Own and iPhone and you are reminded quite often of the benefits of an iCloud subscription.
Try setting up an iPhone w/o an apple account for that matter, or using an Android phone (that hasn't been de-googled) without a Google account.
Not to mention, users expect their files to be with them everywhere. IMHO Microsoft should make OneDrive free with some obscene high file limit and default My Documents to it, and they should have done this back in the Windows XP days.
This is still very doable (or, it was when I got a new phone a couple of years ago). It wasn't even hard to avoid using a Google account.
And then you launch any of the included apps. Chrome wants you to sign in, calendar wants you to sign in, photos wants you to sign in, not to mention Google photos pushes notifications ads trying to sell photo albums.
The photo app will also try to sell you a premium subscription to store your photos online.
The phone is very much designed to be used with a Google account, you can avoid it, but the experience is limited.
Microsoft noticed that people liked having their photos automatically backed up and being able to share them with friends and family. Same goes for documents, being able to push a "share" button on a family finance planning Excel sheet is a lot easier than emailing it around.
There is a lot of crap in the start menu that needs to be removed, and the constant attempts to change the default browser to Edge needs to stop, but "please backup your documents so you don't get all angry at us when your HD dies" is not what I'd call an intrusive ad.
Yes, if you're going to use those apps, you may as well sign in with a Google account. I don't use them, though. There are plenty of better alternatives to all of them.
> The phone is very much designed to be used with a Google account, you can avoid it, but the experience is limited.
No, it's really not limited. It does take a little more setup to install the apps you want, though.
Sounds like your headphones are issuing a play command during the connection process. My car does this. It’s very annoying.
So you might not want music. You turn down the radio and turn it off. Next ignition you find your paired phone starts up Spotify on command from the car and starts playing.
It means you have to never pair your phone. Worse than annoying. Who wants that? At the very least keep volume at 0% if that's what I set it last ignition.
https://github.com/tombonez/noTunes
> noTunes is a macOS application that will prevent iTunes or Apple Music from launching.
Simply launch the noTunes app and iTunes/Music will no longer be able to launch. For example, when bluetooth headphones reconnect.
You can toggle the apps functionality via the menu bar icon with a simple left click.
I don't use a mac anymore, so don't quite remember the specifics, but a quick search brings this up (old, so may not work anymore): https://www.howtogeek.com/274345/stop-itunes-from-launching-...
The issue being discussed here is that certain bluetooth headsets send the play command when they connect. Hence the open source software to prevent that errant play command from launching a media app, if you happen to own a bluetooth headset that has the issue.
You make it sound like there's code to show you ads when you connect a BT headphone. I can't confirm this despite using it daily.
This doesn't happen with AirPods. Nor does it happen with a Sony headphone. So it's not behavior baked into the OS.
I'm also sure you meant Music.app, not Apple Music. When I open Music.app on a Mac, it shows me the local songs. It's also possible to hide Apple Music in Music.app.
While there should ideally be a toggle in the OS to be able to ignore play commands completely from bluetooth devices (to deal with such defective ones), but I don't see it as outright malicious unlike putting spam in the start menul
Bose's highest end headphones.
> While there should ideally be a toggle in the OS to be able to ignore play commands completely from bluetooth devices (to deal with such defective ones), but I don't see it as outright malicious unlike putting spam in the start menul
Windows does the "proper" thing here and starts playing whatever media was last being played, which while annoying, at least is an attempt to follow the standard. (And Windows really goes the extra mile to remember what was last playing, sometimes resuming sound in a browser tab I haven't looked at in several days!)
There's a standard that blesses automatically running a media application when headphones are connected?
Unless it can be disabled, that behavior is beyond obnoxious.
And sometimes calling up some random contact on Teams because it sticks around in the "media" panel. Good times.
This does not happen to me w/ my bose bt earbuds ... curious.
I had to use a jailbreak tweak to fix this: http://cydia.saurik.com/package/com.itortrix.stopplayin12/
How many people have discovered macOS or iOS behaviors with accidental keypresses, swipes or gestures, or long holds on a button or ... bleh.
A similar number to those who have discovered them on Windows, I'd wager.
Every OS update forces me to go through pages and pages of privacy invading settings before letting me use my own computer again. Each time the UI for those settings change with fresh new additions of dark patterns. Each of those settings must be carefully disabled or I'll end up with a key logger on my system.
It's not done even after it shows me the desktop either, proceeding to add Edge to the desktop, taskbar, and the default browser settings, all without even asking.
No other OS comes even close in terms of hostility.
It's not a model dialog, but it is a call to action that doesn't go away.
Maybe the desktop doesn't do this _yet_?