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Yesterday, I was reading a thread that asked what's the point of buying a new phone as often as as people do. In the comments there were a variety of answers, but what interested me is that there were a wide variety of answers for how long each person liked to go before upgrading. So I've attempted to come up with justifications...
🆕 blog! “All phones are foldable. But some are foldable only once.”
I want a new phone! I went to a wedding and everyone1 had one of those new folding phones. Social marketing has done a number on me and inveigled its way into my brain. Hey, I make decent money, perhaps I'll buy one. How much could they possibly cost? About £1,700 for a Pixel Fold […]
The new Linux phone from Jolla & its benefits? ⛵ :linux:
◉Sailfish OS - the only independent commercial mobile OS
◉Sailfish is NOT 100% closed source - Jolla plans to open the remaining blobs
◉More "Linuxy" than Android; Qt / Wayland / filesystem
◉Free of Google / Apple
◉Use Android compatibility in case an :android: app is needed
◉Jolla is a Finnish company - 🇫🇮 / 🇮🇸 are considered most trustworthy nations in Europe
I have now concluded my personal Android phone vs. iPhone study and finished my Excel about the matter. Most of the people I asked use Android or something else rather than iPhone: https://mementomori.social/@rolle/110867030805742171
Android: 12 pros, 11 cons
iPhone: 7 pros, 7cons
TL;DR: In reality when digging into it in a more detailed matter with pros and cons, it's pretty much 50/50, a tied match with these two. It's more of a personal preference. If you want to spend less money to a phone, like to control everything, develop your own things or use command line on your phone, go for Android. If you like everything easy and ready to go without any thinking, go for an iPhone.
From apps and services I personally use, 95/95 are available on Android, 81/95 on iPhone, but practically all apps that are Android-only have iPhone-only alternatives.
Android pros:
Open source, mostly
Generally cheaper devices
Native Chrome/Chromium for developers, better support for PWAs
More apps
Freedom to customize from colors, icons to UIs and launchers
More options in system level
Termux: Native unix command line is something beyond awesome if you need local packages up and running on the fly
Flag ship phones have superior hardware
Custom apks, F-droid, 3rd party apps or develope your own without dependancy on Google Play store
Generally updates regurarly
Custom ROMs
Openness, access to file system
Android cons:
Newest Android (13) have limited even customizing the lock screens, so that's for the freedom
Newest Android-phones don't have Custom ROMs, so you have to depend on the often bloaty manufacturer updates
App quality is generally not that great when compared to iOS apps
The quality of operating system varies a lot between manufacturers
Usually contains a lot of bloat, unnecessary apps that you need to clean up right after purchasing the phone
Google. It's an ad company, spammy trends etc. you need to get rid of
Too much customizing to get it right. Some love this, I'm getting tired of it especially now when it's not like before, not everything can be customized.
Rooting and customizing lowers the lifespan of the device when you notice there will be no further updates or in between of Android version changes you need full wipe again
Official OTA updates generally exist shorter amount of years in the future when comparing to iOS updates
The phone is slowing down over time after updates, because the software is hardly optimized for the hardware, naturally varying and depending on the model and the phone price tag
Android 13 for example on OnePlus headed to a wrong direction with OxygenOS updates that are crippling the system. Even swiping things is slower than on PixelExperience, it's notable. - Too much varying in the quality and performance of the operating systems, it's wild
iPhone pros:
Very well optimized sofware for the hardware, works smoothly
Superior camera
The UI: Everything is pretty
Long life span of the updates
Generally better apps when compared to Android, the quality is way better all around (good example: Mastodon apps)
Some apps simply exist only for iPhone
It "just works"
iPhone cons:
Apple is controlling everything
Barely any customization
Everything you browse is on Safari, which sucks as a browser
App store is the only way to install apps. If there is no app you need, you are out of luck.
No memory card or other extensions to the phone. You buy it "as is". When you face the limits, you have to buy a new phone.
Expensive
No access to file system
There are probably more small nuances, but these are the most important pieces for me.
I might just buy an iPhone next, after 15 years of Android.
I really like this article from Rohan D "Every Phone Should Be Able to Run Personal Website". In it, they make the convincing case that phones are perfectly capable of hosting websites and - if we want more people to escape the walled-gardens - this could be a good way to get people back into […]
Was ist die beste Lösung um Files von einem Android Phone auf ein nächsten zu kopieren, ohne Google Zugang? Oder ist eine Web-Übertragung das einfschste & schnellste im Moment wenn mensch es braucht? 🤔
not really into high end smartphones as i don't have a usecase for those. don't need an above average camera, if any at all. currently i am using a motorola edge 20 as my daily workhorse and overall i am not unhappy with it. Just sometimes it seriously hangs and occasionally reboots. also probably sooner or later updates will...
I'm not sure how many people know this, but I thought I'd share something I learned a few years ago when I worked for a mobile phone seller. Most modern smartphones are too expensive for people to purchase outright. At the most extreme end, the iPhone 14 Pro Max costs £1,2001. So a typical customer […]
While farting around online, I stumbled across this 2008 Time Capsule from Stephen Fry. In it, he discusses the state of mobile phones - diving into the problems with BlackBerry's and Apple's latest offerings. BlackBerry had released the Storm1 and Apple's 2nd iPhone was now 3G capable. It's quite the glimpse into what we thought […]
:linux: Jolla | Makers of truly competitive Linux for mobile - NEW PHONE COMING! 🤳
◉Jolla is a small but spicy company on a field of relentless competition
◉Due this - Sailfish OS moves to a subscription model (but it's just 5€ / month)
◉New budget phone comes with 2 ARM Cortex-A75 CPU / 6 Cortex-A55 cores
◉8GB of RAM / 128gt space / 4,000 mAh bat
◉Pre order for €299 (incl. a 1-yr sub) & Jolla takes €50 deposit
Recommendations of non-Apple products with similar longevity?
EDIT: Getting a ton of great responses thanks everyone
Personal Justifications for different phone life cycles
Yesterday, I was reading a thread that asked what's the point of buying a new phone as often as as people do. In the comments there were a variety of answers, but what interested me is that there were a wide variety of answers for how long each person liked to go before upgrading. So I've attempted to come up with justifications...
options for a midrange phone replacement
not really into high end smartphones as i don't have a usecase for those. don't need an above average camera, if any at all. currently i am using a motorola edge 20 as my daily workhorse and overall i am not unhappy with it. Just sometimes it seriously hangs and occasionally reboots. also probably sooner or later updates will...