this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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No Stupid Questions

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Okay, this is not an iPhone vs Android Phone debate. I respect your right to choose whichever platform that you want.


I mean, iPhone seems so antithetical with the idea of freedom. You have to connect it to a server to even use it, all apps have to go through a centralized server, no option to install whatever apps you want, which means, you literally cannot have any third-party apps without an online account.

Most of my fellow americans seems to love the idea of freedom so much, yet just buy into a closed ecosystem with no freedom? 🤔

Like almost 60% of Americans use iPhone, kinda weird to preach freedom when you cant even have an app without a corporation's approval. If it were any other country, I wouldn't find it weird, but for a country that's obsessed with the idea of freedom (so much so that they disobeyed mask mandates), it's really weird to be using a device with zero freedom.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Because they are easily gullible.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (10 children)

Conspicuous consumption.

Americans have been propagandized by Apple advertising into thinking Apple products are "high class."

Ask yourself: Why does anyone wear a Rolex?

It boils down to the same thing, showing people your wealth and thus "social value" (barf) via conspicuous consumption.

If it wasn't conspicuous consumption, why would US people literally judge potential dating partners on what kind of phone they use?

Example: https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/technology-blog/story/2008-08-07/apple-removes-1-000-featureless-iphone-application

Its function is exactly what the name implies: to alert people that you have money in the bank. I Am Rich was available for purchase from the phone’s App Store for, get this, $999.99 -- the highest amount a developer can charge through the digital retailer, said Armin Heinrich, the program’s developer. Once downloaded, it doesn’t do much -- a red icon sits on the iPhone home screen like any other application, with the subtext ‘I Am Rich.’ Once activated, it treats the user to a large, glowing gem (pictured above). That’s about it. For a thousand dollars.

This was barely a year after the original iPhone's release. The attitude toward Apple products has persisted ever since.

[–] artificialfish 3 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I hate to say it, the reason people choose dating partners on phone use is because of blue texts on iMessage. that’s the only reason. Apple was brilliant pitching that as an Android problem instead of playing fair and working on an open standard since day 1. Dragged their feet for years.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

I still find this hard to believe. It’s just a visual indicator whether the conversation is encrypted or not, but who would actually judge partners with this.

When I checked with my kids, since we know teenagers can be very shallow bullies, they said there is some light teasing but it was really started by online crap like this. Not even teenagers care. I mean, they don’t usually use iMessages anyway, so many probably never noticed.

“Blue texts” is a fake issue. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was started as a prank, or by Google, and no one cared until it was all over the internet

[–] artificialfish 4 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

It’s not just a visual indication of if it’s encrypted. SMS sucks, truly, compared to apps like iMessage, WhatsApp, etc. so it’s actually annoying to message people with green text. Now that Apple does RCS it’s not a big deal, but in the USA there’s no default internet messaging app like WhatsApp, and to the extent that there is one it’s iMessage.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

SMS is default texting for all phones of all types all providers in the US. Its main advantage is ubiquity and it is the only ubiquitous text protocol. SMS was always owned by cell providers.

While I also am disappointed that ubiquitous text protocol owned by cell providers never progressed, can’t blame Apple for that. They could have used their influence to push harder but bottom line is the change needed to be at cell providers. They may also have seen that even Google with all its influence wasn’t able to make it happen (without taking it proprietary, owning it, centralizing it).

But let me ask this: what other texting provider includes a fallback to incorporate texters outside their network? At all? Does WhatsApp include users of iMessage? SMS? RCS?

[–] artificialfish 2 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (2 children)

You can literally blame Apple for that, because that standard did progress, and they did not incorporate it into their default messaging app for years due to anticompetitive marketing practices. To compare the responsibilities of a default and only (since you can’t sidecar on iPhone) text messaging app on a phone with 50% market share with a third party app is bad faith. Even then, WhatsApp and others were cross platform, not hardware dependent.

Did you just reverse your position? I’m confused. Do you think the blue bubbles are more than encryption or not? Do you think people care about them or not? Do you think Apple is a bad faith participant in that issue or not?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago

The binary choice is the freedom. As many people in this thread have discussed, it’s not a real choice, but it’s simple enough that most people will put on blinders and accept the available options.

I use iPhone. It sucks but network effect from people in my circle brought me here

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 day ago (8 children)

Not an iphone user, but am intrigued by all the ads the apple people say are on androids. Literally have never seen one, and I've had adjusted androids since the og htcs.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Not an American but to be honest, both Google and Apple are appalling. Google openly steal all your data and sell it. Apple do similar but on a smaller scale but also claim they're all about privacy. Both make it difficult to use alternative app stores but with Apple its actually impossible. Phone vendors can and do install their own awful bloat on Android phones. Apple force you to use webkit for any browsing you might want to do, Android's native GUI is a mess. Nothing Apple put on their devices is open source so all their claims of privacy can never be verified. Both companies constantly try and impose proprietary standards or charge you a bajillion pounds for a fucking pen or some such bullshit.

The key difference for me is I can put something like Calyx or Graphene on an Android device and use a whole open source ecosystem of alternative apps which vastly improves the privacy of my device.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

All good points, although the restrictions on alternative app stores and browser engines are no longer true in the EU.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Not an American, but I ended up with an iPhone simply because the cost difference between it and an Android device via my carrier wasn't that big. It was also a previous generation model at a steep discount which helped a lot.

I am not a fan of Apple but if a company is going to screw me then at least Apple isn't so in-my-face about it like Google is. Google's data harvesting and ads are absolutely atrocious.

I used Blackberry right up until they ditched BB10. Sometimes I wonder if I should just get a feature phone because modern smartphones are awful things.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago

The average American is a fucking idiot and half of them are dumber than that

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago (9 children)

Honestly, if you can tolerate the Apple ecosystem it works really well, with adequate privacy. My wife and my mother both use them and I recommend it for anyone who isn't a privacy nerd.

If the user isn't willing to jump through hoops to lock shit down, Apple offers a better suite across platforms for privacy and security.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

Honestly I didn’t get an iPhone until 2021 or so and all of my android phones before then ran slow in a year or so. That never happened with my iPhones. Having recently gotten into privacy and selfhosting I have considered a pixel with graphene but don’t wanna waste money.

Worth noting I don’t use iCloud or any of those Apple related services.

I know my partner thinks the same way. My family all has them recently too. Idk why though. We mostly had Samsung before then LG earlier.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

I’m sure this is part of it. All my phones before iPhone sucked. All but one person I know with Android, their phones suck(the downside of cheap phones being available). While I didn’t try every model, and I’m sure they’ve gotten better, why would I abandon something that has worked well, for something where my only experience is negative.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago

Thanks for adding! I feel the same way. I can’t spend $1000 plus on something that most of my life has failed after a year or two.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (3 children)

all of my Linux phones before then ran slow in a year or so. That never happened with my iPhones

Linux isn't really optimized for phones so they are going to be terrible.

And since Apple doesn't really sell budget phones, iPhones are always gonna be fast, so is a flagship Android phone. Its the flagship aspect that makes a phone fast, not the OS.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago

Its the flagship aspect that makes a phone fast, not the OS.

And it's the OS that keeps it fast a few years down the road.

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[–] mspencer712 11 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I’m a professional C# developer, and I switched to iPhone in 2020. Mostly I wanted a more controlled, curated App Store for increased confidence in a safe execution environment. I’ll pay the $100/yr for a developer account if I really need to build and run my own code.

The lack of ad block options bugs me. I also don’t use iCloud.

I have doubts about whether this question is asking or proselytizing.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (2 children)

I want my phone to be like a gaming console.

I turn it on, it works. I install curated stuff from a store.

The hardware is stable and predictable and thus software is of better quality when the developer doesn’t need to test 420 different hardware variants.

I do not want it to be a Linux PC I need to tinker with every day. I specifically want it to prevent me from fucking with it.

EDIT: I also have “adult money” so I can get any phone I want, I don’t need to get the cheapest.

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