Maybe check out PinePhone if you're interested in hacking something together!

Understandable, if Apple's claim on Privacy is to be trusted, then it does seem to be a better alternative to android when it comes to privacy; But for a power user android ecosystem offers more without rooting, is not dependent upon 'trust on a company alone' and there's no separate power-user level ecosystem for iOS without jailbreaking.

e.g.

• AOSP, so there's LineageOS as aftermarket alternative, /e/ with e foundation phone or Fairphone, dozens of other alternatives.

• Firewall VPN for android are more refined e.g. Netguard (open-source) even allows selective blocking of connections per address/ per app; this is the closest thing to Little Snitch on macOS.

• Tasker allows automation to such an extent that, several things which required writing apps can now be performed by creating tasks. Tasker is Siri shortcuts on steroids without Siri.

But can’t those basically be considered part of the operating system at this point? I can’t disable Apple frameworks on my iPhone either. Mind, iOS of course does less user tracking.

That's exactly why I switched because the idea that I can't disable Play Services is bonkers. It does look like MicroG (open-source replacement) is maturing a lot recently though!

> I can’t disable Apple frameworks on my iPhone either. Mind, iOS of course does less user tracking.

Apple makes their money up front by me purchasing the device. That's why they're expensive. They are a hardware company.

Whenever you use an iOS feature for the first time, you are prompted with a privacy policy statement that is presented in both a summary and a long form to be read before you click agree. And they have an icon that they show you whenever data will leave your device.

With them being the forward about it, I trust it way more.

If you don't believe me, go and read this[0] privacy policy on (arguably) the creepiest feature that Apple provides you (Siri).

Some quotes from it:

> Siri Data is associated with a random, device generated identifier. This random identifier is not linked to your Apple ID, email address, or other data Apple may have from your use of other Apple services.

> Siri Data and your requests are not used to build a marketing profile, and are never sold to anyone.

That immediately hits me differently from Google's policy (I read it a long while ago now), and it makes me view Apple with enough of a positive light to make the ecosystem jump.

0: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210657

Apple also charges 30% of much of your software and content purchases, and the hardest isn't particularly expensive relative to similar competitor hardware.

Ah, yeah. That's a good point!

> the hardest(hardware) isn't particularly expensive relative to similar competitor hardware.

Their margins are higher though because they are more vertically integrated. Especially on the higher end phones, they make serious $

so what /e/ is doing is essentially an audit of android, and an attempt to remove everything that is of concern.

it's a major project, and it's not complete. work in progress.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/eu.faircode.netguard/

https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

So if you use their cloud services, both Apple and Google have access to your photos, but Apple has access to all of your whatsapp and signal conversations, while Google does not (if you decide to password protect your backups).

And you have to use iCloud if you want to keep your 3rd party chat history safe, unless you jailbreak to extract it from the file system.

iMessage is of course purposefully flawed to allow for MITM.

https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059752-Ba...

I would love to know how many subscribers of Google Music have they lost during this transition to YouTube music. Not that I think Google actually cares, and seeing how big companies BS themselves from inside, they probably sooth themselves with "it is temporary", "we will catch up on features", "they will come back".

With Apple One now being announced, I am investigating if I can move everything there, but keep my Android phone for now.

I have a Pinephone and hope that sooner then later that I can use it full time.

The YouTube Music app is not that bad, but definitely missing a feature or three that I used a lot on Play. It also seems to need to be manually started every time my phone connects to Bluetooth whereas Play would start automatically if it was the last thing that was playing on that BT connection.

I switched to Spotify and I'm glad I did.

The problem is barely Google. The problem are the Apps you download and giving full permissions.

I agree they are annoying.

I even heard in some part of the world Apple started to paid commission to Apple Retail Staff for products sales. ( They used to pride themselves the lack of conflict of interest and to provide the best services possible )

It was the best tech support experience I've had in my life.

Jobs was one of a kind.

Seeing reports about old laptops breaking from the same, I suppose the upside is that they are becoming less fragile.

edited for clarity.

Vehicle breaks, the part or component that fixes it is unavailable/backordered/allocated for months+.

Manufacturers will offer to buy back the vehicle, at original sale price, rather than force you to wait (and relieving them from having to provide a loaner/rental).

Their staff are more empowered than most companies though. Usually I’m able to get what I want with a minimum of fuss, you just need to go in person and be very calm.

AirPods are made of three components: left earbud, right earbud, and charging case. More granular repairs are neither offered nor possible due to glues and so forth, though damaged parts can be recycled for scrap. So repairs can only replace those three parts in total, and perform no other purpose. This is still useful if you lose an earbud on the subway, or if your charging case lid snaps off, but it opens the door for an exploit as well.

If you have a set of AirPods and you want to jump the line at Apple to buy another set and sell them to someone else, you can simply 'lose' each piece of your set of AirPods. Once you have a complete set of all three parts, you can assemble a fully standalone AirPods and sell it, using the parts that you got from repair.

To prevent this, repair sets their prices for the individual parts to exceed the final unit price of the whole. This isn't a big deal if you damage one part only

Repair costs probably also include 'expedited priority' versus those purchasing new products for the first time, so if there was a waiting list of 4-6 weeks to buy new AirPods, repair's full replacement price would bypass that list and get you your replacements immediately.

They still should have told you on the phone that the repair cost exceeds the repurchase cost and offered to discount the price in exchange for whatever the current wait is for folks buying them on the website.

Also, aren't waiting lists usually due to manufacturing latency? Not arbitrary delays that can be bypassed via purchasing repairs? Moreover, no one can assemble a Macbook/iPad/iPhone by ordering replacement parts. Your example only holds good for Airpods.

I don't think it's fair to criticise a paid product for asking for you to pay for it.

Should fix the stupid interstitial

It's obvious that there is a bug in the code, I get the interstitial at random times, not only when I open the app. Wifi drops and then comes back? Interstitial right on top of whatever I was reading...

PS, am I the only person that puts a "cancel free trial for XYZ" in my calendar the minute I sign up for anything?

So much so, I have an "Add expiration reminder" iOS shortcut. Pretty sure I downloaded it from the Shortcuts gallery or something, it doesn't look like something I'd write.

She accepted the trial, then went into settings to cancel the subscription so she wouldn’t be automatically charged at the end of 3 months.

With no warning, the subscription was then completely cancelled with no ability to use the rest of the trial. (Unlike some other Apple trials.) When asking Apple Support about this, they referenced an obscure sentence in their terms and conditions. They could do nothing to re-offer the trial to my wife. So consumer hostile.

I think that's w.r.t personal experience, but they've been doing that for a very long time.

Remember the time Jobs told that we are holding the phone wrong?

Geoffrey Moore’s “Inside the Tornado” makes an argument that companies deliberately need to become less customer focused when they’re in hyper growth mainstream adoption.

But, Amazon doesn't seem to have done that. Someone even claimed Amazon sells customer service, they still seem to do so but at the expense of their employees.

Thanks for the recommendation of the book.

I know iTunes never got a great rep but it worked, and iTunes Match was fantastic. Now however they still charge for it, except its totally broken unless you instead pay for Apple Music (9.99/mo instead of 24.99/year).

Annoyed but there really isn’t much alternative on that front.

Apple Music pop-ups are annoying, but I only saw them after some iOS version updates. There's also a setting to hide Apple Music features completely.

There is one rule for Apple, and one rule for everyone else.

Tim Cook's Apple is more than happy to use the abusive customer-hostile patterns they deny others.

Weird considering that the AirPods are not repairable. They just replace them.

http://mike-clay-vma5.squarespace.com/blog/api-safe

I often sign up for trials and immediately cancel (so I don't forget about them). That way it requires a positive action on my part to keep the subscription. That doesn't work if your access ends as soon as you cancel.

Now, the constant nagging? That’s annoying.

Nowadays? Apple has been doing anti-consumer behavior for multiple decades. I remember only allowing purchased itunes music being exported in their specific format.

You'd have to burn them to a CD and rip it back to a useable format.

This isn't new, any educated consumer is well aware of how Apple plays.

Maybe you're thinking of the DRM'd files that couldn't be played back by other players, and even iTunes on other computers without your iTunes store account. In that case indeed burning a CD and ripping it would be one solution. They stopped selling DRM'd files completely by 2009, though.

But yep that's how we bypassed it.

I think I bought 6 songs before I found a better alternative. Reminds me how I had 1 iphone (6) and would never get one again.