A week using an Apple iPhone -- An Android user's perspective

[Halcyon]

I'm actually only 12 hours in, but I figured I'd start the thread now. I'm sure there will be more to come...

A bit of background: For some reason, my Samsung Galaxy S8 developed a fault where it would no longer communicate with any cellular networks. It started off as intermittent but now, it seems permanent. After some troubleshooting, I determined that it's a hardware fault. Luckily it's still under warranty so it's getting repaired/replaced for free. Until that happens, I needed a temporary phone. I have a bucket full of old Android's which would give me basic functionality like phone calls and SMS, but I thought I'd use this opportunity to live life with my first Apple product (aside from my vintage Apple collection) and see what all the hype was about. I'll try and approach this with an open mind and leave any biases aside.

So I got myself an iPhone which was a mate's previous model. Prior to me taking possession, it was completely unlinked from his iCloud account and factory reset. It was already running iOS 12, but a few versions behind.

I popped my SIM card in and started the set up process. To start with, I was forced to create a new Apple ID (and iCloud email address) since I wasn't prepared to link any of my actual credentials to this handset. It was a minor annoyance to be backed into this corner, but one I expected being an Apple product. Then a screen full of "mandatory" details that must be filled out, including full name, address, phone number, date of birth... WHY!? No option to skip, no other option but forward. So naturally I fabricated everything.

Then came a bunch of other set up procedures for various services that I was never going to use. I must have hit "skip" or "no thanks" about 8 to 10 times before I could finally use the device in any sort of meaningful way.

After about an hour, I received a FaceTime call from someone I didn't know, but before I could answer or reject the call, it was apparently "Answered from another device". What the?! Every settings screen I can see shows only one account (mine) linked to this handset. It was time to turn off this FaceTime garbage... I then spent the next 20-30 minutes scouring every corner of various settings menus, turning off options which ranged from location settings to backing up absolutely everything, automatically to Apple's servers. Some of these settings were in logical places, many were not.

For the most part, I find the user interface to be sluggish while attempting to seem fluid. It spends most of its time jiggling icons, displaying window transitions and fading things in and out with just about every interaction rather than just getting the job done. The text input is also more hit-and-miss compared to most other on-screen keyboards I've used (it almost feels like it's in need of a LCD re-calibration).

Then there were the endless messages about a software update. Just about every time I left the notifications section or some other settings screen, a message would pop up reminding me to update. A little annoying, but fine, I'll accept it. Instead of just downloading the update and applying it like every other device on the market, it refused to do anything until I connected it to a Wi-Fi network, there was no option to bypass or force the download using the cellular network (even though it's faster and I have unlimited data on my phone plan).

I installed three applications which I also need day-to-day: Signal, WhatsApp and Authy. By no means small or poorly designed applications. On more than one occasion, buttons would simply stop responding inside the applications and I was forced to kill the application before re-starting it. When I say "not responding", the device registered a tap (you could see it graphically activating the various buttons), but it just did nothing.

I admit, iOS 12.3.1 looks polished enough (albeit a little dated) but functionally, it's average at best.

I can already see this week is going to be a barrel of laughs...

[bd139]

This sounds like you're in the "who moved my cheese" stage of ownership. Give it a few weeks.

Some comments:

1. You fucked up when you created a new icloud address and didn't want to sign in with your existing email address. I don't get why people do this. The whole damn smartphone ecosystem is based around cloud connectivity and communication whichever vendor you go to. If you fight it you're just punching yourself in the dick over and over again. Buy a Nokia brick. Don't use a smartphone.
2. At least they ask you about the services rather than Androids provisioning which is basically "hello, we own you".
3. Facetime. Never used it other than when I accidentally facetime'd someone. Can't comment. Meh
4. You seriously disabled all the cloud stuff?!? See point 1.
5. Sluggish? Transitions? What handset was this. Mine is an XR and is fluid as anything. Same with my old 6s on iOS 12. And lets not go down the Android sluggish route. In the middle of an "app update session" even a flagship Android lump barely works.
6. Keyboard. No problems with mine. Again, which handset and where did you get it? If it's a hooky one it might have a third party screen on it. At which point, your funeral.
7. You can't whine about updates when comparing to Android which basically punches you in the balls right in the middle of critical stuff with updates.
8. Pardon the update for not wanting to do it over your expensive data. It does actually do that if you want it to. Hit the settings app.

This is entirely the opposite experience I have. I was an android user from day one until 2017. Then I dumped it and got a 6s because I was fed up of being fucked over with Android shooting itself, SD card problems, apps not working, hangs, terrible performance, camera giving up randomly, battery problems, overheating. And that was on a Google flagship handset with vanilla android. It was hell.

Edit: to give you an idea how bad android was, I was in the middle of a contract job at one point with a whole damn site down trying to coordinate two companies and several engineers by phone. The dialler app updated right in the middle and then proceeded to not work at all. The handset bricked itself there and then as a phone. Totally useless. I actually went to the Apple Store 100 yards away and bought a 6s then because it was the only place I could just get a handset that would work, wasn't locked to some vendor or didn't have to jump through contract hoops to get my hands on it. Took 15 minutes to buy an set up and it stuck. It never let me down once. I never used Android again.

[Halcyon]

On the topic of cloud services, I don't want or need any of that. I use Google for Gmail, Calendar and Contacts only. Why on earth would I want to link all the Apple rubbish to my primary email address as it will only ever be temporary? I don't trust Apple any more than I trust Google. At least with Google, I can download an archive of all my data and see exactly what is being tracked. If I don't like it, I switch it off. Apple is getting better at this, but they have a long way to go. Their default position is to move everyone onto their eco-system and make it harder to move away.

All my data is backed up to my private NAS, simply plug in a USB cable into my Android handset, copy the files down, that's it. No syncing, special applications or accounts required. It's literally a mass storage device.

bd139, nothing against you personally, but your responses reflect what I generally hear from Apple users, in that "You're doing it wrong". That seems to be Apple's mentality as well. I'm actually just expecting the bare minimum out of a so-called smart phone and want the ability to make my own decisions, but by assuming what I want, it makes productivity worse (for me).

[Ampera]

I'm a fond believer that GNU needs to be brought to mobile devices with better vigor, and for a truly useful (not GNOME 3) mobile interface to be developed so it can become a proper possibility for people to spin their own phone environment.

I don't think it's fair to say that if you don't want to engage with cloud services you shouldn't have a smartphone. To me a smartphone is a computer, and when I spend money on a computer I expect to be able to do whatever I like to it. This is the core reason why Apple fails for me, at least on their iOS devices. It's fine if you want a nice shiny appliance that "just works", but that's never been my style (I run arch ). There should be room in the market for there to be a fully configurable mobile pocketable device that locks down nothing, just like a PC. It's obviously not for everyone, but there's got to be enough geeks in the world who would love to spend time on something like that.

I don't /love/ Android. To me, it's poorly documented under the hood, it's bloated and sluggish, it replaced too many things that were done better in GNU implementations. This is totally /my opinion/, but I don't blame Halcyon one bit for being a bit peeved at being taken out of his element, after all the most important thing about your environment is that it's /your/ environment and that you're comfortable and half-way happy with its quirks.

Even with ecosystem stuff, I get it, you want to have all your stuff in one place, I am still fairly google-centric, and though I am trying to move away from that to my own services that I run the way I like them, it's a lot of work, and people still have things they need to be done. That doesn't mean it's all fine to start getting upset that someone else is /not/ using a specific cloud service, even when using a device "built" around it. I know, I was like that, it's literally a way I tried to justify my own decisions because I needed affirmation that what I was doing was actually cool, with no care about what actually worked for other people, or even what worked for me. I'd wager you're happy to have chance at a new Team Apple member, and kinda want to reel people in, even I still get like that.

Anyways Halcyon, I had an iPhone 3G I messed around with, jailbreak was fun, I threw whited00r onto it, got some neat things to do, there's definitely tinkery fun to be had if that's what you're in for, and there are other people who like the hardware, don't like the Apple, even though you're probably gonna pick up your old phone just back again, it might be fun to tinker around with it for shits and giggles. Might learn something, and any skill is good to have.

[bd139]

You don't need to use the cloud services if you dont want to but you do need to sign into the device and provide information. The reason behind this is that the two-factor authentication is fully integrated with the device and you can brick it remotely and the store is tightly controlled. No side loading. That's a massively powerful feature for protecting your data and the fully sandbox means there are very few device vulnerabilities out there in the wild. It's fine moving away from their services. I don't use their services either. I use Fastmail for email/calendars, OneNote for notes, Google maps. I don't use an icloud email address. At no points was I wholly tied into the ecosystem (been there, done that, will never do it again).   Ironically Apple are way way way ahead on the privacy game and the control of your data. It's their main selling point: https://www.apple.com/uk/privacy/

With respect to backup, that doesn't back up the data in your silo'ed apps like Google's cloud based ones. Their "Google Takeout" is pretty good. But then again if you read the terms and conditions and compare to Apple (I have as part of corporate responsibility and compliance studies) are pretty much awful.

The killer thing for me is total continuity. If I knacker my handset, I walk into an Apple store, buy another one, sign in and wait ten minutes and I'm back in business. That's requred for my line of work.

Understand what you're suggesting about Apple users in general but I will speak up if something is a turd. If you've heard my rantings about the MacBook Air keyboard and that I now use a crappy old thinkpad you'll find I'm pretty unbiased. If iOS ball-kicking edition comes out, I'll be the first person out there whinging about it.

The problem comes is that I was an Android user for literally years to the point of being an Android developer for a bit. iOS stays out of the way, doesn't demand my attention, doesn't get abandoned by the vendor after 6 months and has actually improved my sanity and productivity.

In the scale of what's possible they are both turds though. Apple just a lot less. We can do better but the market is a two party one so you have to take a side or walk away and I'm not throwing the social and business advantage away of walking away and can't afford the friction of Android.

I'm a fond believer that GNU needs to be brought to mobile devices with better vigor, and for a truly useful (not GNOME 3) mobile interface to be developed so it can become a proper possibility for people to spin their own phone environment.

I would slash my wrists in a moment if I had to use a phone from the free software side of things. I'm saying that as a Linux admin, RHCA with over 20 years of experience with Linux and a decade of commercial Unix before that. They can't even get a useable desktop OS out without fucking it up on a galactic scale.

[Halcyon]

Thanks Ampera, I would rather not jailbreak my friend's phone. Maybe one day I'll experiment with one.

For this week I will use the iPhone not because I have to, but because I genuinely want to see how different it is and how it would effect *my* workflow. So far, I miss the lack of customisation, but as this is only a temporary handset, I've just got the bare minimum installed.

[bd139]

One tip: It did hurt me quite hard to move from Android to iOS. Try and find the iOS way of doing stuff. Go in open minded. I failed at all of those.

[Halcyon]

Thanks for being candid bd139. As I said, I'll give this a red hot go. Unfortunately because of my work the following are bare minimum requirements for me (which restrict me to a small number of handsets, Apple is one of them):

- Telstra "Blue Tick" approved (they are basically phones with higher gain antennas which have better coverage in fringe areas. Most phones never get this mark in Australia)
- Full disk and/or per-file encryption (with a chipset which hasn't been exploited by certain companies, no details mentioned)
- Decent battery life
- USB mass storage capability
- Support for 3G/LTE bands 1, 3, 5, 7, 8 and 28 (soon I'll be adding 5G bands to this list)

At the moment, the Samsung flagship models tick all those boxes (although I hate all the pre-loaded garbage; Bixby is the most useless feature ever).

If either Nokia or Blackberry still rolled their own hardware and included these features, I'd be very interested, but these days they are just names on cheap Chinese products.

[Ampera]

I would slash my wrists in a moment if I had to use a phone from the free software side of things. I'm saying that as a Linux admin, RHCA with over 20 years of experience with Linux and a decade of commercial Unix before that. They can't even get a useable desktop OS out without fucking it up on a galactic scale.

You see, this is my core point. I have only been using Linux in a serious capacity for 1-2 years, and that's a /high/ end estimation. I started using it as a spur of the moment thing for desktop usage, and I think that it has truly redefined how I perform my computing. I believe Linux is an incredibly usable desktop OS if you like it, and want to put the time into making it usable, which I do. There's no such thing as one perfect environment, and there /shouldn't/ be. What's so great about computers is that they are infinitely programmable, and there's always a way to have another option, even if it's not easy.

I think the key fallacy is the, "try it my way, you'll like it my way" approach of suggesting tech. If there is a true benefit that you are suggesting to someone, you probably shouldn't have to tell them that they have to do it your way. People aren't you, they don't do things your way, and probably never will. Halcyon's not a complete beginner here, and throwing up everything he's ever known because /you/ say he should just isn't great.

My experience with this is how much I loved Arch Linux. It was a revelation of biblical proportions, and I wanted to share that with as many people as possible (in a genuinely religious way). Arch Linux only too, no filthy Ucuntu or Debian annoying. Arch Linux is a barebones distro, and requires a lot of under the hood knowing what you're doing to create an environment you can prosper from, and I'm a sort of person who very much enjoys that, and thought that just because it was easy, or even just fun and beneficial for me that if people just /tried/ to get into it, they'd find the same thing.

Well, I found that every single person I tried to convert just didn't have that sort of stamina. I struggled to try to teach people enough to get them hooked, since they really weren't interested and were just humoring me. I still suggest Arch Linux to people who want to get into Linux, because it worked with me, and it's what I know, but I now say don't expect a miracle, and that you have to learn and put time and effort into get out what you put in. It shouldn't annoy me that people are trying to Linux wrong, or computer wrong, since it's not me, and while I'm always here to help people with their problems in the way I know how, but not as a means to convert.

Thanks Ampera, I would rather not jailbreak my friend's phone. Maybe one day I'll experiment with one.

Didn't know if he gave it to you full and proper or as a loaner. Of course don't jailbreak his device, get a pennies cheap iPhone 3G or something to mess around with if you want to. Even if it's 30 bucks for a few hours of fun, it's still cheaper than laser tag.


P.S. Yes I understand the sort of hypocrisy I'm displaying by trying to explain to you how to not fanboy, because I discovered to not fanboy is the right way to do things, and that you need to do things my way. At the end of the day, conduct yourself how you wish, I still love engaging on the occasional throwdown defending my home team solution, it's nothing but human nature.

[Halcyon]

Halcyon's not a complete beginner here, and throwing up everything he's ever known because /you/ say he should just isn't great.

I did that about a year ago when I switched entirely from Windows to Linux. I don't regret a second of it. Windows 10 makes me angry and this is coming from someone who knows MS-DOS and Windows inside out since the beginning.

[bd139]

Thanks for being candid bd139. As I said, I'll give this a red hot go. Unfortunately because of my work the following are bare minimum requirements for me (which restrict me to a small number of handsets, Apple is one of them):

- Telstra "Blue Tick" approved (they are basically phones with higher gain antennas which have better coverage in fringe areas. Most phones never get this mark in Australia)
- Full disk and/or per-file encryption (with a chipset which hasn't been exploited by certain companies, no details mentioned)
- Decent battery life
- USB mass storage capability
- Support for 3G/LTE bands 1, 3, 5, 7, 8 and 28 (soon I'll be adding 5G bands to this list)

At the moment, the Samsung flagship models tick all those boxes (although I hate all the pre-loaded garbage; Bixby is the most useless feature ever).

If either Nokia or Blackberry still rolled their own hardware and included these features, I'd be very interested, but these days they are just names on cheap Chinese products.

Yeah I'd stay away from anything that is Chinese generic handset derived with some customisation. Very low quality stuff usually. My eldest had a Nokia 5 for a bit as an example because I was being a cheap ass. Not very durable, had some serious battery life problems and bricked itself after 6 months resulting in a trip to a "third party approved repairer" under warranty who said it was water damaged and it wasn't and held it ransom for a charge to repair. I had to hit moneyclaim (UK courts service) to get them to pay out. That's another win for Apple - the service is much much better. She has my old 6s now. I took that back after 18 months of ownership to get a minor screen defect resolved and they couldn't fix it there and then in under an hour so gave me a brand new 6s handset immediately no questions asked.

Samsung I don't like. If it's Android it has to be stock.

On battery life, one of the killer features of my XR is the ability to squeeze two days out of it. I don't get charger anxiety. With my Thinkpad dual battery set up I can do a whole 12 hour day easy without dragging chargers around.

I would slash my wrists in a moment if I had to use a phone from the free software side of things. I'm saying that as a Linux admin, RHCA with over 20 years of experience with Linux and a decade of commercial Unix before that. They can't even get a useable desktop OS out without fucking it up on a galactic scale.

You see, this is my core point. I have only been using Linux in a serious capacity for 1-2 years, and that's a /high/ end estimation. I started using it as a spur of the moment thing for desktop usage, and I think that it has truly redefined how I perform my computing. I believe Linux is an incredibly usable desktop OS if you like it, and want to put the time into making it usable, which I do. There's no such thing as one perfect environment, and there /shouldn't/ be. What's so great about computers is that they are infinitely programmable, and there's always a way to have another option, even if it's not easy.

I think the key fallacy is the, "try it my way, you'll like it my way" approach of suggesting tech. If there is a true benefit that you are suggesting to someone, you probably shouldn't have to tell them that they have to do it your way. People aren't you, they don't do things your way, and probably never will. Halcyon's not a complete beginner here, and throwing up everything he's ever known because /you/ say he should just isn't great.

My experience with this is how much I loved Arch Linux. It was a revelation of biblical proportions, and I wanted to share that with as many people as possible (in a genuinely religious way). Arch Linux only too, no filthy Ucuntu or Debian annoying. Arch Linux is a barebones distro, and requires a lot of under the hood knowing what you're doing to create an environment you can prosper from, and I'm a sort of person who very much enjoys that, and thought that just because it was easy, or even just fun and beneficial for me that if people just /tried/ to get into it, they'd find the same thing.

Well, I found that every single person I tried to convert just didn't have that sort of stamina. I struggled to try to teach people enough to get them hooked, since they really weren't interested and were just humoring me. I still suggest Arch Linux to people who want to get into Linux, because it worked with me, and it's what I know, but I now say don't expect a miracle, and that you have to learn and put time and effort into get out what you put in. It shouldn't annoy me that people are trying to Linux wrong, or computer wrong, since it's not me, and while I'm always here to help people with their problems in the way I know how, but not as a means to convert.

When it comes to computation, I value leveraging it to solve problems rather than as an activity itself. I've grown out of the activity side of things. Many years ago I'd sit there on my cluster of old pentium 2 machines building kernels from scratch and running a mini network in my house. At one point I had a couple of big Sun enterprise machines. Then I got married, then I got kids, then my priorities changed. My objective is now to get from A-B efficiently and that means not fighting customisation where possible. Arch feels like that for me. So does Android. To get anything functional I have to climb a mountain and if anything goes wrong I have to climb that mountain again. Ergo even my current Linux activity goes through the portal of windows 10 and into CentOS on AWS where I can shortcut hundreds of little customisation concerns which all build up to the point it becomes a cost in both time and money and stress. This is the "principle of least surprise" in practice.

I'd rather have the soldering iron and morse key in my hand you see.

Halcyon's not a complete beginner here, and throwing up everything he's ever known because /you/ say he should just isn't great.

I did that about a year ago when I switched entirely from Windows to Linux. I don't regret a second of it. Windows 10 makes me angry and this is coming from someone who knows MS-DOS and Windows inside out since the beginning.

Windows 10 makes me angry too. But when your day job is wrangling hundreds of Linux machines it makes you less angry than Linux does

Perspective is an issue always.


I await the day I can retire and live in the sticks and shake my fist at technology

[Mr. Scram]

I got into exactly the same phone being held hostage pilo-o-poo with an official Apple repair centre. I wanted to believe they did better, but I guess they don't.

[bd139]

Didn't you buy a hooky phone though if I remember?

[Mr. Scram]

Didn't you buy a hooky phone though if I remember?

No, but even ignoring that part of the story it all was hooky as hell. Asking to make an appointment to pick up the phone and then not having it there and that's just one of many stunts they pulled. I've wasted way too much time on their runaround scheme. Utter dicks.

[james_s]

For me it was not so much which mobile platform I like best but which I hate least. They're both crap honestly, they both piss me off. Overall my iPhone works very well, I've never used any of the cloud stuff, never used facetime. I've never been as happy with it as I was with iOS 6 though. That was so nice and polished, it felt high end and it just worked. iOS 7 took on a butt fugly look that the platform has never recovered from and I'm always hitting bugs. The reminders worked perfectly in 6 and I relied on them heavily. At some point they broke and have never been fixed, they're just flakey.

I have a few Android devices too and they have their own set of issues.

[Berni]

Everyone around me has Android phones and i never really seen issues with reliability (The once case i seen at a relative turned out to be a half dying SD card) or forced updates (These phones even stop getting any updates at all after 2 years). And no nether Android or iPhone are perfect.

I have come to Android from using Windows Mobile 2002 to Windows Mobile 6.1, and i was also annoyed by quite a few things that Android does. And funny enough the things that irked me in that switch are also similar things that irk me on iOS compared to Android.

Windows Mobile was a pretty much no bullshit OS that didn't try to look pretty, nor try stop you from doing anything stupid. it was a big step in what phones could do, since we could finally run native machine code binaries rather than java. Things ran fast even on such old hardware and it worked well (Apart from needing a reboot every month or so but that's just windows for you).

Then Microsoft killed off Windows Mobile and created that Windows Phone 7 abomination that nobody wants, so i came to Android and okay it did look a bit prettier, but everything seamed slower despite the device its running on having way more processing power. So many things unnecessarily animated, so many settings locked down and hidden away. And wait... I need to download a frigi'n file manager to see my filesystem?! Okay fine USB it is... it appears as a digital camera?! And why is navigating trough it so slow?! Okay fine how do i install stuff... only trough the Play store? Can't i just copy a executable on there and run it? Okay fine... But i also want a new theme...A samsung account?! I have to f****g register just to install a new UI theme? And why are notifications poping up all the time for all these crappy apps. Okay lets just customize the apps menu then... you can only move things around? No folders even?! (We are talking early android here) You are saying i can't just make a shortcut to anything i want in the start menu like by just dropping a file in the start menu folder? And why are there basically no hardware buttons? Not even arrow keys for gods sake! Sigh... this thing is a toy made for IT illiterates.

Then using a iOS device sent me basically trough the same thing. It felt unnecessarily pretty and animated, but with an even more inconsistent UI and less actual buttons. The software features even more limited and locked down, it couldn't even multitask in any satisfying way in the early days (while Windows Mobile 2002 could many years before). I don't need the OS protecting me from myself, if i screw up a important system file its my fault that it doesn't boot anymore.

Its the same trend desktop OSes are taking lately. They are making them ever more locked down and idiot proof.

EDIT: And yes i'm still using Android. Its gotten better over the years or maybe i just gotten used to it. And id be fine with using an iPhone too. But i still think the Windows Mobile 6 experience was better.

[Marco]

I've always felt that usability has been where the reality distortion field has done Apple the most favours.

If you're willing to pay for it great for security, privacy and hardware though. Not a bad deal at the high end, lower end their margins get a bit ridiculous though.

PS. their dominance and vertical integration is damaging for the tech industry though, far worse than Microsoft ever was.

[Halcyon]

Day 3

I confirmed that the LCD is a genuine Apple display which has never been replaced. I'll chop up the inaccuracies in the keyboard to muscle memory and a different sized handset I'm used to. However I have found that the colours seem rather more subdued or washed out when watching videos when compared to my Samsung. The Samsung LCD is not only a higher resolution, but colours seem to be reproduced more accurately.

The internal speaker in the iPhone is also significantly quieter (at full volume) and suffers from minor distortion (this could just be my picky ear from years in video production).

Other than that, it's been fine. I still miss the ability to fine-tune settings and really customise things. Overall, I would rate the iPhone as "adequate", it does every job just fine, but doesn't really excel in any particular area.

[bd139]

Which handset model is this out of interest?

[Halcyon]

Which handset model is this out of interest?

iPhone SE running 12.3.1.

[bd139]

Ah SE is the Moto E of iPhones. Bear that in mind during evaluation. It’s not a bad handset as such but it’s based on 2015 tech in a 2010 chassis.

[Jeroen3]

The problem with none of the handsets fitting any of our requirements is because we are above average users.
To limit myself even attempting to tinker with my phone, I bought an iPhone. Tinker factor 0.

Day 3

I confirmed that the LCD is a genuine Apple display which has never been replaced. I'll chop up the inaccuracies in the keyboard to muscle memory and a different sized handset I'm used to.

Apple's on screen keyboard is a kind of special thing. They researched how users typed and adjusted where the keys triggered from where the keys are displayed.
Try typing upside down as a joke. It won't work properly at all.
This is because our digits are not cursors.

If you have those fancy Swipe keyboards they try the same. But typical on screen keyboard of random android do not, and it types differently.

Don't try jailbreaking anymore. You don't need it, and the community is collapsing. The package manager, Cydia, has been more or less abandoned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydia
Back in the day pre iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, jailbreaking addedd lots of features. But now not so much anymore.

*owner of iPhone 8 256GB.

[Mechatrommer]

good luck on repairing those lcd... check 28:50


mr rossman has buttload of other apple rant video's such as...


i decided not to poke iphone with 10' barge pole when realizing it cannot bluetoothing with other android devices few years ago.

[bd139]

Gah. Rossman is basically "technology Trump" and selling his own polarising viewpoint for youtube mindshare while preying on people stupid enough to spent $2000 on a device they can't afford to replace or repair to start with and don't have insurance to cover it. Apple aren't going to replace a device full of coffee and spooge. No one is. Claim it on your insurance!

Only thing I BT to is my car and that works nicely. Literally just get in it and it works. Don't have to do anything.

[Mechatrommer]

i dont see any advantage for him bashing apple. most of his video showing repair on apple products. when no more people buying apple whats he's going to repair? i think people buying android will just buy another one new when their older one got a slight brokenage. its expendable, probably much cheaper and less hassle than sending to repair shop like rossman's? a premium grade iphone can probably buy 2 or 3 premium grade samsung, no?

[bd139]

His problem is he's running a tail end repair business which is a dying market and race to the bottom. People go to him out of desperation. Basically their devices are usually second hand, grey market, possibly already repaired and they can't afford to buy a new one so they are forced to hire Rossman to do a cut price repair. I used to run the same sort of business on the side years ago. He needs mindshare so that people go to him first which is what he's doing. He's an excellent businessman.

Premium grade Samsung has lifespan of ~1-1.5 years with an absolutely shitty warranty and service and replacement policy (look at the whole recall mess). It's dire and all third party repairers who will tell you it's water damaged instantly because they are being paid so little to repair them.

Premium grade iPhone at least 2 years, usually 3 and retains 40% of value after two years. First two covered on AppleCare if you want it which reduces incident cost of a new screen to 25 and a new handset of 79. They even send you a new handset out and a box to put the old one in to send back. Much better value proposition and TCO over 2 years. I pay 979 GBP for my handset with AppleCare for 2 years, get 250 back worst case, 30 GBP/month which is 79 more than a Samsung S10 with a warranty that's a POS and lasts half as long and has a crappy resale value.

In a business the support and TCO for iOS is much much lower as well as they rarely drop dead or have problems in the field. I've worked for a company that dumped Samsung and HTC over this and went to iOS entirely.

[Mechatrommer]

well the keyword is "they can't afford to buy a new one" unlike android market, new or used. here one can buy used android for peanuts, people on the higher rank can change/trade in phone yearly (if that is really matter to them), even some of lower grade staffs have much much more expensive androids than me this is the ecosystem... for companies who can afford Keyslight or R&S T&M, i guess iphone is the market for them.

and i dont think samsung will fail in 1-2 years given enough care, my previous samsung served me well around 3 years iirc (bought 2014) and i changed not because it fails or anything wrong with it, but because i need dual sim and our department provided us with some real crap android that costed peanuts new when i checked in the net (Altitude). but it came with free mobile internet sim which i now currently used with my personal sim on A7. the crap phone got its buttons stuck after 1yr+ but still working with enough pressure. now i'm on galaxy A7 7mths old, my previous KZoom passed down to my BIL because he's on tight budget and commitments. the wifey's old galaxy is collecting dust now (still working bought the same day as my KZoom 2014), with other 2 dept crap phones + 2 other tabs (also dept sponsored) now i'm having trouble managing them because the kidey's always like to sneak in for those to play that stupid bricks games, its a controlled substances now to prevent them failing school

[bsfeechannel]

Premium grade Samsung has lifespan of ~1-1.5 years with an absolutely shitty warranty and service and replacement policy (look at the whole recall mess). It's dire and all third party repairers who will tell you it's water damaged instantly because they are being paid so little to repair them.

Premium grade iPhone at least 2 years, usually 3 and retains 40% of value after two years. First two covered on AppleCare if you want it which reduces incident cost of a new screen to 25 and a new handset of 79. They even send you a new handset out and a box to put the old one in to send back. Much better value proposition and TCO over 2 years.

So, basically, Android phones are consumer goods while Apple phones are capital goods.

[bd139]

So, basically, Android phones are consumer goods while Apple phones are capital goods.

Not really. Both are capital goods or consumer goods. That's defined by who's holding it. For me either is capital goods as my entire income is dervied from communication through it. Just Apple has a lower TCO and better risk profile. TCO comes from longevity support and low downtime, risk profile comes from replacement availability and support.

[Halcyon]

Ah SE is the Moto E of iPhones. Bear that in mind during evaluation. It’s not a bad handset as such but it’s based on 2015 tech in a 2010 chassis.

Oh I totally understand the hardware limitations, however most of my gripes are with the operating system. It's the same whether it's on this older handset or a brand new one.

Premium grade Samsung has lifespan of ~1-1.5 years with an absolutely shitty warranty and service and replacement policy (look at the whole recall mess). It's dire and all third party repairers who will tell you it's water damaged instantly because they are being paid so little to repair them.

I'd have to disagree with you there. I've had my S8 now just under 2 years and it's still a great handset, albeit something did fail on the cellular side which seems to be an unusual case. I had the LCD replaced once (by Samsung) because I was stupid and dropped it onto concrete. It cost me $300 for a new LCD, rear glass panel and battery (which because it was glued down, needed to be replaced as well once the device was opened and LCD removed). They did it on the spot while I waited and it didn't require me or them factory resetting my phone.

Now, that I'm making an actual warranty claim, it's still covered under Samsung's own warranty. No need to enact my consumer law rights. No questions asked, I simply fill out the online form, print out the provided shipping label and throw it in the post.

As far as I know, in Australia, Samsung has more shopfronts/genuine repairer shops than Apple does. I would never take my phone to a third party repairer, I would just do the work myself.

[james_s]

Ah SE is the Moto E of iPhones. Bear that in mind during evaluation. It’s not a bad handset as such but it’s based on 2015 tech in a 2010 chassis.

The SE is the only iPhone worth owning IMHO, the rest are gigantic and of those several models have that unsightly notch in the screen. What a joke that is, Steve Jobs must be turning in his grave, if he could see the current state of the Apple product lineup heads would roll.

[Bassman59]

Ah SE is the Moto E of iPhones. Bear that in mind during evaluation. It’s not a bad handset as such but it’s based on 2015 tech in a 2010 chassis.

The SE is the only iPhone worth owning IMHO, the rest are gigantic and of those several models have that unsightly notch in the screen. What a joke that is, Steve Jobs must be turning in his grave, if he could see the current state of the Apple product lineup heads would roll.

Nobody cares about the notch.

[bd139]

I rather care about the extra screen real estate. The notch is irrelevant to that. It just exists.

[Mr. Scram]

Ah SE is the Moto E of iPhones. Bear that in mind during evaluation. It’s not a bad handset as such but it’s based on 2015 tech in a 2010 chassis.

It's a £379 phone, not a budget model.

[bd139]

That is the budget model relatively speaking. XR starts at £749 as a comparison.

Also as a comparison the galaxy S10 is £899

[Mr. Scram]

That is the budget model relatively speaking. XR starts at £749 as a comparison.

Also as a comparison the galaxy S10 is £899

The fact that Apple asks significant amounts of money for their other phones doesn't mean a £400 phone can or should be called a budget model. It's more expensive than the vast majority of smartphones. It's a bit silly to lump it in with a £100 budget phone. Saying one shouldn't expect too much of a £400 phone because it was already old hat when new isn't exactly a fine marketing pitch either.

[bd139]

It’s not cheap for sure but always with Apple you’re paying for the hardware, the software, the support network, the retail store chain, the online services which back everything the phone does, everything. Thus when you pay money they don’t need to sell you out with bundled shit apps and tracking.

Everyone moans when there’s a £200 profit margin on a phone but forgets all that costs money.

I don’t know what Samsung’s excuse is. They are expensive, google provides the majority of services and you get the shit apps and tracking.

[Mr. Scram]

It’s not cheap for sure but always with Apple you’re paying for the hardware, the software, the support network, the retail store chain, the online services which back everything the phone does, everything. Thus when you pay money they don’t need to sell you out with bundled shit apps and tracking.

Everyone moans when there’s a £200 profit margin on a phone but forgets all that costs money.

I don’t know what Samsung’s excuse is. They are expensive, google provides the majority of services and you get the shit apps and tracking.

"Apple Reports 1Q 2019 Results: Nearly $20B Profit on $84.3B Revenue"

While I do understand companies are profit driven and don't work for free, that doesn't appear to be much of an issue for Apple. A £400 phone shouldn't be a budget experience.

[Jeroen3]

Vendors of phones are inflating the price until demand falls away. Innovation in phones is over. The next model is only "more pixels" and "more memory". The only way to make more profit on less sold is by higher margin.

If you've paid big money for any device with the Fruit logo, then you can write all the arguments you want, price won't change.
It will stay an expensive phone. You can say it's because of the abstract features, like iCloud or the ecosystem.
But it isn't, since you still have to pay for those. Either by the developer or storage subscription.
They're just expensive, and them being expensive is part of their brand success.

You can say, my Dodgee can also do all those things, yes it can. But it doesn't carry the fruit logo that provides "a sense of pride and accomplishment".

[Halcyon]

It’s not cheap for sure but always with Apple you’re paying for the hardware, the software, the support network, the retail store chain, the online services which back everything the phone does, everything.

The biggest issues I have with Apple currently (and in the past 5-10 years) is that:

• The hardware is usually behind the other major manufactuers in terms of specifications, features and cutting-edge technology. It's already outdated when it's released.
• The software is dated. It's polished but dated. It's where Android was several versions ago. Some things feel clunky or unrefined, others are incomplete or missing entirely.
• Their support network/retail stores are among the "better" examples, but only when they feel like it. There are plenty of examples where Apple couldn't give a shit about the consumer.
• Online services -- Apple give you nothing over what Android does. In fact, I find Apple more intrusive. They can keep their online services.

I honestly can't remember the last time Apple "innovated" anything that wasn't done before.

[james_s]

Nobody cares about the notch.

Lots of people care about the notch, I certainly do, I would never buy a phone with a big notch out of the screen, it completely triggers my OCD, it obstructs content, especially when the screen is in landscape mode. *You* don't care about the notch, but that is different than "nobody."

[james_s]

"Apple Reports 1Q 2019 Results: Nearly $20B Profit on $84.3B Revenue"

While I do understand companies are profit driven and don't work for free, that doesn't appear to be much of an issue for Apple. A £400 phone shouldn't be a budget experience.

It's not a budget experience, it's a fantastic bit of hardware. The OS has serious flaws, but these flaws are across the whole line. I have had my SE for a couple years now and have found zero shortcomings with the harrdware, it's snappy and responsive with a nice sharp screen and physical home button, a real luxury these days. If I could change anything about it I'd make it a bit smaller while keeping the same specs.

[0culus]

Ah SE is the Moto E of iPhones. Bear that in mind during evaluation. It’s not a bad handset as such but it’s based on 2015 tech in a 2010 chassis.

The SE is the only iPhone worth owning IMHO, the rest are gigantic and of those several models have that unsightly notch in the screen. What a joke that is, Steve Jobs must be turning in his grave, if he could see the current state of the Apple product lineup heads would roll.

I bought an iPhone X a couple months after it came out, after having an original 6+. It's been flawless and I'm still using it and enjoying it with no plans to get a new handset for a while. The handset is the perfect size for my hands (I would not get the plus sized device again). The notch really isn't that bad. The OLED is really really nice to look at, and easy on the eyes in the dark if you engage night mode to automatically turn on.

Personally, I have better things to do with my life than dick around customizing my phone. And as a professional in the infosec realm, I strongly appreciate the out of the box security posture you get with Apple. Is it perfect? No. But it's a hell of a lot more sane than anything else.

[james_s]

Actually that is something I'd change about the SE if I could, an oled screen would be great. A smartphone with about the same computing power, about 5% smaller than the SE with an OLED display, physical home button and a less buggy iOS would be great. That with iOS 6 updated to support current apps and a micro SD slot to hold pictures/video/media would be my holy grail phone.

I don't really want to customize and tinker with my phone either but Apple has really been irritating me lately. They update iOS constantly, never fixing the glaring bugs but just adding new features I have no use for. Then if you don't update, it gets to where you can't install any new apps anymore, even when versions of those apps exist that will run on the iOS version you have. The last straw was when they axed support for 32 bit apps, zero benefit to me except if I update it will take away nearly a dozen older apps that I paid for and use, apps which are abandoned and will never get updated. An upgrade ought to give me something new, it should never forcefully take away capabilities that I use. I don't like Android at all but unless things change my next phone will not be Apple, they used to be dramatically better than anything else out there but I'm not sure that's the case anymore. I only stayed with them this long due to a combination of inertia and the fact that they made the only decent spec phone I could find in a small form factor and I loathe gigantic phones. I want something small enough to slip fully into a pocket and comfortably use one handed.

[0culus]

On the flip side, if you commit to supporting legacy, you end up with a turdpile like Windows that tries to bring support for everything all the way back to DOS.

[Mechatrommer]

with billions of profit, not a single cent on supporting legacy version?

[bd139]

Apple are far better at supporting legacy than most. Consider the 68K -> PPC and PPC -> Intel transitions and the upcoming Intel -> ARM. Also iPhone 5S is still supported with latest iOS after 69 months. The last 32-bit iOS only device was fully supported for 48 months. Name a 2013 Android or Windows Phone that's still supported...

I know of noone who actually has used an iPhone until iOS is EOL. They either got a new one or destroyed it.

[SilverSolder]

I don't get why the performance of a phone (Android, in my case) keeps going down over time.  It's as if it is impossible to "keep it clean".

Apple ruined my old 4s, which I liked, with an OS update that didn't work on that hardware, and no way to downgrade.

Planned obsolescence is rife in this industry.

[james_s]

On the flip side, if you commit to supporting legacy, you end up with a turdpile like Windows that tries to bring support for everything all the way back to DOS.

You mean the operating system that has absolutely dominated the personal computer marketplace for decades, selling billions and billions of copies? Much of that dominance is because backward compatibility and legacy support are paramount.

I would argue as well that much of the problem with Windows has nothing to do with the legacy support. Some of the longstanding gripes sure, but for the most part that stuff is good enough. It's the UI design and attempts to monetize everything that has done it in recently. Removing 32 bit app support from iOS provides no tangible benefit at all, I would challenge anyone to find something that it noticeably improves because all I see is devices having less capability after being updated. We're not talking 20 year old software here, it's apps I bought 2-3 years ago and actively use.

[james_s]

Apple are far better at supporting legacy than most. Consider the 68K -> PPC and PPC -> Intel transitions and the upcoming Intel -> ARM. Also iPhone 5S is still supported with latest iOS after 69 months. The last 32-bit iOS only device was fully supported for 48 months. Name a 2013 Android or Windows Phone that's still supported...

I know of noone who actually has used an iPhone until iOS is EOL. They either got a new one or destroyed it.

I used my iPhone 4 (not S) until about 2 years ago. My partner still has her 4S running iOS 7 and I have a very old iPad running I think iOS 9 which is the latest it supports. That thing is almost unusable though as Apple always updates 1-2 versions beyond where updates should have stopped for older hardware. I would prefer to buy a device, get it all set up the way I want it and then freeze the configuration until the hardware fails. Every time I've ever gone against my better judgement and updated iOS on a device it has ended up slower without any real benefit and regretted it, with no way to roll back.

[Mr. Scram]

Apple are far better at supporting legacy than most. Consider the 68K -> PPC and PPC -> Intel transitions and the upcoming Intel -> ARM. Also iPhone 5S is still supported with latest iOS after 69 months. The last 32-bit iOS only device was fully supported for 48 months. Name a 2013 Android or Windows Phone that's still supported...

I know of noone who actually has used an iPhone until iOS is EOL. They either got a new one or destroyed it.

How can we at this point tell the upcoming Intel to ARM move is supported well? Until it happens we can only speculate.

[0culus]

On the flip side, if you commit to supporting legacy, you end up with a turdpile like Windows that tries to bring support for everything all the way back to DOS.

You mean the operating system that has absolutely dominated the personal computer marketplace for decades, selling billions and billions of copies? Much of that dominance is because backward compatibility and legacy support are paramount.

I would argue as well that much of the problem with Windows has nothing to do with the legacy support. Some of the longstanding gripes sure, but for the most part that stuff is good enough. It's the UI design and attempts to monetize everything that has done it in recently. Removing 32 bit app support from iOS provides no tangible benefit at all, I would challenge anyone to find something that it noticeably improves because all I see is devices having less capability after being updated. We're not talking 20 year old software here, it's apps I bought 2-3 years ago and actively use.

Dominating the marketplace is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for being considered "good". Besides, I'd wager the majority of the install base worldwide is due to sheer lock in for enterprise for workstations and running active directory. I'm personally very happy to work at a place where we have an officially supported choice between Macs (macOS), Linux boxes, or Windows boxes for our primary workstation.

IMO Windows peaked with 7, and has been going back downhill ever since. In the 90s, it was absolute shit stability, then NT was pretty good, now they have thrown all that favorable impression away since 8 in favor of ever more intrusive instrumentation and talking back to the mothership that you cannot disable, ads in the start menu, etc etc. And the atrocious UX that resulted from the half baked attempts to make Windows both a tablet and a desktop OS at the same time.

[NiHaoMike]

Name a 2013 Android or Windows Phone that's still supported...

Quite a few Android devices from back then still have a pretty good XDA community backing them.

[Mr. Scram]

Can we not make this into yet another Microsoft or Windows versus Apple discussion? We've had 16000 too many of those already. Thanks.

[all_repair]

I don't get why the performance of a phone (Android, in my case) keeps going down over time.  It's as if it is impossible to "keep it clean".

Apple ruined my old 4s, which I liked, with an OS update that didn't work on that hardware, and no way to downgrade.

Planned obsolescence is rife in this industry.

Until your post, I was wondering why people were not having problem like your which is also mine.  Most of my old mobile phones are fine, replacing battery is not a big problem.  But the slowing down of mobile phone after update, and even no update, is the only biggest problem for me to get a new phone.   I was on Nokia, then onto many Samsung, but the combustible Note made me change to HuaWei Mate 9.

My Mate 9 is still running fine, and each update there seems to have some improvement, but no slow down as what I used to experience with my Samsung phones.  My feel is something is being done deliberately at the back.

[Mechatrommer]

maybe he got the phone's internal memory full due to piling whatsapp files and docs, like my wifey experienced on the crap phone iirc like 4G memory? was keep coming to me asking why, then i check the app utility and i showed her, see? gigabytes of whatsapp and telegram files delete all those and the phone is ok again. didnt happen to me on the same crap brand phone because i know how to manage things.

[Jeroen3]

Inside smartphones is flash memory. When this is almost full the wear leveling has a difficult time and the flash memory grinds to a halt.

[james_s]

Dominating the marketplace is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for being considered "good". Besides, I'd wager the majority of the install base worldwide is due to sheer lock in for enterprise for workstations and running active directory. I'm personally very happy to work at a place where we have an officially supported choice between Macs (macOS), Linux boxes, or Windows boxes for our primary workstation.

IMO Windows peaked with 7, and has been going back downhill ever since. In the 90s, it was absolute shit stability, then NT was pretty good, now they have thrown all that favorable impression away since 8 in favor of ever more intrusive instrumentation and talking back to the mothership that you cannot disable, ads in the start menu, etc etc. And the atrocious UX that resulted from the half baked attempts to make Windows both a tablet and a desktop OS at the same time.

I agree, but none of that is related to the fact that Windows has excellent backwards compatibility, in fact it strongly supports the fact that backwards compatibility and support for legacy software is hugely important because even though there have been numerous technologically superior operating systems out there, Windows has absolutely demolished them in the marketplace. People don't run Windows because it's a great OS (though Win 7 was/is quite good), they run Windows because of the absolutely enormous library of software that exists for it. An operating system exists to enable a computer to run the software you want to use, nothing more, it's all about the software. Unless you have the customer bent over a barrel with nowhere to go, you don't go yanking support for legacy software without a really, really good reason. iOS should have kept support for 32 bit apps for a minimum of another 5 years beyond when they dropped it. They can only get away with it because users who are invested in the ecosystem have nowhere to go.

[bd139]

Actually I run windows because I'm a lazy bastard and it requires the least amount of effort.

Don't even start me on windows' supposedly good backwards compatibility. I know windows pretty well inside and out. It's a fucked up mess of an OS because they didn't every break anything, well not intentionally and there's a lot of unintentionally broken stuff. WinSxS is a testament to that.

Sometimes you have to start again. Windows does this every X years but forgets to fix the old stuff and then you end up with apps which are at the same time: win32, MFC, DCOM, ATL, Managed C++, WPF, windows forms and now suddenly electron.

Look at Carbon -> Cocoa transistion with OSX. That was done very well.

[0culus]

Dominating the marketplace is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for being considered "good". Besides, I'd wager the majority of the install base worldwide is due to sheer lock in for enterprise for workstations and running active directory. I'm personally very happy to work at a place where we have an officially supported choice between Macs (macOS), Linux boxes, or Windows boxes for our primary workstation.

IMO Windows peaked with 7, and has been going back downhill ever since. In the 90s, it was absolute shit stability, then NT was pretty good, now they have thrown all that favorable impression away since 8 in favor of ever more intrusive instrumentation and talking back to the mothership that you cannot disable, ads in the start menu, etc etc. And the atrocious UX that resulted from the half baked attempts to make Windows both a tablet and a desktop OS at the same time.

I agree, but none of that is related to the fact that Windows has excellent backwards compatibility, in fact it strongly supports the fact that backwards compatibility and support for legacy software is hugely important because even though there have been numerous technologically superior operating systems out there, Windows has absolutely demolished them in the marketplace. People don't run Windows because it's a great OS (though Win 7 was/is quite good), they run Windows because of the absolutely enormous library of software that exists for it. An operating system exists to enable a computer to run the software you want to use, nothing more, it's all about the software. Unless you have the customer bent over a barrel with nowhere to go, you don't go yanking support for legacy software without a really, really good reason. iOS should have kept support for 32 bit apps for a minimum of another 5 years beyond when they dropped it. They can only get away with it because users who are invested in the ecosystem have nowhere to go.

Sure, there's still demand for COBOL programmers in some industries. Enterprise never likes breaking what they have already invested in. iOS, really, is hardly targeted at enterprise (though funnily enough it's becoming more and more popular for work-supplied mobile devices, especially in lieu of blackberry).

I can't name a many apps from the old days that I still want to use. I've found better alternatives that aren't abandoned. The only app I wish was still maintained was this handy storm spotter app that provided access to data from every WSR-88D weather radar site in CONUS (and a few OCONUS too). Sadly I think it was abandoned years ago.

Fundamentally, Apple chose a different strategy. Though they have lately been positioning themselves on the services side (especially wrt privacy), they are at their core a highly vertically integrated hardware company. They are in business to sell hardware, and software exists to help make that happen. They don't have much of a business interest in maintaining decades of software compatibility.

[james_s]

Well I'm glad it works for you, but from my perspective the new version took away features and didn't add anything. I'm still waiting to see a tangible and quantifiable example of what removing 32 bit support improved because to me it looks like the same OS with the same glaring bugs except it supports fewer apps. If supporting 32 bit apps was causing significant visible problems and removing it resulted in a substantial performance and/or reliability improvement then I could get onboard, but it really just looks like Apple trying to throw their weight around and maybe boost app sales a bit by forcing people to purchase replacements for older stuff that still worked.

I did notice iPhone sales had tanked recently and there has been much speculation as to why. Personally I think it's a complex range of things but I know I'm not going to buy another one if I can help it due to the things I've already mentioned, too big, lack of physical home button, notch in the display, on top of the other annoying aspects that have always been there but that I've put up with because overall it was still a better experience. A good friend of mine who has had iphones for years is also saying the 6 he has will be the last because new ones dropped the headphone jack and he also hates the notch. Then there is the fact that the average price has gone way up in recent years, it's no wonder sales are sliding.

The lack of a home button, clunky ugly UI and gigantic phones was what kept me from considering Android phones but now that Apple has copied most of what I hated about those there is much less to differentiate, if my SE ever breaks I'll certainly be shopping around this time and see if I can do better.

[Mr. Scram]

Large part of Apple's problem is probably that the technology is maturing. This means there aren't real leaps and bounds like there used to. They're messing with force touch and notches but ultimately those are gimmicks and not significant changes to the experience or usefulness. Technology maturing also means cheap alternatives aren't a compromised experience any more. It's absolutely baffling how good sub $200 phones are.

[Halcyon]

The lack of physical home button really doesn't affect my experience with Android, in fact, I prefer it since there is less screen real estate. For example on my Samsung S8, all you need to do is "hard press" where the home button would normally be and it will perform the same function, it even gives haptic feedback so it feels like you're pressing a physical button.

[ebastler]

I'll try and approach this with an open mind and leave any biases aside.

And how is that working for you? 

Seriously, I'm afraid that this report is turning out exactly as what was to be expected: You complain about various aspects of iOS which are unfamiliar or feel inconvenient, while turning a blind eye to the shortcomings, idiosyncrasies, and privacy issues of Android.

[bd139]

On the home button, I haven’t missed mine. I prefer more screen. Plus FaceID is excellent. Just look at the phone and slide up and unlocked.

[Halcyon]

I'll try and approach this with an open mind and leave any biases aside.

And how is that working for you? 

Seriously, I'm afraid that this report is turning out exactly as what was to be expected: You complain about various aspects of iOS which are unfamiliar or feel inconvenient, while turning a blind eye to the shortcomings, idiosyncrasies, and privacy issues of Android.

So far so good.

Don't get me wrong, I've used a lot of crap Android handsets too, but I'm basically comparing two major brands and their flagship models (of the time). One "advantage" iOS has in this test is that I'm running the latest version. The latest Android version is not available for my Samsung. This itself is both a positive and a negative.

As for privacy and cyber security issues, both Apple and Android have their strengths and flaws.

I'm just being honest, this week has been frustrating. Forget about the hardware limitations for a moment, I just find Android a much more polished and capable operating system. It's far more customisable (which I need), is much more "fluid" and natural to use and doesn't require me to create accounts and sign up for services I don't want.

As for "turning out as expected", well, perhaps Apple needs to get its act together? You don't have to agree with me, this is just my opinion and perspective.

[Mechatrommer]

Actually I run windows because I'm a lazy bastard and it requires the least amount of effort.

there are few types that require least amount of effort. one is as you said, lazy bastard who are ignorant of the technology yet have nothing else productive to do. the other type is the people who are really busy with something else that they have no time bother with the auxiliary/additional parts/devices they want it work first time because they are too occupied with other more productive task. these people will make this as a point to choose premium like iphone etc, but i find it similar to android, if we even have to register this and that and tuck in to that or this cloud etc in ios. other than that, they just work first time (android) so i dont really see a point choosing more expensive device even among android models.

Large part of Apple's problem is probably that the technology is maturing.

not just apple, it happened to other corporations in the business line as well. and no, technology is not maturing yet. it matures when we can communicate or play games with just from mind. 3d hologram, tele kinetic, 3d hand gesture like in minority report, true voice to text (any language) program etc, there are many innovations can be think of, but we are not given the "priviledge" yet. it will be "given" one bit at a time, when it comes, you'll see the cycle will happening again among corporations, with just slightly different face (feature), but the trait remains the same. i guess major corporations attended some sort of symposium somewhere, when there is new technology, you'll see everybody will do the same, start running again on the same whistle blow.

otoh talking about largest screen, i missed real buttons keyboard on the phone, with this argument... regardless android or iphone, all of them sucks, why there is no real AI that can distinguish our intention is it real touch or screen swipe, or just accidental touch in which the phone will not do anything? with real buttons, i can type while driving without taking my eyes off from the road.

[bd139]

Actually I run windows because I'm a lazy bastard and it requires the least amount of effort.

there are few types that require least amount of effort. one is as you said, lazy bastard who are ignorant of the technology yet have nothing else productive to do. the other type is the people who are really busy with something else that they have no time bother with the auxiliary/additional parts/devices they want it work first time because they are too occupied with other more productive task. these people will make this as a point to choose premium like iphone etc, but i find it similar to android, if we even have to register this and that and tuck in to that or this cloud etc in ios. other than that, they just work first time (android) so i dont really see a point choosing more expensive device even among android models.

Android reminds me of this though:

[james_s]

The lack of physical home button really doesn't affect my experience with Android, in fact, I prefer it since there is less screen real estate. For example on my Samsung S8, all you need to do is "hard press" where the home button would normally be and it will perform the same function, it even gives haptic feedback so it feels like you're pressing a physical button.

Well good for you, I'm glad you don't mind because that seems to be where the market is going. I want a physical button though, I like physical buttons, it's a feature that is important to me. I don't want that stupid face ID either, I want to be able to unlock my phone without having to look directly at it, if I'm driving I want to be able to hand my phone over to a passenger so they can check a message for me or set up the navigation. I don't share the same obsession with screen real estate, as long as the screen is rectangular without any missing bits it doesn't have to take up the entire face of the phone. I prefer larger bezels than most new phones have too, a bezel gives you something to hold onto and frames the display nicely, like a painting typically looks better with a frame.

[Mr. Scram]

Well good for you, I'm glad you don't mind because that seems to be where the market is going. I want a physical button though, I like physical buttons, it's a feature that is important to me. I don't want that stupid face ID either, I want to be able to unlock my phone without having to look directly at it, if I'm driving I want to be able to hand my phone over to a passenger so they can check a message for me or set up the navigation. I don't share the same obsession with screen real estate, as long as the screen is rectangular without any missing bits it doesn't have to take up the entire face of the phone. I prefer larger bezels than most new phones have too, a bezel gives you something to hold onto and frames the display nicely, like a painting typically looks better with a frame.

The iPhone 7 and 8 don't have physical buttons either. They have a capacitive sensitive area which gives tactile feedback when "pushed", but it's not a button any more.

[bd139]

On FaceID I don’t need to touch my phone to unlock it. That’s far safer when driving. As for other people they have their own phone! Hey Siri read my last message. Hey Siri navigate home. Hey Siri message XYZ. Hey Siri shuffle my music.

One of the cool thing with FaceID is if anyone picks up your handset they can’t see what your notifications are. If you pick it up you can.

As for screen real estate it really does make a difference. There’s an 8mm border to hang on to on my XR. Plenty. Main thing is the keyboard moves down so you’re not wasting a chunk of the device on a button you’re not going to push. The XR is smaller than a 6 plus but the screen is bigger.

[Mr. Scram]

On FaceID I don’t need to touch my phone to unlock it. That’s far safer when driving. As for other people they have their own phone!

One of the cool thing with FaceID is if anyone picks up your handset they can’t see what your notifications are. If you pick it up you can.

I assume you're joking, but there's no real reason to unlock your phone while driving. It's also illegal in a lot of countries. Distracted driving is a huge issue and causes numerous deaths. It always amazes me how obvious it is when someone is messing with a phone while driving. They're all over the place, driving erratically above and below the speed limit and people tend to use their signals less too. Too bad so many people feel the other drivers are idiots, but they can handle themselves.

[bd139]

On FaceID I don’t need to touch my phone to unlock it. That’s far safer when driving. As for other people they have their own phone!

One of the cool thing with FaceID is if anyone picks up your handset they can’t see what your notifications are. If you pick it up you can.

I assume you're joking, but there's no real reason to unlock your phone while driving. It's also illegal in a lot of countries. Distracted driving is a huge issue and causes numerous deaths. It always amazes me how obvious it is when someone is messing with a phone while driving. They're all over the place, driving erratically above and below the speed limit and people tend to use their signals less too. Too bad so many people feel the other drivers are idiots, but they can handle themselves.

You miss the point, perhaps intentionally.

FaceID is about authenticating your presence, not a gateway to tapping on your phone in traffic and driving into an orphan school bus leading to children running around on a carriageway on fire getting hit by soccer moms in their SUVs who turn to alcohol.

Your presence is required to be authenticated when certain information boundaries are crossed like revealing personal information or acting on behalf of you via Siri. Like in the above examples:

1. authentication is required before Siri lets you navigate "home" because it doesn't want to give away where home is to someone who isn't you.
2. authentication is required before Siri lets you send a message as yourself, because it doesn't want to allow someone else to act on behalf of you.
3. when i open my banking app (santander) and before I transfer money to someone.

This is pretty damn sensible. It just happens to unlock the phone at the same time.

Also I'm sure this will be followed by waah waah etc. Read this first please: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208108

And if you want to disable it, such as pre-arrest, squeeze the side buttons and your phone bricks itself until the normal PIN is entered.

Edit: I genuinely think people should go and read this. This document is mostly why I use iOS. It explains how all this shit works, how it works together and what protection there is in place in the properly integrated hardware and OS environment:

https://www.apple.com/business/site/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf

Seriously sit down with it for a couple of hours and take the time to understand how it all works and how much effort has gone into it, particularly compared to Android, and what the real security outcome is.

[0culus]

iOS + the accompanying hardware is absolutely the best out of the box security consumers can get right now for a smartphone or tablet.

The only unanswered question for me, really, is just how much Apple's A series chipsets might prove vulnerable to attacks on speculative execution. Given the strong emphasis on single threaded performance (which is basically unrivalled still), I can easily imagine that there may exist vulnerabilities in that regard. Hopefully the very smart chip people they've been hiring over the past decade or so have been taking notes from Intel. We'll find out one way or another I'll wager.

Apple's strong vertical integration also mitigates supply chain attacks, such as the one Google discovered where Android devices were loaded with malware before the buyer even opened the box. [1]

[1]: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/06/tracing-the-supply-chain-attack-on-android-2/

[Mr. Scram]

You miss the point, perhaps intentionally.

FaceID is about authenticating your presence, not a gateway to tapping on your phone in traffic and driving into an orphan school bus leading to children running around on a carriageway on fire getting hit by soccer moms in their SUVs who turn to alcohol.

Your presence is required to be authenticated when certain information boundaries are crossed like revealing personal information or acting on behalf of you via Siri. Like in the above examples:

1. authentication is required before Siri lets you navigate "home" because it doesn't want to give away where home is to someone who isn't you.
2. authentication is required before Siri lets you send a message as yourself, because it doesn't want to allow someone else to act on behalf of you.
3. when i open my banking app (santander) and before I transfer money to someone.

This is pretty damn sensible. It just happens to unlock the phone at the same time.

Also I'm sure this will be followed by waah waah etc. Read this first please: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208108

And if you want to disable it, such as pre-arrest, squeeze the side buttons and your phone bricks itself until the normal PIN is entered.

Edit: I genuinely think people should go and read this. This document is mostly why I use iOS. It explains how all this shit works, how it works together and what protection there is in place in the properly integrated hardware and OS environment:

https://www.apple.com/business/site/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf

Seriously sit down with it for a couple of hours and take the time to understand how it all works and how much effort has gone into it, particularly compared to Android, and what the real security outcome is.

I think we're talking about different things. I was just saying you shouldn't be dicking with your phone while driving. You'd think that's obvious, but a quick look in the real world and at statistics show it's definitely not. Research shows none of the hands free systems mitigate the added risk to anywhere near the point of not existing.

[bd139]

iOS + the accompanying hardware is absolutely the best out of the box security consumers can get right now for a smartphone or tablet.

The only unanswered question for me, really, is just how much Apple's A series chipsets might prove vulnerable to attacks on speculative execution. Given the strong emphasis on single threaded performance (which is basically unrivalled still), I can easily imagine that there may exist vulnerabilities in that regard. Hopefully the very smart chip people they've been hiring over the past decade or so have been taking notes from Intel. We'll find out one way or another I'll wager.

Apple's strong vertical integration also mitigates supply chain attacks, such as the one Google discovered where Android devices were loaded with malware before the buyer even opened the box. [1]

[1]: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/06/tracing-the-supply-chain-attack-on-android-2/

Indeed.

AFAIK they are well defended against speculative execution attacks. They made a couple of things non-time deterministic on the platform side of things which at least stops stuff being read from untrusted code (javascript etc). LLVM has some speculative load hardening stuff in it which is pretty neat: https://llvm.org/docs/SpeculativeLoadHardening.html . One of the whole Apple things, as you mention, is the vertical integration. That means there's less crap out there without microcode updates deployed as well.

However out of all the things that worry me, the killer is shared cloud infrastructure. You're literally sharing CPUs and memory with fuck knows who.

You miss the point, perhaps intentionally.

FaceID is about authenticating your presence, not a gateway to tapping on your phone in traffic and driving into an orphan school bus leading to children running around on a carriageway on fire getting hit by soccer moms in their SUVs who turn to alcohol.

Your presence is required to be authenticated when certain information boundaries are crossed like revealing personal information or acting on behalf of you via Siri. Like in the above examples:

1. authentication is required before Siri lets you navigate "home" because it doesn't want to give away where home is to someone who isn't you.
2. authentication is required before Siri lets you send a message as yourself, because it doesn't want to allow someone else to act on behalf of you.
3. when i open my banking app (santander) and before I transfer money to someone.

This is pretty damn sensible. It just happens to unlock the phone at the same time.

Also I'm sure this will be followed by waah waah etc. Read this first please: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208108

And if you want to disable it, such as pre-arrest, squeeze the side buttons and your phone bricks itself until the normal PIN is entered.

Edit: I genuinely think people should go and read this. This document is mostly why I use iOS. It explains how all this shit works, how it works together and what protection there is in place in the properly integrated hardware and OS environment:

https://www.apple.com/business/site/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf

Seriously sit down with it for a couple of hours and take the time to understand how it all works and how much effort has gone into it, particularly compared to Android, and what the real security outcome is.

I think we're talking about different things. I was just saying you shouldn't be dicking with your phone while driving. You'd think that's obvious, but a quick look in the real world and at statistics show it's definitely not. Research shows none of the hands free systems mitigate the added risk to anywhere near the point of not existing.

Yep it's obvious. However the technology can't be blamed for the incompetence of the human race.

Let's take a trip back to the early 1980s. So we're off to Devon on holiday. Being the oldest of my siblings it was my duty to sit in the boot of the family estate car. My seat was a couple of cans of paint, the carpet various sharp and dangerous tools. Seatbelts were not worn. There was no impact protection on the vehicle anywhere. The vehicle would basically fold up if there was an accident and we'd all be dead. My father pulls in at lunch time somewhere on the South coast as we go the scenic route. He has a couple of pints of beer and jumps right back in the car and drives the rest of the way.

My point; we've come a long way. Let's not throw technology on the fire and lets keep improving it so that risks that people do take are minimised. The point of Siri and FaceID isn't novelty but it turns the productive interactions with your phone into a simple voice protocol akin to having a conversation with your passenger, a well understood and known risk.

The irony of this is it is going the opposite direction of the car manufacturers who have added lots of stupid stupid stupid touch screens to vehicles.

[Mr. Scram]

Indeed.

AFAIK they are well defended against speculative execution attacks. They made a couple of things non-time deterministic on the platform side of things which at least stops stuff being read from untrusted code (javascript etc). LLVM has some speculative load hardening stuff in it which is pretty neat: https://llvm.org/docs/SpeculativeLoadHardening.html . One of the whole Apple things, as you mention, is the vertical integration. That means there's less crap out there without microcode updates deployed as well.

However out of all the things that worry me, the killer is shared cloud infrastructure. You're literally sharing CPUs and memory with fuck knows who.


Yep it's obvious. However the technology can't be blamed for the incompetence of the human race.

Let's take a trip back to the early 1980s. So we're off to Devon on holiday. Being the oldest of my siblings it was my duty to sit in the boot of the family estate car. My seat was a couple of cans of paint, the carpet various sharp and dangerous tools. Seatbelts were not worn. There was no impact protection on the vehicle anywhere. The vehicle would basically fold up if there was an accident and we'd all be dead. My father pulls in at lunch time somewhere on the South coast as we go the scenic route. He has a couple of pints of beer and jumps right back in the car and drives the rest of the way.

My point; we've come a long way. Let's not throw technology on the fire and lets keep improving it so that risks that people do take are minimised. The point of Siri and FaceID isn't novelty but it turns the productive interactions with your phone into a simple voice protocol akin to having a conversation with your passenger, a well understood and known risk.

The irony of this is it is going the opposite direction of the car manufacturers who have added lots of stupid stupid stupid touch screens to vehicles.

Talking on the phone is more dangerous than talking to a passenger, although it's possible to cherry pick different results from different studies. I can't find any studies done on voice interaction, but there seems little reason to assume that fares better. I've honestly never heard anyone claim it is a useful productivity tool before. We've come a long way indeed and the numbers show it. The amount of people killed on the roads have declined by orders of magnitude, although the number of cars on the road and miles driven have increased dramatically. I agree with the observation we may be heading in the wrong direction. Embedding what's essentially a smartphone into the car's dashboard seems a bit obtuse, especially as the screens often allow interacting with said phone.

[Mechatrommer]

Also I'm sure this will be followed by waah waah etc. Read this first please: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208108

well i'm flattered. my samsung galaxy A7 sounds just like that... and the side button recognize up to 3 of my fingers print.

The technology that enables Face ID is some of the most advanced hardware and software that we’ve ever created

how many options for scientific calculators in itune store? can you have dB calculator? or guitar tuner? or Quran/Bible/Holybook?

and reading about Siri (i never heard before) Samsung's Bixby is actually the counterpart for it. i didnt know and i dumped that app to i dont now where, i think i'll need to dig and learn that to see what it can do, i thought its just some stupid annoying manager that i really hate, dont care and dont need, like before.

[bd139]

Sounds like you need an SSB rig not a smartphone

As for calculators I’ve got an HP48 emulator

[Halcyon]

iOS + the accompanying hardware is absolutely the best out of the box security consumers can get right now for a smartphone or tablet.

For the average consumer, yes, this is true. But for individuals and organisations who require high security devices, not so. I can't go into details as (among other reasons) I'm bound to a NDA, but bypassing certain PINs/Passwords and/or re-enabling the data port on most iOS devices and software versions is relatively trivial with the right tools. I don't fully know how it works, nor do I want to, but I know enough to say that the method(s) employed seem to be integral to the way Apple/iOS works or else Apple would have patched it a long time ago and/or it's a such a low risk to most people so Apple don't really care.

The balance between security and functionality is crucial. For the most part, consumers couldn't care less about encryption or cyber security. Make a system "too secure" and the user experience suffers.

[0culus]

So? If your threat model includes adversaries capable of leveraging (likely) 0days against your specific device(s), you probably shouldn't be using a smartphone (or any other mobile device) in the first place. If you're talking about attacks against the secure enclave itself, that's pretty much limiting the field of threat actors to nation states. John Q Public isn't worth blowing up a 0day or some other high end exploit on.

For regular people, my point stands. iDevices are some of the best usable security available.

[0culus]

And conversely...if you do have a nation state interested in you, you have way bigger problems than phone security.

[Mr. Scram]

So? If your threat model includes adversaries capable of leveraging (likely) 0days against your specific device(s), you probably shouldn't be using a smartphone (or any other mobile device) in the first place. If you're talking about attacks against the secure enclave itself, that's pretty much limiting the field of threat actors to nation states. John Q Public isn't worth blowing up a 0day or some other high end exploit on.

For regular people, my point stands. iDevices are some of the best usable security available.

I think you may be overestimating what's needed. The average crook may not posses these kinds of tools, but it's not far fetched for not very special forensics departments to possess these capabilities. Tthere are a few companies selling these capabilities at healthy prices. Cellebrite boasts it can get you access to any iPhone or iPad. You don't expose your exploit either, which makes all the difference in the world.

[Halcyon]

Precisely Mr. Scram. Cellebrite are just one vendor offering both in-house services and an end-user packaged product. There are others out there and this kind of capability doesn't cost the world either.

Apple devices are just one example of security not being as strong as people believe. There are plenty of other examples too. Low-end Android phones are almost laughable in terms of the "security" they offer. Even some high-end flagship phones can be exploited (not all, but some). The days of Blackberry being the choice of secure handset for crooks and other people who demand high security are just about over. These days, those kinds of users are turning to Android and its variants.

[bd139]

And conversely...if you do have a nation state interested in you, you have way bigger problems than phone security.

This is the main point. From a corporate perspective the game is risk minimisation via due diligence not absolute protection against national entities. Incidentally I know what our national entities are capable of and I’m rather more worried about the criminals with a lot of stolen AWS credentials at their disposal. The average joe has a much more productive vector if you (a) own his online accounts and (b) rubber hose him.

Also I call bullshit on proposed vectors. If you’re in that line of work (I have been) then you don’t even disclose possibility especially on a public forum. I’m still covered by my obligations of silence and take them seriously.

Edit: also Cellebrite has an adversary to consider who is better funded, has a lot more experience and doesn’t want them around any more.

[Marco]

I know enough to say that the method(s) employed seem to be integral to the way Apple/iOS works

That working must be insanity then, because they have 100s of billions worth of commercial interest in such methods not existing.

They can have no commercial interest in a backdoor and the US won't put Polonium in Tim Cooks espresso if he doesn't play ball either.

[mnementh]

I think we're talking about different things. I was just saying you shouldn't be dicking with your phone while driving. You'd think that's obvious, but a quick look in the real world and at statistics show it's definitely not. Research shows none of the hands free systems mitigate the added risk to anywhere near the point of not existing.

Yep it's obvious. However the technology can't be blamed for the incompetence of the human race.

Let's take a trip back to the early 1980s. So we're off to Devon on holiday. Being the oldest of my siblings it was my duty to sit in the boot of the family estate car. My seat was a couple of cans of paint, the carpet various sharp and dangerous tools. Seatbelts were not worn. There was no impact protection on the vehicle anywhere. The vehicle would basically fold up if there was an accident and we'd all be dead. My father pulls in at lunch time somewhere on the South coast as we go the scenic route. He has a couple of pints of beer and jumps right back in the car and drives the rest of the way.

My point; we've come a long way. Let's not throw technology on the fire and lets keep improving it so that risks that people do take are minimised. The point of Siri and FaceID isn't novelty but it turns the productive interactions with your phone into a simple voice protocol akin to having a conversation with your passenger, a well understood and known risk.

The irony of this is it is going the opposite direction of the car manufacturers who have added lots of stupid stupid stupid touch screens to vehicles.

I agree with both points... to a point. If human beings weren't in general utterly ignorant assholes about pretty much everything except the single thing on their mind at the moment, we wouldn't HAVE TO HAVE LAWS AGAINST TEXTING WHILE DRIVING.  So now you start looking at ways to employ the "nanny state" built-in to your devices... and because human beings are ALSO generally contrarian by nature, even those locked in the "authoritarian paradigm" mindset... THAT ALSO backfires almost every time.

Case in point... cars and seatbelt nag-a-matrons. I've completely disabled them on a number of vehicles; snipped wires or installed jumpers as needed because they were too persistent or couldn't be turned off at the dealership. Not because I don't believe in seatbelts; I'm a diehard seatbelt advocate going WAAAAY back. I've been on too many MVAs... you have to scoop a vic's brains back into his skull for the ambulance guys to cart his carcass off just ONCE, and you'll be changed, I promise.

But I believe in seatbelts for PEOPLE; not my toolbag in the seat beside me, and I REALLY don't believe in having a fucking MACHINE bitch at me because I DON'T. My wife's new Rav4 is just such an example; not only does it have a seatbelt nag-a-matron, it is configured so it blots out ALL OTHER notifications... even turn-signal ticks and collision avoidance while it's busy bitching at you... AND it is progressively MORE INSISTENT for a good 90 seconds, AND if you stop the vehicle for more than 30 seconds, it STARTS ALL OVER AGAIN.    THIS IS, IMO, excessive in the extreme, and actually will CAUSE more unsafe driving than it ensures; here's why:

As I said... I'm a longtime seatbelt advocate. Even at age 9 & 11, I STILL make sure my kids are buckled up (and usually myself) before I'll move the car. But on the occasions when I forget for a minute... I'll find myself unconsciously turning up the radio, or just plain deliberately ignoring the fucking thing and NOT putting my seatbelt on until AFTER it stops bitching at me. BECAUSE IT PISSED ME OFF. If it were my vehicle (and not still under warranty) I'd have bought a hacked chip for it months ago. Instead, I put up with it, and drive pissed off half the time.

Obviously I'm not the only one... or even a minority, because up & down the internet you can see people posting the same exact annoyances I've described here. How does hundreds of thousands of people driving while annoyed at their vehicle as the embodiment of the nanny state improve public safety? 

And no, this isn't a "libtard nanny state" thing. They've been out of power more than long enough that you simply cannot pin shit like this on them. It is a "bureaucratic bullshit nanny state" thing, and a "everybody handling public safety like a hot potato rather than actually do something about it" thing.

I promise you... as soon as they CAN turn this shit off at the dealership, or my wife finally gives up from me bitching about the bitch-a-matron... it is going to GO. Life's too short to put up with SHIT for it's own sake.

mnem

[bd139]

Just a point on carrying toolboxes etc. A number of years ago my uncle had a tool box on his front seat in his Alfa and rolled it after hitting a badger. The car cabin survived perfectly fine but the toolbox landed square is his face and shattered his skull and cheek bone.

Also with the seat belt, missing it once can be a problem. You still need to be inside the vehicle to potentially control it and prevent further harm. Plus it's not much fun that one time you forget:



I'd rather be pestered. It never goes off in mine

[Mr. Scram]

Loose items in the cab are a risk, either when they hit you or when they get stuck under your pedals. You wouldn't be the first to die while desperately trying to stamp through an item under the brake pedal. Or killed by whatever was in the back seat.

[mnementh]

These things are all true, but it's still none of my car's fucking business. I don't want it talking to me until it can carry a conversation, and I certainly don't want it bitching at me until it knows the difference between a person and a bag of drills.

mnem
And I STILL have the right to make this choice.

[mnementh]

Just a point on carrying toolboxes etc. A number of years ago my uncle had a tool box on his front seat in his Alfa and rolled it after hitting a badger. The car cabin survived perfectly fine but the toolbox landed square is his face and shattered his skull and cheek bone.

Also with the seat belt, missing it once can be a problem. You still need to be inside the vehicle to potentially control it and prevent further harm. Plus it's not much fun that one time you forget:



I'd rather be pestered. It never goes off in mine

You do know that vid's been totally debunked as an utter fake, right? Along with the one with that 1d10t on a motorbike in Hong Kong...

And that is YOUR CHOICE to make.

mnem

[Mechatrommer]

when some brain dead try to make law enforcement about seat belt, then thats what happened. the car designed to beep the time you turn on the engine, traffic police will give you ticket if you dont fasten your seat belt even inside a city traffic running slow 5km/h or jammed, i have few tickets that i dont bother to pay, wait until i become millionaire fking ridiculous law. i guess it will be case if no texting while driving law is enforced. there should be speed limit only after you pass that limit then you have to wear seatbelt or put your phone away, this limit should also be included in the law. i only text while traffic is jammed or moderately slow that i will have enough time to brake or otherwise worst case scenario of collision will not involve life. i programmed myself to not look away more than the estimated time needed for collision to object up front, when i reach certain speed limit say 70-80km/h, i buckle up. texting is much danger, you need to put away your phone at more than say 30km/h. about the selt belt fking beep annoyance, no need any electronic modification... i'll get this... Seat Belt Buckle Extender Clip but at more than 80km/h i dont need traffic officer to warn me, its my life i'm dealing with.

well, there is no fixing to stupidity, you can enforce no texting to pedestrians as well, too many dead as well hit by vehicles while crossing road. maybe the cure is to show kids gruesome videos for lesson such as this happiness turn stupidity live streaming video... if you keep charming cute happy go lucky everyday, they'll forget whats possibility of stupidity they are going to do tomorrow.

[bd139]

The arrogance here is unbelievable.

It’s other people’s lives you’re risking too.

Plus you have to deal with medical insurance and crap even if it is your life.

As a former cyclist I was actually wiped out by someone texting in traffic as well at 5mph so that’s really no excuse.

[Mr. Scram]

You do know that vid's been totally debunked as an utter fake, right? Along with the one with that 1d10t on a motorbike in Hong Kong...

And that is YOUR CHOICE to make.

mnem

Real or not, it's a good representation of how countless people meet their untimely demise each year. A modern car's crash structure is a marvel of engineering, but depends on you being in a somewhat fixed place in the car. It all takes an unfortunate toll on society.

[mnementh]

Yes and no. If you're using that as an example of why you or I SHOULD wear a seat belt, sure. You're preaching to the choir, buddy. 

But if you're using it an an example of why I should belt everything in my car down, or ESPECIALLY as an example of why it's a good thing my stupid car bitches at me and creates annoyed, distracted drivers... bite me.

mnem
You know you want to.

[ebastler]

Just started to type a complaint that this thread has moved way off topic.
Then I remembered the original topic.
Ah, never mind... 

[bd139]

This is nothing. We have a test gear thread that is talking about real crocodiles for shoes 

[mnementh]

Hey! We're getting better! Right now we're talking about testing USB ports with a Tesla Generator...!!! 

mnem
*Off. Slightly.*

[mnementh]

And Now For Something Completely... ON TOPIC!



mnem
There... feel better?

[brucehoult]

Premium grade iPhone at least 2 years, usually 3 and retains 40% of value after two years.

I'm using an iPhone 7 -- almost three years old -- with absolutely no plans to replace it any time soon. My wife is using an iPhone 6s and ditto. They are in perfect physical condition, run the latest software, and just simply are not broken.

[mnementh]

I'm using a $150 Android smartphone that is less than a year old. I'm ALWAYS using a ~$150 Android smartphone that is less than a year old; I kill phones. They are a consumable supply to me, not an investment. 

mnem
"Oooohhh... lets see how many skips I can get before it sinks..."

[Halcyon]

My time with the iPhone has ended; A little over two weeks, but I'm glad I did it. It gave me a chance to experience something first hand, that I never would normally have done.

I can see Apple's appeal to some users, but are these handsets worth the money? In my opinion, no. Comparing the current line-up of Apple iPhones to the offerings of Samsung, LG, Motorola and even some of the Chinese phones, spec-for-spec, you get much better bang-for-buck with something other than an Apple handset (but that's not really a surprise to most people).

My biggest gripes over the last few weeks were with the operating system rather than the hardware. Even running the latest version of iOS available today (12.3.1) it still feels unrefined at times. Even small things like activating buttons or moving levers/progress bars, I was forced to literally drag them, rather than simply tap on them. Android gives me the option of both, drag or tap. I found myself double, triple something quadruple tapping things because they didn't respond "logically" to me (or responded in the wrong place). At first I thought this was application specific, but it seems to be the case across the board, even in the OS itself.

The obvious lack of customisation was also a huge negative for me. I totally understand that many users don't want to "fiddle" with their phones and that's perfectly fine. But I think even the most basic of users should have the option to if they wanted. One of the most annoying things was not having the ability to download software updates over the air, even when cellular data was on, it insisted on Wi-Fi. With unlimited data quotas on cellular networks these days, this is a stupid limitation but notwithstanding that, it should be my choice as the user how I update my device (particularly when annoyed with constant pop-ups about a software update).

As I mentioned in another post, I felt the UI itself was trying to make up for the lack of features or usability with pretty animations, swooshes, fades and jiggles, which while they might appeal to some people, were slowing me down. I just wanted to get the job done. Even activating the "reduce motion" option under "accessibility" did very little.

The mandatory requirement to sign up for an Apple ID was also a huge turn-off. I didn't want or need it or any of the other garbage that came along with it, but there was no option to skip.

Finally, the inability to connect the iPhone to a PC and use it as a mass storage device was a major disadvantage (although I could access the photos directly via gPhoto2 on Linux).

In terms of the hardware I used (iPhone SE), it was average at best and felt like I was back to using an Android, Motorola or Nokia handset from 2010. The audio from the loud speaker was very quiet by comparison and somewhat distorted (even at lower levels and it didn't matter what content I was playing), the colours on the genuine Apple LCD looked a little subdued or washed out, the touch response was awkward (I felt like it was making assumptions on where I was pressing which were often wrong) and the call quality over Bluetooth sounded like an AM radio regardless of the device I paired it to. I'm assuming all of these have improved in later models.

On the positive side, I did love the physical form factor and size of the SE and the overall fit and finish felt solid. The standby battery life was quite adequate and easily got me through the day. I did however find that once the battery was low (under 25%), it dropped off very quickly with even light use. The "Measure" application which is included with iOS 12 also worked very well. Installing and using applications was as easy as one would expect (but the constant advertising in the "App Store" is very disappointing).

Overall, if you're already a user who is stuck in the Apple "ecosystem" and you want a fairly basic handset that does a reasonable job at most things and has a respectable level of data security, then an iPhone is an excellent (but expensive) choice.

For those of us who use Linux and/or Windows and don't use Apple services or if you want greater control and flexibility of your device, then an iPhone will leave you feeling frustrated.

[brucehoult]

One of the most annoying things was not having the ability to download software updates over the air, even when cellular data was on, it insisted on Wi-Fi. With unlimited data quotas on cellular networks these days, this is a stupid limitation but notwithstanding that, it should be my choice as the user how I update my device (particularly when annoyed with constant pop-ups about a software update).

A lot of opinions here, fair enough, but this is simply wrong.

I just turned off my wifi, went to the AppStore and downloaded an update for an app on LTE.

[mnementh]

My time with the iPhone has ended; A little over two weeks, but I'm glad I did it. It gave me a chance to experience something first hand, that I never would normally have done.

I can see Apple's appeal to some users, but are these handsets worth the money? In my opinion, no. Comparing the current line-up of Apple iPhones to the offerings of Samsung, LG, Motorola and even some of the Chinese phones, spec-for-spec, you get much better bang-for-buck with something other than an Apple handset (but that's not really a surprise to most people).

My biggest gripes over the last few weeks were with the operating system rather than the hardware. Even running the latest version of iOS available today (12.3.1) it still feels unrefined at times. Even small things like activating buttons or moving levers/progress bars, I was forced to literally drag them, rather than simply tap on them. Android gives me the option of both, drag or tap. I found myself double, triple something quadruple tapping things because they didn't respond "logically" to me (or responded in the wrong place). At first I thought this was application specific, but it seems to be the case across the board, even in the OS itself.

The obvious lack of customisation was also a huge negative for me. I totally understand that many users don't want to "fiddle" with their phones and that's perfectly fine. But I think even the most basic of users should have the option to if they wanted. One of the most annoying things was not having the ability to download software updates over the air, even when cellular data was on, it insisted on Wi-Fi. With unlimited data quotas on cellular networks these days, this is a stupid limitation but notwithstanding that, it should be my choice as the user how I update my device (particularly when annoyed with constant pop-ups about a software update).

As I mentioned in another post, I felt the UI itself was trying to make up for the lack of features or usability with pretty animations, swooshes, fades and jiggles, which while they might appeal to some people, were slowing me down. I just wanted to get the job done. Even activating the "reduce motion" option under "accessibility" did very little.

The mandatory requirement to sign up for an Apple ID was also a huge turn-off. I didn't want or need it or any of the other garbage that came along with it, but there was no option to skip.

Finally, the inability to connect the iPhone to a PC and use it as a mass storage device was a major disadvantage (although I could access the photos directly via gPhoto2 on Linux).

In terms of the hardware I used (iPhone SE), it was average at best and felt like I was back to using an Android, Motorola or Nokia handset from 2010. The audio from the loud speaker was very quiet by comparison and somewhat distorted (even at lower levels and it didn't matter what content I was playing), the colours on the genuine Apple LCD looked a little subdued or washed out, the touch response was awkward (I felt like it was making assumptions on where I was pressing which were often wrong) and the call quality over Bluetooth sounded like an AM radio regardless of the device I paired it to. I'm assuming all of these have improved in later models.

On the positive side, I did love the physical form factor and size of the SE and the overall fit and finish felt solid. The standby battery life was quite adequate and easily got me through the day. I did however find that once the battery was low (under 25%), it dropped off very quickly with even light use. The "Measure" application which is included with iOS 12 also worked very well. Installing and using applications was as easy as one would expect (but the constant advertising in the "App Store" is very disappointing).

Overall, if you're already a user who is stuck in the Apple "ecosystem" and you want a fairly basic handset that does a reasonable job at most things and has a respectable level of data security, then an iPhone is an excellent (but expensive) choice.

For those of us who use Linux and/or Windows and don't use Apple services or if you want greater control and flexibility of your device, then an iPhone will leave you feeling frustrated.

Yeah, sorry... an SE nowadays is literally 4 (or 5?) generations out of date; it was deliberately made a generation behind everything else iPwn as an entry-level device. So that is hardly an Apple to apples comparison. You got exactly what you expected. I USED to buy or rebuild broken last-gen iPwns for my daily driver; I could usually do so for ~$200 and I was more than happy, especially once I gave Asshats,Twats &Titty-twisters the royal heave-ho. 

I have no idea what you're talking about with Android feeling "more polished"; that's just nucking futs. The one thing iOS has always been about is the "Apple-polishing". Not near as many options to twiddle, but for most people, their default implementation of most features is, quite frankly, better than Android's and doesn't need to be tweaked because they already DID the detail-work and tweaking instead of passing it on the the customer as an unpaid beta-tester.

Yeah, If you're comparing the SE to even my current Oreo box, yeah... you're gonna call it "old"... because it IS effing old. Smeesh. 

Calling Android in ANY flavor in the last decade an "OS" is being generous. It is a horribly mismanaged collection of apps, of which the UI "Launcher" is just ONE. 

Android is, and always has been, the mobile OS that is perpetually "half-finished". Stupid changes in every aspect of the UI EVERY FUCKING RELEASE... dumb shit that people complain LOUDLY about and THEY NEVER FIX; they just get to work on the NEXT candy flavor. If they DO fix some major fuckup with the new version, they fuck up 6 other things that WERE WORKING RIGHT.     And even though they PROMISE every time that "The settings are finally all going to be in the same place from now on!", the next version they just kick you in the balls again and say "Catch me if you can!"  and run away

THEN they let the fucking carriers fuck it up even MORE... constantly changing where even the most basic settings are, taking them away and hiding them so they can lock you into or out of services.

That said... Apple's pricing on the iPwn has gone completely batshit off-the-rails crazy, especially for the ones big enough to USE. Apple charging a PREMIUM for 6 INCHES is an obscenity; it is the minimum usable size nowadays.

I've been able to buy a 2-3GB RAM ~6" Android phone at 32-64GB storage PLUS SD PLUS Dual-SIM for $150 NEW for YEARS NOW. A 5.5in 7Plus is still $200 USED.    The next version of the phone in my pocket, the BLU Vivo XL4+, is again 3GB/32GB with 6.2" screen running Oreo. I bought one for my wife at Christmas; I'm still rocking the XL3+ with 3GB/64GB I bough factory refurb for $99.

Yeah, sure... neither of these is a flagship phone. But they're more than usable, and more than enough to run my business, and the financing is awesome: $140 down, NO PAYMENTS FOREVER AFTER. Ka-Ching!!! 

With the money I saved I bought my daughter a brand-new A10 128GB 10" iPad for Christmas. Now THERE is a place where Apple's value-to-price ratio is OFF-THE-HOOK. 

mnem
fuck iPwn.

[Halcyon]

One of the most annoying things was not having the ability to download software updates over the air, even when cellular data was on, it insisted on Wi-Fi. With unlimited data quotas on cellular networks these days, this is a stupid limitation but notwithstanding that, it should be my choice as the user how I update my device (particularly when annoyed with constant pop-ups about a software update).

A lot of opinions here, fair enough, but this is simply wrong.

I just turned off my wifi, went to the AppStore and downloaded an update for an app on LTE.

Sorry, I should have been more clear, I wasn't talking about application updates, I was talking about iOS system updates. It specifically said on the screen that I must use Wi-Fi to download the update, there was no way around this from what I could find. The download/update button didn't activate until you connected to a Wi-Fi access point.

Yeah, sorry... an SE nowadays is literally 4 (or 5?) generations out of date; it was deliberately made a generation behind everything else iPwn as an entry-level device. So that is hardly an Apple to apples comparison. You got exactly what you expected.

Re-read my post, I said comparing current iPhone models to the other offerings, spec-for-spec, price-for-price, the iPhone isn't a great choice. I wasn't comparing the handset I used against current models. But you'll also note that most of my gripes were with iOS, not with the hardware itself. These problems/issues/limitations still exist in todays current iPhone models as it runs exactly the same OS.

I also acknowledged the fact that I was using older hardware, but come on, we're not talking a decade old, the iPhone SE was released just 3 years ago! If you want a fair comparison, put it side by side with a Samsung Galaxy S7 which is still a much more capable device.

I honestly don't know why people get so defensive about Apple products. If Samsung turned around tomorrow and dropped the ball and started producing crap hardware, I'd be looking at alternatives. I've kept every phone I've ever owned and it includes Nokia, O2, Sony, Motorola (pre-Google), LG, Samsung and Blackberry among others. I'm not so invested in a brand and perhaps more importantly I'm not tied to any particular brand or workflow. If you think my judgement or review of the iPhone is unfair, please, let me know, but as I said, I went into this with an open mind. I also made it quite clear that there were things about the iPhone which were unsatisfactory or mediocre, it doesn't mean everyone has to share my view point. If someone wrote a similar review about Android or Linux, I wouldn't be getting so defensive about it.

Basically if you want choice and flexibility both in terms of hardware or software, iPhone isn't the product for you. If you want a phone that's easy to use and works well with other Apple products, then it probably is. I'm not sure how anyone can legitimately dispute that?

People also commonly claim "oh well, Apple have better support". Yes, sure, maybe, in some cases this is true. In other's it's far from it. In the case of my primary phone which developed a fault, it was covered under warranty and Samsung replaced the handset, no questions asked. Then again, I looked after my phone, it was free of damage, none of the humidity indicators were tripped and I didn't try to lie and bullshit a company about something that I had caused.

[tautech]

I ventured down the Apple path starting with my daughters old 3S when she went to a 4S then 5 then 6........
Then when a 2nd hand ex family 4S became available that became my upgrade and over the years it's been my preferred phone mainly due to compact size and cost. Only one has been bought new and that from China for much less than they were retail here. It performed without issue.
I've busted a few, replaced batteries in a few but only one has needed a new charging port.
Older ones have kept others going and now I have a good pile of donors for 4S. 

For many years I've kept them regularly synced on iTunes so that when the inevitable breakages happen it's easy to configure another and just carry on.
Recently a buddy must have felt sorry for me and dropped his 5S in my lap as a gift.
So a few weeks back I thought it was time setup the 5S and as it had been completely reset I had to go through all the setup steps before I could import my stuff from iTunes.
Now comfortable with Apple devices and also averse to their 'you must do this and must do that' the setup was done with the utmost distaste for all their BS which BTW most you can step around.....NO iCloud, Apple ID, face rec, fingerprint or even PW !
It didn't much like it flicking warning flags up all the time and still it wants me to 'finish setting up my phone' ! 
Cancel, cancel, cancel........... 

Yes always iOS updates have been WiFi and when we had data caps care was taken when to do them, usually overnight on the last day of the plan so if it throttled back to snails pace....overnight who gives a damn. 

There have been PANIC times when a 4S had busted and didn't have the parts so I grabbed a cheap Android to keep me going........barely used and back in its box !

So it looks like I'll have to start collecting old 5S now to build up my donor parts stocks again............ 

I look forward to the day when good new phones don't need to be the size of an A6 book and until then I'll be faithful to my Scots tight arse heritage but I could be tempted to reach into my pocket if the right sized new Apple phone comes along.

[mnementh]

Yeah, sorry... an SE nowadays is literally 4 (or 5?) generations out of date; it was deliberately made a generation behind everything else iPwn as an entry-level device. So that is hardly an Apple to apples comparison. You got exactly what you expected.

Re-read my post, I said comparing current iPhone models to the other offerings, spec-for-spec, price-for-price, the iPhone isn't a great choice. I wasn't comparing the handset I used against current models. But you'll also note that most of my gripes were with iOS, not with the hardware itself. These problems/issues/limitations still exist in todays current iPhone models as it runs exactly the same OS.

I also acknowledged the fact that I was using older hardware, but come on, we're not talking a decade old, the iPhone SE was released just 3 years ago! If you want a fair comparison, put it side by side with a Samsung Galaxy S7 which is still a much more capable device.

I honestly don't know why people get so defensive about Apple products. If Samsung turned around tomorrow and dropped the ball and started producing crap hardware, I'd be looking at alternatives. I've kept every phone I've ever owned and it includes Nokia, O2, Sony, Motorola (pre-Google), LG, Samsung and Blackberry among others. I'm not so invested in a brand and perhaps more importantly I'm not tied to any particular brand or workflow. If you think my judgement or review of the iPhone is unfair, please, let me know, but as I said, I went into this with an open mind. I also made it quite clear that there were things about the iPhone which were unsatisfactory or mediocre, it doesn't mean everyone has to share my view point. If someone wrote a similar review about Android or Linux, I wouldn't be getting so defensive about it.

Basically if you want choice and flexibility both in terms of hardware or software, iPhone isn't the product for you. If you want a phone that's easy to use and works well with other Apple products, then it probably is. I'm not sure how anyone can legitimately dispute that?

People also commonly claim "oh well, Apple have better support". Yes, sure, maybe, in some cases this is true. In other's it's far from it. In the case of my primary phone which developed a fault, it was covered under warranty and Samsung replaced the handset, no questions asked. Then again, I looked after my phone, it was free of damage, none of the humidity indicators were tripped and I didn't try to lie and bullshit a company about something that I had caused.

Who's being defensive? You phrased the topic as an honest attempt to evaluate an iPhone, from an Android user's perspective. Yet your test mule is literally one that was designed to be a throwback, so people would buy the better model next time around. And even THEN, it's 4 generations out of date. Shockingly, you found its UI to be clumsy and dated. 

I've used both... I use Android now, and I give Apple their due where appropriate. What they're all about is being the company that lets you trade money for saving you time and hassle. Which is really not a bad deal; your time is you most valuable resource. As long as you buy fully into their ecosystem, if you smash your phone, no big deal. You take it to the Apple bar, hand it to some agent who hands it to a tech, and go shopping or eat in the food court and when you come back a few hundred dollars lighter, you have all but the last day of your e-life right back where you left it, only now on the latest, shiniest model.

If you have the money to spend, it's a fucking STEAL of a deal! Unless you're a colossal klutz like me who treats a phone as a tool, and takes it on the jobsite all the time and shit happens to it every few months. Then the Apple ecology is pretty effing expensive and hard to keep up with. The premium they charge for 6-ish inch display is just sociopathic. So no, not me. I'll keep flogging my cheap android phones and treat them as a consumable.

As for Samsung... their business model is vertically integrated SHIT. They make a few flagship model products, which even THOSE eventually have some massive clusterflop issue happen... and the rest of their crap is... crap. They have fucked me personally too many times... too many phones, DVD/Blu-Ray players, toasters & TVs that eventually fucked themselves due to old unsupported software that NEVER NEEDED TO BE THERE, or worse yet, devices that EFFING BRICK THEMSELVES DOING AN UPDATE YOU DON'T HAVE ANY CHOICE ABOUT. 

Not one device, but MANY. Not just one TYPE of device, but pretty much EVERY EFFING KIND OF THING THEY MAKE they have screwed me on.

So fuck Samsung too. I'll NEVER willingly pay money for their goods again; I know they're just going to kick me in the balls someday. SOON.

mnem

[bd139]

Their SSDs are good. As for everything else, yup.

[Halcyon]

Who's being defensive? You phrased the topic as an honest attempt to evaluate an iPhone, from an Android user's perspective. Yet your test mule is literally one that was designed to be a throwback, so people would buy the better model next time around. And even THEN, it's 4 generations out of date. Shockingly, you found its UI to be clumsy and dated. 

Now I'm not sure if you're trolling me or not. Did you not read any of my posts? My "test mule" was iOS version 12.3.1, explain how the user experience would have been any different on a brand new iPhone?

[Mechatrommer]

the iPhone SE was released just 3 years ago! If you want a fair comparison, put it side by side with a Samsung Galaxy S7 which is still a much more capable device.

swmbo's samsung S4 and my KZoom are 5 years old and are still working fine. we had no issue with say dated OS or clumsy GUI, everything was just as smooth as todays galaxy A7, except A7 has faster cpu and alot larger internal storage, i still miss KZoom smartphone's super lens. durability is one of people's argument to choose iphone? lets say it can live 10 years, fun. but you are left with 10 years back dated smartphone technology. so people will inevitably change their phone before end of life, durability point is then moot. planned obsolescence got its point.

if you smash your phone, no big deal. You take it to the Apple bar, hand it to some agent who hands it to a tech, and go shopping or eat in the food court and when you come back a few hundred dollars lighter

if you watch rossman video earlier, if you got a smashed lcd, you'll have to go to food court everyday in 2 weeks or month until you get your phone back from apple factory. if their support is so amazing, why dont they just let you keep the new replacement phone, and they get to keep your damaged phone after repair? you can mirror image your system back from icloud into the new phone in 5 second right?

As for Samsung... their business model is vertically integrated SHIT. They make a few flagship model products, which even THOSE eventually have some massive clusterflop issue happen... and the rest of their crap is... crap. They have fucked me personally too many times... too many phones, DVD/Blu-Ray players, toasters & TVs that eventually fucked themselves due to old unsupported software that NEVER NEEDED TO BE THERE, or worse yet, devices that EFFING BRICK THEMSELVES DOING AN UPDATE YOU DON'T HAVE ANY CHOICE ABOUT. 

it only happened to you not us, maybe due to your climate condition? i'm not sure. but we have no trouble with samsung "not flagship" smartphone, but for computer lcd screen, yes it sucks to me personally. maybe their workflow or supply chain in smartphone production is ok, but others are so so... ymmv.

btw... i can walk faster than 5mph, if you cant cycle/motor more than that, please stay away from the road, be considerate, simply walk on your feet on the side otherwise you'll cause unnecessary road congestion, if your road is same as our road here. cheers.

[bd139]

if you smash your phone, no big deal. You take it to the Apple bar, hand it to some agent who hands it to a tech, and go shopping or eat in the food court and when you come back a few hundred dollars lighter

if you watch rossman video earlier, if you got a smashed lcd, you'll have to go to food court everyday in 2 weeks or month until you get your phone back from apple factory. if their support is so amazing, why dont they just let you keep the new replacement phone, and they get to keep your damaged phone after repair? you can mirror image your system back from icloud into the new phone in 5 second right?

Err that's exactly what happens. When I had a minor screen fault they said come back in 2 hours. Sorted. Went shopping, came back. They said they couldn't recalibrate the screen afterwards properly so gave me a new handset. The invoice had the cost of two screens they tried to fit and the replacement handset cost and a refund for the full price so payable was £0. I walked out of there 2 hours later with a brand new 128Gb 6s. Same story over and over again on all our corp phones. If we smash the screen it's same day replacement and £25. If we destroy the handset, £79.

And there's this: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/iphone/repair/service/express-replacement

This I've observed tens of times without problem so I'm less inclined to trust a youtuber with an agenda over my own experience.

[Mr. Scram]

Err that's exactly what happens. When I had a minor screen fault they said come back in 2 hours. Sorted. Went shopping, came back. They said they couldn't recalibrate the screen afterwards properly so gave me a new handset. The invoice had the cost of two screens they tried to fit and the replacement handset cost and a refund for the full price so payable was £0. I walked out of there 2 hours later with a brand new 128Gb 6s. Same story over and over again on all our corp phones. If we smash the screen it's same day replacement and £25. If we destroy the handset, £79.

And there's this: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/iphone/repair/service/express-replacement

Is it really Apple service, though? It's an additional insurance you purchased and it's limited. You may still need to pay out of warranty replacement fees if it's used more than twice and is only valid for two years.

[Mechatrommer]

Err that's exactly what happens.

will this apply infinitely? if the replacement phone got damaged again, will you get another new replacement phone? if this happening 10x, means 10x new phone? because the way i understand from the following statement from the page, it only apply once..

If you’ve already used both incidents of accidental damage that come with AppleCare+, you’ll pay an out-of-warranty fee for your replacement, as shown on our pricing page.

[bd139]

Yes it only lasts two years. Yes you can only smash it twice. Yes it costs money.

 

[Mechatrommer]

yeah i think they play insurance or "gambling casino" business model... they charge a bit higher price to cope with possible disasters. they have statistical data on their phones failure rate and will not expect everybody to send their phone for replacement, only some small percentage. if they charge twice the cost, they can still receive 50% of their customers damaged phone twice, the rest of the population that do not experience failure will cover the cost. have you wonder why insurance agencies will reject elderly, people with high risk or diseases and wont cover mass scale disaster such as earthquake or hurricane, otherwise a premium price insurance... they try to avoid losing business using calculated risk/statistics, imho...

[bd139]

Actually the faulty phone/replacement thing is only a problem in the US because you have shitty consumer protection laws.

Over here in the UK you are entitled to a cost free repair or replacement on all consumer purchases for six years from the date of purchase if they are faulty through normal use. I'm paying for AppleCare to hedge the risk of my incompetence on top of that.

In fact when you walk into the Apple store and ask for a repair they ask you if you want to do it using AppleCare or your consumer rights. If you choose the latter you don't lose the repair from your repair credit on AppleCare. They explain that to you as well. My 6s screen defect was covered under CRA and was free and didn't affect my AppleCare.

It's in Apple's interest to make things that work.

[mnementh]

Yes it only lasts two years. Yes you can only smash it twice. Yes it costs money. 

THIS is what I was saying when I said "If you fully buy into their ecology."

If you're a wingnut who can't stand the fundamental invasiveness of cloud backups, etc and have to harp on every "Security issue" (which by their essential nature, an internet-connected device with GPS in your pocket explicitly IS, no matter the brand) and insists on FIXING rather than REPLACING your phone... if you're like that, and you BUY an iPwn KNOWING these things about it then you ARE a wingnut... then you DESERVE to have a effing horrible experience. You're buying something that is explicitly NOT what you like, and then hating on it for not being what you like. 

the iPhone SE was released just 3 years ago! If you want a fair comparison, put it side by side with a Samsung Galaxy S7 which is still a much more capable device.

swmbo's samsung S4 and my KZoom are 5 years old and are still working fine. we had no issue with say dated OS or clumsy GUI, everything was just as smooth as todays galaxy A7, except A7 has faster cpu and alot larger internal storage, i still miss KZoom smartphone's super lens. durability is one of people's argument to choose iphone? lets say it can live 10 years, fun. but you are left with 10 years back dated smartphone technology. so people will inevitably change their phone before end of life, durability point is then moot. planned obsolescence got its point.

if you smash your phone, no big deal. You take it to the Apple bar, hand it to some agent who hands it to a tech, and go shopping or eat in the food court and when you come back a few hundred dollars lighter

if you watch rossman video earlier, if you got a smashed lcd, you'll have to go to food court everyday in 2 weeks or month until you get your phone back from apple factory. if their support is so amazing, why dont they just let you keep the new replacement phone, and they get to keep your damaged phone after repair? you can mirror image your system back from icloud into the new phone in 5 second right?

As for Samsung... their business model is vertically integrated SHIT. They make a few flagship model products, which even THOSE eventually have some massive clusterflop issue happen... and the rest of their crap is... crap. They have fucked me personally too many times... too many phones, DVD/Blu-Ray players, toasters & TVs that eventually fucked themselves due to old unsupported software that NEVER NEEDED TO BE THERE, or worse yet, devices that EFFING BRICK THEMSELVES DOING AN UPDATE YOU DON'T HAVE ANY CHOICE ABOUT. 

it only happened to you not us, maybe due to your climate condition? i'm not sure. but we have no trouble with samsung "not flagship" smartphone, but for computer lcd screen, yes it sucks to me personally. maybe their workflow or supply chain in smartphone production is ok, but others are so so... ymmv.

btw... i can walk faster than 5mph, if you cant cycle/motor more than that, please stay away from the road, be considerate, simply walk on your feet on the side otherwise you'll cause unnecessary road congestion, if your road is same as our road here. cheers.

The rest of your post sounds like Samsung fanboi butthurt. I don't mind their COMPONENTS. They make pretty good memory chips & batteries. Good enough to be an Apple channel partner back when that MEANT something, until they had to rip them off and get booted. 

But their consumer products are in general shite. Absolutely no consideration of the customer themselves as a person in the design, and after support is a fucking joke, unless they're FORCED to provide it.

Not sure where you're going with this... statement, I guess you'd call it...? It seems to meander off into the wastelands of your mind. Are you trying to say I'm fat? 

mnem
It's only money.

[bd139]

Yes it only lasts two years. Yes you can only smash it twice. Yes it costs money. 

THIS is what I was saying when I said "If you fully buy into their ecology."

If you're a wingnut who can't stand the fundamental invasiveness of cloud backups, etc and have to harp on every "Security issue" (which by their essential nature, an internet-connected device with GPS in your pocket explicitly IS, no matter the brand) and insists on FIXING rather than REPLACING your phone... if you're like that, and you BUY an iPwn KNOWING these things about it then you ARE a wingnut... then you DESERVE to have a effing horrible experience. You're buying something that is explicitly NOT what you like, and then hating on it for not being what you like. 

I was trying to avoid the word wingnut but you're 100% right.

It's like buying a barbecue when you're afraid the black bits on your food will give you ass cancer.

[garethw]

I’ve had Windows Phones, Androids and currently have an iPhone. I liked the Windows Phone except that you couldn’t get any apps!! Android was great, only let down due to the lower spec Samsung phone but it was all I could afford at the time. Jan 2017 I bought my current iPhone 7. Yes it is different to the android OS. Yes, you have to have an Apple ID but I only use it as a login for my iCloud, which just works away in the background.
As has been said lots before, these phone ecosystems are separate entities which have their own evolutions. Getting cross with Apple because it’s not like an Android is a bit stupid. If Apple knocks out products so terrible, so awful, so insecure then why is Apple the highest value company in the world? I’m certainly not an Apple fanboy and will most likely buy an Android when my iPhone 7 croaks it but I’ve enjoyed my iPhone experience and wouldn’t talk bad about it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mnementh]

Gawddammitt, bd... only YOU could make me snicker uncontrollably at "ass cancer". You bastard!

mnem
*toddles back off into the real world...*

[james_s]

I don't understand how people go through phones so fast. I've had 3 phones in 11 years and the first two were retired due to obsolescence, they still work fine. My old iPhone 4 still looks brand new, I carried it in my pocket for over 4 years. Just put it in a case when new and treat it like the expensive piece of precision equipment that it is and phones last a long time. I don't get why so many people are so careless with their belongings.

[Halcyon]

I guess all this thread has really shown is what most of us knew all along...

• You'll never change the mind of an Apple fanboy.
• Android users who are critical of Apple will be accused of being "biased" or just plain wrong. Windows Phone users will be ignored because they "don't exist".
• Those who need a tool to do what they want... will choose whatever is best for them on the market at the time, regardless of brand.

[james_s]

I quite liked the Windows phones at one time, I never bought one though because app support was spotty, Microsoft has a longstanding habit of abandoning product lines on a whim, and then I was so mad with the direction they took Windows starting with Win8 that I wanted nothing to do with the platform. They had a good thing going for a while though, I just don't think there is room for more than two big players in the smartphone market which is a shame really because I can't say I'm a fan of either one.

[Halcyon]

I quite liked the Windows phones at one time, I never bought one though because app support was spotty, Microsoft has a longstanding habit of abandoning product lines on a whim, and then I was so mad with the direction they took Windows starting with Win8 that I wanted nothing to do with the platform. They had a good thing going for a while though, I just don't think there is room for more than two big players in the smartphone market which is a shame really because I can't say I'm a fan of either one.

Likewise, I actually quite liked the earlier Windows phones, they worked very well. But like you, I abandoned decades of being a Windows user after Windows 8/10 were released in favour of Linux.

[Mechatrommer]

before android, i always was with nokia bricks, then comes android and samsung, nokia came late but when they did, they choosed windows, was having a brief moment playing with nokia windows phone and by that time i already got the impression of Windows 10 (when it had no start menu button nor a taskbar ), so the avid WInXP user has to say good bye to nokia...

[mnementh]

I had and wore out no less than four Nokia 521s... I liked mine so much I bought one for my wife. We used them for nearly two years because they were cheap when we NEEDED a good cheap phone, and later we discovered that they JUST PLAIN WORKED. Unlike most smartphones, which are really small tablets with a phone as an afterthought, the 521 was designed BY A PHONE MANUFACTURER, so everything about it was very clearly a phone FIRST, and an internet gadget second. Nokia seriously knew their shit when it came to making an intuitive UI on a phone.  True, app availability was limited, but WinPhone8/8.1 shipped with a full complement of productivity apps, among which was Nokia's own GPS/Maps app which was faster and easier than Googs; and because the maps were stored locally, it ALWAYS WORKED. 

EVERYTHING that came on it just plain worked, the settings were ALL where it just made sense for them to be, and the intuitiveness of their active tiles implementation was something that other phones are JUST NOW approaching 5 years later.  As a result, aside from a few stupid games, I really never MISSED the app store; I happily used my 521s until they simply became too old & slow for the content I wanted to use on the internet. By that time, lack of browser updates was getting me shut out of sites anyways. Well that, and aging eyes with both of us was making a 6"-ish phone a necessity. 

Really, EVERYBODY designing phone UIs RIGHT NOW could learn a SHITLOAD about how to do their craft PROPERLY by living with a Nokia 521 for a week. 

mnem
 

[Halcyon]

The problem with "Nokia" these days is that they exist by name only. Just like Blackberry, who are now manufactured by TCL in China. A lot of the good brands are disappearing and I'll include Motorola in that. For those who need powerful computing and security in their pocket, you're limited to just a few manufacturers.

I remember when I had the Motorola Atrix, that was a brilliant phone!

[mnementh]

Yeah... how many RAZRs I wore out...  I wish I had THAT money back. 

mnem
*mnemories*

[Black Phoenix]

Yeah... how many RAZRs I wore out...  I wish I had THAT money back. 

mnem
*mnemories*

Good Phone the RAZRs... One of my first mobile phones, when I changed from the Nokia 3310. After that It was Sony Ericsson until my first SmartPhone, the HTC Touch Pro2.

[Mechatrommer]

the 521 was designed BY A PHONE MANUFACTURER, so everything about it was very clearly a phone FIRST

phone manufacturer who cant keep up when android phones came and then later fucked up by microsoft win8.

and an internet gadget second. Nokia seriously knew their shit when it came to making an intuitive UI on a phone.

intuitive what? its Microsoft Win8 GUI, exact copy of PC version, except its worse, paler and has to deal with small screen.

and the intuitiveness of their active tiles implementation was something that other phones are JUST NOW approaching 5 years later.

maybe you mixed up win8 521s with earlier symbian version of nokia bricks? nobody wants to copy Win8 GUI not even closer. i dont want to remember how i cursed how useless it is, the most useless Microsoft product ever.

Really, EVERYBODY designing phone UIs RIGHT NOW could learn a SHITLOAD about how to do their craft PROPERLY by living with a Nokia 521 for a week. 

just look again how hillarious it was... mario bros nintendo is much better... RIP nokia...



well, maybe just talking on the aesthetics side, but seriously, there's nothing wrong with logical order in samsung android  GUI granted there's crap brands that didnt implement the "favourite apps taskbar" that is fixed on the screen when we swipe pages. and no separate home pages, its just flat all apps pages,  yes thats crap. dont buy crap stuffs.

[Black Phoenix]

It wasn't that bad if you got used. Most people bash the Windows 8 and 8.1 plus the Windows Phone OS but I used it momentary for some months and after that It felt intuitive.

Yes It needed a little more polish and not being dropped from active development and put into the backburner and the lack of apps also didn't help but it wasn't that bad. Windows Mobile 6.5 was way worse and unreliable!

The problem with Windows 8 was that people didn't want to adapt to the new Metro layout instead keeping using the same old one. Yes if it works don't change but if good things come from there. The integrated search ability in the program bar was a time saver for people who uses lot of programs.

It was a case of learning how to deal with it and after that it would feel intuitive.

When Windows Vista was released everyone bashed and preferred the XP, when Windows 7 was released same thing regarding the 7. Now people hate the Windows 10 and say that Windows 7 was great. Soon when Microsoft does something totally different people would say Windows 10 was the best...

[garethw]

It would appear there is a bit of a pattern. The creators of tech spend their careers developing and updating their products. The consumers curse the new version of the phone/app/website saying all sorts of nasty things. Then the dust settles and everyone gets familiar with said product whilst behind the scenes the developers are busy creating a new version and so the loop repeats! [emoji1787]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bd139]

Nice to see some windows phone love. I was a windows phone user before iOS (see note later). It was far far ahead of everything. The handsets were cheap, reliable and the software was secure and functional. The problem was that they shipped with IE basically and MSFT had severe product schitzophrenia for the best part of 4 years culminating in the facial ballbagging that was windows 10 mobile and this put everyone off the platform from the users to the app developers. The two death strokes were as follows. Firstly the migration from windows CE to NT kernel which killed off a whole line of handsets from the 8 upgrade and a lot of the apps. The second, the push to have "one OS" experience on desktop and mobile.

Now they're in risk mitigation mode which is "throw shit at everything and see what sticks". Pity the poor individuals who build a business on things that don't stick and then get cut off. Only reliable propositions at this time are Office and Windows. One trick pony.

Note mentioned earlier: I actually used windows phone from the dark ages of 2003-ish with the CE based SPV C500 right until 2014 and then on and off with windows phone handsets to play with. Then through Android, and culminating in iOS.

On Windows CE phones I spent 3 years building POS and POD applications on them so I know the platform pretty well. But they murdered it.

Edit: I had a Noka 521 as well as a backup handset. Only phone you could throw at a wall and it'd still work afterwards. Another problem with windows mobile was the hardware was made of an alloy of cockroaches and 3310's forged by the same dwarfs that did Thor his hammer.

[mnementh]

the 521 was designed BY A PHONE MANUFACTURER, so everything about it was very clearly a phone FIRST

phone manufacturer who cant keep up when android phones came and then later fucked up by microsoft win8.

and an internet gadget second. Nokia seriously knew their shit when it came to making an intuitive UI on a phone.

intuitive what? its Microsoft Win8 GUI, exact copy of PC version, except its worse, paler and has to deal with small screen.

and the intuitiveness of their active tiles implementation was something that other phones are JUST NOW approaching 5 years later.

maybe you mixed up win8 521s with earlier symbian version of nokia bricks? nobody wants to copy Win8 GUI not even closer. i dont want to remember how i cursed how useless it is, the most useless Microsoft product ever.

Really, EVERYBODY designing phone UIs RIGHT NOW could learn a SHITLOAD about how to do their craft PROPERLY by living with a Nokia 521 for a week. 

just look again how hillarious it was... mario bros nintendo is much better... RIP nokia...



well, maybe just talking on the aesthetics side, but seriously, there's nothing wrong with logical order in samsung android  GUI granted there's crap brands that didnt implement the "favourite apps taskbar" that is fixed on the screen when we swipe pages. and no separate home pages, its just flat all apps pages,  yes thats crap. dont buy crap stuffs.

Welcome back; I missed your bloviation and literal crap-flinging, as seen above. ↑

You mistake lack of BS for lack of features; the metro interface was WELL-DESIGNED for this application. It was the BS-free interface I (and oodles of other users) appreciated; while trying to force us to use it on our PCs was utter idiocy, it is perfect for getting the most information out of a small screen with the least cross-channel noise.

Nice to see some windows phone love. I was a windows phone user before iOS (see note later). It was far far ahead of everything. The handsets were cheap, reliable and the software was secure and functional. The problem was that they shipped with IE basically and MSFT had severe product schitzophrenia for the best part of 4 years culminating in the facial ballbagging that was windows 10 mobile and this put everyone off the platform from the users to the app developers. The two death strokes were as follows. Firstly the migration from windows CE to NT kernel which killed off a whole line of handsets from the 8 upgrade and a lot of the apps. The second, the push to have "one OS" experience on desktop and mobile.

Now they're in risk mitigation mode which is "throw shit at everything and see what sticks". Pity the poor individuals who build a business on things that don't stick and then get cut off. Only reliable propositions at this time are Office and Windows. One trick pony.

Note mentioned earlier: I actually used windows phone from the dark ages of 2003-ish with the CE based SPV C500 right until 2014 and then on and off with windows phone handsets to play with. Then through Android, and culminating in iOS.

On Windows CE phones I spent 3 years building POS and POD applications on them so I know the platform pretty well. But they murdered it.

Edit: I had a Noka 521 as well as a backup handset. Only phone you could throw at a wall and it'd still work afterwards. Another problem with windows mobile was the hardware was made of an alloy of cockroaches and 3310's forged by the same dwarfs that did Thor his hammer.

ROFLCYCIH!!! (ROFL, Cussing You Cuz It Hurts)

Seriously... twice in one day. Stop it you bastard.  Well, okay... technically two days... but still, stop before I get a hernia...   

Cheers,

mnem
Oh sheep-dip... now I have hiccups. And I woke up my daughter.

[bd139]

 

[Halcyon]

mnementh,

Let's keep the discussion on-topic and reserve chit-chat for private messages. You should appreciate that others on this forum have differing opinions to yourself, it doesn't make them wrong nor does it make you correct.

Keep it civil please and let's not resort to childish comments.

[mnementh]

Really? You're going to spank me for calling a guy out on a deliberate troll attempt? I don't consider it an attack to tell someone when they're being ignorant; I consider it basic civility. 

mnem
 

[Jeroen3]

Troll bait. The irony is within.

Even running the latest version of iOS available today (12.3.1) it still feels unrefined at times. Even small things like activating buttons or moving levers/progress bars, I was forced to literally drag them, rather than simply tap on them.

I still think your screen is bad. Or it's due tot the fact that the SE is in the same boat at the 6S, they on the edge of the supported life. The OS grows beyond what the phone is capable of, or apple deliberately slows the phone down. Pick one.

One of the most annoying things was not having the ability to download software updates over the air, even when cellular data was on, it insisted on Wi-Fi. With unlimited data quotas on cellular networks these days, this is a stupid limitation but notwithstanding that, it should be my choice as the user how I update my device (particularly when annoyed with constant pop-ups about a software update).

There is indeed an 150 MB app download limit over cellular. Why I don't know. Maybe it's not so much a limit for the end user, but more for the developer.

The mandatory requirement to sign up for an Apple ID was also a huge turn-off. I didn't want or need it or any of the other garbage that came along with it, but there was no option to skip.

With the alternative smartphones you can skip account creation, but the device will be limited in certain features. It's Apple's style to not give the users these choices. This is indeed inconvenient. But this also makes it impossible to re-use stolen (or forgotten) iDevices. It is also inconvenient for typical end users. Since they forget what an Apple ID/Google Account or Microsoft account is after 15 minutes anyway, and will never be able to use many of the functions (store/backup/find my iphone).

Finally, the inability to connect the iPhone to a PC and use it as a mass storage device was a major disadvantage (although I could access the photos directly via gPhoto2 on Linux).

Yeah, that boat has sailed. It has been MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) since Android 4.3 as well. It turned out to be available as Mass Storage Device (MSC) for Windows/Linux you actually are required to provide exclusive block access to memory formatted as FAT32 system. Which is challenging, since you don't really want to use FAT32 for linux based operating system partition. And both the USB and the native OS want to use this memory simultaneously. Which isn't possible with MSC. So I understand that this is not longer available, maybe you too now you know?
Oh I forgot, with both Android and Apple there is significant effort being put in to not have all apps access all data. Using FAT32 as filesystem completely reverses these efforts.

I'm curious what Apple will introduce next September as replacement for the iPhone SE. They will have to, since a small form factor smartphone is something they will have to release to maintain user base with the stubborn people not wanting larger phones.

[mnementh]

...a small form factor smartphone is something they will have to release to maintain user base with the stubborn people not wanting larger phones.

Yeah, both of them. 

mnem
I REALLY need to go get some sleep... 

[james_s]

I personally know a handful of people who prefer a small phone, there are a LOT of them out there. I've never understood why anyone would want a phone bigger than the SE. It's close to the perfect size to fit in a pocket and hold in one hand. The screen is very sharp and is plenty sufficient for most things, I'm using it right now to post this. If I want a big screen I'll pull out my laptop.

[bd139]

bigger screen is better for watching netflix while you're having a shit

[Terry01]

bigger screen is better for watching netflix while you're having a shit

 

[mnementh]

I personally know a handful of people who prefer a small phone, there are a LOT of them out there. I've never understood why anyone would want a phone bigger than the SE. It's close to the perfect size to fit in a pocket and hold in one hand. The screen is very sharp and is plenty sufficient for most things, I'm using it right now to post this. If I want a big screen I'll pull out my laptop.

Yeah; the cultural bias against presbyopia and people just plain born with bad eyesight is staggering.  Shockingly, as a whole we outnumber you 20/20s by a factor of 5:1.* Thanks for reinforcing that bias.

mnem
*random shocking figure I literally pulled out of my arse. Can you read this?

[bd139]

Yeah also those of us with orangutan sized hands need a large phone.

[mnementh]

*adjusts his glasses using one Shrek-sized ham-hand* 

mnem
*off to meet the in-laws*

[Mr. Scram]

Yeah; the cultural bias against presbyopia and people just plain born with bad eyesight is staggering.  Shockingly, as a whole we outnumber you 20/20s by a factor of 5:1.* Thanks for reinforcing that bias.

mnem
*random shocking figure I literally pulled out of my arse. Can you read this?

Character size hasn't been tied to screen size for a decade or so.

[bd139]

But you can get all the big letters on the big screen now.

Same as I run my laptop which is 1920x1080 at 150% zoom

[mnementh]

Yeah; the cultural bias against presbyopia and people just plain born with bad eyesight is staggering.  Shockingly, as a whole we outnumber you 20/20s by a factor of 5:1.* Thanks for reinforcing that bias.

mnem
*random shocking figure I literally pulled out of my arse. Can you read this?

Character size hasn't been tied to screen size for a decade or so.

Nor is screen size tied to sense of humor, it seems.

mnem
Made you look.

[Mr. Scram]

Nor is screen size tied to sense of humor, it seems.

mnem
Made you look.

To appeal to a sense of humor something has to be funny first. 

[Mr. Scram]

But you can get all the big letters on the big screen now.

Same as I run my laptop which is 1920x1080 at 150% zoom

bd139 special incoming. Can you read me now!?

[mnementh]

But you can get all the big letters on the big screen now.

Same as I run my laptop which is 1920x1080 at 150% zoom

bd139 special incoming. Can you read me now!?

Now THAT’S funny.

mnem
I prepared EXPLOSIVE RUNES today.

[bd139]

But you can get all the big letters on the big screen now.

Same as I run my laptop which is 1920x1080 at 150% zoom

bd139 special incoming. Can you read me now!?

i can read it when it’s this big 

[Jeroen3]

I personally know a handful of people who prefer a small phone, there are a LOT of them out there. I've never understood why anyone would want a phone bigger than the SE. It's close to the perfect size to fit in a pocket and hold in one hand. The screen is very sharp and is plenty sufficient for most things, I'm using it right now to post this. If I want a big screen I'll pull out my laptop.

Those are not the reasons for a bigger smartphone screen. It's the same reason the internet was invented. You know... pictures and videos of cats...

[bd139]

Here we go again.... https://phys.org/news/2019-07-malicious-apps-infect-million-android.html

And why it's a problem and why Samsung are shit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20411817

[Mr. Scram]

Here we go again.... https://phys.org/news/2019-07-malicious-apps-infect-million-android.html

And why it's a problem and why Samsung are shit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20411817

I don't expect this discussion to ever be any different because both camps just love to point out incidents on "the other side", but it seems to be a case of people engaging in what's known to be risky behaviour:

"The apps, most of them games, were distributed through third-party app stores by a Chinese group with a legitimate business helping Chinese developers promote their apps on outside platforms."

[bd139]

I disagree.

Neither of these are an option on iOS. You can’t install third party app stores and Apple could actually close the OS holes because most of their user base isn’t unsupported landfill phones.

[Mr. Scram]

I disagree.

Neither of these are an option on iOS. You can’t install third party app stores and Apple could actually close the OS holes because most of their user base isn’t unsupported landfill phones.

I guess that makes the point for me. Having an app store but also being able to take control is considered a feature by many, not a bug. You can choose between the walled garden or assume the risk of going outside of it instead of never having the choice. If manufacturers weld the doors of a car shut they can hardly call not being able to fall out of the vehicle a feature. Of course, a walled garden might still mean getting infected. Please note that I'm neither pro Android or pro Apple. I use both and think there's definitely room for improvement on both sides.

https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-emerging-threats-ios-malware-xcodeghost-infects-millions-of-apple-store-customers.html

[bd139]

I’m laughing at XcodeGhost here because the vulnerability is now mitigated actually by the App Store as it’s identifiable when symbols are uploaded. Not only that the vulnerability is actually a copy of Xcode that was obtained illegitimately so they could circumvent licensing fees.

[Mechatrommer]

cannot download more apps, cannot bluetooth to other systems, keep everything to itself, thats the kicker feature for security well, i dont save my passwords or cc number in the phone, not even in the pc, so i can download more apps and share files with friends via bluetooth without the need of internet connection or cloud BS. the modern age of secure SSB rig

[bd139]

Enjoy your 2% use case

[Mechatrommer]

true because we only have 2% iphone/imac users around here. and apple booth is always empty when i walked across it i'm not sure how they survived i guess injection from the headquarter. because of my apple ignorance, i always ask those of my 2% friends how to do this or that in iphone/imac their anwers will always "i dont know i just being told this is a good stuffs", there was many years back a guy i asked why he bought imac? he said because it can do this with his 5 fingers doing top to bottom screen swipe gesture, i thought thats not even 2% use case, i really dont have any clue whats good in productivity for that, no VB/VC++ no photoshop no nothing, just something similar to that Ms Word stuffs and probably some image viewer.

[bd139]

My parser suffered a stack overflow on that comment.

[Towger]

Fan boys have been banned from this forum for being too much a fan boy. :-)

[Mr. Scram]

Fan boys have been banned from this forum for being too much a fan boy. :-)

The problem is that bd139 is a rather nice chap otherwise and he would be missed. 

[bd139]

I’m a miserable bastard

Anyway I’m not a fan boy.

My day job is product selection and architecting technology solutions which if I get them wrong will have massive consequences for their customers’ data protection, their reputation and my reputation. My opinion is based on deep research and analysis that took weeks and input from third party security consultancies as well as product evaluations. I’m not going “waah waaah look at moi sexy chunk of glass” but “there be an analytical evaluation behind this”.

Also my MacBook Air was a piece of shit. I use a manky old thinkpad running windows 10

Each tool is the right one for the job.

[Towger]

The problem is that bd139 is a rather nice chap otherwise and he would be missed. 

I know, but so was Wuerstchenhund. He knew is stuff and gave help to others.  But his love for LeCroy was too much for some!

[Mechatrommer]

most of the time, monotonic technical explanation is boring, esp if they keep repeating, so occasional sarcastic environment is fun... its understandable people always post based on their environment, me with mine, they with theirs, and sometime from hearsay regardless true or false... but if one can keep m*ronic or st*pid word away that is some achievement, imho... we dont need another contributing member being banned, as the other member in the other thread said... everyone entitled to their own opinion.. poking bd139

[0culus]

My parser suffered a stack overflow on that comment.

Punctuation, used judiciously, is very nice indeed. 

[Mechatrommer]

that was on purpose so it will not be taken seriously by the not so serious person. for the serious beings... punctuations can be rebuilt from https://www.eevblog.com/forum/programming/neural-nets-deep-learning-and-so-on/?topicseen

[Mr. Scram]

that was on purpose so it will not be taken seriously by the not so serious person. for the serious beings... punctuations can be rebuilt from https://www.eevblog.com/forum/programming/neural-nets-deep-learning-and-so-on/?topicseen

It's hard to take something serious if you can't read it, so you're not wrong. 

[Mechatrommer]

do not underestimate the fanboyism

[mnementh]

Enjoy your 2% use case

Yup... BOTH of 'em!!! 

mnem
Technically, anything you do yourself was accomplished by "Training a neural network"...

[Mr. Scram]

Yup... BOTH of 'em!!! 

mnem
Technically, anything you do yourself was accomplished by "Training a neural network"...

[mnementh]

Yeah, whatever you're talking about... There's an XKCD for THAT!!!



mnem
Of course, there's an app for that too... https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.floern.xkcd&hl=en_US

[james_s]

intuitive what? its Microsoft Win8 GUI, exact copy of PC version, except its worse, paler and has to deal with small screen.

I thought the Windows 8 UI was fine on a phone. The issue was that a good phone UI is a horrible desktop/laptop UI. If they'd avoided the folly of trying to merge the desktop and mobile experience a lot more folks would have been happy.

[james_s]

But you can get all the big letters on the big screen now.

Same as I run my laptop which is 1920x1080 at 150% zoom

bd139 special incoming. Can you read me now!?

i can read it when it’s this big 

I find it to be perfectly readable at the default zoom, this is how it looks on my SE, it's comfortable from a normal viewing distance.

[Halcyon]

I find it to be perfectly readable at the default zoom, this is how it looks on my SE, it's comfortable from a normal viewing distance.

That's one thing I will mention; On my "week on Apple iPhone", I found the default font to be quite large on the SE. I had to turn it down to minimum. This is neither a criticism or compliment, just an observation. Even on my Android I prefer smaller fonts, mainly so if I'm on a train or around people, they can't read my screen.

[Mr. Scram]

That's one thing I will mention; On my "week on Apple iPhone", I found the default font to be quite large on the SE. I had to turn it down to minimum. This is neither a criticism or compliment, just an observation. Even on my Android I prefer smaller fonts, mainly so if I'm on a train or around people, they can't read my screen.

Modern day cameras easily overcome that defence or even someone with excellent eyes. I'd opt for one of those foils which limits the angles the screen can be viewed at.

[tautech]

Interesting (to me) observation.
iPhone 5S iOS 12.3.1

One recent busy evening for emails for which above phone is set to check every 30 mins but while connected to my main Windoze 10 workstation to get pics off the phone, phone email notifications were perfectly in sync with Outlook notifications where they would normally lag some/many minutes behind Outlook notifications.

It seems when the phone iOS asks if the PC connection is to be trusted, it is !

[Againgly]

Personally, my opinion. iPhones are probably good and productive devices, but ... very inconvenient to use. I mainly used devices on android and, in principle, I was always pleased with them. Although I am sure, there will certainly be many objections to this.

[Ysjoelfir]

It's so nice to read all kind of "my new $1k phone is a bit nicer than your $999 phone" while I'm sitting here, having my third hand Samsung Galaxy S3, which got his third screen and fourth 7.700mAh extended battery not too long ago, and it's still working like a charm and does everything I need it to do - which is basically taking phone calls, sending SMS and using whatsapp - and that without charging it twice a day. In my case, it is more like charging it once a week.
If those functions would be possible with a Nokia 3010 I would still prefer that thing...

[Jeroen3]

When you limit the phone to function as a communication device, you can take the oldest supported version of any phone and still be happy.
When you also want the phone to function as gateway to the internet, youtube, netflix and games, then you'll keep running into the web having evolved, again, requiring more and more power.

Running an Android 4 phone right now might not be the smartest idea for the second option. Since many bugs have been published and are exploitable. Such as stagefright.
An S3 compares to a pc with Windows XP in phone world. I would strongly advise against this. The same applies to still wielding and iPhone 3 or 4. ^{(the 5, also from 2012 is still patched!)}

[Ysjoelfir]

Sure, you are absolutely right with that. Actually, the mentioned uses I wrote are basically everything I do with this phone. For anything other you mentioned I use my PC, which is pretty up to date. I keep to that phone since I don't like to throw away a perfectly working piece of equipment just because it is old and stuff (that I don't use on this device) needs more processing power every few months. There is already enough unnecessary waste on this planet.

Besides, the S3 doesn't run ICS any more. It's now a Marshmallow. Still not the newest, sure, but since that thing isn't critical in any way for me, I don't really care.

[dzseki]

I have a Balckberry Z10 (running Blackberry 10 OS) from 2013, now that is a niche, for me it still does the job, and since that OS is not in mainstream, no hackers are considering it as a target. I guess it is the same for the Windows phones now.

[Mechatrommer]

Google White Hat Hackers Say Thousands of iPhones Have Been Hacked for Years iphone lovers may have enjoyed the placebo effect

[bd139]

Interesting stuff. Some info here, minus the Panda wank (they are an antivirus pusher)

Actual source: https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-very-deep-dive-into-ios-exploit.html

If you look at the exploit, concisely it appears to be based on WebKit JIT. So they:

1. Find an exploit in the JIT engine.
2. Leverage that to write to executable memory.
3. Use this to spawn shellcode
4. Use this to perform privilege execution.

That's a pretty advanced multi-stage attack. With the price attached to such attacks that was either sold to a state level entity or developed by one to start with. Probably what they're doing when the borrow your phone on entering China.

However A12 cores are immune to this as specified in the article thanks to PAC so not worried here as mine is an XR . This is also why you don't run tail end software and hardware if you value your security like all those miserable fuckers who refused to stop using XP.

To note this is something that desktop Chrome, Safari and Edge (dev) could be vulnerable to in one form or another.

But JavaScript is the RCA. The hacks we have to use to get rid of the hot steaming lines coming off that turd are immense and full of holes....

[Mr. Scram]

Don't worry, we'll hear about the A12 vulnerabilities in 4 years time. 

[bd139]

I'll have an A13 then 

[Mr. Scram]

I'll have an A13 then 

We'll hear about how that one was actively exploited when you had it in your pocket another year later.

[bd139]

I'll have been abducted by North Korean spies and rubber hosed at their embassy before then

[Mr. Scram]

I'll have been abducted by North Korean spies and rubber hosed at their embassy before then

We'll rubber hose you regardless.

[0culus]

*snip*

That's a pretty advanced multi-stage attack. With the price attached to such attacks that was either sold to a state level entity or developed by one to start with. Probably what they're doing when the borrow your phone on entering China.

*snip*

Strongly doubt any nation state actor worth their salt would do that. If you have a reasonable belief that you hold something like this exclusively, it's way too good of an exploit to burn by using it in too many places. Something like this would definitely be used in a targeted manner vs. HVTs by a nation state actor.

[bd139]

Strongly doubt any nation state actor worth their salt would do that. If you have a reasonable belief that you hold something like this exclusively, it's way too good of an exploit to burn by using it in too many places. Something like this would definitely be used in a targeted manner vs. HVTs by a nation state actor.

Depends what the objective is and what other exploits are available. Don't forget the security agencies stockpile these things.

[0culus]

Strongly doubt any nation state actor worth their salt would do that. If you have a reasonable belief that you hold something like this exclusively, it's way too good of an exploit to burn by using it in too many places. Something like this would definitely be used in a targeted manner vs. HVTs by a nation state actor.

Depends what the objective is and what other exploits are available. Don't forget the security agencies stockpile these things.

Sure, which absolutely means you don't want to burn a really juicy exploit chain indiscriminately. People who do this stuff for a living aren't stupid. If they can get the job done with something far more pedestrian, they will.

[bd139]

Yeah hence the rubber hosing comment

It was found in the wild however so speculation is that it has raised attention. Wonder what the purpose is.

[Mr. Scram]

Sure, which absolutely means you don't want to burn a really juicy exploit chain indiscriminately. People who do this stuff for a living aren't stupid. If they can get the job done with something far more pedestrian, they will.

At the same time people mistakenly think they aren't interesting targets. Most of us are of value to someone for some reason. Whether it's because you're a gateway to company IP or because you're a stepping stone to a high value target but there's a misconception that we aren't targeted because we're ordinary people with ordinary jobs.