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Re:Don't forget Microsoft by foobarian on Sunday January 30, 2022 @05:19PM (#30141778)
Can Microsoft please make a Windows phone after all? Both Apple and Android ecosystems and hardware together are terrible in various ways and don't work well with Windows.
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by salil999 on Sunday January 30, 2022 @05:34PM (#30141934)
I'm surprised you say the Apple ecosystem is terrible. It's arguably the best, most complete and integrated ecosystem out there currently.

Of course it's not going to work well with Windows. Apple wants you to buy a Mac.

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by Clampower on Sunday January 30, 2022 @06:07PM (#30142204)
After 7 years of android I switched over to iPhone. Largely due to the Google hate I experience here on hn. There is so many small annoyances on iPhone. Some things like hide my email, password management are brilliant, even if I need to use Safari, which I hate because I want to use Firefox for ad blocking. But iOS is objectively terrible. Notifications are so horrible. Support for my Garmin watch is awful. The jarring system sounds and don’t even get me started on the awful alarm sounds. Siri is unusable and the fact that I can’t change to another assistant is terrible. Apple Maps doesn’t even have biking directions in one of the most bike central cities of the world, amsterdam, lol!! Useless. Dutch is not supported in system wide translations feature, again I need to revert to Google translate. Keyboards for multilingual people are really really terrible. I need to switch between 4 languages every day. The fact that I need to switch between keyboards and then still have autocomplete fight me whenever I dare to use a word form a different language ( even simple ones like “yeah” which I want to use in German or Dutch as well ). The keyboard is so terrible as well. And then just things that make no sense at all. Why can I not see a battery percentage on the icon of the battery? I need to swipe control center down to see that. Why can I not see seconds in the time? Why can I not set two timers?????

I really really really hate iOS. It has things that are nice and better than android. But for anybody to think that it is a “complete and integrated” ecosystem makes me … laugh. Like it’s just objectively terrible.

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by skydhash on Sunday January 30, 2022 @06:28PM (#30142383)
A lot of the annoyances that you cited are valid. I speak three languages (one that the keyboard does not support), and my accent when speaking English trips Siri a lot (But I prefer not to switch to French). But the ecosystem really works together when using Apple products. Anything else and it becomes jarring. And you can appreciate it when you accept THEIR way of things. I used to be a heavy customizer (Arch, Custom roms for Android,...), but this day not so much.

And it does work for people that can accept that. Anyone else? Not really, as you will feel frustrated by the constraints and the tall wall of their garden.

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by Schroedingersat on Monday January 31, 2022 @03:08AM (#30145684)
That's just saying it works together so long as you define working as what it does.
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by jazzyjackson on Sunday January 30, 2022 @06:24PM (#30142349)
> Why can I not see a battery percentage on the icon of the battery?

Settings :: Battery :: Battery Percentage

Siri, Keyboard, and Maps gripes granted, but not really what people mean when they talk about "ecosystem", I'm very happy with how I can copy paste between my phone and laptop, and how my homepods and airpods and appletv all hand-off to each other.

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by jonas21 on Monday January 31, 2022 @12:28AM (#30144859)
> Settings :: Battery :: Battery Percentage

Yeah, that would make sense, right? But Apple decided not to include that setting on iPhones with a notch (which is basically all of them these days).

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by chakkepolja on Monday January 31, 2022 @10:02AM (#30148615)
> I'm very happy with how I can copy paste between my phone and laptop.

If you use Linux and Android, you can do that with KDE connect. Pretty sure there's some solution for Windows too.

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by servercobra on Sunday January 30, 2022 @06:31PM (#30142402)
> objectively terrible

I think notifications are far better on iOS, love using Siri for controlling things/the phone (search is mediocre at best), I like the system sounds and alarms, hate when I have to use my Pixel dev phone's keyboard, etc, etc. It's rather subjective.

The two timers thing though, holy crap that annoys me. I swear they said they fixed that...

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by pionar on Monday January 31, 2022 @01:41AM (#30145245)
> I think notifications are far better on iOS

Except you have to swipe-then-tap to dismiss them. It's so fucking annoying. That's the biggest thing I miss about Android, just a simple swipe dismisses them.

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by pjerem on Monday January 31, 2022 @04:03AM (#30146015)
Here is some tip if that can help : if you continue to swipe after the button are shown, you'll feel a vibration and releasing your finger will activate the default option (which is "Close"). In fact, you just have to do larger swipes.

But yeah, I also uses iOS because I don't want anything Google. In terms of UX, i don't like iOS but I also loathe Android. I currently lack courage, but I think that in some point in my life, I'll just throw smartphones. I'm sad that Firefox OS became this closed KaiOS thing. A hackable dumbphone is just what I need.

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by woldenron on Monday January 31, 2022 @08:06AM (#30147471)
There still is Ubuntu Touch with slowly growing device pool support. Dunno how polished or performant it is right now, though.
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by vicda on Sunday January 30, 2022 @08:02PM (#30143153)
And for those of us who don't want to live exclusively in their walled garden, it's an ecosystem rife with friction and sludge.
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by smoldesu on Sunday January 30, 2022 @05:54PM (#30142109)
It's hard to call the iPhone complete when it makes egregious concessions in it's capabilities in the name of "safety" (which turns out to be a moot-point anyways, as sufficently funded state actors have proven to us over the past few months).
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by jolux on Sunday January 30, 2022 @05:59PM (#30142145)
Security is not moot just because state actors can break it, that's basically expected. The idea is to give everyone below the level of a state a harder time.
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by smoldesu on Sunday January 30, 2022 @06:11PM (#30142239)
If all that effort didn't come at the expense of user agency, I'd be inclined to agree. Instead, it looks like an increasingly toothless justification to prevent people from undermining the App Store's profitability. The security theater isn't as convincing when their puppets are falling apart in their hands.
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by jolux on Sunday January 30, 2022 @06:33PM (#30142416)
But it's not security theater. Sandboxing and strong isolation is one of the oldest techniques around for increasing security. iOS has the least malware of any OS. The security measures it contains would appear to be extremely good at keeping out threats that plague many other platforms.
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by smoldesu on Sunday January 30, 2022 @08:13PM (#30143248)
Sandboxing and strong isolation are not mutually exclusive with allowing third-party sources to install apps. If their sandboxing is as good as you say it is, there should be no security threat imposed by allowing other apps on the device. The two should be distinct, separate threat models, but Apple conflates them.
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by bitwize on Monday January 31, 2022 @07:26AM (#30147199)
Allowlisting is also one of the best security practices you can implement, because allowlisting significantly reduces the problem space of executables you have to consider (and dangerous executables, if found, can be removed from the allowlist). There's always a chance that a piece of malware which somehow breaks the sandboxing and isolation can find its way onto someone's device; allowlisting greatly mitigates this possibility.

Endpoint security is everyone's problem now, because everyone has one or more always-connected devices. The future of computing is a signed, remotely attested path from power-on to user application code, all checked against an allowlist of approved binaries. For most, this will be a good thing.

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by jolux on Sunday January 30, 2022 @09:41PM (#30143873)
> If their sandboxing is as good as you say it is, there should be no security threat imposed by allowing other apps on the device.

No, because it's part of a defense-in-depth strategy. Sandboxing and isolation is meant to catch what app review misses, without app review people would be attacking those mechanisms directly at a much higher frequency.

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by fortran77 on Sunday January 30, 2022 @06:19PM (#30142315)
What state actors? They are compromised by a small, private company.
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by colmvp on Sunday January 30, 2022 @05:26PM (#30141862)
How are they terrible?

Having used cellphones since the 90s, my experiences with Android/Apple phones have been nothing short of remarkable and to be frank, life changing in terms of day-to-day utility.

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by foobarian on Sunday January 30, 2022 @06:44PM (#30142529)
Android hardware is weak. UI is good, app ecosystem is weaker than Apple but more free at least.

Apple hardware is top notch, obviously. But I wish the software side was not so strictly controlled, look at the browser picture for example or in-app platforms or the shenanigans with the 30% cut.

Then small nits like:

- the alarm doesn't tell me how many hours to go when I set it

- the orange silent button is an abomination that needs to go. With Apple's focus on not having any buttons I have no idea why it has lasted this long

- the volume settings make no sense in the way that Android's make sense

So basically I'd like some wizard to take both of those phone systems, throw them in a cauldron, stir them together, throw away the slag, and sprinkle in some extra goodness. Ahhh some day maybe ...

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by jlcoff on Sunday January 30, 2022 @07:24PM (#30142848)
> Android hardware is weak

Is it ? I'm using a 4 years old $200 phone which suits me just fine, if not for stupid apps requiring more resources for a worst experience. The only reason of upgrade is battery wearing off.

Any Google related issues might be mitigated switching to LineageOS as the hardware is relatively open.

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by p_l on Monday January 31, 2022 @07:54AM (#30147377)
There's a certain level of truth to it, as none of the Android phone makers appear to be able to push for a customized SoC, even the ones with own designs (Samsung) appear to keep a "wall" between mobile and SoC divisions.

This means that relatively easy wins like throwing a lot more cache on high end phone, are unavailable because instead they are just one of the many customers for the SoC with different priorities resulting in a compromise design.

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by NAHWheatCracker on Sunday January 30, 2022 @08:06PM (#30143175)
I've stuck to the Google product lines and the hardware has been awesome. Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 5, and Pixel 4a. Each has improved on the previous as well.
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by treis on Sunday January 30, 2022 @10:41PM (#30144206)
My pixel 3 shows "Sun, Jan..." Instead of the much more useful and same length "Sun, Jan 30". There's a bunch of other minor annoyances like that. But pretty egregious that their own phone can't display the date anymore
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by meowkit on Sunday January 30, 2022 @06:07PM (#30142202)
The OS is in the middle of an internal refactor which will make a modern mobile edition (with support for all chipsets/apps on launch) more feasible in the future.

In an odd turn of events the hardware has exceeded the software in the case of Surface supporting Android on the Duo.

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by woldenron on Monday January 31, 2022 @08:15AM (#30147535)
> The OS is in the middle of an internal refactor which will make a modern mobile edition

Could you elaborate? Is there any info on that?

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by nly on Sunday January 30, 2022 @06:29PM (#30142387)
Personally I wouldn't be surprised if they take another crack at it and succeed at some point. Microsoft is in it to play the long game.
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by rr808 on Sunday January 30, 2022 @05:48PM (#30142057)
Right now due to my lack of self control a lack of apps is a bonus. I just need a maps, camera, uber that's about it.
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by seabriez on Monday January 31, 2022 @01:34AM (#30145214)
I know I noticed that iPhone hasnt really made my life better. It only has wasted a TON of time. Sometimes I wish I just had a flip phone, but FOMO is strong to give it up. Maybe one day.
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by excalibur on Monday January 31, 2022 @12:00AM (#30144675)
They did. I had one. It was not the worst. They gave up because precious few of you also did.
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by rafale on Sunday January 30, 2022 @05:22PM (#30141808)
They did. It was called Windows Phone... It came out too late, offered too little.
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by drunkpotato on Sunday January 30, 2022 @05:41PM (#30141991)
It was pretty good. Seemed better than Android at the time. I'm not sure why Microsoft didn't put as much oomph into it as they did for, say, the Xbox, but if they had it might be a major player now.
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by qbasic_forever on Sunday January 30, 2022 @05:57PM (#30142137)
I had a HTC windows phone and it was not good in my experience. The app store was non-existent, the OS forced you into using its own social media experiences which were half implemented and janky vs. native apps, and the web browser was slow and clunky for the era (2010s). The home screen was enormously painful with all kinds of different sized icons strewn about and blinking, changing, etc. randomly--I could never find anything in the same place.

The only good thing I could say is that the settings were much simpler and easier to navigate than apple or android phones at the time. But that was really more because there was far less you could change or do in windows phones.

As far as effort put into it, Microsoft spent years pouring money and resources into trying to grow their phone platform. Remember they basically invented modern smartphones with Windows mobile phones--I was using 'real' web browsers on my windows mobile 5 phone as far back as 2006, years and years before the iPhone came out. They spent billions buying companies like Nokia, trying to get more developers on their platform, etc. There were at least two or three complete restarts to the whole platform. There were internal competitors even from the Xbox/game division (remember the Kin?). It just churned and churned and churned despite all resources and money thrown at it--all of it wasted in the end.

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by drunkpotato on Sunday January 30, 2022 @06:20PM (#30142318)
Oh, thanks for the context! I never owned a Windows phone, I just played with ones other people had, same for Android. And from a total beginner perspective, Windows phone seemed a lot easier and more intuitive, but I can believe that with more use its annoyances would become more clear.

That's interesting about Microsoft really trying for mobile. My recollection is that they didn't put much effort into it, but clearly I was just unaware of it. Which is, perhaps, a sign? For all its investment, perhaps it didn't have the right marketing, as I was never aware of Microsoft's efforts for Windows Phone the same way that I am for Android and iPhone.

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by to11mtm on Sunday January 30, 2022 @06:52PM (#30142593)
There was a point where I saw a decent amount of buzz, but I also live in an area that had one of the bigger "Microsoft Stores." That said there was a point Microsoft more or less lost the plot on Windows phone, it was a few things that added up to them giving up IMO:

- Being unable to negotiate with companies like Snap to bring apps to the platform. Often this was because of Microsoft's level of sandboxing which prevented certain types of low level access.

- Other app developers never bothering to even try, despite the perfectly servicable APIs provided and ability to write in multiple languages.

- Google was purposefully obstructive with Youtube's APIs IIRC, which eventually made the Youtube app useless.

I bring up that last point, because it seems like the closer to competitive WP -got-, the more google turned the screws. Thinking very specifically about WP10 here, which really was a Swan Song for the platform; using a Widi receiver to get an ad-hoc windows desktop was pretty freaking cool in 2016.

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by chimera77 on Sunday January 30, 2022 @06:42PM (#30142513)
as far back as 2006, years and years before the iPhone came out

iPhone came out in 2007, at least in the US.

Re:Don't forget Microsoft by BlueTemplar on Monday January 31, 2022 @06:54AM (#30147017)
Sure, but when it came out it was pretty barebones : no 3rd party apps, no 3G...
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by GartzenDeHaes on Sunday January 30, 2022 @09:44PM (#30143889)
It also couldn't connect to AD or be managed by System Center.
Re:Don't forget Microsoft by jlcoff on Sunday January 30, 2022 @07:25PM (#30142862)
Windows phone were pretty good. Always been happy with them, of not for the lack of developers interest.