever it’s called).
    You can add them to albums, sure, but they will also stay in the main feed. I want to move them and unclutter my feed.

    And finally, and this might be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think iOS is intuitive at all. I constantly have to google how to do things, only to often find I simply can’t, or not easily at least.

  • I currently use Android and I'm happy with it.
    I'm not a tinkerer by any means, but I do enjoy a fair bit of third-party apps.
    The lack of side-loading in iOS is the deal breaker for me, but should this be added, I would 100% try it out.

    • Yeah I heard Apple is being forced to allow sideloading/third party app stores in europe?

      Edit: Found it, although the iOS 17 preview from Apple doesn't really talk much about this, I might have missed something though.

      • Yea, that would be great.
        Though I've also heard they plan to keep it EU-only for compliance.
        I hope it doesn't go like that and the feature gets enabled globally.

      • I can’t wait for this feature to land. I really hope this’ll end up with us getting a browser that’s not just Safari with a skin.

  • I've never liked how much apple locks down their operating systems... It takes so much effort to install any software that's not on the app store, and last time I used an iPhone you couldn't even put app icons wherever you wanted on the home screen.
    But being totally honest, I use Android because Android phones are way cheaper, I couldn't afford any remotely recent Apple device even if I wanted one.

  • Neither really. But I guess it's between the OS that supports NewPipe, Tachiyomi, and EDOPro; against the easiest one to watch YouTube on its own platform & play Carcassonne on.

  • Android feels like the lesser of two evils to me lately. Will fully switch to a Linux device as soon as that's viable

  • lineageOS + magisk + revanced + gCam feels like the only logical way to go for privacy and control.

  • Android, simply because how more free I am using it. I can side-load APK files for example, unlike iOS.

  • Android because it makes more sense to me, although that is probably because it is similar enough to windows type systems.

    I have never enjoyed working with Apple products other than the iPod. It just feels like it is holding my hand and forcing me to do things a certain way that hides the details I care about.

  • I prefer Android but am using a iPhone 13 mini. If imessage was on android I would drop it in a heartbeat. Apple's platform is amazing and if you are all in on it then you can prosper. The second you try to use an apple product or service different than apple intends, you will have a bad time.

    I support apple for their privacy and update stances but I do not like their unwillingness to embrace other platforms.

  • Being able to side load apps, especially things like revanced for YouTube premium bypassing has been amazing. Nowadays everyone is trying to extract dollar from you, having these apps helps you get a great experience without being smashed with 15s ads after you've watched 5m of content

  • Preface to state that blackberry 10 and Microsoft Windows phones were much better than iOS and Android for almost everything except getting devs to build apps on their platforms.

    I like the idea of Android. I want there to be an open ecosystem and different types of devices that can look similar or look different.

    It’s a real pain in the ass to manage Android. There was admin mode, now there’s enterprise mode. Also there’s Knox, with various options and licensing that overlap with your mdm. Oh and gmail enterprise is the email app but you need to include chrome, unless you’re using Knox but oh yeah never mind that was deprecated you’ll be using gmail. Also the dual-profile thing isn’t very seamless. Also depending on the phone vendor, model, and OS version the UI will be different. Good luck teaching anyone the changes or talking them through screens.

    It’s so bad that Microsoft developed Outlook for Android and app-level management to largely ignore the nonsense that was managing android devices.

    Over on iOS, the UI has largely remained the same since release. MDM isn’t great but it’s gotten better. It’s a breeze to manage compared to iOS. Apps are pretty consistent in design.

    Windows phones never really got around to MDM, but blackberry phones were always easy to manage.

    IOS is simple better for enterprise and most non-technical users that need a smartphone and have no interest in customizing it.

  • It depends on a lot. I currently have an iPhone, and I like it, but I've never had an Android phone that was my daily driver.

    If I switched, what would I feel like I'm giving up, without having any experiential knowledge of what it would be like?
    iMessage and privacy. Or at least the perception of privacy.

  • My first smartphone was an iPhone. Most things were counter intuative. I also had to jailbreak it to do the things I wanted. A lot of it was basic stuff. The one I remember was that I wanted to use certain Bluetooth devices that would only work when jailbroken.

    Once I tried Android there was no turning back. I've used Apple devices for work and it is still counter intuative but things like Bluetooth are less restrictive at least. Still you shouldn't have to try to break or hack the system you're on to get basic settings that aren't available by default.

  • Android is, in my opinion, the "best of what's currently available." Mind you, this does not imply that it is "good".

    I dearly miss PalmOS and the Tungsten and Treo product lines, as well as the Psion brand. Those terrific PDA's had features that modern phones still lack. Conversely, I think modern phones come with a plethora of features that aren't really positive. But then, I'm not really a fan of the whole style where you can barely touch a device anywhere without operating it in some way. This is just my personal opinion.

    The #1 reason why I would never choose Apple's products is that, while they excel at what you're supposed to use them for, their platform is way too locked down for my taste. As a device owner, I want the ability to customise stuff and install (and remove!) whatever the hell I want (including ads!), and Android delivers that in far greater measure than Apple.

45 comments