I am an iPhone user myself, but the number of "this is an android problem" and "just use iPhone" in response to the author's complaints surprises me. I thought HN was more anti apple in the past? Maybe we are all old now and tinkering with our devices is out of fashion, but this doesn't make the author's complaints illegitimate.
And if we zoom out a bit, iPhones are only 20% of the global phone market. The overwhelming majority of the world uses android because, well, iPhones are expensive. There are plenty of places where an iPhone is still a status symbol. Even you think the author should have bought his parents iPhones instead, there is still a whole world of people out there who would benefit from improvements in the android ecosystem.
It's an android (11) flip phone but without Google store and without touchscreen, so almost nothing works on it
There's no setup, besides disabling the PTT button and making it open the application of your choice (as long as your choice is Clock, Voice Memo, or Music/FM Radio)
The ability to slam the phone shut to hang up, and call via speed dial without opening the "phone" app more than makes up for the lack of Instagram.
If you want a chatbot put 1800CHATGPT on your speed dial
I've been running Android custom ROMs since Gingerbread days, on HTC HD2. At that time, I'd be flashing nightlies, switching between CyanogenMod and Paranoid Android, kernels, getting bootloops.
Setting up the phone was no big deal - most apps could be backed up with Titanium Backup, few that couldn't (e.g. banking) would just get redownloaded and I'd log in immediately. I was also still a student back then and had more time to tinker, but if it was anything like it is now, I would've given up much quicker.
In the last year I had to do few clean flashes with changing my phone, then updating LineageOS, and once the phone just wiped itself for no reason. Backups don't work for most apps - even if you can get one, they'll crash without a specific reason. 2FA everywhere is mostly security theater, with apps that have no business keeping my data but insisting on it, using SMS, email, authenticators, selfies. Banking apps needing two layers of root detection circumvention (because a custom ROM is already problematic, so you need root to stop them from detecting an unlocked bootloader, and then again not to detect root). Google insisting on sending a security check notification to a phone that's just been wiped with no ability to confirm that it's really you from your PC (but if you give it few minutes, it will give in and let you verify with SMS), always feels like hacking yourself.
It's a massive pain already on a clean, bloatware-free custom ROM, with a truly minimum app list. Once you need to start debloating the official OS, it's another hour or three, depending if they're nice and let you uninstall things or if you need adb access to disable offending packages.
I found that TiBackup was both the secret sauce that allowed for playing with ROMs with impunity, and also my primary reason for rooting phones back in the day even when I was just using phones in stock form.
It was the first app I ever spent money on, and I did so without any hesitation at all.
It was just genuinely useful to be able to back up and restore my own data on my own devices, and to do so on my own accord. It was a process that I owned, and controlled, and if it went wrong somehow then I was able to troubleshoot it and make sensible decisions.
I haven't had a rooted phone in a decade or so now. These days, backups allegedly happen -- somehow -- and the entire process seems to be both deliberately and inscrutably shrouded in mystery.
When I switch devices or reset to factory to try to fix an eSIM issue (or whatever I do that makes restoration a useful path today), then it's never clear before I start whether the backup/restore will magically work or if it will simply fail without recourse. The uncertainty demonstrates a reprehensibly terrible way to deal with backups.
“Phones” in the title is doing lots of heavy lifting. “Android phones” is the key missing piece.
I love Free software too, and I wish I could run more of my life on it, but it’s no longer my hobby. I like cars, too, but I don’t work on a hobby car. The author’s experience is why I use proprietary stuff like Apple for these parts of my life. A new Apple device is usually a non-event: charge it, authenticate, wait for the back to restore while you go about your business.
The cost of more freedom (in this case, from proprietary toolchains and data lakes) is needing to exercise more control (compiling custom Android images). I just, honest to god, don’t want to spend the time on it. A kid, a house, cats, getting old. I like that someone else has solved multi-device backup and restore, and I feel happy watching it happen so perfectly, even if I’m not the one controlling it.
> I use proprietary stuff like Apple for these parts of my life. A new Apple device is usually a non-event: charge it, authenticate, wait for the back to restore while you go about your business.
Most of the author's criticisms were centered on avoiding account creation and third-party apps. I'm not sure I would give Apple the benefit of the doubt here since the motivations are different: Apple is far more interested in locking customers into their own ecosystem. On the Android front, that isn't all that different from getting a Pixel. Of course, getting an Android based Samsung adds an extra company who wants to do the same as well as selling space to third parties.
While Android being more open does add complexity, it is mostly limited to those who buy devices produced by another vendor or those who choose to exercise their freedom (e.g. by choosing to install a third-party version of Android, or installing a third-party "app store", or developing their own software).
To be fair, setting up a new iPhone (without restoring from backup) is a pretty long-winded process these days. You have to make about 50 decisions on various features, tap through numerous info screens, set up Face ID, Apple Pay, voice recognition, etc. etc. It feels like every team at Apple wants something in the onboarding flow.
A lot of the complains expressed in this article are distinctly from the proprietary parts.
Stock Android, and especially stock Samsung, is far from being a free software solution.
A turnkey solution based (almost exclusively, and except the driver blobs) on free software would be to buy a phone running something like /e/. I think they also provide backups.
Of course, stuff requiring SafetyNet (or whatever Google current oppressive attestation system) may not work (though microG makes some of it work).
iOS now has a ton of dialogs and set up steps and the occasional dark pattern in selling you various cloud based subscriptions to Apples various services.
Having said all that, yes Android is pretty bad. I think it's the in the nature of platform owners to get their hooks into yoh as much as possible.
You're presenting a false dichotomy. I'd argue that installing and setting up GrapheneOS on a Pixel is as-much or less effort compared to setting up an iPhone. And it gives you full freedom and the best possible security while doing so. You can have everything at once.
*Samsung phones. Known for a long time for their crapware infested devices. At the other end of the spectrum, Pixel phones are quite easy and smooth to set up.
Apple products are atrocious to setup too. I've wanted to film just how bad the experience is but I'd need a 3rd phone since I have to use the 2nd phone to setup the new 1st phone.
95% of what was written in this article isn't required to set up an Android phone. You can literally log into your Google account on first boot and everything is done for you, automatically.
What is it in your life which makes it 'impossible' to use free software, Google-free AOSP-derived Android distributions being part of this? I run close to exclusively free software and have done so for decades and have yet to feel the need to change this. Of course there are exceptions, e.g. I need to run proprietary applications for banking and electronic ID but those are the exceptions to the rule. My server runs only free software, on desktop I sometimes run an older version of Sketchup to start modelling things but that's the only non-free package I use there. We have children, a cat, a dog, 4 horses, a farm, a large forest, the works. We have multi-device backup and restore as well. Things work fine, using free software, not using 'the cloud'. Where are the sticking points for you and what would it take to take those away?
a big chunk of apples valuation is that they can just tell you to bend over the day they decide to aquire half a trillion dollars, fire half there workers, and demonstrate the creative way there user agreaments are bieng interpereted, and that you can get a trump phone if you dont like it.
this is the company that has signed an exclusive deal to provide phones for the ZGF, zionist genocide force, so dont even bother, ok?
Giving an Android phone to elderly/non-technical people is asking for trouble imho. They will eventually tap their way into installing suspicious apps, adware or even straight up malware. It's inevitable, they are not aware of what they do and how to avoid the many risks of the digital world.
I remember having the same struggles of OP when setting up a cheap android phone for my grandma, the amount of bloat, adware and misleading content I had to remove was incredible (and some couldn't even be removed). The irony was that after a few months of light usage, the phone was in a state even worse, full of downloaded apps and opened suspicious websites in the browser. She would swear she never even noticed any of those.
This is one of the cases in which giving them an iPhone with its walled garden has great benefits. You can also setup parental control on top of that already locked down ecosystem.
My mother can no longer do the stuff she used to on her iOS phone because it is so complicated compared to the iPhone 4 I gave her a long time ago.
I screen her emails with her consent, very easy to do with Fastmail that imports her Yahoo mail into a folder she doesn't see and then I move okay emails to her inbox.
If your relatives are significantly tech illiterate, I'd skip the smartphone entirely and go for a locked-down Linux desktop + feature phone. The most dangerous apps are big legitimate ones.
If you do go for a smartphone, my experience tells me that there's no difference between Android and iOS. The biggest sources for shady apps are the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Shady stuff on the web can be easily defeated using an adblocking browser, which is essential for older relatives.
FYI: you can also set up parental controls on Android.
Parental control is a also a hot buggy mess on iOS currently. Our daughter has an iPhone with parental control set up and a bunch of apps that are whitelisted regularly refuse to start at random moments (blocked by parental controls). We hoped that iOS 26 would finally fix it, but nope.
It doesn't really matter, both phone ecosystems are a mess, but in different ways.
Upgraded to one of the latest iPhone recently. First time I clicked on “transfer data from old phone”. I’m used to reinstalling the operating system every couple of months from when I used Windows. It took maybe 15 minutes with close to 0 interactions. Everything was transferred. I was already authenticated in apps. What took manual steps was eSIM transfers.
I don’t remember exact steps so there could have been a bit more. But it was an impressive experience and I told my geek friends about it. They were surprised this is the first time I used this feature.
Google has APIs to do the same. In fact, it works on most apps. The biggest exceptions are security sensitive apps (2FA, password managers) and WhatsApp for some stupid reason. If you're a HN Android user who turns off any form of data sharing like me, you wouldn't notice, though, as this requires the "back up my data" checkbox during setup of the old and new phone to work conpletely.
Another issue on Android is that iOS allows for syncing data through the user's iCloud, which can be gigabytes in size, but Google has you use the Google Drive API which sucks and involves handing over credit card info.
The Android file transfer has another trick that Apple doesn't seem to do, which is fully offline local sync rather than going through the cloud. This has reliability issues and requires both devices to stay on and nearby while the transfer is in progress, but on slower internet connections the process can be a heck of a lot faster thanks to modern wifi speeds.
For some reason, iMessage always ends up in a very weird state when I transfer to a new iPhone. Also, some apps don't get restored settings, but I think they opt out (usually banking, credit card, insurance apps, etc.).
i typically don't want to re-enter credentials etc, so I always do encrypted backup via itunes.. took 6-7hrs just transferring photos quite hands off most of the time but still painful, can't imagine what android guys go through
The worst part is that it keeps getting harder, not easier. Every new phone setup asks you to connect more accounts, enable more permissions, and configure more services.
I recently helped a family member set up a new phone and it took over 2 hours. Between 2FA migrations, app re-authentication, and trying to figure out which backup actually had their data, it was miserable.
Phone manufacturers have zero incentive to make cross-platform migration easy. Apple wants you to stay on iPhone. Google wants you to stay on Android. The user suffers.
For those on iPhones or respectable mobile network operators, not everyone has as good of an experience as you do.
For people who buy subsidized Android-based phones from some carriers such as Metro by T-Mobile USA, they either come with bloatware baked in or they download the bloatware when you first activate the device or something like that.
These things are fairly easy to disable if you know what you are doing but if you don't know what you are doing, I can imagine people will simply put up with ads showing up every time you pick up the phone. It can get annoying VERY quickly.
My personal experience is that the setup procedure wildly depends on the phone's vendor.
The biggest difference between setting up a Pixel and an iPhone I experienced was that Google asked for certain settings beforehand that I had to turn off in the settings after setup on iOS. Both would've been a lot faster if I hadn't tried to disable optional account stuff.
Contrast that to Samsung, especially their non-flagship models, where the setup wizard took forever because of the crap Samsung added to the process.
That said, I do appreciate some "tutorial" parts of the setup process on Android. When I first set up an iPhone, I got the distinct impression that Apple assumed I already knew how to do everything. Their interface isn't exactly intuitive if you haven't used iOS before, no matter what online forums may claim. It took me several tries and a Google search to figure out how to remove apps, for instance. Perhaps one might find it an annoying extra step you're going to skip as a power user who's used to the platform, but it felt strange to be dropped into a strange, new operating environment with no instructions.
To be fair, they are doing with a Samsung phone, and Samsung is the Apple of Android (Big marketing budget, mid quality if we are being generous).
Samsung as a company is a universal No Buy. The fact OP bought Samsung makes me raise an eyebrow.
Credit to Apple where credit is due. When I unboxed my first iphone, I was happy to give Apple all my personal information, birthday, emails, ssn.... It was bizarre, I'm usually apprehensive to give this stuff away, but Apple made it fun. Within a few days, I was disappointed by a lack of widgets, slow transitions between screens, and a buggy podcast app. But the damage was done, my company was out $600 and Apple had my contact info.
It's pick-your-poison. iPhone setup is eight hundred screens, half of which are upsells for Apple services, but at least it's only Apple services. Android setup, if you're not on a Pixel, is an invitation for the vendor's dozens of "partners" to all get your money and all your data.
Sounds like setting up Windows. The amount of explaining of “why you don't want or need that” was insane. I got Ubuntu down to 10 min or so. Including my fav apps. (I won’t make the comparison to setting up NicOS with a ready to go config ;))
I personally call this process of setting up a new device, whether for me or for someone else, "shit shoveling". It is something of a ritual.
In the former case the thing that needs to be removed is the entirety of the OS (and if that proves to be impossible, the device is returned or discarded), and in the latter it's a scan of all apps and removal of all unnecessary apps, my grandma does not need Samsung Galaxy Games, thank you very much.
How do you back up and restore things without root? I've found that even with root, these days many backups are useless thanks to using hardware-backed encryption...
I'm dreading having to buy a new rugged Android phone. I have one where all the stuff I don't want is turned off. F-Droid, Firefox, FairEmail, DuckDuckGo, no Google account. Getting a new phone into that configuration may not be possible.
The major brands are more and more locked down, and the minor brands can't be trusted.
I have a Cat phone now. The actual manufacturer, Bullett, went bankrupt. Can't get the small rubber parts needed to maintain the waterproofing.
If you use android and don't choose GrapheneOS then idk what to tell you, its been an awesome experience with no issues for the last ~5ish years I've used it.
Another thing that annoys me on Android is the setup experience itself. All my recent device presentcthe same behaviour: login with a Google account, transfer data, setup voice assistant and some other defaults,done.
Then after the first app updates is done, a notification comes with "let's finish setting up your phone" and again asks to setup voice assistant, check defaults and whatever else is in the flow.
Has no one noticed that the setup flow seems to run twice?
And it's not one specific device. I do it with eight to ten devices a year, from different OEM, writing reviews and testing. They all have the same behaviour.
Another annoying thing: very few apps are copied from old device to new devices and bring their settings and most importantly login. Of about 80 apps on my device, only five or so are ready to use after a migration.
Going through dozens of apps, doing logins, 2FAcand changing settings is a PITA.
If you think this setup process is a drag, imagine what a pain in the neck it is to try to use your phone after your paranoid son has fucked it all up like this.
I fear every single time I have to switch phones. Being degoogled means I first have to choose hardware based on custom ROMs compatibility, and fight the thing to just install the ROM. Then the fun begins, for every single stupid feature I have to install and setup a solution (app) optionally restoring a backup individually. Contacts, calendar, files, maps, passwords, airtag protection, email, IM, keyboard, weather, notes, smart garbage:tm:, alternative YouTube client...The state of current tech is pityful, if it wasn't what I was doing to put food on the table I wouldn't want any of this garbage 10 meters near me.
Edit: Before any of the geniuses here says "at least you can use alternatives" I don't want to hear your copium, it's obvious this won't last.
I do SIP and Asterisk. I read the title and was like I know right! Oh smartphones. Setting it up is the tip of an iceberg whereas consumers and society as a whole are pay huge prices in several currencies for phones which are tremendously over engineered for and not fit for, purpose. The entire stack from Von Veumann to 5G has to go.
Setting up enshittified devices is the nightmare. Don't curse out on all phones because they made a poor purchase decision. You're literally buying it wrong. Next time go with a slightly used device that's fully supported by GrapheneOS and marvel at the frictionless setup.
pibaker|27 minutes ago
And if we zoom out a bit, iPhones are only 20% of the global phone market. The overwhelming majority of the world uses android because, well, iPhones are expensive. There are plenty of places where an iPhone is still a status symbol. Even you think the author should have bought his parents iPhones instead, there is still a whole world of people out there who would benefit from improvements in the android ecosystem.
jazzyjackson|8 minutes ago
It's an android (11) flip phone but without Google store and without touchscreen, so almost nothing works on it
There's no setup, besides disabling the PTT button and making it open the application of your choice (as long as your choice is Clock, Voice Memo, or Music/FM Radio)
The ability to slam the phone shut to hang up, and call via speed dial without opening the "phone" app more than makes up for the lack of Instagram.
If you want a chatbot put 1800CHATGPT on your speed dial
ddtaylor|6 minutes ago
spaqin|57 minutes ago
I've been running Android custom ROMs since Gingerbread days, on HTC HD2. At that time, I'd be flashing nightlies, switching between CyanogenMod and Paranoid Android, kernels, getting bootloops.
Setting up the phone was no big deal - most apps could be backed up with Titanium Backup, few that couldn't (e.g. banking) would just get redownloaded and I'd log in immediately. I was also still a student back then and had more time to tinker, but if it was anything like it is now, I would've given up much quicker.
In the last year I had to do few clean flashes with changing my phone, then updating LineageOS, and once the phone just wiped itself for no reason. Backups don't work for most apps - even if you can get one, they'll crash without a specific reason. 2FA everywhere is mostly security theater, with apps that have no business keeping my data but insisting on it, using SMS, email, authenticators, selfies. Banking apps needing two layers of root detection circumvention (because a custom ROM is already problematic, so you need root to stop them from detecting an unlocked bootloader, and then again not to detect root). Google insisting on sending a security check notification to a phone that's just been wiped with no ability to confirm that it's really you from your PC (but if you give it few minutes, it will give in and let you verify with SMS), always feels like hacking yourself.
It's a massive pain already on a clean, bloatware-free custom ROM, with a truly minimum app list. Once you need to start debloating the official OS, it's another hour or three, depending if they're nice and let you uninstall things or if you need adb access to disable offending packages.
ssl-3|8 minutes ago
It was the first app I ever spent money on, and I did so without any hesitation at all.
It was just genuinely useful to be able to back up and restore my own data on my own devices, and to do so on my own accord. It was a process that I owned, and controlled, and if it went wrong somehow then I was able to troubleshoot it and make sensible decisions.
I haven't had a rooted phone in a decade or so now. These days, backups allegedly happen -- somehow -- and the entire process seems to be both deliberately and inscrutably shrouded in mystery.
When I switch devices or reset to factory to try to fix an eSIM issue (or whatever I do that makes restoration a useful path today), then it's never clear before I start whether the backup/restore will magically work or if it will simply fail without recourse. The uncertainty demonstrates a reprehensibly terrible way to deal with backups.
sonofhans|9 hours ago
I love Free software too, and I wish I could run more of my life on it, but it’s no longer my hobby. I like cars, too, but I don’t work on a hobby car. The author’s experience is why I use proprietary stuff like Apple for these parts of my life. A new Apple device is usually a non-event: charge it, authenticate, wait for the back to restore while you go about your business.
The cost of more freedom (in this case, from proprietary toolchains and data lakes) is needing to exercise more control (compiling custom Android images). I just, honest to god, don’t want to spend the time on it. A kid, a house, cats, getting old. I like that someone else has solved multi-device backup and restore, and I feel happy watching it happen so perfectly, even if I’m not the one controlling it.
II2II|8 hours ago
Most of the author's criticisms were centered on avoiding account creation and third-party apps. I'm not sure I would give Apple the benefit of the doubt here since the motivations are different: Apple is far more interested in locking customers into their own ecosystem. On the Android front, that isn't all that different from getting a Pixel. Of course, getting an Android based Samsung adds an extra company who wants to do the same as well as selling space to third parties.
While Android being more open does add complexity, it is mostly limited to those who buy devices produced by another vendor or those who choose to exercise their freedom (e.g. by choosing to install a third-party version of Android, or installing a third-party "app store", or developing their own software).
cmckn|3 hours ago
jraph|9 hours ago
Stock Android, and especially stock Samsung, is far from being a free software solution.
A turnkey solution based (almost exclusively, and except the driver blobs) on free software would be to buy a phone running something like /e/. I think they also provide backups.
Of course, stuff requiring SafetyNet (or whatever Google current oppressive attestation system) may not work (though microG makes some of it work).
adamsmark|5 hours ago
Having said all that, yes Android is pretty bad. I think it's the in the nature of platform owners to get their hooks into yoh as much as possible.
When I set up Linux Mint, there was none of this.
nradov|1 hour ago
uyzstvqs|2 hours ago
nazgul17|3 hours ago
socalgal2|1 hour ago
dismalaf|9 hours ago
hagbard_c|9 hours ago
Paddyz|1 hour ago
[deleted]
EmperorClawd|2 hours ago
[deleted]
metalman|4 hours ago
lnrd|8 hours ago
This is one of the cases in which giving them an iPhone with its walled garden has great benefits. You can also setup parental control on top of that already locked down ecosystem.
hocuspocus|2 hours ago
Some things are actually worse on the iOS side. It took years for Apple to catch up with spam and scam calls/SMS detection.
Plain Google search is still the main vector of scams, I eventually set up NextDNS on her devices.
rationalist|7 hours ago
I screen her emails with her consent, very easy to do with Fastmail that imports her Yahoo mail into a folder she doesn't see and then I move okay emails to her inbox.
uyzstvqs|3 hours ago
If you do go for a smartphone, my experience tells me that there's no difference between Android and iOS. The biggest sources for shady apps are the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Shady stuff on the web can be easily defeated using an adblocking browser, which is essential for older relatives.
microtonal|8 hours ago
Parental control is a also a hot buggy mess on iOS currently. Our daughter has an iPhone with parental control set up and a bunch of apps that are whitelisted regularly refuse to start at random moments (blocked by parental controls). We hoped that iOS 26 would finally fix it, but nope.
It doesn't really matter, both phone ecosystems are a mess, but in different ways.
skybrian|6 hours ago
nvartolomei|9 hours ago
I don’t remember exact steps so there could have been a bit more. But it was an impressive experience and I told my geek friends about it. They were surprised this is the first time I used this feature.
jeroenhd|5 hours ago
Another issue on Android is that iOS allows for syncing data through the user's iCloud, which can be gigabytes in size, but Google has you use the Google Drive API which sucks and involves handing over credit card info.
The Android file transfer has another trick that Apple doesn't seem to do, which is fully offline local sync rather than going through the cloud. This has reliability issues and requires both devices to stay on and nearby while the transfer is in progress, but on slower internet connections the process can be a heck of a lot faster thanks to modern wifi speeds.
microtonal|8 hours ago
alliao|4 hours ago
sentientslug|9 hours ago
hkbuilds|4 hours ago
I recently helped a family member set up a new phone and it took over 2 hours. Between 2FA migrations, app re-authentication, and trying to figure out which backup actually had their data, it was miserable.
Phone manufacturers have zero incentive to make cross-platform migration easy. Apple wants you to stay on iPhone. Google wants you to stay on Android. The user suffers.
suzzer99|4 hours ago
I give a silent thanks every day that my dad still has a flip phone and no desire to upgrade.
pooper|2 hours ago
For people who buy subsidized Android-based phones from some carriers such as Metro by T-Mobile USA, they either come with bloatware baked in or they download the bloatware when you first activate the device or something like that.
These things are fairly easy to disable if you know what you are doing but if you don't know what you are doing, I can imagine people will simply put up with ads showing up every time you pick up the phone. It can get annoying VERY quickly.
addaon|9 hours ago
Contrasting it to my experience setting up iPhones is… dramatic.
DiabloD3|9 hours ago
Android phone manufacturers want $1200 for something that is a toy, just like the Apple iToys.
Nobody wants those, and nobody wants this. Google needs to get out of the business and let the FOSS community handle it.
jeroenhd|9 hours ago
The biggest difference between setting up a Pixel and an iPhone I experienced was that Google asked for certain settings beforehand that I had to turn off in the settings after setup on iOS. Both would've been a lot faster if I hadn't tried to disable optional account stuff.
Contrast that to Samsung, especially their non-flagship models, where the setup wizard took forever because of the crap Samsung added to the process.
That said, I do appreciate some "tutorial" parts of the setup process on Android. When I first set up an iPhone, I got the distinct impression that Apple assumed I already knew how to do everything. Their interface isn't exactly intuitive if you haven't used iOS before, no matter what online forums may claim. It took me several tries and a Google search to figure out how to remove apps, for instance. Perhaps one might find it an annoying extra step you're going to skip as a power user who's used to the platform, but it felt strange to be dropped into a strange, new operating environment with no instructions.
monooso|9 hours ago
butILoveLife|9 hours ago
Samsung as a company is a universal No Buy. The fact OP bought Samsung makes me raise an eyebrow.
Credit to Apple where credit is due. When I unboxed my first iphone, I was happy to give Apple all my personal information, birthday, emails, ssn.... It was bizarre, I'm usually apprehensive to give this stuff away, but Apple made it fun. Within a few days, I was disappointed by a lack of widgets, slow transitions between screens, and a buggy podcast app. But the damage was done, my company was out $600 and Apple had my contact info.
Analemma_|9 hours ago
dismalaf|8 hours ago
teekert|4 hours ago
hvenev|3 hours ago
In the former case the thing that needs to be removed is the entirety of the OS (and if that proves to be impossible, the device is returned or discarded), and in the latter it's a scan of all apps and removal of all unnecessary apps, my grandma does not need Samsung Galaxy Games, thank you very much.
timedude|3 hours ago
mid-kid|2 hours ago
Animats|5 hours ago
I have a Cat phone now. The actual manufacturer, Bullett, went bankrupt. Can't get the small rubber parts needed to maintain the waterproofing.
Suggestions?
Gander5739|4 hours ago
deejaaymac|9 hours ago
microtonal|8 hours ago
lsc4719|4 hours ago
juancn|8 hours ago
freitasm|7 hours ago
Then after the first app updates is done, a notification comes with "let's finish setting up your phone" and again asks to setup voice assistant, check defaults and whatever else is in the flow.
Has no one noticed that the setup flow seems to run twice?
And it's not one specific device. I do it with eight to ten devices a year, from different OEM, writing reviews and testing. They all have the same behaviour.
freitasm|7 hours ago
Going through dozens of apps, doing logins, 2FAcand changing settings is a PITA.
Devs do a poor job on that front.
bossyTeacher|3 hours ago
layman51|3 hours ago
jeffbee|19 minutes ago
hollow-moe|9 hours ago
user3939382|3 hours ago
1970-01-01|8 hours ago
ray_v|8 hours ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
dismalaf|9 hours ago
Here's how you actually set up an Android phone:
- log into Google account
- select a few checkboxes (basically just if you want to restore apps or not)
- done, everything else is automatic
All the fuckery they decided to do because they think they're tech savvy wasn't required.
urbandw311er|3 hours ago
MagicMoonlight|3 hours ago
Insightful stuff. Adults buy iPhones.
iberator|9 hours ago
Pikamander2|9 hours ago