| ▲ | malfist 8 hours ago |
| What are you going to do? Switch to android which has even more ads? What we need is antitrust enforcement so there are other options and more competition. The free market can't fix anything if the market is just a race to the bottom between two companies |
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| ▲ | TheDong 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > Switch to android which has even more ads? Android has more ads if you buy it through a carrier, but you can easily make it have far fewer ads by installing LineageOS, and then installing Firefox with the real uBlock origin (not ublock origin lite). iOS does not allow you to install alternative browsers, nor can you customize the OS to the level of lineageOS, so iOS simply cannot match the best that you can do on android. Android has more of a free market because on my pixel phone, I can choose either Google's android distribution, or LineageOS, or Graphene, or build my own ROM. I can use F-Droid or the google play store. What we need is laws requiring that all iDevices apple makes are open hardware which support installing android, iOS, or a custom OS you build yourself, all hardware-essential drivers are free, and so on. That would let people compete on the software side of thing while Apple's hardware team iterates on that. If iOS really is better on its merits, people would install it even with the option to pick other OSs. |
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| ▲ | Izkata 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Android has more ads if you buy it through a carrier Or just none? I'm not doing anything special and the only ads I ever see are from some games. | | |
| ▲ | HeWhoLurksLate 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I get texts from my carrier that are treated specially and I didn't buy my phone through them |
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| ▲ | eldaisfish 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I invite you, respectfully, to take a moment and consider how many average people would even begin to comprehend anything that you suggested. Android's "free" market comes with the freedom to be bombarded by ads. As much as i used to like that, i now recommend only apple phone and computers to normal people. The average person has no idea what lineageOS is, forget about knowing how to install it. | | |
| ▲ | palata 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > The average person has no idea what lineageOS is The beauty of it is that the average person can buy a LineageOS-enabled system without having to know it's not "normal Android". Look at /e/OS for instance, and hopefully soon GrapheneOS will come preinstalled on some Motorolas. | |
| ▲ | mitxela 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | And AT&T shouldn't allow you to connect other phones, or modems at all. You should only be able to get a phone by renting it monthly from AT&T - everything else should be illegal. | |
| ▲ | Dylan16807 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Personally I did none of that on my android (except set up firefox with ublock), and I get very few ads and they're easily stopped. |
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| ▲ | armadyl 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > What we need is laws requiring that all iDevices apple makes are open hardware which support installing android, iOS, or a custom OS you build yourself, all hardware-essential drivers are free, and so on. I strongly disagree with this sentiment, Apple shouldn’t be forced by the government to allow other OSes on their products. There is a solution to this, it’s simply to stop buying Apple products if that’s a concern. | | |
| ▲ | AnthonyMouse 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > There is a solution to this, it’s simply to stop buying Apple products if that’s a concern. Your proposal is that the way to address market consolidation is to buy a different product. You can see the problem with that, right? Products with a network effect need a critical mass of users to be viable, e.g. to be targeted by third party developers and hardware OEMs. The way they achieve that is by starting off with compatibility with existing apps and devices. If the incumbents can lock them out of doing that then new challengers are doomed and your proposed solution is unavailable. Moreover, it stops being "Apple's product" when they sell it to the customer. | | |
| ▲ | armadyl 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Your proposal is that the way to address market consolidation is to buy a different product. You can see the problem with that, right? Products with a network effect need a critical mass of users to be viable, e.g. to be targeted by third party developers and hardware OEMs. Almost every company, tech or otherwise, even expanding into things like sports have faced this. It’s nothing new. If Android or Linux OEMs want to convince people to move to their ecosystem they should just produce better products that the majority of a population would actually want. Not run to the government to hinder another company because they can’t or won’t compete technologically or brand wise. There is nothing Apple is doing to lock competitors out of the market. iMessage, Facetime? Convince customers that your option is better. And also Apple customers buy the hardware knowing it runs macOS/iOS. Apple has never once advertised the OS is changeable or the ecosystem is “open” unlike Google who started that way and is trying to claw things back. You don’t go to a BBQ place and get mad that it serves meat and demand they start serving vegetarian food. | | |
| ▲ | AnthonyMouse 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Almost every company, tech or otherwise, even expanding into things like sports have faced this. It’s nothing new. "Bad thing has occurred previously, therefore nothing should be done about it"? > If Android or Linux OEMs want to convince people to move to their ecosystem they should just produce better products that the majority of a population would actually want. That's what they're trying to do. "OS that people would actually want" is the one that runs their existing apps on their existing hardware. That's the thing the incumbents are blocking them from doing. "If you want to make a new OS you must first reproduce the entire hardware supply chain and replace the entire installed base of user devices with a new system that has no existing users" is basically saying that you're not allowed to do it. > There is nothing Apple is doing to lock competitors out of the market. iMessage, Facetime? Convince customers that your option is better. If I create a messaging app which is exactly as good as iMessage, but Apple preinstalls theirs and not mine on the majority of US phones and messaging apps have a network effect, what happens? If I make a better messaging app, but Apple bans it from their app store which is the only way to install it on the majority of US phones and messaging apps have a network effect, what happens? > Apple has never once advertised the OS is changeable or the ecosystem is “open” Ma Bell never once advertised that you can use your own phone on their phone network. | | |
| ▲ | armadyl an hour ago | parent [-] | | > "Bad thing has occurred previously, therefore nothing should be done about it"? The solution isn’t degrading another company’s product or forcing them to do x when there’s already existing competition. > That's what they're trying to do. "OS that people would actually want" is the one that runs their existing apps on their existing hardware. That's the thing the incumbents are blocking them from doing. "If you want to make a new OS you must first reproduce the entire hardware supply chain and replace the entire installed base of user devices with a new system that has no existing users" is basically saying that you're not allowed to do it. I mean I just disagree here, I don’t know what else to say. People were fully aware of what Apple was when they bought the products, Apple didn’t trick anyone, or anything. They also are not the sole phone OEM and they don’t have a monopoly. Other companies can step up and provide actual competitive hardware. There’s nothing stopping Samsung or (especially) Google from putting more effort into their lineups to match the performance, fit and finish that Apple users like. They’ve just settled for mediocrity in some aspects (i.e. Google holding onto their Tensor chips, or not improving the UX/UI of Android, or even improving its brand perception). > If I create a messaging app… Not the same thing at all as far as other OSes go, this is more applicable to something like allowing Chromium on iOS. The appropriate comparison would be if another OEMs OS had a messaging feature baked into their OS. Google attempted it (or still does?) and their branding and advertising are just so incredibly bad they do nothing to sway the average population. I think like a lot of the HN users here, the Android and Linux OEMs and even companies like Framework are disconnected from the average consumer and can’t comprehend why people choose Apple and don’t care about all the technical stuff like an unlockable bootloader, installing apks, etc. > Ma Bell never once advertised that you can use your own phone on their phone network. Again, not the same thing as Apple holds nothing near a monopoly in the US or worldwide. |
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| ▲ | lostlogin 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > You don’t go to a BBQ place and get mad that it serves meat and demand they start serving vegetarian food. You might if there were only two restaurants and both were really meaty. Yes, there are more than 2 phone OS options but nearly the whole of the market is those 2. | | |
| ▲ | armadyl 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Then if there’s a good enough product for it, it’ll gain market share. People act like Apple was just miraculously granted market share over Blackberry and that they didn’t create a competitive product to earn that spot. Linux phones are currently a subpar product and it’s not because of Apple. The device hardware sucks and the actual use of desktop Linux hammered into a mobile OS is an extremely poor experience even without app compatibility. | | |
| ▲ | Terr_ 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Then if there’s a good enough product for it, it’ll gain market share. "Your honor, the defense assumes a fact which is not in evidence." Why is that a safe assumption in this market in this decade? There are huge barriers to entry, both natural and artificially-created through market-clout and lobbying. |
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| ▲ | mitxela 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | They do. People won't buy good products if they have green bubbles. Guess who controls the bubble color. Capitalism is the art of making your customers act like this. | | |
| ▲ | armadyl an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | This isn’t permanent. We see the rise and fall of plenty of brands overtime (Nike, Mitsubishi, etc). If your branding and product is good enough you can overcome this. I mean just look at social media networks too that constantly come in and out of the picture. | |
| ▲ | brookst 19 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | I really dislike the sheeple argument. |
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| ▲ | wredcoll 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| What ads does android have? I see ads when I'm inside specific apps, youtube, chrome, etc, but not when I'm using apps that don't have ads? |
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| ▲ | netsharc 41 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Google Photos is always trying to upsell storage beyond 15GB: "(you're going to lose your pictures), turn on backup?". Even pressing the "Search" button got me that prompt once, with some blah blah that AI-assisted search only works when the photos are on the cloud... | |
| ▲ | pfg_ 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | When I first switched to Android, I was shocked to see Google's Photos app send me an ad for buying printed printed framed photos. After turning that off, I haven't noticed many ads. | | |
| ▲ | wredcoll 39 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Huh, I wonder if there's some I've just grown so used to they're a blindspot. I don't use google photos though... |
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| ▲ | kyriakos 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I am either blind to ads or i see no ads in android (samsung). of course many apps have ads, at least not in the actual OS. |
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| ▲ | curt15 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| At least Android allows truly alternative web browsers with ad blockers that aren't handicapped by Manifestv3 limitations. |
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| ▲ | Teever 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | I use the Orion browser on my iPhone and it doesn’t have ads. I also don’t install the YouTube app so I use the browser to visit the YouTube site and have an ad free experience and can even have audio playing on it while the screen is off or I’m in another app so it’s an objectively better experience than using an android device with the YouTube app that is automatically installed on it. | | |
| ▲ | microtonal 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | it’s an objectively better experience than using an android device with the YouTube app that is automatically installed on it It's not better than YouTube after Morphe. Morphe is an app that can patch other apps. It makes the official YouTube app nice by removing ads, skipping over sponsored segments, remove tracking from links, improves the player, etc. Would be extremely hard to do something similar on iOS. |
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| ▲ | adrian_b 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Android by itself does not have any ads. I have had until now 4 Android smartphones, which did not have any ads whatsoever. Like other posters have said, if you do not buy the phone directly, but subsidized by some carrier, then it might come with crap installed on it. Of course, currently Google appears to make efforts to make Android worse, so it would not be surprising if ads would appear. |
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| ▲ | microtonal 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Which Android though? AOSP doesn't have ads. But Samsung phones are full of ads for their own and other's services (McAfee VPN, McAfee security scan, OneDrive, etc.). I heard that Chinese phones are similar. Even Pixel pushes Google One in places. The primary exceptions are GrapheneOS and Lineage, but it's not like people can buy a phone with them in the store (yet). | | |
| ▲ | happymellon 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > I heard that Chinese phones are similar. My Xiaomi has no adverts. But then the Samsung S22 I had before didn't have adverts. Certainly didn't come with McAfee. | |
| ▲ | realusername an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > But Samsung phones are full of ads for their own and other's services I have a Samsung and I've never seen such ads. The kind of ads they are talking there in the article would be in cheap Chinese phones in the Android world I think. | |
| ▲ | BizarroLand 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Moto phones are relatively ad free. There's a few (removable/disableable) apps on it at stock that have ads, the rest is all good. | | |
| ▲ | kbelder 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I've been very happy with the low-end moto phones I've bought, and plan to continue with them until they inevitably get worse. |
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| ▲ | animuchan 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Android user here, switched from iOS (not because of ads, a different gripe). Not going to lie, it's a holistically bad experience, very similar to iOS in this regard. But Android doesn't show ads. The closest thing would be the Google Photos pestering to back up to cloud, things like that. It's per app, and usually there are better apps to replace the offending ones. (And vendor garbage can even be uninstalled, although it's very deliberately inconvenient to do.) Bonus points for having Brave browser with built-in adblock, for the free YouTube Premium-ish ad-free experience. |
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| ▲ | VibrantClarity 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's worse than that. Google Photos sends push notifications telling you to buy photo books and prints unless you opt out. Play Books also sends push notifications telling you to buy particular books; it's also opt out. I'm semi-certain other built-in apps like YouTube and the Play Store do the same.
However, once you turn all that junk off, the Pixel experience is pretty good. | | |
| ▲ | microtonal 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Why would you even enable notifications on these apps? I'm on GrapheneOS, so they are not enabled by default, but I think on Google certified Android you can also switch them off. Also, besides that, if apps implement notifications nicely, they are nicer on Android, because you can turn on/off notifications per category/channel. Of course, some apps just put everything together. |
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| ▲ | petre 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I guess you can disable or uninstall Photos but I don't know anything better so I'm currently ignoring the nags. I was horrified about how many ads my wufe has on her iPhone. I mean web ads in Safari. It's unsusable. | | |
| ▲ | lostlogin 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > I mean web ads in Safari. That’s just the internet isn’t it? Not sure we can blame Apple for that, but I’m sure they could cook up a decent blocker if they wanted. | |
| ▲ | microtonal 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Install Wipr on her phone. Problem solved. About Photos: why not disable notifications for the Google Photos app? | | |
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| ▲ | palata an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Switch to android which has even more ads? I am on Android, I have no ads. |
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| ▲ | graemep 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I do not see a lot of ads on Android but i think that might be my particular (light and limited) usage. You are right though. A duopoly is rarely a competitive market, especially for complex products (it can be for commodities) |
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| ▲ | rootusrootus 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | > that might be my particular (light and limited) usage Probably. There aren't many ads on iOS either aside from when you buy another Apple product and add it to your collection. If you just have the phone you won't see most of the ads mentioned in the article. |
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| ▲ | PontifexMinimus 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Switch to android which has even more ads? I never see ads on my android phone |
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| ▲ | coldpie 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I had an iPhone 13 Mini. I found it to be much worse about ads. Every time I opened the system settings, it would insert an ad for an Apple TV Trial after a 2 second delay, causing all the items to shift down, forcing me to either wait every time I opened Settings or else mis-click when it finished loading the ad. Android doesn't do this, it just shows me the system settings. I was so glad to go back to Android. |
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| ▲ | cyberax 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| My stock Pixel phone has zero ads. It prompts you to enable things like Wallet and all the AI stuff, but I just turned that off, and it's not bothering me anymore. There are no persitent ads. |
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| ▲ | worik 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Switch to android which has even more ads? I use Android No ads. I feel left out, thank Dog for that! |
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| ▲ | 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
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