Apple and I have very different notions of what it means to own something.

• Firefox with ublock and a normal engine

• Newpipe for downloading stuff off YT

• OSMand for offline navigation

• f-droid for foss software

• Rethink to carefully ban everything that doesn’t need internet from connecting

• a phone with a nice amoled screen and all-day quickcharging battery that costs 180€ (motorola g52)

• not one ad anywhere

a better question is, why would I want anything else? An iphone seems like a sharp downgrade.

Paying 20% - 40% more for dumbed-down OS that limits what software I can use. I mean literally any one of those alone is a deal breaker. It was never gonna work.

I feel like I’m using a toy phone I bought for a 7 year old.

Preference.

I’m a developer and android is more friendly to developers, i have more control over my device. I can use any browser without being stuck with Safari. If i don’t like my phone i can choose from many more manufacturers without losing my apps and subscriptions.

I think most of all i have problem with Apples culture, their smugness and acting like they invented everything. I don’t think I’m their target audience.

Sideloading apps

Paying x4 times the price for a device

• Can’t have the wifi and hotspot on and the same time
• Can’t record calls
• Can’t make homepage icons small
• Can’t remove the default keyboard
• Worse apps

I’ve been forced to use iOS for my work phone and it is absolute dog shit… it feels like Android from 10+ years ago. The lack of customization and dumbass work flows drive me crazy every day.

So many screens in different apps. make you reach way to one corner or the other to go back a screen. In Android, back is one motion that can be done anywhere from any edge. And that behaves consistently across every app. In iOS some apps behave differently, even the same app with a different screen will handle the same gesture differently. It’s an absolute shit show.

Want to open my app list, I just swipe up from anywhere on my screen. Want my notifications, swipe down from anywhere on my screen. In iOS I have to perfectly hit the top edge and slowly drag it down.

There are plenty of other reasons.

Access to the filesystem. Wtf! Lmao. I download a PDF and can’t just open it? I have to basically share it with the app, it’s so dumb.

Split screening apps.

Complete lack of customization. The launcher is ass.

Horrible keyboard and the one I like, SwiftKey is completely neutered and lacks the customization of Android. And some apps will use the apple keyboard even though I changed it to use Swiftkey. Again, no consistency.

Messages will pop a notification then when I open the messenger app they are not there. I can read the message in the notification area, but there is a period of time that it doesn’t display in the actual app. Lmao. Dog shit.

Many, many other things.

Apps and services dying to backgrounding like the hotspot for one will just stop working after a certain amount of time.

Want to know how I change my brightness in Android? I just slide across the status bar in any app on any screen.

When I want to turn my flashlight on, all I do is hold my power button down for 3 seconds. Don’t have to turn my screen on and click anything.

So many things. The settings in iOS are also a joke and the way they are organized, I just hate everything about it. It feels like I’m running Android from 2010 with less customization.

Basically iOS is complete ass.

File level access to files. I would love to have the option of moving files in folders and connecting it to a PC to drag and drop files.

True multi tasking.

Ability to install apps from other sources.

Hate how they handle photos. You can’t easily download your pictures like with Android you can just plug your phone into the computer and it becomes a hard drive you can mount and download them.

I don’t want to

Notification light. Repairability (I can practically op this thing open like the hood of a car). Far cheaper options. Headphone jack. Side loading. Fingerprint sensor. Dedicated shutter and focus button. Non proprietary charger that isn’t terrible. Emulators. Firefox plus adblocker. Customisability (least important for me honestly).

I am just happy that I have options. I can do whatever I want with this hardware. I own this device and have complete freedom. I work in repair and I am thoroughly aware of apple’s anti-consumer practices and it disgusts me. I could never buy a device from apple out of principle.

It sickens me when I have to tell customers “your totally repairable device is fucked because apple makes it arbitrarily impossible to repair.”. It makes me even sadder when they just buy another apple device, rewarding them for their behaviour.

Much like many of the iPhone users when you asked the converse question, it’s not so much that something is stopping me, but that I have no interest in it. I don’t see any benefits that I care about, and it would cost time and money to switch.

Let’s pretend for a moment that I did have some desire to switch, perhaps due to some new hardware from Apple or changes to Android I found unpalatable. Here are some things I’d consider major barriers:

• Sideloading - I want to install stuff without permission from the hardware or OS vendor. Maybe I’ll even write a niche app without asking permission.
• Administrative access - I have root on my Android phone, and I didn’t have to fight it to gain root (I know that’s not true of every device). If I don’t have root or can’t get it easily, it’s not really mine.

That’s… basically it, but those are big things and Apple’s position on them is so opposite mine that they’re risking severe sanctions from the EU to comply with the EU’s sideloading regulations in the most useless way they can.

• Actually being the owner of my phone. Apple decides everything for their users and allows them little freedom. I want to be able to put random apps on my phone, including maybe even my own.

• Price. Shit’s expensive. I now got a Pixel 8 for less than 500 euro’s. Before that I had phones around the 300 euro price range.

• Their ecosystem. They try to lure you into an everything Apple ecosystem. Stuff like iMessage is horrible for consumers. With an Android phone I have choice of apps, smart watch, earbuds, etc. Apple will always try to force you into buying their fancy but expensive things.

• No benefit, there’s plenty of cool Android phones.

Etc etc.