Google actively shooting themselves in the foot. Why would I choose an Android phone over an iPhone if Google continues to remove features and user freedoms that set it apart from apple’s “walled garden”
If Android and iOS are on par in terms of locked down software, I’d probably go back to an iPhone. Not before desperately trying to find a feasible alternative to the duopoly though
I’m really hoping more adoption of Ubuntu Touch and other alternative mobile OSs will come from this, and with that, more support and development to make them feasible alternatives for the average user
This is actually why I ended up switching a couple years ago. I started when Android was balls-to-the-wall customization and there were tons of custom ROMs. You could theme all of Material UI and my phone looked nothing like when I first got it. By the time I left, you could get like one of 5 very expensive phones that had unlocked bootloaders and even those had very few ROMs.
Even with the custom ROMs, the joy was dead. You couldn’t wildly theme everything from the boot logo to the lock screen to the notification bar. It had been boiled down to pretty much the same set of customizations as the iPhone and the iPhone was more reliable. I didn’t want to switch, necessarily, but for my use cases as least, it just ended up being the easier choice.
The FSF phone can’t come quick enough.
I really wonder what their logic is here. I’m very excited to hear that GOS will be partnering with an OEM to hopefully get more support for the project, more frequent security updates, etc.
If I had to guess, I would speculate that their motivation is a long-term play to squash the general perception that Android has more malware (and is therefor less secure) than iPhone. Just about every article I’ve seen to that effect includes (1) enable unknown sources, and (2) install this malware app; so they probably see the current hurdles as insufficient and intend to perma-ban dev accounts that they find signing malware apps.
I’ve never encountered this “bias”. Where is this common?
Mainstream
