(unpaywalled version on archive.today: https://archive.ph/03cwZ)

Interesting figure that comes out of the article: 87% of US teens prefer iPhones. Also the explanations given aren’t quite surprising, I guess it’s mostly because of iMessage. Teens will feel like outcasts if they get an Android phone while their friends still use iMessage because of the green bubbles.

It’s actually hilarious how we allowed consumerism to take us this far and that we have now peer pressure over smartphones.

“You’re telling me in 2023, you still have a ’Droid? […] You gotta be at least 50 years old.”

ouch 😔

  • TheDevil@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I tried a full phone cycle on Android. A Wileyfox Swift. I stuck with it for 4 years. I’ve dealt with a handful of Android tablets. I still have to wrangle Android on fire sticks.

    I love to mess around with electronics but holyshit never again. These are devices that need to work and perform, I got so damn tired messing with Lineage and TWRP - the alternative being the zero updates from the manufacturer. The whole stack is a janky mess, and a moving target in terms of security and performance. Flagship phones that might stay current and perform well for a couple of years? Wtf?

    So many android apps are dogshit. There’s no minimum bar to entry. Malicious apps sneak onto the play store. Out of date apps linger around.

    My phone is not a project piece. It’s an essential device. Apple gives me a stringently vetted App Store, strong privacy controls, dependable hardware and performance. They expose the settings that I need and optimise everything else. My iPhone works and does it’s job with far less painful maintenance. I’m definitely willing to trade some freedom for that utility.

    Not only that but Apple hasn’t tried to drm the open web lately. Are you sure this is consumerism and peer pressure? And not a dogshit software stack with poor performance, security and hardware driving away the users who are most engaged with their devices?

    Do I care what phone you’re using? No. But I think bullshit click bait articles which effectively denigrate an entire demographic for the sake of instigating a tired back and forth about apples vs oranges should stay on the other side of the fucking paywall.

    • pjhenry1216@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Did you really just compare an iPhone to some hacked version of an android phone? No shit it’ll perform better. And complaining that you can’t stop yourself from installing bad applications so you need Apple to stop you is kind of a weird flex. Just be a responsible computer owner. Don’t just install anything because it’s there. Be aware of what you install.

      And it’s kind of funny how you denigrate the other phone yourself and get mad that someone else did it towards your phone. Dont try too hard defending your decisions.

      • TheDevil@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        No I did not and the Swift was (at the time) an official lineage target. It performed well, but the amount of work and effort it took to attain and maintain that performance was simply unacceptable to me. I like the concept of Android and I like how open it is but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be an apologist for it’s shortcomings. Of which there are many. I would love to be able to justify using an android device but it is just not a rational choice for me. And it would seem many others.

        Denigrating something is by definition unfair criticism - and I don’t think even the most evangelical of android fans can support the mediocre manufacturer support and security history of the platform.

      • Dempf@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        I think it’s a pretty fair comparison because in order to get the lifespan that I expect out of my hardware (3-5+ years), on Android I need to install a custom ROM just to get security updates.

        Meanwhile Apple is still publishing updates for devices even 10 years old sometimes.

        Yes, I know Google is starting to commit to 5 years of security updates, but if you bought a Pixel phone last year (like I did) then there’s a decent chance that yours still only came with 3 years of updates. So if you want a similar level of service then you end up having to do a lot of work yourself to make it happen.

        • monotremata@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          You were pretty unlucky to buy a Pixel 5A in 2022. Every Pixel device that’s been released since October 2021’s Pixel 6 has had 5 years of security updates*, including the A line starting with the Pixel 6A in mid-2022. So the only phone Google still sold in the first half of 2022 that didn’t have that was the 5A.

          At this point the Pixel phones specifically do have pretty decent support lifetimes. iPhones are still doing better, and Android phones in general are terrible about it, but for the Pixels in particular this has ceased to be a big issue. It sounds like you managed to snag the very last phone with this problem.

          *They still only get 3 years of OS upgrades, but that hasn’t made a meaningful difference in several years.

    • deong@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Honestly the only thing Apple vets is that the app maker isn’t trying to weasel their way around Apple’s cut of the revenue. They’ll 100% catch it if you have a link to your sign-up page instead of using in-app purchase, but if you want to make an app called Threads and scam 300,000 people’s info, go nuts.

      The Google Store is no better, but if I gave 1000 people money to spend on software, the ones who would be scammed out of the most are the people using these app stores. It’s an absolute travesty that Apple continues to get so much mileage out of their bullshit claims about their strict and thorough review process.

      Also, I think it’s kind of hilarious that you just want a phone to work without you needing to mess with it, and then your phone cycle with Android sucked because you apparently picked something called the WileyFox Swift and started fucking around with bootloader replacements.