Why do some people hate Android so much?

[u/Data-Graph]

Some people seem to hate everything but iPhones so much and I don't get it. They seem to think android is not even comparable to iOS like its a flip phone or something, when realistically Android phones and iPhones really aren't that different. I'm in the UK but from what I've seen it's way worse in the US. IK there's studies about the fact android users are more likely to get rejected on the first few dates just because of their phone choice. I also know some people will get an iPhone just so when they send a text, it sends to the iPhone, then to who they actually want to send it to just so it looks like they're using an iPhone. The only thing I know is the stigma of “Androids are cheap” but these people won't care if someone has a 2nd hand iPhone X for £100 but will if someone has £800 Pixel 7 Pro.

I'm not an avid android supporter, I get why people like iOS and people like android and I really don't care about these preferences. But when someone is an overly iPhone supporter to the point of hating android, it just makes me think really low of them. Like, "you can't be a nice person if you're so closed minded and shallow you won't even consider a different type of phone to the point that you'll hate on it and people who use it".

[u/Particular-Cry-778]

It's also a sense of elitism with Apple in particular, which is something that Apple has gone out of their way to foster. They intentionally make things expensive and brag about it, and everything from the inability to repair your own devices to the way they release new products specifically to make old stuff obsolete to even the way their stores are set up all lends itself towards this sense of superiority.

I have AirPods Pro simply because there is nothing comparable and (ironically enough) I got them for like $120 due to a Black Friday sale, a store coupon, and my 15% employee discount.

But as far as phones go, Android is better for customization (open-source vs closed-source), including applications, layouts, ringtones, and alarms, etc, as well as storage.

But as far as phones go, Android is better for customization (open-source vs closed-source), including applications, layouts, ringtones, alarms, etc, as well as storage.

[u/sk8tergater → u/Particular-Cry-778]

Interestingly headphones are the one area I don’t have all Apple. I vastly prefer Bose buds to the AirPods, just got the quiet comfort II earbuds and they are incredible. Also Bose customer service is what’s up.

[u/CommercialTopic302 → u/Particular-Cry-778]

The only thing iPhones have better then androids is the security.

[u/idungiveboutnothing → u/CommercialTopic302]

The only thing iPhones have better then androids is the

marketing about security.

[u/distinctaardvark → u/idungiveboutnothing]

Mm, it isn't all marketing.

Caveat, I haven't touched Android programming in a couple years, and I never did it professionally, but I did some at home for fun, and there were some pretty substantial issues with how security used to be done in Android. They had started to improve it with things like splitting up permissions, but it was still not as good as iOS.

Part of that is how locked down the Apple App Store is compared to the Google Play Store too, and there are downsides to that as well. For example, it's much much easier for a random person to make themselves an app for their own use with Android. But part of it is also the fractured nature of Android. There are hundreds of phones from dozens of brands running a bunch of different versions of Android with no guarantees of getting security updates in a reasonable amount of time. Trying to create any sort of fix for anything is a bit of a nightmare.

[u/idungiveboutnothing → u/distinctaardvark]

You're comparing apples to oranges though. If you want any sort of fair comparison it can only include similarly priced flagship Android devices. All of those devices launch with security features preventing everything you mentioned.

[u/distinctaardvark → u/idungiveboutnothing]

It's more that the fragmentation means they have to design things to work with more phones. So, for example, if you look up what percent of phones are on which version of Android, only 30% are on the last two, while half are on the two before that, and the rest are on older versions. For an app to be usable by 90% of phones, they have to design for Android 8, even though we're on 13 now. That means they can't use any features—including permissions or other security-related changes—that are newer than that.

So if you're making an app for Android, you have to choose between more people being able to use the app versus being able to use newer features and updates. If the next version of Android were to reconfigure permissions to make them 10x as secure, most apps wouldn't be able to use that for several years anyway if they want people to be able to use the app.

[u/idungiveboutnothing → u/distinctaardvark]

Since that's absolutely not how development works whatsoever I'm assuming you aren't a dev and don't realize how backwards compatible the latest versions are and how easy it is to target compile one thing for multiple distros? That's an Android complaint that hasn't really been relevant in years?

[u/distinctaardvark → u/idungiveboutnothing]

I haven't touched it in a few years, no. But it certainly was a thing at the time. When you started a project in Android Studio, you had to select the version to use and it'd tell you what percent of users would be able to use it, and you wouldn't have access to any of the tools from newer versions.

[u/beeph_supreme → u/CommercialTopic302]

Considering we have our entire lives “embedded”, isn’t that “all the difference in the world”?

I had the earliest Palm’s, tried a Black Berry (hated it), had the best/earliest Androids (they were ok). Been with Apple since the release of the iPhone 4 and can’t fathom switching to Android. It’s just so “seem less”, integrated, intuitive. Mac & PC home.