The only reason I am using an Android phone and not an iOS one is because of F-Droid to install the open-source app I like and need. I would definitely switch to iOS if I could have this freedom there.
I hate that with Android I trust that Google will at some point succeed with a dark pattern in letting me agree to siphon my data without my real agreement.
I actually would have loved to switch to Android but unlike you, really don’t like the UI, which I find unpolished, and customization useful but not worth the risk of using android devices to begin with. And I definitely don’t trust Google (not using any of their services, except search via StartPage and YouTube in an isolated tab). I think Android has such a bad reputation by now in terms of privacy and risks, I will probably stick with iOS until something new, and preferably open source, comes along.
The short life-time of Android phones & the app's questionable privacy policies are the 2 major reasons I'm sticking to iOS, even though I think Apple is a major asshole.
Android is an awesome OS, but the app store feels "unregulated" and I feel like I'm not in control who and what copies my data.
The only reason I have yet to move fully to Android is because right now, Android without Google is such a neutered experience that I don't see any reason to try.
I only have an iPhone because of Apple's privacy stance. I hate every other element of the company.
I stick with Apple for the privacy. There are features on Android I wish to use, but I can’t bring myself to use an Android phone or putting the effort of cleaning it from all of Google’s trackers.
That's it. I'm switching to iOS. Android is like child's play when it comes to privacy compared to the features introduced just in this version of iOS. I'm sure I'll hate the lack of customizability but at least the privacy features are solid.
The only real reason I haven't switched is because they won't give me control of my phone. At least with Android I can root it, install custom roms, and mess with pretty much any non-google software that I have on there.
Android is far from perfect, and I still hate it, but at least I can still control most of it.
I switched to an iPhone about a year ago, and got annoyed at the pushy things iOS was doing that Android wasn't. So I switched back to Android recently, only to find that many of the annoying iOS things had now been adopted by Google. Great, thanks. I'll stick with Android for the near future though, as with a custom rooted ROM I can at least remove a lot of 'unremovable' stuff, even if I now have to play annoying cat and mouse games with apps trying to detect my rooted device and disable themselves.
I am fairly open source die hard, at least for my personal stuff.
I used exclusively Android stuff for a long time for the reasons you cited: it was a good compromise between corporate support and hackable.
I bought an iPhone for the first time about six months back. I am not happy about having to do it. There's plenty of stuff I don't like about the phone. But I think it has been a net positive.
I used to really be rooting for Google. They have fallen a long way.
Agree. If Apple allowed it, I think I would switch.
Android used to be clearly better for a lot of what I wanted my phone to do: more customizable, better app integration ecosystem, less vendor lock in for default apps.
Apple has slowly shored up its software weaknesses, and Android has slowly gotten worse at this (e.g. Google appears to have no plans to make RCS APIs available - they whitelist client APKs - so you're stuck with the stock messenger app). The single thing holding me back now is the walled garden for app installation.
Right. So I switch to an android phone, and then when I have complaints about how it locks me in to using google services, or has a terrible permissions model, you tell me to just choose an iPhone… and back and forth we go.
I used to buy Nexus phones and jailbreak them for SU root privileges so I could deny apps (mostly by google) from using permissions without my consent on app launch.
With that being said, I'll be switching to an iPhone for privacy reasons, starting with my next phone and I've been a loyal Android user since Google started with the G1. How times have changed...
I hate that with Android I trust that Google will at some point succeed with a dark pattern in letting me agree to siphon my data without my real agreement.
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