What is your favorite smartphone OS?

[MC.Morrado]

What is your favorite smartphone OS and why? What works for you and what doesn't? I'm curious how many of you use specific OS's. What features in particular make your favorite smartphone OS hard to replace?

[Eviljuche]

Windows Phone. It had a unified design thing and as acresult of that, all messenger apps looked the same and the light/dark theme switch was there years before Android or iOS managed to implement it. Also, a list of apps in the Start menu is way better than the desktop-ish icon panel we have now on the most of launchers.

[Nayr438]

GrapheneOS, in terms of stability and updates I haven't really seen anything that competes with it. The biggest downside is it requires you to have a somewhat recent Google Pixel. Most OEM Android Roms suffer from the same problem most custom roms do imo, I tend to find them unstable, lacking in updates, or trying to push you into a secondary ecosystem. The two other exceptions would probably be Stock Pixel Android and LineageOS, but LineageOS comes with it own issues.

Linux in this space is imo pretty much unusable, the devices that do exist primarily for this are overpriced developer toys which are borderline e-waste and what support there is for non-native devices are either unstable or barely supported at all. This also ignores that basically no mobile apps actually exist for this platform, just mostly desktop adaptations.

 

Windows imo was going in the right direction, but their inability to compete with Android and IOS devices in both Devices and App support as well as Microsoft pretty much giving up on it pretty much throws it out.

Which lastly brings us to IOS, which honestly if GrapheneOS ever died this is probably where I would end up. It has competitive devices and competes well with GrapheneOS or Stock Pixel Android.

In terms of features, this is something I'm not personally to concerned with. I just want a long-term well supported stable device that just works, which is something the majority of the Android Market fails at imo.

[Doobeedoo]

Ah yeah WP was very good on a good phone back then. Though if we're going to stick to only preinstalled known ones Android for sure, iOS insults my intelligence with UI/UX be it gestures, regular element placements, multitasking.

[Doobeedoo]

8 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

In terms of features, this is something I'm not personally to concerned with. I just want a long-term well supported stable device that just works, which is something the majority of the Android Market fails at imo.

Well for longer support can go Pixel or Galaxy then, I plan to get S25 Ultra.

[Donut417]

iOS. It just works. It does suck in terms of being locked down a bit, some apps like WIFi analyzer dont exist on the platform. But it just works. Have very few bugs. Navigation is very easy. Plus I like the fact I can get Calls and Texts on my MacBook Pro. Not to mention iPhones have long term support, I used my iPhone XR for 5 years, before I started having issues with it. 

[flibberdipper]

Honestly I think the Pixel flavor of Android might be my favorite. Currently have the 15 Pro Max and a Pixel 7 and lately my iPhone has just been pissing me off to no end (a Pixel 7 should not feel significantly faster than a 1 year old Apple flagship), but I'm stuck with it because it has by FAR the most complete health system baked in when paired with the Apple watch and iMessage is pretty handy. And honestly if Google Fit/Fitbit had the same amount of information that Apple Health does I would trade this dumbass phone in for a Pixel 9 XL.

[Mark Kaine]

Android kitkat.. fastest most responsive OS i ever had, good features too.  android kinda went downhill from there and is now a resource hog. 

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

On 2/9/2025 at 1:28 PM, Eviljuche said:

Windows Phone. It had a unified design thing and as acresult of that, all messenger apps looked the same and the light/dark theme switch was there years before Android or iOS managed to implement it. Also, a list of apps in the Start menu is way better than the desktop-ish icon panel we have now on the most of launchers.

the UI is/was awesome... usability sadly wasn't great (no apps)

 

On 2/9/2025 at 1:28 PM, Eviljuche said:

list of apps in the Start menu is way better than the desktop-ish icon panel we have now on the most of launchers

funny enough my desktop/ start menu still looks like this (i wish it was more colorful tho!)