I’m planning on switching platforms and I’m just curious of the opinions of people here. I think that Android can have advantages in areas of privacy and external app installation, but most of the benefits come with a lot of tinkering out of the box.
I’m a very capable person at modifying my phone and I don’t generally mind doing that. I can make the interface work however I want. But I find myself caring less and less about how I interact with things in the light of what Apple is doing.
I’m looking at Android and it seems to be pretty far behind iOS at the moment. The messaging service is a huge sticking point and progress isn’t being made to unify iMessage with RCS apps. It seems to me like Samsung is making more progress with the platform than Google itself is. Like they’re the ones carrying it right now.
Keep in mind, I’m not a shill here. I haven’t used iOS in years. I still think they’re overpriced phones and Apple isn’t a great company. And I wish USB-C was a thing. This isn’t an ad. I’m just frustrated with the android platform and Apple seems to be leaving it behind.
Example features: FaceID, iMessage, home screen UX, battery life, and extended software support.
So can anyone tell me if they feel the same or help me in my decision? Not trying to start a tech war btw
Woke up and chose violence today huh? ;)
Having used both, I’d say stick with Android if you prefer tinkering, hop to iOS if you just want to pick up your device and do stuff.
Neither platform has any real privacy unless you do a de-googled Android (and that should be a third category IMO). Apple claims privacy but is at least moving toward a place where that isn’t really true. Privacy is a moot point when it comes to smartphones I guess.
To answer your question: don’t move to iOS if it doesn’t support a feature/function that is non negotiable for you. The stuff that works on iOS works well, and the stuff that doesn’t just basically doesn’t exist for the most part. iOS really only puts stuff into production that it thinks are near enough perfected already and everything else isn’t released outside beta programs.
For Apple, privacy means restricting access to your data for third parties. They take it for granted that they themselves should have access to everything. Apple protects your privacy from third parties, but not from Apple. In that regard, they actively compromise your privacy, because they upload and keep a lot more of user data on their servers than one would expect, and are semitransparent about that at best.
Of course the same is true for google, plus google makes more money with ads and owns a lot more of “internet infrastructure”: For Apple, they have control over your OS and maybe browser. Google owns the OS, your browser, the DNS server, the search, the cached version of a website, the captiveportalcheck server, maybe even the domain register and hosting provider. Apple has targeted apps as well, but the pure scale of what google is doing makes it so much worse in that regard.
The same is true for manufacturers like Samsung, Huawei etc. as well, they too want as much of your data, and want other parties to get as little, as possible. That’s just what’s happening across the industry: data is the new gold, the fewer parties have access to a certain set of data the higher its value.
Very simply put:
IPhone -> Apple tries to get all your data, but restrict access for third parties
Stock Android -> Google and manufacturer x try to get all your data, but restrict access for fourth parties
Then there are Linux phones, probably great for privacy but honestly not practical at the current state. And then there are custom roms like LineageOS, grapheneos etc. That’s where I always land, because I want actual privacy including from the maker of my device. Also, clean LineageOS on a well supported device is just miles ahead of any stock android rom if you ask me. But if I did not have the time or skill to flash custom roms I could totally see me buying an iPhone. I won’t, because lineage, but you get the point.
Tl,Dr: Get LineageOS or GrapheneOS. If you can’t or don’t want to: IPhone might be slightly better in terms of privacy.
Sorry for the wall of text, hope it helps someone!