As Smartphone Industry Sputters, the iPhone Expands Its Dominance::Apple, which is set to release a new iPhone on Tuesday, has increased its share of smartphone sales by converting Android customers and adding teenagers.
As Smartphone Industry Sputters, the iPhone Expands Its Dominance::Apple, which is set to release a new iPhone on Tuesday, has increased its share of smartphone sales by converting Android customers and adding teenagers.
It sounds like you made some choices about how you engaged with android phones that you regretted. Maybe you weren’t aware of the consequences of your choices, which I can see being a reason to favor apple (because they don’t offer choices).
However, your experience could have been completely different. There are plenty of ways to use android’s that don’t involve nearly as much effort as you describe. Security updates can be nearly automatic, requiring only a restart. Root access isn’t strictly necessary, but is choice you can make. And changing phones can be as easy as logging in to your Google account (nearly everything gets synced automatically).
I don’t want to change my phones. I want the device I paid out of my nose for to work however long I want it to.
In Sweden we have this authentication service called BankID, which is central to daily life. I use it to authenticate online purchases, pick up parcels, pay my bills, order groceries, handle doctors appointments, contact my ISP. You name it, it does it.
Now I have my issues with BankID as a platform, but it’s what we have. Not using it is an option, but adds so much extra administrative overhead. Need to cancel your electricity because you moved? Sure, it’s a five minute phone call with BankID, or alternatively a two week process with forms and BS.
The nature of this software means you need to have a phone with a recent security patch. They stop allowing older operating systems to run it for obvious reasons.
Thus, when I switched out my OPO in 2020 it was in part due to the failing hardware, but primarily because of how flaky the setup was. I had to unlock the boot loader to flash a ROM, BankID wouldn’t run with an unlocked boot loader, so I had to root the blasted thing to run MAGISK to fool the piece of shit that all was good.
I could obviously have upgraded to a newer phone, but with Android at the time I’d be in a similar spot a couple of years down the road. Apple has many issues, but they at least offer support for their devices for years.
The iPhone 5S was released the same year as my OnePlus One, and got a security patch back in January 2023. The OnePlus One got its last in 2016.
Samsung has dropped support for their $1980 Galaxy Fold 1, and it was only released in 2019. The iPhone XS I got second hand for $400 in 2020 was released in 2018 and got a mainline OS update the other day.
Android might work great for you, but until some major things change I’ll stick to iPhone as my personal device and keep Android as my work phone.