Comment by addaon
11 hours ago
The article is about how setting up /Android/ phones is a nightmare.
Contrasting it to my experience setting up iPhones is… dramatic.
11 hours ago
The article is about how setting up /Android/ phones is a nightmare.
Contrasting it to my experience setting up iPhones is… dramatic.
Yes, its a nightmare because Android is becoming more and more like iOS: anything that the user used to be able to do... they can no longer do.
Android phone manufacturers want $1200 for something that is a toy, just like the Apple iToys.
Nobody wants those, and nobody wants this. Google needs to get out of the business and let the FOSS community handle it.
Nobody wants those, and nobody wants this.
Just because you don’t want it doesn’t mean <checks notes…> a billion or so people don’t want an iPhone. Or rather, a phone they don’t have to dick with straight out of the box.
OTOH, I don’t really even know what you’re on about. Android is a nightmare because…it’s like iOS, which is “take phone out of box, restore from backup, sorted”? That doesn’t even make any sense, especially in light of what TFA describes.
For many people around my area, iPhones are a status symbol choice. Not a coherent or direct software+ecosystem choice.
I've seen arguments around chosing iPhone for their camera. But the vast majority that is tech iliterate stops around that argument.
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> Android is becoming more and more like iOS: anything that the user used to be able to do... they can no longer do
The article shows this is not true, if you know the similar process for iOS.
The article could be compared to the iPhone setup process. There are some preferences to uncheck, but there is no third party spying software on an iPhone when it arrives. Contrast to Samsung.
That type of rhetoric won’t get you what you want. Don’t dismiss something just because you don’t like it.
iOS devices are not toys, and even if they were there is value in toys, and even if there weren’t it is provably false that “nobody wants those”.
Furthermore, if Google dropped Android it is misguided to believe “the FOSS community” would handle it and everything would be roses. What you’d have then are a couple of hardware vendors (like Samsung) publishing their own forks and dozens of different incompatible open-source versions that would get no traction.
> iOS devices are not toys
iOS devices are. My iPad is the most useless piece of technology I own, calling it a "computer" is an insult to the actual computers I own. It's a toy, and not even a fun toy compared to my Nintendo Switch.
Android handles serious workloads fine, macOS takes software seriously. iOS is the only operating system that treats gatchapon as the pinnacle of high-performance workloads.
6 replies →
My personal experience is that the setup procedure wildly depends on the phone's vendor.
The biggest difference between setting up a Pixel and an iPhone I experienced was that Google asked for certain settings beforehand that I had to turn off in the settings after setup on iOS. Both would've been a lot faster if I hadn't tried to disable optional account stuff.
Contrast that to Samsung, especially their non-flagship models, where the setup wizard took forever because of the crap Samsung added to the process.
That said, I do appreciate some "tutorial" parts of the setup process on Android. When I first set up an iPhone, I got the distinct impression that Apple assumed I already knew how to do everything. Their interface isn't exactly intuitive if you haven't used iOS before, no matter what online forums may claim. It took me several tries and a Google search to figure out how to remove apps, for instance. Perhaps one might find it an annoying extra step you're going to skip as a power user who's used to the platform, but it felt strange to be dropped into a strange, new operating environment with no instructions.
A Samsung phone. I've owned several (not Samsung) Android phones, and have never had to deal with such nonsense.
On Samsung phones you can skip making a Samsung account. All the Google bits still work and it's basically the same as having a Pixel, except you'll have a few unused apps, a different camera and phone app and a very slightly different UI.
I had to guess arcane adb permission commands to stop a 2025 Samsung tablet from nagging the user about creating a Samsung account. It just kept showing up multiple times a day. But nice enough hardware with the promise of long updates at a reasonable price.
To be fair, they are doing with a Samsung phone, and Samsung is the Apple of Android (Big marketing budget, mid quality if we are being generous).
Samsung as a company is a universal No Buy. The fact OP bought Samsung makes me raise an eyebrow.
Credit to Apple where credit is due. When I unboxed my first iphone, I was happy to give Apple all my personal information, birthday, emails, ssn.... It was bizarre, I'm usually apprehensive to give this stuff away, but Apple made it fun. Within a few days, I was disappointed by a lack of widgets, slow transitions between screens, and a buggy podcast app. But the damage was done, my company was out $600 and Apple had my contact info.
Samsung's UI and software behaviour may be shitty in general, but they're one of the few manufacturers reliably offering timely long-term security updates. When you go beyond Samsung, you quickly end up with brands promising "quarterly updates" or having months-long delays fixing CVEs.
Plus, when they do something novel, they do it quite well. Their flagship phones have great price/performance if you buy them a month or two after launch (often for three quarters of the launch price + free earbuds/smartwatch + cashback), their software suite is quite complete and generally well-localised, and they have support channels non-English support channels available.
I do wish they'd fix some of their terrible software design crimes and stop the endless race to the bottom shoving product placement into their apps, but it's hardly a no-buy to me.
Pixel is much cleaner and ships security updates monthly like clockwork. Plus you can install GrapheneOS and you get security updates multiple times per month, no AI nonsense and sandboxed Google Play Services if you need it.
It's pick-your-poison. iPhone setup is eight hundred screens, half of which are upsells for Apple services, but at least it's only Apple services. Android setup, if you're not on a Pixel, is an invitation for the vendor's dozens of "partners" to all get your money and all your data.
This article is a disaster. Beyond logging into your Google account nothing they described in the article is required to set up an Android phone.