No one is mentioning that Apple is a hardware company first. They're not an ad company that makes hardware. Completely different approach and their stance for privacy makes sense.

What is absurd is that one of the two largest smartphone ecosystems (Android/Google) is run by a company for whom their supposed "customers" are in fact also a product, with Google double-dipping by selling us off to a second set of customers (advertisers). It boggles the mind how... understanding... people are to Google's business practices; "well, they're an ad company, so it just makes sense they they'd want to put devices into people's hands that vacuum up as much personal data as humanly possible – I'll buy two please!".

I roll my eyes every time someone talks about the "premium price" of Apple hardware. Apple hardware is not all that much more expensive; it's just not subsidized via tracking/profiling (loss of privacy), and subsequent advertising, the way the competition is. This has always been the case with Android/Google, and more recently even somewhat true with Microsoft (Windows 10 and its multiple shenanigans).

> I roll my eyes every time someone talks about the "premium price" of Apple hardware. Apple hardware is not all that much more expensive; it's just not subsidized via tracking/profiling (loss of privacy), and subsequent advertising, the way the competition is.

I understand your sentiment about the price being subsidized with vendor lock in, advertisement and data gathering. But the point on the price might be true for the US only.

In most of Europe, as well as in my country, (let alone poorer parts of the world), a used, cheap iPhone can cost as much as two months of the rent money for a small apartment; a new iPhone/Apple device is out of the question.

So the dilemma for most people either no smartphone or an Android smartphone.

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Your comment is totally absurd and unrelated. We are talking about Privacy - if you're in the business of selling targeted ads (Google), you have a conflict of interest with regards to Privacy. What does this have to do with driving competitors to ground!???

Edit: Looks like you've edited with additional information. Still you're off track with my point.

I had used Android Nexus devices starting from Nexus S up to 6P and finally switched to iPhone 8 this year.

Android has better UX and has some nice features but there are no real privacy settings, Android apps have no proper inspection before being released on the market and too frequently some 0day RCE exploits are released publicly for Android.

Privacy features were the biggest reason I switched and even though it is not as convenient to use it, I'm going to stick with it for the foreseeable future.

Oh, and the hardware build quality "feel" seems much much better than any Android phone I have held as well.

> "Android has better UX..."

ruhr? </scooby-doo_voice>

i have both an android and an ios phone, and i'm comparatively amazed at how bone-headed android UX can be. it's also a hot bed of paralysis-of-choice (in both apps and in settings/configuration). sure, ios has issues here and there, but (to me) ios is generally more intuitive (==better UX).

you didn't exactly give any counterexamples. yes, android's settings menus have a lot and are relatively poorly organized, but so are ios settings.

but in terms of apps, i find android much more intuitive than ios. on android, there is basically a universal back button, in position and in behavior, that always seems to just work. not so on ios, where i am constantly wondering how do i go backwards from where i'm at. the heavy gesture language on ios is very non-intuitive. for example, closing apps. on android, there is a two button press to close all apps or just a one button press plus swipe to close a single app. or there's a double-tap to return to the previous app immediately. on ios, it's a weird swipe up and right, then a ridiculously long hold, and then a one by one swipe. on lg android phones at least, there is serious multitasking. so i can have youtube playing in the top or bottom of the screen and then be browsing the web or on some other app in the other half. this is really, really useful. not to mention android can more frequently have an overlay of apps, such as video chat or youtube in a picture in picture type of situation. android's clip tray is also very useful, especially when composing e-mails that contain copied information from multiple places. on ios, i am constantly annoyed by editing the address bar. the tap, then wait, and then hit the little x is a constant annoyance because there is a mandatory wait after the first tap, and it's very finicky, as well as the little x.

yes, ios is very clean, but that doesn't mean it has good ux. i am constantly befuddled by ios design choices in how to do something. and the gesture language is extremely non-intuitive. the gestures on android or far more nature and less overbearing.

don't get me wrong, there are some things i like about android, like the am/fm radio chip being accessible and having a wireless router built in (i have an LG phone).

but the radio is a good example of the frustrating UX -- you can't use the radio without wired headphones to act as the antenna. you can't even plug in the wired headphones and then used wireless headphones for output.

apple actually makes sure the common use cases are well designed (and chooses to preclude less common ones to reduce that paralysis of choice problem), while android seems to be trying to check as many boxes as possible on a spec sheet.

closing apps on ios is a double-tap and a swipe or two swipes, depending on your phone. on my android, it's hitting a small, unintuitive square symbol and then hitting a small 'x' icon--both of which require more precision than on ios.

the lack of a youtube overlay in ios is a limitation imposed by google. ios has picture-in-picture mode but google won't implement it for ios for competitive reasons.

as for gestures, both android and ios have non-discoverable gestures, but i think ios's gestures are more intuitive overall. as in, once you find the gesture, you go "oh right, that's exactly what i would have expected that gesture to do there." i don't always have that satisfaction on android.

this, of course, is how i experience the two operating systems, so i'm not trying to discount your experience.

A few things that come to my mind that are better on Android: On Stock Android you can edit quick access settings; It stacks notifications (but it is coming in the new iOS) and allows quickly replying from notification screen; * Better structured settings menu; * Having shortcuts for frequently used apps or actions and having widgets for notes/calendar on the home-screen save multiple taps and swipes and provides all that info at a glance without opening specific app; * Android Phone app with contacts is also easier to use since search is available on all of the tabs and it provides grid view with most commonly contacted contacts. It also searches in company contact directory, a setting that is hidden under multiple clicks on iOS.

This is a bit funny, everyone said how intuitive iPhone is, but on the first day I accidentally opened magnifier and was unable to close it without getting to my computer and googling. None of my friends who had iPhone knew what that square was and how to remove it from the screen. It is not intuitive in any way to do 3 finger double tap.

And even custom keyboards are too limited by iOS SDK. For typing in languages where symbols with accents or diacritics are used it is inconvenient that the long tap doesn't bring the wanted symbol in focus and you have to swipe as well. That is not a problem on Android.

And you have to know when and where to swipe left or right to bring up some other menu or to go back one step. On Android you just click the OS back button on the bottom of the screen. For app switching - there is a button for that.

Overall it requires more clicks and swipes on iOS to get around.

I am not sure what Android version You used but the stock Google Android was a lot better in many ways. Sure, there are cool iOS features as well that are not available on Android but there are very few of those.

Perhaps you have a Samsung? Some of the changes that vendors make are aggressively stupid, in the name of being different.

The only caveat I have on that is the iPhone's Settings. Its chaotic in there.

> Android apps have no proper inspection before being released on the market

Apple isn't all that much better.[0] Moral of the story is, you shouldn't expect app store maintainers (google, apple, fdroid, whatever) to be effective at protecting you. The task is almost certainly automated, and error-prone, or dependent upon a small group, and error-prone.

0. https://gizmodo.com/top-apple-mac-app-secretly-sends-your-br...

Apple is better overall for app quality because they do actually check apps have a purpose and aren't pretending to be something else. I have watched colleagues get apps approved and it is probably automated to a degree then definitely reviewed by a human if anything suspicious comes up. They were using the camera with explicit permission from the user, but the user couldn't see the camera feed, so Apple asked that an indicator be added whenever it was actively in use.

Some things may slip through the cracks, but the Google Play store allows almost anything to be published with little to no checks at all.

I am all with you on the UX thing. Hell sometimes I dont even know how to go back in an app. Sometimes there is a back arrow on the top left, sometimes there isn't. I just give my wife back her phone and tell her I can't use it out of frustration and she needs to do it. The back button is always at my fingers reach on my Android phone and despite hearing complaints about not knowing how it would function I have found it reliably functions the way I predicted in 99% of the uses

I've asked this before on here and didn't get much of a response. If Apple truly believes in privacy, does this mean that they have a strict policy against using the data provided by companies that have a lower ethical stance on data collection? Is it more ethical to pay and benefit from the data for targeted advertising than it is to collect the data yourself?

Edit: On re-read I thought it might be unclear what I'm asking. Does Apple use Facebook and Google data for targeted advertising?

Your question is still unclear to me: are you asking if they advertise on platforms that collect and use data to match users with ads (Facebook and google), or if they buy data from firms to use in their own advertisements / marketing campaigns.

I don’t know the answer to either question, but I assume the answer to the first is yes of course they advertise on these platforms (on google at least), and the answer to the second is, I hope No.

I was mostly meaning the first example you provided. These platforms are so good (at least they claim to be) at matching users and ads because of their extensive data collection/sharing practices. Is it cool to say "We respect our users privacy" if they are benefiting directly from another companies less privacy respecting practices?

They have no choice. There is no technical way for Apple to monitor what data apps are sending out without doing something like MITM every connection which is a million times worse.

So they have to rely on a punishment model where they demand apps provide a privacy policy then kick them off the store if they fail to comply with it.

I think he was asking whether Apple itself buys ads on platforms like Facebook. e.g., ads for Apple prodcuts.

The implication being that by doing so, they would be benefiting from the aggressive data collection performed by those platforms.

Yet Apple makes money from apps that collect data, made by developers.

> Yet Apple makes money from apps that collect data, made by developers.

If an app is free, but makes its money through data collection, then no, Apple doesn't make money off of it.

If they charge for the app, and then do data collection, then yes, Apple makes money off of the initial app purchase, but not off of the data collection.

In terms of a business sense, Apple's move to make privacy a core feature is almost the last differentiator they can make between themselves and other mobile device operators. Android has "won" the mobile phone war in the sense of device count (it wasn't always the case, remember). The premiere Android devices, e.g., Pixel, Galaxy, and some others all tack on hardware features generally superior to Apple's – maybe not all in one, but the BEST of each feature generally belongs to an Android device maker, whether it's the screen, camera, fingerprint reader, or otherwise. Even with Apple's degrading performance to save battery life, they lost the performance crown explicitly (showing they did not prioritize that) and battery life can be beaten by thicker phones which Apple avoids.

So, all that's really left that they can compete with commercially and effectively against Google's Android hegemony is in the one thing neither Google nor their device partners can even deign to pursue – consumer privacy. Apple is, and likely always will be, a hardware company. So, they do not see consumer's private info as a source of revenue. They just need folks to keep buying their devices. They can differentiate by making privacy a feature, something a device beholden to Google or the Play marketplace can never be, which is the vast majority of Android devices out there.

Android phone CPUs are so far behind Apple's A12 it's not even worth debating.

Sounds like it is worth debating, please, provide the argument that demonstrates such a gap.

About the A10 chip is when Apple started pushing ahead of Snapdragon equivalents. Now with the A12 the difference is massive especially as it includes a lot of capabilities directly benefiting machine learning use cases. Which aren't included in any benchmark that I know of.

This is old but indicative: https://hothardware.com/ContentImages/NewsItem/45374/content...

FYI, the Huawei Kirin 980 is made with a 7nm process and has an onboard multicore neural processing unit for AI.

The incident with Android and the battery saving problem a few days back must be telling. If Google changed that setting and affected a whole host of users' phones, then they also have the infrastructure in place to know which phones were affected.

No malice assumed, of course, but that means that your independence is no further than a config flag in a build process. As in, you don't have it.