Comment by skeaker
2 years ago
I do use an Android. Doesn't mean I can't point out glaringly obvious issues across the pond. Apple's decisions affect me regardless:
- If I develop an app and want to port it to an Apple device, I need to spend a ton of money on devices from their ecosystem to do so or else I miss out on their whole market.
- Members of my close family use iPhones and will ask me for help with things like getting videos off of them. Lock-in features like iCloud make it extraordinarily difficult and prevents them from getting an Android without leaving their things behind.
- Apple has enough market pull that if they do something user-hostile for money and walk away unpunished legally, others in the market tend to copy them. See the headphone jack issue and how Samsung and Google have dropped it.
- When my family sends me videos over text they look terrible. It's a small thing, but considering that the Beeper Mini thing revealed how easy it would be for Apple to just not actively break iMessage solutions, it's pretty annoying.
Being able to use your own software on your own device is not a fantasyland, it is the default for most devices. Apple is a standout exception and it is insane to me that Apple users will shrug that off with "well, that's just reality," because it clearly isn't. It is a conscious decision by Apple to block you from owning your device and you are rolling over and taking it.
> Apple has enough market pull that if they do something user-hostile for money and walk away unpunished legally, others in the market tend to copy them. See the headphone jack issue and how Samsung and Google have dropped it.
Great point. For many years Google police was that in app purchases, if you were not using Googles play service to handle them for you, were allowed and without any Google tax. That meant that the Kindle app on Android allowed you to buy books. After they changed their policy to be more like Apples, now I need to open the browser to buy a book. Why should either Apple or Google get ANYTHING from me buying a book from Amazon? Do they own me or something?