There's no denying the technical side of this is simply incredible. As a user though, my personal (and probably very divisive) preference for the iPhone is exactly because it is _not_ Android. Many companies make very solid phone hardware, I don't think Apple is that far ahead in that regard, if at all. For me, the isolation, privacy controls, and more on iOS are the reason to prefer that over any Android phone. So while I have massive respect for pulling such a technical feat off, I can't help but scratch my head when I see it.
I agree except I don't want android I want one of these mobile gnu linux distros to run on it. There has been very little progress on getting things to work on most android hardware so if these guys beat the linux on android hardware people then that's great. I just want to run plasma mobile on good hardware with support for calls/sms/camera
With Pine Phone and Fxtec Pro finally comming as very suitable platforms for mobile Linux distros I can see some of the work also spilling to support on originally Android devices. Also you can get officially supported Sailfish OS on a range of Sony Xperia devices and Sailfish OS is pretty close to a regular GNU/Linux distro.
Got my PinePhone but it’ll be a while until it’s my daily driver. I’m on iOS for halfway decent privacy and security until real Linux phones are serviceable.
F(x)tec Pro looks amazing, though I am hesitant to buy any phone that ships with Android as the default. I don’t want to fund the Play Services system and I want to know it’ll be supported on the OS I want to use.
Fascinating! I recently switched to an iPhone from 8 years of Android and the iPhone hardware is amazing but I kind of hate iOS. I have reasons:
Siri can’t do basic tasks like turn on flashlight or wifi hotpot.
Voice recognition quality is much less accurate than Google's.
App store has poor search and filtering options.
App store fails to install apps and does not show errors.
Swipe typing is inaccurate compared to android. Gboard exists for iOS but it is clunky: it pops you out of your current app frequently and sometimes the default iOS keyboard reverts, despite Gboard being set to default.
No live wallpapers — boo! They’re fun. (iOS has them but they are video files, not apps.)
No equivalent to Smart Lock on android where the device stays unlocked when you're at home or when it detects you are carrying your device. Face ID, therefore, needs to be used super frequently as a result, which doesn't work well at funny angles or with the device in horizontal mode.
Possible bug: Battery won’t charge past 80% even when Optimized Battery Charging is disabled. My device has literally never reached 100% despite trying.
Safari is the unchangeable device default and I find it awkward to use with many tabs.
I'm just one user, but I was shocked to learn how good I actually had it on Android (Pixel 3 series.)
I thought the grass was greener on the iOS side but it wasn't a clear winner.
I am totally on the fence as to whether to keep it. I love the privacy focus that iOS has but dislike the restrictiveness and features that make the device slower to use. (The smart lock is a huge deal to me...)
A couple of years ago, microsoft made a keyboard for ios called wordflow. It had better accuracy than any other keyboard I've tried. Sadly they removed it not long after; I still use it, but I don't think it's possible to download it if you haven't already.
I think it is an amazing news personnally. Apple make really good hardware, with raisonnable sized phone. they are overpriced yes, but you can find those older generations at descent prices, refurbished or second hand.
I really like to tinker with my phones though (all my androids are degoogled with custom roms and microG), that's why i'll never buy an iphone with IOs. To the point that I bought a second hand Google Pixel 2 (good hardware, raisonnable price) that I won't use because its bootloader is locked which means that I can't install custom roms on it... (good work Google...)
I’m thinking about a desk drawer full of iPhone 4s that would make amazing little pocket *nix terminals or used in robotics and nonsense… there are a lot of uses for this project that have little do with "smartphones."
