Very true. It’s just that all modern flagship smartphones are totally capable of anything most people would need to do with their device. There may be a few exceptions depending on where the person lives or specific use cases.
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iPhone 14 Pro Max Why is the iPhone still seen as the holy grail of smartphones?
- Thread starter Retskrad
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I don’t use a case on my iPhone because AppleCare+! It’s much nicer looking without the case. I have one on my Pixel 8 Pro because no AppleCare+. 🤣
Why do you think the Google Pixel doesn't sell better especially given that Google is often discounting the phone?
One hand?
1. Google Nexus line of phones
2. Google Nexus player
3. Google Daydream View VR headset
4. Google Glass
5. Google Chromecast Audio
6. Google Clips
7. Google Pixel Slate
8. Google Stadia controller
9. Google Home Max
10. Google Dropcam
11. Google OnHub
12. Google Nest Secure products including Nest Guard, Nest Detect and Nest Tag
....and probably others.
Sure, privacy, convenience, platform-agnosticism, as well as all other advantages/disadvantages--are all personal calls and need to be weighed together by the individual.
It's one thing to say it's possible Apple is lying about data collection and it's another to assume that they are. I acknowledge it's possible, but I don't assume it, nor believe it's likely based on evidence I've seen. No track record at Apple's scale is perfect (eg. failing to disclose that workers are listening to Siri requests), but the evidence I've seen mounts much more toward believing that Apple collects as little information as possible (enough to provide services) and is transparent about the information it does collect. I'm open to evidence against, but to convince me it would have to at least nearly outweigh evidence for.
Those examples may be equal to first party integration at the everyday usage level, but at the very least those and all third party integration has to be set up--eg. download the app (in most cases), sign in, configure settings. Whereas with first party, things are often already set up and either it's already running or you just tick a box to turn it on. Usually not a huge deal to set up third party, but it still just goes toward the argument that first party is better integrated, even if it's just at initial setup. There may be counter-examples to this, but I don't know of any off the top of my head. But to be safe maybe I should have said better or equal. What I highly doubt though is that any third party service has better integration than first party where a first party option exists.
But also regarding everyday usage, doesn't Dropbox have the limitation of only syncing photos when the app is open or your location changes? I believe Photos/iCloud has more background syncing scenarios, due to having more system access. And I think in addition to uploading to iCloud, it can downsize local photos and automatically download/remove full res as needed--something I don't think third party apps have access to do. I could be misinformed about this, but if it does have these other forms of integration that Dropbox doesn't have (and maybe more?) on top of the integration that Dropbox does have, then Photos/iCloud is not just differently integrated, it objectively has a superior level of integration. Whether that matters to the individual is the subjective part.
And just to be extra clear, I'm talking specifically about integration, not the quality/capabilities of the service as a whole. Third party services are often better in many other areas.
I use iPhone and iOS simply for one reason: it’s the only mobile OS that I can comfortably use internationally, including China. I hate touching any Chinese version of the Android. With Apple’s tight fist on iOS I can at least have a level of relief knowing what I use here is not massively different from what I use in other countries.
All the ecosystem benefits are just cherry on top. And, before I know it, I’ve been using iOS for the better part of a decade and a half, with short cheap Android phones experience in between, all of which are terrible.
I know, if digging deeper, iOS for China is somewhat different from iOS for e.g. US, Canada, Australia. But still, I can buy my parents an iPhone from outside of China, and they would use it just fine, mostly.
All the ecosystem benefits are just cherry on top. And, before I know it, I’ve been using iOS for the better part of a decade and a half, with short cheap Android phones experience in between, all of which are terrible.
I know, if digging deeper, iOS for China is somewhat different from iOS for e.g. US, Canada, Australia. But still, I can buy my parents an iPhone from outside of China, and they would use it just fine, mostly.
Well said, and should be the takeaway for all people.
Everything you just posted besides glass and stadia were absorbed by other products or made redundant, BY OTHER PRODUCTS AND SERVICES.
The Nexus phones were replaced with the Pixel line up…..
Youre really get upset when I till you Apple doesn’t sell the IBook. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😝😛😹😹
For several years now Dropbox has given the user the choice of updating images when you open the app, or updating images whenever new photos are added to the camera roll. You can also choose to limit which albums Dropbox uploads from. It's a setting in the app.
To have images upload automatically, you need to have Background App Refresh on.
I would have to investigate this option with Dropbox. I have never bothered with that because for three reasons I just don't need to. Any time I upgrade my iPhone I get the maximum capacity that Apple offers for that model. In the case of my 11 Pro Max, that's 512GB. Before that was 128GB with my 6s Plus/6 Plus and 64GB with my iPhone 5.
Second, I pay Dropbox for 4.1TB of storage each month. And right now that's only about 32 percent used. The majority of that space is for weekly backups of all my computers to the Dropbox folder on my MacPro (which sits on a 6TB hard drive). But my Camera Uploads folder benefits. Periodically, I will empty that folder out by drag/drop to a backup folder on my NAS. THAT folder is backed up nightly and periodically I manually back it up to Dropbox.
Third, about a year and a half ago I got a 2TB subscription with Apple. Photos are backed up at full size/resolution. I did this not for more storage space (see para above about Dropbox) but for convenience. I had a device replacement and I wanted all my photos restored to the new device without any hassle. Well, that didn't happen. However, here I'll grant you that because of iCloud being able to redownload images it has better integration. However, if I kept ALL my images in the Camera Uploads folder on Dropbox, they'd all be there the moment I logged into the Dropbox app. But I wanted them all in the Photos app and that takes iCloud when dealing with iCloud backups.
Nevertheless, I was forced to grab all my images from my backups and restore them to my phone by drag dropping them into the Photos app on my MacPro. Because iCloud missed quite a lot of them. After that purpose for the subscription was met, I just kept it because I thought it'd be nice for my two kids to have additional space as their phones have less capacity than mine.
Since I'm thinking about it, I'll also mention music. I have a large library of music, but even though I have 512GB on my iPhone that library is on my NAS. There are third party apps that can access my NAS over the home WiFi and play the music. One particular app I use can also keep track of additions/subtractions from the library. And that's also one reason I do not use iTunes or the Music app on my Macs (or PCs). Songbird for PowerPC, Nightingale for Intel and Swinsian for later versions of MacOS can all access the same library on my NAS and keep themselves updated based on if I add tracks or delete tracks. iTunes and the later Music app can't do that. Or it's convoluted.
So, I guess it just all comes down to how you use things. For me, while Apple integrates well, there are better apps.
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It's not. iPhone has less than 50% market share-- so it's neither the go to phone for the masses, nor a holy grail. It's a phone in an ecosystem that some people happen to like more than other phones or ecosystems.
I don’t know about it being the holy grail.
But my experience with Android phones (except for the very first one, an HTC Desire) was more “yeah… this will do” vs really enjoying using an iPhone.
The Android phones I had were almost all badly supported and some were on their final OS version right out of the box. The fragmentation of Android was (probably still is) ridiculous with so many manufacturers having their own, slightly different version of Android that often required me to change how I used a phone (think UI additions, different settings menus etc). Family members needing help with their Android devices when I was still on Android was often a frustrating experience because things sometimes differed too much to be a straight forward process.
The wildly varying hardware specs meant that there was no guarantee that apps would work even on new devices…
Of course, those varying specs also mean that there are Android devices that are vastly more affordable than even the cheapest iPhone. Some members of my family have phones for less than $200. They’re… not great. Slowly scrolling the settings menu or the photo album stutters on those, for example. But they would never spend more than that on a phone (even though they use them way more than I do mine) so this is where the varying specs may be a good thing.
Edit: I might add that this is all just how I perceive the situation. I’ve also never owned a “flagship” Android device and only used friends’ ones when curiosity struck.
But my experience with Android phones (except for the very first one, an HTC Desire) was more “yeah… this will do” vs really enjoying using an iPhone.
The Android phones I had were almost all badly supported and some were on their final OS version right out of the box. The fragmentation of Android was (probably still is) ridiculous with so many manufacturers having their own, slightly different version of Android that often required me to change how I used a phone (think UI additions, different settings menus etc). Family members needing help with their Android devices when I was still on Android was often a frustrating experience because things sometimes differed too much to be a straight forward process.
The wildly varying hardware specs meant that there was no guarantee that apps would work even on new devices…
Of course, those varying specs also mean that there are Android devices that are vastly more affordable than even the cheapest iPhone. Some members of my family have phones for less than $200. They’re… not great. Slowly scrolling the settings menu or the photo album stutters on those, for example. But they would never spend more than that on a phone (even though they use them way more than I do mine) so this is where the varying specs may be a good thing.
Edit: I might add that this is all just how I perceive the situation. I’ve also never owned a “flagship” Android device and only used friends’ ones when curiosity struck.
Plenty of people in my circles seem to be shifting to Android after more than a decade using iPhones. There must be some improvement as they aren’t coming back and Android is still more popular. I can’t be bothered with the hassle of switching myself but can’t deny from what I have seen, Android seems to do essentially the same thing as iOS and some of the phones look more impressive than iPhones.
I think that sums it up perfectly. Less people use iPhones, certainly in most parts of the World besides the US. If it was viewed as a holy grail, everyone would be clambering to use it, but the majority choose Android.
I will just say the price is one of the major reasons I stayed on PowerPC Macs from 2003 to 2020. While Intels started arriving in the house around 2016 it was the earlier models that could not be updated past Snow Leopard. $200 was (and seems still to be) my actual price range. My MacPro was $250.
When I got my first brand new iPhone (iPhone 5) it was on payments. Every subsequent iPhone has been on payments. In 2021 I went to the 11 Pro Max instead of waiting for the iPhone 13 series to launch. It was cheaper.
But this is my method of being on the more expensive Apple devices without actually paying the full price or the price when new. Either payments, buy used or buy an older but still new device. Some will argue that if I can't afford to pay outright I shouldn't be buying anything at all. Which I suppose might be reasonable, except that if that's the criteria, I'd never actually be able to buy anything - much less what I actually want. I could understand that more if I was upgrading (or trying to) every year, but I don't, My upgrades are every 3.5 to 5.5 years.
And as far as trading in, I've already answered that.
My point here is that if your family members were willing to shift expectations they could afford an iPhone. Probably not a brand new one, but it's possible. If they want one that is.
I tried Android for nine months in 2020-2021. It was a far better experience than my past experiments with it, but still I came back to iOS. But I still check it out every once and a while. It was getting better even as I left.
Which is to say I suppose that it's not a complete train wreck.
This is absurd hyperbole. Android cannot be unusable, the majority of smartphone users use Android. If you and your wife are incapable of using Android, then that is not the persuasive argument you seem to think it is.
You are wrong. Both iPhone and Android are competent systems. It is quite reasonable to determine this by comparing their capabilities. I can see how this approach does not suit you, as you prefer to stick to your unhinged absurdity of Android being unusable, without backing this up - you prefer vagueness over concrete details. I guess your post here shows the direction any fact-based discussion would go: If we were to list point by point where the systems are equal (and the few where one is better than the other, and yes, that is true in both directions), you would just ramble about how none of this matters. Your no-perspective claim is an insulting cop-out to avoid having to back up your arguments. It does not work.
Premium phones above $600 are 71% iPhones. Still an impressive feat for Apple, but your "nearly everyone" claim does not hold up. Clearly there are plenty of people who can afford an iPhone yet choose Android. And don't delude yourself, affording an iPhone is not so challenging. These are not rarefied luxury devices, they are mass-produced commodity items pouring out of Chinese factories and thrown at us via carrier deals. People who want an iPhone will get one.
I dont see it as a holy grail. But I would say that iOS is safer/easier managed in the hands of the less tech-savvy.
This is anecdotal and several years ago so things might have changed - I really hope it has. My grandfather’s android was literally none-functional. Somehow he had so many weird malware apps installed that it would block his entire screen with an ad whenever he received a call. I don’t know how it happened but I imagine he clicked some ad in an app from play store. That has led him to install apps from somewhere else and less safe.
I frequently also get text messages with phishing attempts linking to apk files. I could easily imagine a child or less tech savvy clicking those.
I know that you can most likely setup the Android to be protected against such stuff, but with an iPhone you depend less on having someone in your family who can protect you against such things.
This is anecdotal and several years ago so things might have changed - I really hope it has. My grandfather’s android was literally none-functional. Somehow he had so many weird malware apps installed that it would block his entire screen with an ad whenever he received a call. I don’t know how it happened but I imagine he clicked some ad in an app from play store. That has led him to install apps from somewhere else and less safe.
I frequently also get text messages with phishing attempts linking to apk files. I could easily imagine a child or less tech savvy clicking those.
I know that you can most likely setup the Android to be protected against such stuff, but with an iPhone you depend less on having someone in your family who can protect you against such things.
That's what I've been doing with my iPhones. By getting the 14 Pro over the 15 Pro, I saved a fair amount of money. And I think the camera (my main reason for buying the phone) was even the same?
True, and I'd welcome if they switched. But I doubt they ever will. They react somewhat weirdly to anything Apple. Ever since I switched to Apple devices they've been looking at me as if I'm now in some higher social class - but at the same time they look down on my devices as if they were somehow worse than theirs.
iPhone has over 70% market share when you consider any price point above mid range.
The global usage numbers between iOS and Android, where Android wins with like 68%, are heavily skewed by people who a) just can't afford owning an iPhone, or b) don't do anything on their phone beyond calls and texts (older gens) and will not justify spending more than $200 on a phone. This is billions of people.
Apple has basically no offering in the mid range segment and below.
And I assume this is also why so many Android vendors copy the look and feel of iOS devices, to give the a) crowd something that rhymes with the original thing.
The global stats for >$600 phones tell you that once someone can afford an iPhone, they very much just get an iPhone.
But the worst stat for Android out of them all, is the market share among the youngest generations.
That's like 90% in favor of iOS, which is a stomp that you probably don't recover from.
And since statistically very few people switch from iOS back to Android, the future is not bright for Android as the current young gens grow up and new gens likely follow that same trend.
I'm not sure that is entirely accurate.
For example, Samsung make a huge song-and-dance out of some of the cleaver features (often gimmicky) that they pack into their phones. Especially things around auto photo enhancing and photo editing.
Apple not so much when it comes to that sort of thing.
For me personally it boils down to being a huge fan of both, and also being tied into the Apple ecosystem, more so that I've an AWU2 and need an iPhone to run it... Same with Apple Music - it works best on Apple (stating the obvious I know)
I do think it's a shame Apple can't sort the OS so it can be managed via an iPad or Mac though etc...
I love Android too and always have an Android handset alongside... I've never kept an iPhone because I wanted to, but I've kept my Pixel 4XL as it's still a brill phone and a bloody good camera to boot.
My daily drivers are my 15PM and Pixel Fold. Both are superb in their own right
You'll also get some diehard iPhones fans (like my brother who can't see passes iOS and thinks Android is a poor sibling), the same can be said for Android too where they'll repeat that iOS is too locked down etc...
For me, iOS just works. As does Android, but you do need to change things to your own preference to get the best out of it (ie launchers, icon packs, keyboards etc)
I do think it's a shame Apple can't sort the OS so it can be managed via an iPad or Mac though etc...
I love Android too and always have an Android handset alongside... I've never kept an iPhone because I wanted to, but I've kept my Pixel 4XL as it's still a brill phone and a bloody good camera to boot.
My daily drivers are my 15PM and Pixel Fold. Both are superb in their own right
You'll also get some diehard iPhones fans (like my brother who can't see passes iOS and thinks Android is a poor sibling), the same can be said for Android too where they'll repeat that iOS is too locked down etc...
For me, iOS just works. As does Android, but you do need to change things to your own preference to get the best out of it (ie launchers, icon packs, keyboards etc)
I think that’s a bit dismissive on the whole. Apple sell brand new iPhones starting at £429 and you can get them on very cheap contracts yet people don’t, because you can get a much better spec’ed Android phone for similar money. In Europe Android is more popular with 69.16% of the marketshare. This isn’t because Europeans are ‘poor’, just different preferences and Android OEM’s make an effort to offer better deals. So many of my friends are using Samsung S24’s and similar and these cost more than iPhones in many cases. Perhaps there is a percentage that prefer Android by choice which has nothing to do with affordability?? Samsung devices are certainly popular with young professionals at the moment and I get the impression because you’re quoting US prices, it’s a totally different perception on that side of the pond.
I'm from the central EU.
People don't, because people like new stuff and Apple's "mid range offerings" are 4 year old phones that are hardly competitive with Android phones at the same price point.
It's a mix of different factors. Apple hasn't captured the EU market as early and with as much presence as the US market.
There were, (and still are), hardly any official Apple stores in many places, language support is lacking, some features or even products being geo locked to the US only for a long time or forever...
All this has been getting better over time, but it has made its mark and in the meantime people got used to Android as the default option.
The overall market share of Android in the EU is dropping though.
The iOS dominance among younger generations applies to the US and EU alike.
And the aforementioned premium market dominance is a global figure.
And yes, I'm shamelessly including the UK in the EU umbrella term
Because it's not pushed or promoted by the carriers.
The vast majority of people buy their phone from their cell provider.