[pibaker]

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.

[kwanbix]

I don't use Android because iPhones are more expensive. In fact you can get Android phones that are as expensive and sometimes more expensive than iPhones. I use Android phones because it is a much more flexible ecosystem, where I can choose my browser, for example.

[pibaker]

I don't mean to dismiss your opinion but I doubt this is the reason android has such a huge market share. I doubt the average person even knows that apple forces every app to use apple's own browser. The countries where android dominate are also the ones where you can get phone plans with free data for WhatsApp and Facebook. There is an entire world outside our techie circles where price and UX trumps having principles about user control and freedom.

[dotancohen]

Or sync your contacts to a CardDav server. Or record a phone call. Or develop your own software (for the time being).

[dhosek]

I’m very much the inverse of you. I don’t use Android because I don’t want to have to worry about all the fiddly stuff that is involved with Android. I like that it’s not a big deal to migrate to a new phone, that I don’t have to worry about whether I’ll be able to get security updates in a year, or have to spend time disabling telemetry.

If I did want to do a lot of fiddling with the phone then sure, Android would be a better choice, but like I had said back in 2004, what I wanted more than anything else was a phone that would sync its contacts with my Mac.

[krick]

Exactly what I was going to say. I don't use iPhone because, well, it's iPhone. And until, like, this year, it was strictly more prohibitive than Android. Also, it was honestly just worse of a device than some Android flagships, and the tradeoff is only worth it if you are a lazy USA-ian, who doesn't use any "sketchier" non-mainstream apps, has an Apple account and owns a bunch of Apple devices anyway. Oh, and all your friends use iPhone Messages app. Then iPhone is the default. But outside of USA it was always more of a gimmick than a natural choice.

That being said, even if you wouldn't have said it before me, I probably shouldn't have said it too anyway, because I suspect that globally speaking the GP is right. Most people don't buy flagships, yet everybody has a phone. And Apple doesn't even try to compete in "non-premium" market, it's strictly impossible to buy a new iPhone for the price of some Redmi or whatever, which isn't even noticeably worse than an iPhone, practically speaking.