Yeah. I love their commitment to privacy and security, but I only wish their platform wasn't so locked down. The only reason I went with Android in the first place was so I could side-load personally-built apps. IIRC (I could be wrong), if you want to write and side-load your own personal iOS apps, you have to pay a $99 fee and they deactivate after a week.

You don't need to pay anymore.

Actually, if you don't pay the developer fee, you can only install 2 apps per apple account and they get deactivated in a week. If you do pay, I think its unlimited apps and a 3 month long period before they get deactivated.

not true. I’ve written a couple personal apps that sync with health kit data collected from my Apple Watch and nutrition apps to help me track things in a way that is useful for my fitness goals. In 2016-2027 I used these apps to put on 30 lbs and stay relatively lean but I’ve never wanted to publish them in the app store. I don’t pay for any developer program. Just need to download some (free) developer tools / SDK for XCode, build the source, and put it on my phone. The install is tethered, but afterwards it stays there until I delete it. Restarting the phone doesn’t delete the app either. Only time I needed to re-install was when my 5s crapped out and I had to get a new phone.

If you turn on WiFi debugging the install can be untethered.

When did that change? I wrote an app that I use every day and have been for about 4 years now. The most recent time I've had to load it on a new phone was in Dec of last year.

My apple dev account was originally a paid one though so maybe that has something to do with it?

I really hope I don't run into this deactivation thing.

>My apple dev account was originally a paid one though so maybe that has something to do with it?

Yeah that is why. I had a paid one also and I still have those perks.

I think you're confused with iTunes Connect. Whatever I push with Xcode stays on my phone forever.

Are you sure you don't have a paid account? My provisioning profiles expire after 7 days (the app is still on my phone but upon launch it just crashes with a white screen)

http://mybyways.com/blog/new-limitations-imposed-on-free-app...

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36998956/why-does-my-fre...

https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/47837

https://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/4hotx3/news_free...

The worst part is that these changes weren't announced by Apple in any way.

>a 3 month long period before they get deactivated

It's 12 month long actually.

They still stop running after seven days.

This is completely false, I have several apps that I've built on my own personal account, which is expired because I haven't released a personal app in a year or so, all of them are still running just fine after a year.

Incorrect. Provisioning profiles created by free Apple developer accounts only last for 7 days. After that you have to fire up Xcode and rebuild your app and reinstall it.

This is a very well known fact that you can find documentation for on many sites outside of apple.com, such as right here - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/ios/get-started/ins...

The sad fact is that it's not your phone, it's Apples.

Provisioning profile expiration doesn't stop apps from running, it just prevents you from building more apps until you refresh the profile.

Apple - Its not your device, but the data is yours.

Google - Its your device, but the data is ours.

This IS NOT INCORRECT. I have numerous apps that still work. Provisioning profiles have nothing to do with the app running and everything to do with installing the app. If you need to re-install the app XCode automatically regenerates a new provisioning profile for you. Please educate yourself about the details of how technical items work before speaking negatively about something.

I have my fair share of complaints about Apple but speaking negatively via ignorance is always something that should be corrected.

If you are a paid developer your apps don't expire (at least not for a year or so).

I have an iPhone, but it is soooo painful to me that my awesome as hell MacBook Pro for work has USB C for everything, including power, and yet my phone does not. Meanwhile my team lead, sitting directly across from me, has an android phone that charges with USB C.

I actually am not bothered by that so much as that Apple did not produce a decent 1st party USB-C hub and most of the ones I've purchased produce a lot of signal noise (curse of sensitive ears + quiet home office) so I had to return (if I got around to it before return period) or donate them.

The issue IMHO would be moot if they included a USB-C charging adapter (and a USB-A dongle/converter) on newer iPhones.

Also it sucks that Amazon is so full of fake stuff. Hard to find/promote good accessories. Apple needs to step up and provide quality 1st party or heavily promoted 3rd party accessories.

I also have sensitive ears, and I highly recommend the Anker hub. It has 2x USB A, 1x HDMI, and an additional USB C to replace the one it consumes.

Yeah, me too. Used to laugh them, now I use them for the past several years and don't plan on switching to something else for now.

I made the same transition a few years ago. Over time I've supplied my family with iPads to 1) get us on a common chat platform and 2) reduce my tech support requests as much as possible. It has worked well!

I have a Pixel 2 XL and Chromebook for work. There are a few features I wish iOS would take from Android, and a few I wish flowed the other way, but if you buy in to the Google stack, it's hard to beat the Pixel/Chromebook pairing.

Ubuntu phone? (I had one, but it wasn't very good, as it just didn't have the apps).

I can't really recommend abandoned/dead OSes to people. Otherwise I'd recommend Win10 Mobile, which is still my personal favorite and (for the moment) still receiving extremely prompt security updates.

> because it's the only option that takes privacy and security seriously right now.

iPhones are a luxury. If you can recommend them it means you already belong to the richest part of the planet. For the rest, they jut can't afford it, and Apple was never interested in making anything cheap.

IMO they are luxury as running shoes or fresh legumes are luxury.

It costs more, but can be prioritized on a budget as an expense that makes a difference.

Actualy I think even for very tight budgets, investing in a good phone might have more impact than a lot of other purchases (even a computer depending on the case ?).

Very recently a lot of French towns added mobile payment options to coin meters. An iPhone SE is supported by most apps, I have now idea for the limit for android phone, and I wouldn’t imagine it works on the lowest end ones. I would imagine being able to run that app or mot could make the difference between being ticketed for overdue parking or not.

iPhone SE, or previous models are definitely affordable, and it seems like a good investment considering these devices are supported for 4 years on average, so on a 2 year-old second-hand device you’ll still get 2 years more of security updates, which is something Android can only dream about.

Will you also complain about Samsung because their flagship is too expensive?

To be fair the latest Android devices offer three years of updates, so they're now somewhere in the middle.

https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en

>Pixel phones get security updates for at least 3 years from when the device first became available on the Google Store, or at least 18 months from when the Google Store last sold the device, whichever is longer. After that, we can't guarantee more updates.

If my Nexus 6 was any indication, a power user will wear the device out before three years anyway. Batteries are not end-user replaceable parts and require an expensive repair or specific tools and skills. Apple addresses this through IOS updates to throttle processor speed and extend battery life but in either case (Apple or Android) the hardware updates are IMHO compelling enough to trigger consumers to purchase new.

Only for Pixel phones bought unlocked. This doesn’t apply to most people that buy (or rather are coaxed into buying by the salesperson) whatever Samsung or Huawei device from a carrier.

Bear in mind, the fact that they can't commit to two years after final sale means they are selling devices that will be insecure before the average two year cycle people tend towards with phones.

Selling a phone as "new" that doesn't have at least two years of life from the date of sale should probably be referred to a consumer protection bureau.

21% of Apple's quarterly revenue was from China. China is not well-known as one of the richest parts of the planet.

Apple is luxury in China too. Do you really think it's the average Chinese that are buying iPhones?

A worker at Foxconn has about the same discretionary income as blue collar workers in the states; their food and housing is covered by Foxconn, but isn't normally listed as part of their salary.

Now, albeit, they're slightly on the higher end of Chinese workers, but it's not just the shitty aristocrat's kids spending money on iPhones. The people making the things make enough money to buy one, just the same as my hairdresser does.

In that case Foxconn isn't an example of an average company paying average wage. The disposable income per capita in China was 36396 chinese yuan in 2017, which makes a little over 400 USD per month. Median disposable income is even lower. You're not even close to buying iPhones with that kind of wages.

At $400USD/month after food, housing, transportation, and healthcare are taken care of absolutely puts you into iPhone purchasing range.

my friend lives in Beijing and teaches English and gets paid $3k$ / month. So I can bet a lot of folks are paid decently in China too

China has a lot of rich people even if they are far from a majority. It isn’t poor taxi drivers and ayis using iPhones, but more like those who are driving black Audis.

That is now, not back when it was launched.

iPhones are somewhat more expensive than their competition. But the iPhone SE or 6S are decent mid-market smartphone choices.

People often seem to forget that given Apple's five year or so iOS update coverage, buying an "outdated" iPhone is actually a reasonable option.

Just keep in mind that the NSA has remote sudo access to everything on your phone[0]. It's not completely secure and they're known to abuse their power time to time.

[0]: https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/

[citation needed]

The link you sent just shows that they have zero days on Android: but they also have similar exploits available on iPhones.

Besides, the NSA having zero day vulnerabilities is nothing new and not limited to Android. Saying they have "remote sudo access" is misleading also and implies that they were deliberately built into android, although that may not be what you meant. Either way, the NSA will always have the type of people employed who can find zero days on smartphones and most importantly, not tell anyone about them.

They must have some really dank hackers cause they are able to remotely exploit iphones without user intervention.

Imagine if one of the thousands of hackers who attempt to jailbreak the iphone had those kinds of skills huh?

Even so, I'm not in the USA and don't plan on visiting very soon. And I'm pretty damn sure my government doesn't have access to it.

You really should give some context to what you say or it's meaningless.

Also if you reside in one of the countries within the 14 eyes, they do have access to your phone[0]. It's a really good reason to think twice about buying american products and visiting their country knowing that they are creating a surveillance state. Wouldn't you agree?

[0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes#Other_international_...

I don't understand what you mean with the remark about context. But otherwise no, I don't live in any of these countries. Also, it's not that I "don't care". It's just that by what I know, Apple is the least risk to my privacy and well being.