Android features I envy as an iPhone user(notes.ghed.in)
notes.ghed.in
Android features I envy as an iPhone user
https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2024/android-features-envy-iphone/
128 comments
I use a Pixel with the Nova Prime launcher (which is a fantastic launcher) and it can do all of these things except the audio stuff. Individual app audio control is definitely one of the features I wish I had the most.
On my Pixel multi-tasking has become suite limited since Android 13. Cannot switch only one of the apps anymore when dual tasking.
And the rounded separator wastes more space. And you can't pick one app and then start another to go into split screen, both have to already be running.
I wish I could talk to the PM who decided this was an upgrade.
I wish I could talk to the PM who decided this was an upgrade.
[deleted]
Some of this depends on your ecosystem as well... my iPhone has smooth integration with my desktop (iMac)... I also have VLC on my iPhone... the thing that bothers me the most are the audio things you mentioned and the web browsers. When I was on Samsung I had a heavily customised Nova launcher but I surprised myself how little moving to the iPhone UI from that bothered me
Was the move little and the bothering big, or was it a big move with little bothering? It’s ambiguous
99% of humans can pass that captcha
Dex is really valuable for me: I use it a lot; about 50% of my programming time. The other 50% is a MacBook Air m1.
This really should be an Android standard. I would prefer Linux instead of Android, but this is the next best thing.
This really should be an Android standard. I would prefer Linux instead of Android, but this is the next best thing.
I ignored Dex for years and only recently started using it, especially during travel. I was blown away by how convenient and useful it is.
Could your share how do you use it for programming? Do you screenshare the dev apps from your computer, or run tools locally? If the latter, which tools?
I run locally with termux and emacs and vscode in the browser but also vnc via ssh to a server with Linux/i3. It works very well.
All of the customization is why I still have a Samsung phone too. The default Android experience is too close to an iPhone, and at that point I'd rather have an iPhone.
One Samsung feature I've seen is "limit battery charging to 80%" ... the adaptive battery feature in stock Android does not work well for my scenario.
You can do this on Pixels as well.
On my Sony Xperia I can force battery limit to 90% or 80%, but on my parent's Pixel 5a only the automatic/adaptive option was available? This seems like one of those things that's easy to offer, but Google hides it to be more slick and apple-like, while Samsung and Sony add the control in for power users / "value-add".
(There are other trade-offs between Google and Samsung, of course.)
(There are other trade-offs between Google and Samsung, of course.)
The BMS, ie the hardware has to be setup for it, it isn't just a thing u can solve with a software limit.
I don't think you can. At least not out of the box. Pixels can do stupid adaptive charging where it tries to learn your routine and won't fully charge until X amount of time before you supposedly wake up. But they do not have a setting where the phone just stops charging at 80% like Samsung or ay least my Pixel 7a does not.
On the flipside, Samsungs are also exceptionally bad at breaking Android expectations around battery management (and, by extension, background processing and applications): https://dontkillmyapp.com/samsung
Err, what does termux have to do with Samsung? (Samsung did beta a "Linux on DeX" briefly, but it vanished years ago...)
> Linux shell
Just because it might come in handy for some: There is iSH for iphones, that emulate a whole x86 CPU to run a lean linux environment. I use it to ssh into servers and edit some txt/special files ios is too dumb to handle otherwise (you can move stuff to its file system).
Just because it might come in handy for some: There is iSH for iphones, that emulate a whole x86 CPU to run a lean linux environment. I use it to ssh into servers and edit some txt/special files ios is too dumb to handle otherwise (you can move stuff to its file system).
Why emulate x86 for this?
> Samsung's browser has some unique features for phones and tablets and I end up using it the most.
I recommend in the strongest possible terms that you familiarize yourself with Samsung's privacy policy.
I recommend in the strongest possible terms that you familiarize yourself with Samsung's privacy policy.
> Hide status icons that are just always on and thus meaningless.
Could you share some examples?
Could you share some examples?
I routinely hid the cellular, battery, and VPN indicators on my KeyOne. This isn't unique to Samsung, it's available via ADB. They might expose it, and allow non-geeks to use it, but that hardly makes it a Samsung feature to anyone browsing this site and with more than a passing interest in UI customization.
Samsung has an app called "Good Lock", with a bunch of sub-apps, that allow a crazy amount of customization. Those for example are just toggles in the "QuickStar" sub-app.
Some of the changes I've made include different icons for the back/home/app switcher buttons at the bottom of the screen and a different layout for the app switcher.
Some of the changes I've made include different icons for the back/home/app switcher buttons at the bottom of the screen and a different layout for the app switcher.
But why? Do you also hide your speedometer when using cruise control?
No, but the ratio of data I use to data available per billing period, coupled with excellent coverage, meant being on data vs wifi made no difference whatsoever. It served absolutely no purpose.
Same with the battery icon. When you plug in your phone every night, but the battery lasts 2-3 days, knowing you're at 80% vs 72% has no purpose.
Why have them there if all they do is contribute to anxiety (why did I lose 3% faster?) and take up space in the top bar (where alarm and DND indicators live)?
Same with the battery icon. When you plug in your phone every night, but the battery lasts 2-3 days, knowing you're at 80% vs 72% has no purpose.
Why have them there if all they do is contribute to anxiety (why did I lose 3% faster?) and take up space in the top bar (where alarm and DND indicators live)?
I specifically hide the Alarm, Volume, Battery (I show percentage), NFC, and Bluetooth icons.
A bunch of those things are not Samsung specific.
> DeX for desktop environment when connected to a display -- I can even remote display to my LG TV and the magic remote can be used as a mouse pointer.
What?!! I didn't know this! I used the phone as a stupid touchpad.
What?!! I didn't know this! I used the phone as a stupid touchpad.
Yeah, but the unremovable bloatware is obscene
Well, there's good to have vs. stupid. It would perhaps be nice to have per-app volume. But the fact that iPhone has just a global volume ... that my ringtone vs. media volume can't be separate is plain stupid isn't it. I will turn down volumes because at work/kids and lost my ringtone. I mean who makes decisions like that?
Now in terms of a little thing that's a major annoyance is the alarm. Android has this feature where upcoming alarms are shown as notifications which you can turn off (just the next one). I set multiple alarms for the morning so that if I shut off one I get another. Now if I wake up on the 1st alarm I will have the next 2 on notification that I can turn off. On iPhone I will keep having those alarm bells and turn them off (which can wake up my kids/wife) or disable them once I wakeup and I might end up forgetting to turn them on for the next day.
Now the freedom in terms of application or browser and extension!!! are obviously general problems.
Now in terms of a little thing that's a major annoyance is the alarm. Android has this feature where upcoming alarms are shown as notifications which you can turn off (just the next one). I set multiple alarms for the morning so that if I shut off one I get another. Now if I wake up on the 1st alarm I will have the next 2 on notification that I can turn off. On iPhone I will keep having those alarm bells and turn them off (which can wake up my kids/wife) or disable them once I wakeup and I might end up forgetting to turn them on for the next day.
Now the freedom in terms of application or browser and extension!!! are obviously general problems.
> Well, there's good to have vs. stupid. It would perhaps be nice to have per-app volume. But the fact that iPhone has just a global volume ... that my ringtone vs. media volume can't be separate is plain stupid isn't it.
The volume of media playback und ringtones can be changed separately. Ringtone volume can be set in "Sounds & Haptics". Disable the toggle for changing the ringtone volume with the physical volume keys if that interferes.
The volume of media playback und ringtones can be changed separately. Ringtone volume can be set in "Sounds & Haptics". Disable the toggle for changing the ringtone volume with the physical volume keys if that interferes.
On Android you can change any of the volumes using the keys. No need to go into settings and find the option each time. I change mine throughout the day.
> that my ringtone vs. media volume can't be separate is plain stupid isn't it
It is separate on iOS.
It is separate on iOS.
Funny how portable toy users think that bare base features that proper computer OSes have been doing for 3 decades with sub-100 MHz processors and sub-32 MB RAM, are somehow crazy stuff.
Some of the things that keep me on Android include:
* Iceraven (Firefox) - I use a number of extensions that make the internet much more pleasant, including ublock origin, ublacklist, dark reader, violent monkey, keepa, augmented steam, and more
* ReVanced - makes YouTube much more enjoyable: automatically skip ads, intros, like and subscribe reminders, and other "fluff", set custom playback speeds and remember them, return the dislike count and background playback, and so much more.
* Smart AudioBook Player - I look for books on CD and rip them because SABP is so much better than any other app I've tried.
* Headphones jack and especially microSD support (moto g100). I could probably live with Bluetooth headphones, but expandable/removable storage is incredibly useful and Apple seems to be dead set against it.
* Iceraven (Firefox) - I use a number of extensions that make the internet much more pleasant, including ublock origin, ublacklist, dark reader, violent monkey, keepa, augmented steam, and more
* ReVanced - makes YouTube much more enjoyable: automatically skip ads, intros, like and subscribe reminders, and other "fluff", set custom playback speeds and remember them, return the dislike count and background playback, and so much more.
* Smart AudioBook Player - I look for books on CD and rip them because SABP is so much better than any other app I've tried.
* Headphones jack and especially microSD support (moto g100). I could probably live with Bluetooth headphones, but expandable/removable storage is incredibly useful and Apple seems to be dead set against it.
Honest question as an iPhone user. What do you have currently on your expandable storage?
Asking to know what I’m missing as my music lives on Spotify, movies online, photos on iCloud, and documents wherever they are shared with users or on iCloud Drive. So, what could I use the local storage for? And how fast is it expandable storage compared to onboard flash?
Asking to know what I’m missing as my music lives on Spotify, movies online, photos on iCloud, and documents wherever they are shared with users or on iCloud Drive. So, what could I use the local storage for? And how fast is it expandable storage compared to onboard flash?
Photos and videos for me. I don't use cloud storage - when I started to use computers, not that lont ago, software which uploaded all of my photos to a remote server would have been considered malware/spyware.
Audiobooks and game ROMs (GC, Wii, PS1, PS2) are the two big ones at the moment. Also any photos or videos I capture on my phone, although it was also get backed up to cloud storage.
In the past I've carried a music library and some movies or TV series, but I mostly stream those these days. (I used to fly more often, so a local copy was more important then.)
Also, I like to try out different Android flavors on my phone occasionally, and it's nice to be able to pop out the microSD and know that no matter what I happens during the installation, that data is still safe.
I'm sure it's not as fast as the internal storage, but for the way I use it, it's fast enough that I don't really notice the speed.
In the past I've carried a music library and some movies or TV series, but I mostly stream those these days. (I used to fly more often, so a local copy was more important then.)
Also, I like to try out different Android flavors on my phone occasionally, and it's nice to be able to pop out the microSD and know that no matter what I happens during the installation, that data is still safe.
I'm sure it's not as fast as the internal storage, but for the way I use it, it's fast enough that I don't really notice the speed.
My phone doesn't have an SD slot but following the sentiment of keeping the important things local: I was back home for a month in a country with poor connectivity, so I "downloaded" some podcast on Spotify. After 14 days the app stopped working and asked me to log in through their website to change my location. Luckily I have 30gb of music on every phone that I have ever had so I didn't miss it, but still was very pissed off by it
Not on your hardware, not your data. I understand most people may not care about it but tech companies have shown over and over again that they do not mind cutting access to the data they host, even to paying customers.
I use the expandable storage on my tablet pretty much only when I travel. Then it's loaded with movies and TV shows.
>Smart AudioBook Player
Best AudioBook app ever.
>Headphone jack
Agree
Best AudioBook app ever.
>Headphone jack
Agree
The fact that when I tap the WiFi and Bluetooth shortcuts in the notification panel to switch them off and they actually switch off is enough to keep me on Android.
Also, sideloading and file system access. With Syncthing, I can sync local folders between my Mac, Windows PC and phone in one go.
Also, sideloading and file system access. With Syncthing, I can sync local folders between my Mac, Windows PC and phone in one go.
I believe this hasn't been the case since they revamped the notification tiles in android 12. It for sure doesn't work like that for me on 14 on a pixel.
As for actually turning the Wifi on or off, there's an additional option somewhere in the settings (which, if I remember correctly, goes quite a bit back further than just Android 12 – I think it was that way already back in Marshmallow/6) whether you want to leave background location scanning enabled or truly turn it off.
As for the revamped notification tiles which mashed Wifi and mobile data together into one tile – this being Android, at least you can bring back the old behaviour via e.g. https://f-droid.org/packages/be.casperverswijvelt.unifiedint...
As for the revamped notification tiles which mashed Wifi and mobile data together into one tile – this being Android, at least you can bring back the old behaviour via e.g. https://f-droid.org/packages/be.casperverswijvelt.unifiedint...
> The fact that when I tap the WiFi and Bluetooth shortcuts in the notification panel to switch them off and they actually switch off is enough to keep me on Android.
Uhm, I got a bad news for you: https://9to5google.com/2024/04/04/android-bluetooth-automati...
Uhm, I got a bad news for you: https://9to5google.com/2024/04/04/android-bluetooth-automati...
Yup. I'll have to figure out suitable ADB incantation when that "feature" comes out in Android 15 (of there's no explicit setting to turn this behaviour off in the UI)
This doesn't even mention the most obvious one to me: Google Assistant. It's way, way better than Siri and well integrated (at least on pixel phones that I've used).
It's surprising how neglected some macOS/iOS features are. Siri doesn't seem to get smarter, and consequently, I pretty much never use it. When I asked it for the time yesterday when my hands were wet it glowed for a few seconds then searched the internet for "hey siri can you tell me the time". I could only shake my head and laugh. I really want chatGPT in place of siri.
Spotlight search on macOS is mostly broken (with no fix in sight), and autocorrect on macOS feels like it was made by kid with limited vocab and no familiarity beyond the most commonly used words (e.g. sometimes 7/8 letters correct isn't enough for macOS to make any guess as to what you might have meant).
Spotlight search on macOS is mostly broken (with no fix in sight), and autocorrect on macOS feels like it was made by kid with limited vocab and no familiarity beyond the most commonly used words (e.g. sometimes 7/8 letters correct isn't enough for macOS to make any guess as to what you might have meant).
Well you might be in luck as there is a pretty good consensus that the next iOS will be heavily focused on Siri improvements. Some people are suggesting the new iPhone will be able to run an LLM locally as the Siri backend.
I will be curious to see how the usually controlling and exacting Apple will grapple with an inherently unpredictable LLM.
I will be curious to see how the usually controlling and exacting Apple will grapple with an inherently unpredictable LLM.
That, unfortunately, won’t help it set two alarms at the same time.
[deleted]
Siri is so bad recently my homepods are basically useless. I think their APIs are overloaded or something. Siri tries to blame my internet but it's fine and the WiFi signal is strong.
I don't even think asking the time is processed locally
I don't even think asking the time is processed locally
At least with Mac we have Raycast as a vastly superior alternative to spotlight! You can also install GBoard as an alternative keyboard on iPhone and use it's superior autocorrect. But sadly there is no way to replace Siri.
Huh, hadn't heard of Raycast, I've been using Alfred for a few years, and hadn't heard of Raycast in the my little circle.
I guess I'll read this https://joshcollinsworth.com/blog/alfred-raycast
I guess I'll read this https://joshcollinsworth.com/blog/alfred-raycast
I’d appreciate someone pointing out what the significance of this article is. The whole thing seemed like platitudes in borderline unreadable English - but there must be some reason it reached the front page.
I assume it's mostly the timing, with the DMA coming into action and the DOJ lawsuit ?
I think the article it has its merit. I'm following a few podcast and news outlets and they seem to be very blind to what's actually missing from iOS or Apple's influence, in that sense it is a better take than most I've seen.
In particular, on browser engine most people seem to brush it off as a "every will just choose Chrome and it will all be the same" when there's a lot more to it. In particular it makes it a lot more interesting to keep Firefox on the desktop as we get history sync.
The other parts (e.g. DEX) are also usually brushed off as things people don't use, but I'd wager the fact that the dominant mobile OS doesn't support it has a lot to do with that state.
I think the article it has its merit. I'm following a few podcast and news outlets and they seem to be very blind to what's actually missing from iOS or Apple's influence, in that sense it is a better take than most I've seen.
In particular, on browser engine most people seem to brush it off as a "every will just choose Chrome and it will all be the same" when there's a lot more to it. In particular it makes it a lot more interesting to keep Firefox on the desktop as we get history sync.
The other parts (e.g. DEX) are also usually brushed off as things people don't use, but I'd wager the fact that the dominant mobile OS doesn't support it has a lot to do with that state.
As a non native english speaker, your comment makes me feel highly uncomfortable. Do I need to use perfect english to be allowed to publish my thoughts? I don‘t think so.
There’s a difference between quirky English and incomprehensible English. If someone has poor English but their point is understandable, there’s not much to complain about. This article however falls squarely in the bucket of poor English and possibly proofing inhibiting comprehension. If someone aspires to be a journalist in English as the author claims to be, communication and comprehensible English are critical. It’s not a nitpick - there are plenty of sections where it’s not clear what the author is trying to say like:
> Although iOS is better served with good apps, some Android exclusives are missing.
The broader point here is that this appears to be a very low quality/effort article, and so question was genuine: what am I missing? It clearly resonated with some folks.
> Although iOS is better served with good apps, some Android exclusives are missing.
The broader point here is that this appears to be a very low quality/effort article, and so question was genuine: what am I missing? It clearly resonated with some folks.
Author here. I’m not a native English speaker and don’t claim or aspire to be a “journalist in English”, I just translate stuff that I write in (quite good, honestly) Portuguese to a broader audience.
Your comments were so rude that at first I thought to ignore, but then I decided I’d like to let you know. I’d rather write “incomprehensible English”* than being this mean on someone I don’t even know.
* allegedly; everyone else seem to understand what I wrote.
Your comments were so rude that at first I thought to ignore, but then I decided I’d like to let you know. I’d rather write “incomprehensible English”* than being this mean on someone I don’t even know.
* allegedly; everyone else seem to understand what I wrote.
You can get angry and lash out as you are here or you can seek to improve. I’m sure Microsoft Word, Grammarly, or even ChatGPT would catch the vast majority of the mistakes. Not attempting to do any of those is a mark of low effort. That coupled with a lack of serious content made this a difficult read that offered little to no value.
asadotzler(1)
> whole thing seemed like platitudes
Agree — this is a deeply under-informed article, and most comments hours in don't seem to realize it.
While the policy limits mentioned are real, most supposed technical limitations mentioned and alleged to be solved by openness are not real. Others have made such apps or features when they put in the work to leverage libs/APIs already provided.
For instance:
“Every time I open Firefox on my testing Android phone, with its cool extensions and the Gecko engine, I remember the iOS version, much inferior because it lacks the features that make Firefox on Android an alternative capable of, over there, competing with Chrome.”
Kagi Orion browser, which implements Firefox extensions on iOS, shows that Mozilla could have implemented Firefox extensions on iOS.
A majority of readers believe, and repeat, that such things can't be done, yet they have been implemented by others and available for some time.
And so Firefox on iOS is indeed much inferior, but that appears to be because the original goal seemed to be a minimum viable app that would nevertheless sync Firefox bookmarks, not because one can't implement Firefox extensions.
Counter-examples exist for most every technical claim the article makes, where it says you can't, others already do.
It's specious.
- - -
As for gecko versus webkit, that's a battle both sides should consider a detente, there are larger stakes, and both sides should be keeping their eye on that ball.
If someone made a vertically integrated Mozilla phone -- something like palm phone hardware + Mozilla client suite + Proton services for instance -- that blocked any other engine and controlled the OS integration points for security and privacy reasons, I would support that Maker's right to market that thoughtfully engineered pro-human experience.
( I do want a Palm + Mozilla + Proton phone so tightly integrated it's impervious to Pegasus type attacks. Like the original PalmOS phone, and original iPhone design intent, I want the only "apps" it runs beyond the core communicator capabilities it ships with to be sandboxed fully open HTML5 PWAs: https://www.flyingcowdesign.com/web-design-services/html5-is... )
Here are just two reasons of many reasons I support maker choice to continue to market a product that becomes very successful, where choices within the product offering are made by the maker:
(a) If the last barrier to corporate web products abandoning all but one rendering engine being everywhere falls away, neither WebKit nor Gecko will be targeted by banks, utilities, travel, government sites, etc., and Google fully controls web standards. You have no farther to look than their various adtech "privacy" standards proposals to see where that ends up: blink (by whatever name) and consumer profile everywhere. It's bad for the web, and it's bad for humans.
(b) I don't believe in forced decomposition of a product experience's hardware, firmware, operating system, and software. There are experiences that uncoupling prevents, and consumers should have a right to purchase tools that make no compromises from firms with a right to market them.
Removing either the Steam + Linux + DIY gaming parts or the PS5 console experience from the market would be a disservice to free choice.
Ironically, draft legislation exists pushing both agendas and any incremental laws towards no DIY (think of the children and our security!) or only DIY (ban vertical integration!) collude at eroding the more fundamental right to make, market, and own, your choice.
Agree — this is a deeply under-informed article, and most comments hours in don't seem to realize it.
While the policy limits mentioned are real, most supposed technical limitations mentioned and alleged to be solved by openness are not real. Others have made such apps or features when they put in the work to leverage libs/APIs already provided.
For instance:
“Every time I open Firefox on my testing Android phone, with its cool extensions and the Gecko engine, I remember the iOS version, much inferior because it lacks the features that make Firefox on Android an alternative capable of, over there, competing with Chrome.”
Kagi Orion browser, which implements Firefox extensions on iOS, shows that Mozilla could have implemented Firefox extensions on iOS.
A majority of readers believe, and repeat, that such things can't be done, yet they have been implemented by others and available for some time.
And so Firefox on iOS is indeed much inferior, but that appears to be because the original goal seemed to be a minimum viable app that would nevertheless sync Firefox bookmarks, not because one can't implement Firefox extensions.
Counter-examples exist for most every technical claim the article makes, where it says you can't, others already do.
It's specious.
- - -
As for gecko versus webkit, that's a battle both sides should consider a detente, there are larger stakes, and both sides should be keeping their eye on that ball.
If someone made a vertically integrated Mozilla phone -- something like palm phone hardware + Mozilla client suite + Proton services for instance -- that blocked any other engine and controlled the OS integration points for security and privacy reasons, I would support that Maker's right to market that thoughtfully engineered pro-human experience.
( I do want a Palm + Mozilla + Proton phone so tightly integrated it's impervious to Pegasus type attacks. Like the original PalmOS phone, and original iPhone design intent, I want the only "apps" it runs beyond the core communicator capabilities it ships with to be sandboxed fully open HTML5 PWAs: https://www.flyingcowdesign.com/web-design-services/html5-is... )
Here are just two reasons of many reasons I support maker choice to continue to market a product that becomes very successful, where choices within the product offering are made by the maker:
(a) If the last barrier to corporate web products abandoning all but one rendering engine being everywhere falls away, neither WebKit nor Gecko will be targeted by banks, utilities, travel, government sites, etc., and Google fully controls web standards. You have no farther to look than their various adtech "privacy" standards proposals to see where that ends up: blink (by whatever name) and consumer profile everywhere. It's bad for the web, and it's bad for humans.
(b) I don't believe in forced decomposition of a product experience's hardware, firmware, operating system, and software. There are experiences that uncoupling prevents, and consumers should have a right to purchase tools that make no compromises from firms with a right to market them.
Removing either the Steam + Linux + DIY gaming parts or the PS5 console experience from the market would be a disservice to free choice.
Ironically, draft legislation exists pushing both agendas and any incremental laws towards no DIY (think of the children and our security!) or only DIY (ban vertical integration!) collude at eroding the more fundamental right to make, market, and own, your choice.
After recently switching to an iPhone, the thing I miss most is a consistent back button.
Second would be a better keyboard, but you can install Gboard and almost get there.
Second would be a better keyboard, but you can install Gboard and almost get there.
One of the reasons I left android was the inconsistency of the back button. Sometimes it would even take you out of the app you were in to the previous app. If you were in the browser it would never do that though. Maybe they made it more consistent?
(Almost?) Every app in iOS has the “swipe from left” to go back.
(Almost?) Every app in iOS has the “swipe from left” to go back.
I'm pretty sure that's the intended behaviour, and I personally quite like it, but I'm used to Android so shrug:
https://developer.android.com/guide/navigation/principles
There are a few apps (ironically, YouTube is one) that don't behave correctly, but the back button is supposed to take you to the previous screen. So if you opened that link from another app, it should take you there.
There is a new Android feature trying to fix that "predictive back animations", It shows you an animation when you are exiting the app using the back button/gesture.
It's hard for me to imagine not having Firefox with its (limited, true) extension ecosystem on my phone. Are people really just out there, no script, tracker or ad blockers, no dark mode enforcers, no pay wall bypassers or YouTube enhancers, just raw dogging the internet on their iPhones?
> Are people really just out there, no script, tracker or ad blockers, no dark mode enforcers, no pay wall bypassers or YouTube enhancers, just raw dogging the internet on their iPhones?
Idk since when, but Safari on iOS had extensions available for quite a while. I have been using an adblocker one + a few webdev ones (not that I need it often at all, but once every few months I might need to take a look at the DOM or check network requests with no access to my laptop, it comes in quite handy).
Idk since when, but Safari on iOS had extensions available for quite a while. I have been using an adblocker one + a few webdev ones (not that I need it often at all, but once every few months I might need to take a look at the DOM or check network requests with no access to my laptop, it comes in quite handy).
Safari extensions are not as good as Firefox and Chrome, specifically the ad blockers aren’t as powerful, I use mostly Safari, but for a few sites I switch to either Chrome or Firefox.
On my iPhone, I use Wipr: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wipr/id1030595027
It integrates with the system browser and, I think, all embedded browsers. I only use the 'privacy-safe' subset of Wipr, that is, the passive filter list that Safari supports most efficiently. It works great. I'm sure there are other options that other iPhone users can recommend to you if you ever want to try it.
It integrates with the system browser and, I think, all embedded browsers. I only use the 'privacy-safe' subset of Wipr, that is, the passive filter list that Safari supports most efficiently. It works great. I'm sure there are other options that other iPhone users can recommend to you if you ever want to try it.
> Firefox with its (limited, true) extension ecosystem
Didn't they lift the restriction on which extension you can install on mobile Firefox as well?
Didn't they lift the restriction on which extension you can install on mobile Firefox as well?
Safari on iOS has had content blockers since 2015 and other kinds of extensions since 2021.
AdGuard, no ads for me. And it’s a Safari content blocking ruleset, not a spying VPN app.
I don't need a single one of those things to read this website. On Android.
Yes, this website.
No? iPhones have had ad blockers / extensions for a long time.
Yes
The #1 feature for me I can't do without is the bubble overlay. I'm learning a language and having a dictionary accessible with one tap anywhere is amazing.
If you are learning a language, Android is a must have just for that alone.
If you are learning a language, Android is a must have just for that alone.
I just want to be able to disable future push notifications from the notification itself (long press). That's the biggest thing I miss about Android.
You can do that on iOS! Swipe left on the notification and tap “options”, then you’ve got a couple options to control future notifications
I switched back to iPhone recently from Android and I do miss being able to silence, specifically, marketing push notifications when they arrive. iOS is either all or nothing unless the app itself lets you selectively turn off marketing push notifications (and they usually don't).
(Relatedly, if you're an app developer for some shop or other, and you ask for notification permissions "so we can keep you up to date on your orders!", and then the app spams me with marketing push notifications, it should mean that you and anyone else responsible gets a thousand years in the lake of fire when you're gone. Fair's fair.)
Everything else I don't miss really. My years of giving a toss about tweaking everything to be just-so are pretty much gone, just give me a sensible default that I can work with and I'm happy.
(Relatedly, if you're an app developer for some shop or other, and you ask for notification permissions "so we can keep you up to date on your orders!", and then the app spams me with marketing push notifications, it should mean that you and anyone else responsible gets a thousand years in the lake of fire when you're gone. Fair's fair.)
Everything else I don't miss really. My years of giving a toss about tweaking everything to be just-so are pretty much gone, just give me a sensible default that I can work with and I'm happy.
Having never used an Android, is manipulating text as bad as it is on iOS?
One thing I greatly appreciate on Android is when selecting text of an actual email address (i.e. with long press), it automatically expands to capture the whole email address and gives me relevant email options straight away. On iOS you have to manually move the left and right pins which is its own little mini-game experience.
Try it here: [email protected]
Edit: This appears to be a Chrome thing.
Try it here: [email protected]
Edit: This appears to be a Chrome thing.
Yes, this is an awesome feature on Android!
> Android Oreo came with a new "smart text selection" feature that uses AI code to make smart decisions about selecting text such as addresses and phone numbers.
> Android Oreo came with a new "smart text selection" feature that uses AI code to make smart decisions about selecting text such as addresses and phone numbers.
It depends on your keyboard, but it's usually a better.
The main bit would be the arrow keys, which are a lot better than swiping around. Otherwise firefox has better text selection IMHO, but it has other downsides that Chrome doesn't.
The main bit would be the arrow keys, which are a lot better than swiping around. Otherwise firefox has better text selection IMHO, but it has other downsides that Chrome doesn't.
Text manipulation on all phones after blackberry has just been awful.
It's awful. (At least with stock on the phones I've used)
ublock origin and Firefox mobile are a lovely combination!
Switched back to android after 3 years of iphone. User hostility drove me. Like the ability to quickly turn off wifi and have it stay off until I decide otherwise. Iphone does not have a simple on/off switch. Baffling.
I don’t care much about phones, but one thing which is definitely better on android is this family-link (is it called like that) integration. On iOS family-link doesnt work right and the integrated version sucks also.
recently switched to iphone and some crucial things are missing or not in a good place, which has soured the otherwise niceties:
- no way to record phone calls: missing the ability to relisten to the calls after the fact has costed me a lot of problems.
- keyboard woes: some of it can be down to muscle memory but the default keyboard felt very unresponsive at first and is still a struggle at times. it is broken in Discord app for some reason (might be down to that app itself)
- ALARMS!: how can someone build an alarm app that randomly goes SILENT ON SNOOZE?! maybe it is the world nudging me towards fixing my sleep cycle, but this is ridiculous.
- backups: i had to make a huge compromise by forgoing with syncthing because there is no free and open-source way around it. even syncing to cloud services with encryption has little to no options. (please send help if you know something that works)
- personalization sucks even today: imagine using a music creation app to create ringtones or notification tones. even then they don't work consistently across apps!
besides this, i see some progress thanks to EU and other international regulations. but i doubt that it will impact these silly design choices which don't have any anti-competitive stuff around it.
- no way to record phone calls: missing the ability to relisten to the calls after the fact has costed me a lot of problems.
- keyboard woes: some of it can be down to muscle memory but the default keyboard felt very unresponsive at first and is still a struggle at times. it is broken in Discord app for some reason (might be down to that app itself)
- ALARMS!: how can someone build an alarm app that randomly goes SILENT ON SNOOZE?! maybe it is the world nudging me towards fixing my sleep cycle, but this is ridiculous.
- backups: i had to make a huge compromise by forgoing with syncthing because there is no free and open-source way around it. even syncing to cloud services with encryption has little to no options. (please send help if you know something that works)
- personalization sucks even today: imagine using a music creation app to create ringtones or notification tones. even then they don't work consistently across apps!
besides this, i see some progress thanks to EU and other international regulations. but i doubt that it will impact these silly design choices which don't have any anti-competitive stuff around it.
No customizable launcher is is a big no no for me. Longtime Niagara launcher user,and anything else then a swipe-from-the-side accessible alphabetical, magnifying app list just feels archaic and convoluted.
And also two generations into the z-flip (the smaller samsung foldable) and the ergonomics of slab phones just don`t do it for me anymore. But apparently thats a controversial one.
The only thing keeping me on an iPhone is that mine hasn’t broken yet and I dislike waste. I got my current phone from a relative that was going to throw it away. Not being able to side load apps & use for development means I pretty much never touch it except for offline maps. It doesn’t even have a SIM card in it
I use Windows and Android all the time and I always come back to the iPhone because it’s just a way better hardware value and has way better integration to a desktop system (the mac) than any other desktop/phone combo
I know of. Android+ChromeOS could come close but the hardware is pretty inferior.
Considering the grips mentioned by the author, it’s easy to get all the features I want by using iCloud. Personally I am always going to pay for cloud storage and I pay for a primary and a backup. iCloud is my primary, and I keep backup copies of my photos and files from iCloud on google drive and Dropbox as well.
I used to prefer the browsing experience on Android until I realized safari on iPhone just isn’t always the smartest about figuring out the page zoom level. Brave sometimes gets it right more often, but you can always manually change the zoom. With most pages where I think WebKit is terrible and unusable I lately have figured out that changing the page zoom makes things work better.
If I could make iOS do more I’d definitely want some real browser choice and maybe virtualization on the nicer iPads too. That’d go a long way to making iOS devices better at keeping me away from the laptop.
Considering the grips mentioned by the author, it’s easy to get all the features I want by using iCloud. Personally I am always going to pay for cloud storage and I pay for a primary and a backup. iCloud is my primary, and I keep backup copies of my photos and files from iCloud on google drive and Dropbox as well.
I used to prefer the browsing experience on Android until I realized safari on iPhone just isn’t always the smartest about figuring out the page zoom level. Brave sometimes gets it right more often, but you can always manually change the zoom. With most pages where I think WebKit is terrible and unusable I lately have figured out that changing the page zoom makes things work better.
If I could make iOS do more I’d definitely want some real browser choice and maybe virtualization on the nicer iPads too. That’d go a long way to making iOS devices better at keeping me away from the laptop.
Can iPhone do seperate volume levels for alarms and phone ringer?
Some things I miss on android: a fast SMB or sftp app. I have a gigabit network. 7mb/a is not acceptable.
My phone can do at least 500mbit when speed testing over WiFi.
My phone can do at least 500mbit when speed testing over WiFi.
Ctrl+F "root", no results?
I haven't needed to root my phone for a few years now. Curious to hear what your reason is and if it's still as easy as it used to be?
One thing I still use root for on Android is to enable the Keepass2Android USB Keyboard extension to work - this enables me to plug my phone into a computer which I don't want to put my password database on (eg friends/family machines), and have it emulate a USB keyboard to type my passwords directly from Keepass2Android rather than laboriously copying long randomly generated ones by hand.
Permanent remote adb access with Tailscale, you can then do pretty much anything: screen mirroring or external webcam with scrcpy or even a cheap Apple:tm: sidecar using a VNC app and crafted intents.
Full control and ownership.
- full local backups and the resultant ability to easily revert any broken app updates, plus being able to restore those backups on a new phone if my phone breaks or I upgrade to a new device
- AdAway in host file mode, i.e. without having to mess around with a fake VPN connection
- toggling Wifi, mobile data and airplane mode programmatically all require root on current Android versions (turn on airplane mode automatically at night, turn off mobile data in my home Wifi and back on when I leave it, and turn on Wifi automatically when I'm near my home [1], plus restoring the original separate Wifi and mobile data toggles via e.g. https://f-droid.org/packages/be.casperverswijvelt.unifiedint... needs root, too)
- being able to poke around on the whole file system is sometimes useful
- Xposed for fixing miscellaneous annoyances that would otherwise require hacking APKs (doable but somewhat annoying) or outright compiling a custom ROM (which would be way too much effort)
-- Google blocking installation of old apps without ADB
-- Google introducing a bug in Android 13/14 that breaks options/overflow menus in some apps – there's a workaround, but that's of no use for old apps that won't see any new updates any time soon
-- Google blocking selecting the top-level directory of my SD card in the file access folder picker, which again breaks one app that unfortunately won't see any new updates but otherwise still works fine and has no suitable direct replacement
-- turning off the aspect ratio restrictions for old apps, especially seeing how I ended up with one of those ultra-tall aspect ratio Xperias as my current new phone (it seems that this might be an official feature in Android 15, but I don't want to wait that long, plus who knows how that'll actually turn out plus what other things Google might break in turn in that version)
-- working around the developer of the music player I paid for introducing a #@§+$%[# timebomb in his app (disabling it two years after the build date of the respective update), and then eventually selling the app to some shady company that's mostly interested in extracting as much money as possible from the app before the whole thing probably burns (if user reviews are anything to go by, they've stopped honouring the old paid unlocker APK and are instead demanding a subscription at a totally unreasonable two-digit monthly price – for a music player for local files (!)).
- still haven't found a good replacement for QuickPic gallery for my use case (folder-based browsing respecting the actual file system hierarchy, i.e. nested folders) – while somebody has been keeping up a modded version of the app based on the last version before it, too, was sold to some dubious company, I've found that file access restrictions introduced in recent Android versions require some additional root-based workaround for keeping the app working as I want it, too.
[1] It seems current Android versions (or is that just a Sony-specific feature?) offer an option to automatically turn on Wifi when you're near a saved network location, but you can't configure that one.
- AdAway in host file mode, i.e. without having to mess around with a fake VPN connection
- toggling Wifi, mobile data and airplane mode programmatically all require root on current Android versions (turn on airplane mode automatically at night, turn off mobile data in my home Wifi and back on when I leave it, and turn on Wifi automatically when I'm near my home [1], plus restoring the original separate Wifi and mobile data toggles via e.g. https://f-droid.org/packages/be.casperverswijvelt.unifiedint... needs root, too)
- being able to poke around on the whole file system is sometimes useful
- Xposed for fixing miscellaneous annoyances that would otherwise require hacking APKs (doable but somewhat annoying) or outright compiling a custom ROM (which would be way too much effort)
-- Google blocking installation of old apps without ADB
-- Google introducing a bug in Android 13/14 that breaks options/overflow menus in some apps – there's a workaround, but that's of no use for old apps that won't see any new updates any time soon
-- Google blocking selecting the top-level directory of my SD card in the file access folder picker, which again breaks one app that unfortunately won't see any new updates but otherwise still works fine and has no suitable direct replacement
-- turning off the aspect ratio restrictions for old apps, especially seeing how I ended up with one of those ultra-tall aspect ratio Xperias as my current new phone (it seems that this might be an official feature in Android 15, but I don't want to wait that long, plus who knows how that'll actually turn out plus what other things Google might break in turn in that version)
-- working around the developer of the music player I paid for introducing a #@§+$%[# timebomb in his app (disabling it two years after the build date of the respective update), and then eventually selling the app to some shady company that's mostly interested in extracting as much money as possible from the app before the whole thing probably burns (if user reviews are anything to go by, they've stopped honouring the old paid unlocker APK and are instead demanding a subscription at a totally unreasonable two-digit monthly price – for a music player for local files (!)).
- still haven't found a good replacement for QuickPic gallery for my use case (folder-based browsing respecting the actual file system hierarchy, i.e. nested folders) – while somebody has been keeping up a modded version of the app based on the last version before it, too, was sold to some dubious company, I've found that file access restrictions introduced in recent Android versions require some additional root-based workaround for keeping the app working as I want it, too.
[1] It seems current Android versions (or is that just a Sony-specific feature?) offer an option to automatically turn on Wifi when you're near a saved network location, but you can't configure that one.
> is the ability to turn the phone into a computer.
Android at least, can only run one app at a time.
Android at least, can only run one app at a time.
Android can run at least two apps at the same time: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/7444033?hl=en
You are envious.
You envy.
You are not envy.
we need FOSS platforms like Satslink, I'm so done with phones :(
Do what the name implies but does not do.
Integrate a vertically polarized LORA antenna, ( and radio )
That would allow you to actually have satellite connectivity.
Also: ditch the triple AAA for a single 18650.
Transliteration in search
[deleted]
For audio:
* Have different volumes for different app
* Have one app play its sound on your phone and another app to another device.
* Have two apps play at the same time.
For UI:
* Hide status icons that are just always on and thus meaningless.
* Customize the navigation gestures
* Put apps into windows, split screen, etc.
* DeX for desktop environment when connected to a display -- I can even remote display to my LG TV and the magic remote can be used as a mouse pointer.
For Apps:
* Linux shell and apps (Termux) -- even X windows.
* Firefox, Chome, even Samsung Internet as browsers. Samsung's browser has some unique features for phones and tablets and I end up using it the most.
* VLC for playing downloading media easily on my devices
* Smooth integration with Windows via Phone Link -- notifications, messages, photos, remote access.
* Lots of notification customizations
I could go on. There are so many features that I have never used but that's ok -- we all need and want a different set of features. I use many of these all the time. I used to have an iPhone (and my whole family has i-devices) but I think I'd have trouble going back to such a restrictive environment. But I still fully recommend iPhones and iPads for most people.