He asks, in a FOSS community.
Sideloading apps, tons more choices (price range, design, manufacturer, specs), ‘more’ control, used to Android environment
This is the biggest reason for me. Though I rarely look further than F-Droid for anything.
I don’t really pay attention to apple news but didn’t the EU force them to allow sideloading a little bit after the whole usbc thing
Until that happened, I’ll hold on my doubts
What’s stopping you from switching to iPhone?
My lack of desire to switch to iPhone.
Why should I downgrade?
Apple’s stuff is:
- Locked down hard, meaning you get completely vendor-locked-in, and you can’t install alternative OS (there is none I think) or even apps from different sources without voiding warranty or using unsupported, unreliable hacks like jailbreaks for specific models.
- Privacy-invading. Sure, not as bad as proprietary Android distros, but still far from privacy-respecting
- Account-bound. Everything is tied to your Apple account. To even set up or use the product you need an account.
- As proprietary and closed source as it gets
- Ridiculously overpriced, so very low value for the money
- The company is known for its anti-competitive and monopolistic, even mafia-style behavior (e.g. when insisting on their 30% cut for all apps, insisting that apps use the in-app-purchasing system and not allowing “subscriptions from outside of Apple’s ecosystem”, stuff like that. If app developers don’t comply with ridiculous rules, they get their apps taken down, and since the AppStore is the only source for apps, this means they have 100% control and can kill any app which they don’t like or which they perceive as competition for Apple’s own apps.
Use GrapheneOS. It’s a secure, fully privacy-respecting open source distro of Android (based on the open source Android) without any Google services/apps by default, but with full Android app compatibility.
All this, plus the UI is outdated. It looks like it’s from the 1990s.
I don’t like paying more for less, and I am devoutly opposed to the Apple design aesthetic.
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inability to unlock bootloader and run custom rom
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not having enough money to buy iPhone
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why is this post getting downvoted?
I think it’s being down voted because of the way it is phrased, it comes across as “You obviously should switch to iPhone so why don’t you?”
I don’t want to switch because I find iPhones and the UI to be bland and boring, the ecosystem is too locked down and there’s little to no customisation. Plus there is a lot of snobbery around apple products and that doesn’t sit well with me.
“You obviously should switch to iPhone so why don’t you?”
Ahh now I see.
Also this is the second similar post I’ve seen recently. I think heblast one was, “iPhone users, why do you love your iPhone more than Android?” Or something. Made me suspicious of it being an ad. At the very least, I didn’t think a second thread was needed.
It would be hilarious if the OP was the same person 🤣.
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I don’t want to switch to something that costs more and that I like less?
I dislike being locked in to an ecosystem, no matter how pretty it is.
Ecosystems are fine as long as they aren’t fully locked and limited. That is super rare, I know.
If common protocols are used so that interoperability can happen, that is OK. ZigBee and ZWave would be quick examples off the top of my head.
Expensive and impossible to customise effectively, making it much poorer value than Android. Not that Android is perfect. The instant some form of non-proprietary Linux (like Debian w/phosh, PostmarketOS, etc.) becomes viable as a daily driver, Android is out as well.
Apple controls what may be installed on iphones with an iron fist. Did you know there is only one option for a web browser? Chrome, Firefox, and other apparent alternatives are actually re-skinned Safari. They don’t want to allow real competition to their own browser. This is certainly not the only case where they use app store approval powers to block competition.
Plus Apple takes 15-30% of every transaction on iphones. That includes payments in the app store, and also in-app purchases. Sure they have to fund the store, but given that Apple has an absolute monopoly over iphone app distribution this seems predatory to me.
Apple is anticompetitive, and seems to have little regard for their responsibility as a platform provider to allow application diversity to flourish.
So Google has a similar app store approval process, and takes basically the same percentage from transactions. But they are much more generous in what they allow in their store in terms of competing apps. And most importantly, Google does not have a monopoly on Android app distribution. You don’t need to do any jailbreaking to set up F-Droid, or to install apps from the web.
It’s true that the vast majority of Android users use Google’s app store. And I think that Google taking a cut of in-app purchases is also predatory. Apps should be able to not use Google Pay, and to not pay Google a cut. But the fact that there are other options puts a limit on how much Google can block competition, and gives some option for publishers to avoid that 15-30% cut.
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There’s no reason for me to switch. It would be going to a worse product in my opinion. I only use phones that can run lineageOS or another custom rom on it now, and have been doing so for the past 6 or so years.
I like my phone, I have more control over it, I like that it’s not made in ways to punish me for fixing it, I don’t trust Apple, and it cost 300$ instead of costing more than my current car
I don’t like how restrictive the apple ecosystem is. I have an ipad because the android equivalents just weren’t doing the job, but use android and linux for my daily drivers. I feel like the adblockers aren’t effective, and I can’t sideload apps.
Yeah me too. What I expect from my iPad is less demanding than what I expect of my phone. All I wanted from my iPad was draw, read comics, and watch videos. But, experience even just finding a calculator app that wasn’t trying to sign me up for a subscription was terrible. Then the file system experience was bad to use with a device that wasn’t a Mac. Then finding Foss apps was a pain. So as a pure media consumption device that will get long term updates I love the iPad, but as a phone it’s a no. At least until side loading arrives, and if an f-droid quality Foss option is offered too.
Why would I?
to preface what might sound like slander, I really would love to get my hands on apple hardware. It is engineered rather well and the geek in me can appreciate that. However, getting access to your own hardware is an issue.
While I have some concerns about their objective features, to my shame, the greatest problem is with the brand and their practices.
I think the root cause of all my issues stems from their morals and aggressive/elitist business practice - specifically their quest to squeeze money out of users and hide behind the lie of “we are doing this for the user’s benefit”.
I have no issue paying money for features I want or entities I’d like to support. In fact, I’m more inclined to financially support those who I believe in.
And apple loves to gatekeep features and keep them exclusive to apple. They effectively benefit from hard work of others who contribute to open standards and services, but at the same time do not share their own. Greedy.
