I've been using iPhones since the 3G and feel I have no choice but to switch to Android, anyone feeling the same?

[Skyyblaze]

I've been using iDevices ever since the first iPod Touch which I bought while I was in school still and loved it outright, so much that I quickly upgraded to the second-gen iPod Touch when it became available. At that time it felt so futuristic, polished and great to use like nothing else before. While still very limited back then iOS already felt quite polished and great though since I always was and still am a tinker and modder when I chose my first smartphone I went for a Android G1. Android was said to be the heaven for people like me and while I could see the appeal I exchanged it within a week for an iPhone 3G. Android simply was way too archaic back then, the UI felt functional and you could do what you wanted but it just didn't feel great to use and the hardware of the G1 was lacking so I immediately fell in love all over iDevices again as soon as I used my iPhone 3G. To scratch my modding itch I always turned to jailbreaks and it gave me an almost perfect experience, the power, polish and elegance of iOS and Apple's hardware yet I could still do what I want with it and I always felt the pricing was fair for what I got.

 

Later on I got the iPhone 4 a few months after it launched, I paid 150€ upfront with a 30€ monthly contract fee and things went on like this. I eventually got a iPhone 5, then a 5S and now my current iPhone 6S. Every time I felt I got a good upgrade for a good price and never really paid more than 200€ upfront and 35€ a month because I don't need more than 500mb-1gb of data. I skipped the iPhone 6 in favor of a 5S because back then because I liked the smaller form-factor at that time. And last year when I picked my 6S even though the iPhone X and 8 were already out I looked at the benchmarks and felt the 6S was good enough and I could save some money that way. Using it for a year now I was right, the A10 chip still handles everything I throw at it, including games at highest settings, with ease and it was also easier to jailbreak from the get go.

 

Now I'm able to renew my contract early in July 2019 and pick a new phone if I wanted so I already looked around and to my dismay I noticed for the first time since my iPhone 3G back in 2008 I think I can't really justify to buy an iPhone. I mean yeah Apple always had the premium-pricing extra and I wasn't banking on getting an iPhone X or XS so I was waiting for the XR as the budget option and this .gif literally depicts my reaction when I saw the pricing:

 

 

I checked different providers and saw this:

 

Provider 1:

 

Upfront cost: 1€

Monthly fee: 47€ for the smallest package with 200mb

 

Provider 2:

 

Package 1:

Upfront cost: 99€

Monthly fee: 76€ for 5gb

 

Package 2:

Upfront cost: 729€!!!

Monthly fee: 30€ for 750mb

 

Provider 3:

 

Upfront cost: 399€

Monthly fee: 45€ for 2gb

 

I mean Apple or not the XR is supposed to be the budget-device and if that's the budget pricing then wow, you don't even get an AMOLED display here and these could be had in 2011 Android devices for cheap. I don't even need to have the latest and greatest but an iPhone 7 or iPhone 8 would feel like a pointless sidegrade. They are basically my current iPhone 6S with new internals and like I said before the iPhone 6S still stomps everything I throw at it. No better screen, no bigger screen (the Plus devices are too big for me) and the camera is irrelevant for me, I feel that even my iPhone 4 still takes great photos.

 

And to make a point, it's not that I couldn't afford either the XR or the X or even the XS if I wanted but I honestly can't justify it for myself to pay that much for a smartphone nor do I find the prices any reasonable, I never thought it would happened but Apple increased the premium so much that I have to say "stop" to myself at this point. To make matters even worse, the jailbreak-scene is in this weird limbo right now where it isn't dead but not really alive either and being on a compatible iOS version when a jailbreak drops is more luck or an endless waiting game at this point.

 

So where does this leave me? I guess I finally have to turn to Android devices as much as I dislike it compared to iOS. I looked around and found this phone: https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_mi_8-9065.php

 

For roughly 400€ I can buy it directly, have no monthly fees and even get an AMOLED HDR10 display, then I can just buy myself a 1gb 9.99€/month SIM and be happy trying to arrange myself with Android. I tried a few times before again with an HTC Desire and a Nexus 4 but as with the G1 I quickly went back to my iPhones, I guess I have to make it work this time though. To summarize what I don't like about Android, everything about the UI feels somewhat "cold" and highly functional, which is a good thing at its core, but the whole UI-design language of iOS just appeals more to me. Android feels like a piece of technology while I feel iOS tries to make the user forgot about the technology and provides a more welcoming experience. I currently have a 150€ Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 running MIUI 9 to play around with and I have to say compared to my past tries Android feels better than ever, especially MIUI, but I know I'll miss jailbroken iOS dearly. What also concerned me is that apps and games often skipped Android but thankfully this seems to be largely a think of the past by now.

 

I know the UI is probably a weird thing to get hung up about on, especially for someone who likes to customize and mod but I'm just a UI-nut I guess

 

And I also know it might be somewhat unfair to compare Apple to a Chinese brand in terms of prices but I'm simply saying for the first time in 10 years Apple has no compelling device in my price-category and this is what I find disheartening. Sure prices can still change in half a year but I doubt it will be much better by Summer 2019.

 

What do other people think about this, anyone maybe in the same boat?

[Radium_Angel]

9 minutes ago, Skyyblaze said:

think about this

Step (1) If you are happy with your current iDevice, why upgrade? I still use my rooted Samsung Glaxay S2 Sport and it's going on 5 years old, but the battery life is great and the unit does what I need it to do, so why upgrade?

[voiha]

The pricing seems aight I guess, but holy frick that 200mb/2GB/5GB internet package is so little

[Zeperus]

2 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Step (1) If you are happy with your current iDevice, why upgrade? I still use my rooted Samsung Glaxay S2 Sport and it's going on 5 years old, but the battery life is great and the unit does what I need it to do, so why upgrade?

This

And why Upgrade to the latest and greatest? You could just be a step behind the newest and save a bunch of money. Reading this, you don't sound like someone, who wants to make the switch, rather than someone, who wants to feel "up-to-date". Stay with iOS, if that is what makes you happy. 

[Mooshi]

If price is a factor, boy are you in for a surprise. Premium Android phones cost the same (and sometimes more) than an iPhone. My LG V30 cost more than a base iPhone 8.

 

Modern smart phones that aren't Chinese knockoffs or specifically budget oriented with low specs will easily cost around $800 USD or more.

[LexCalifornia]

Prices, especially for the iPhone X will drop until next summer. Providers will try to sell their stock for cheap so it wouldn't surprise me if you'll be able to get an iPhone X for 1€ upfront and a decent package. Look out for deals. If you tell us what providers / country you're looking at especially, we might be able to help more.

 

Before Christmas you shouldn't look at prices at all. The Xs (Max) and Xr are just out so prices are usually too high. They'll drop.

 

I'm still on my iPhone 7 and I'm not upgrading anytime soon since it works just fine. These yearly phone upgrades is something I really don't like. I tend to use my devices until they really die. If your 6S works, keep it a while longer tbh. No need to jump on the next best thing right away. 

[LukeSavenije]

the miui is something you like or don't like. I like it, but I did it while using a huawei as my main device and miui and emui are pretty much the same

[Skyyblaze]

1 hour ago, Radium_Angel said:

Step (1) If you are happy with your current iDevice, why upgrade? I still use my rooted Samsung Glaxay S2 Sport and it's going on 5 years old, but the battery life is great and the unit does what I need it to do, so why upgrade?

First of all thanks for the replies, let me preface my answers with saying that, if Jailbreaks for iOS didn't exist I wouldn't use iOS entirely and be on Android day one, without it iOS is far too restrictive for my taste but for the past 10 years I had no troubles staying jailbroken.

 

There's a multitude of reasons why I tend to upgrade every now and then:

 

1: Being jailbroken I can't really freely upgrade to newer iOS versions, so I'm pretty much locked on iOS 10. I do have blobs saved for newer iOS versions but the currently signed iOS SEP is incompatible with iOS 11 for A10 devices. I would pretty much bank on a iOS 12 jailbreak being released while any version of iOS 12 is still signed and iOS 10 app-compatibility will fade before long.

 

2: We have a little passing-down chain in my family, whenever I get a new phone my mother gets my old one and my brother gets hers.

3: I messed up my 6S's battery because I was dumb. Last year shortly after I got it I was diagnosed with a chronic illness, had to stay in hospital for a week and couldn't really leave my house for a month afterwards. In an attempt to distract myself I thought why not mess around with the 6S a little and applied a beta Jailbreak. This one was highly unstable and required a ton of reboots to eventually work and whenever it crashed you had to retry over and over again. I endured this for two weeks till my phone miraculously didn't crash for a month and a stable version was released. The damage was already done though, right now my battery sits at 92% capacity after only a year.

So my plan was to get a new phone next year, get a battery-replacement with Apple and then give it to my mum after upgrading it to iOS 12 because getting Apple to replace your battery while leaving your jailbreak intact is hit or miss.

 

4: Jailbreaking is dying more or less, people rather sell their exploits than to burn them for jailbreaks which I can't fault anyone for. And these that we do get usually drop for unsigned firmwares so you have to do a risky manual-upgrade that can fail and force you to restore to the latest iOS version. That and more and more apps and games employ Jailbreak detection that can't be bypasesd so I'm going to be honest here, I hoped be able to ride it out for two more years if a new jailbreak drops but jailbreaking is becoming something rather unsustainable long-term.

 

1 hour ago, voiha said:

The pricing seems aight I guess, but holy frick that 200mb/2GB/5GB internet package is so little

 

 

Really? I could pick up a Samsung Galaxy S9 with no up-front cost for 35€ a month for example.

 

1 hour ago, Zeperus said:

This

And why Upgrade to the latest and greatest? You could just be a step behind the newest and save a bunch of money. Reading this, you don't sound like someone, who wants to make the switch, rather than someone, who wants to feel "up-to-date". Stay with iOS, if that is what makes you happy. 

 

Like said I don't need the latest and greatest but I atleast want a reasonable upgrade. The last time I had the latest and greatest was the iPhone 4, when I got the 5 the 5S was already out but I still got a bigger screen and a dual-core CPU which was a big upgrade back then. When I got the 5S over the 6 and 6S I got TouchID and 64bit which meant alot for future app-support. When I picked the 6S over the 7 and 8 I got a bigger screen. If I would upgrade from the 6S now to a 7 or 8 I get a iPhone 6S with a new CPU and GPU and that's it while, like said, the GPU and CPU of the 6S are still more than enough. I also have more reasons as to why I want to upgrade above.

 

1 hour ago, Mooshi said:

If price is a factor, boy are you in for a surprise. Premium Android phones cost the same (and sometimes more) than an iPhone. My LG V30 cost more than a base iPhone 8.

 

Modern smart phones that aren't Chinese knockoffs or specifically budget oriented with low specs will easily cost around $800 USD or more.

 

As I wrote above, I could pick up a Galaxy S9 for 35€ a month with no up-front cost. And honest question, would there be anything bad about the Xiaomi Mi 8? I'm not familiar with Android power-classes but the Snapdragon 845 is pretty high-end right? That along with a HDR10 AMOLED display for ~400€ wholesale sounds great and I heard nothing but praise for Xiaomi build-quality. I sold all my Android friends on Xiaomi devices and nobody had an issue aside from dodgy reseller ROMs but that was usually quickly resolved.

 

1 hour ago, LexCalifornia said:

Prices, especially for the iPhone X will drop until next summer. Providers will try to sell their stock for cheap so it wouldn't surprise me if you'll be able to get an iPhone X for 1€ upfront and a decent package. Look out for deals. If you tell us what providers / country you're looking at especially, we might be able to help more.

 

Before Christmas you shouldn't look at prices at all. The Xs (Max) and Xr are just out so prices are usually too high. They'll drop.

 

I'm still on my iPhone 7 and I'm not upgrading anytime soon since it works just fine. These yearly phone upgrades is something I really don't like. I tend to use my devices until they really die. If your 6S works, keep it a while longer tbh. No need to jump on the next best thing right away. 

 

That's something I didn't think about, I wasn't aware that phone prices are so sensitive to the holiday season aswell as I usually buy my phones around late summer, thanks for the reminder What worried me though is that two carriers already told me the iPhone X will be pretty much effectively removed from sale as soon as the XR drops. As for the 6S, as much as I wouldn't really mind sticking with it as I outlined above that comes with a few troubles for me and I'm more than aware that this is a situation I have nobody to blame for but myself

 

My main source of dismay is mainly the iPhone 7 and 8 being a souped up iPhone 6 which robs me compelling low-cost upgrade options. But with me relying on jailbreaks to enjoy iOS I guess it's also part of me realizing that, after 10 years, it might be time to say goodbye to them as it gets harder and harder to achieve them with each generation. And I'm in Germany by the way.

[Skyyblaze]

48 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

the miui is something you like or don't like. I like it, but I did it while using a huawei as my main device and miui and emui are pretty much the same

 

I'm using MIUI9 on a Redmi Note 4 test device at the moment and bar a few annoyances I'm honestly impressed compared to the early days of Android, what I saw of MIUI10 looks even better!

[LukeSavenije]

1 minute ago, Skyyblaze said:

 

I'm using MIUI9 on a Redmi Note 4 test device at the moment and bar a few annoyances I'm honestly impressed compared to the early days of Android, what I saw of MIUI10 looks even better!

I've been using the pocophone for 3 days, and also love miui. so if that's not a problem, you are better off with that or something like the oneplus 6(t). or a pocophone or a honor play if you want something cheaper with a great lcd, but no oled

[Skyyblaze]

1 minute ago, LukeSavenije said:

I've been using the pocophone for 3 days, and also love miui. so if that's not a problem, you are better off with that or something like the oneplus 6(t). or a pocophone or a honor play if you want something cheaper with a great lcd, but no oled

I heard good things about the Pocophone, doesn't it run a special MIUI Remix? And how would these two compare to the Mi 8? I don't mind dropping 400-450€ on a good devices aslong as it doesn't also come with high monthly fees ontop of it. Data-plan wise I'm happy with a 9.99€ 1gb SIM.

[voiha]

18 minutes ago, Skyyblaze said:

Really? I could pick up a Samsung Galaxy S9 with no up-front cost for 35€ a month for example.

Doesn't up-front means that you pay some of the value of the phone as a first payment, then you continue to pay the rest of it in a year or two contract.

[Skyyblaze]

32 minutes ago, voiha said:

Doesn't up-front means that you pay some of the value of the phone as a first payment, then you continue to pay the rest of it in a year or two contract.

 

Normally yes but at many German providers the S9 is listed as 1€ with 35€ a month for 2-years including the SIM/data.

[DrMacintosh]

iPhone XR is not a budget iPhone, it is the default iPhone. iPhone Xs and Xs Max are the premium iPhones. iPhone 7 is the “budget” iPhone. 

 

Apple also still offers iPhone models all the way back to the iPhone 7 which start at $449

 

iPhone XR is $750 and has way better storage tiers and $750 is more than reasonable imo. If you don’t think so, the 7 and 8 exist and are still extremely powerful and relevant smartphones. 

[Skyyblaze]

29 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

iPhone XR is not a budget iPhone, it is the default iPhone. iPhone Xs and Xs Max are the premium iPhones. iPhone 7 is the “budget” iPhone. 

 

Apple also still offers iPhone models all the way back to the iPhone 7 which start at $449

 

iPhone XR is $750 and has way better storage tiers and $750 is more than reasonable imo. If you don’t think so, the 7 and 8 exist and are still extremely powerful and relevant smartphones. 

 

I get that much as I stated in my previous post but I still think the pricing is out of whack if you can get one of the Premium Flagship Android phones, the S9, for way less than the default iPhone, nevermind the premium ones.

[DrMacintosh]

35 minutes ago, Skyyblaze said:

 

I get that much as I stated in my previous post but I still think the pricing is out of whack if you can get one of the Premium Flagship Android phones, the S9, for way less than the default iPhone, nevermind the premium ones.

An S9 costs $720 unlocked is only $30 cheaper....that is a far cry from “way less” than a XR. 

 

The XR also has a bigger display, better camera, better speakers, a faster SoC, and has dual sims. 

 

I would say a XR>>S9

[Skyyblaze]

14 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

An S9 costs $720 unlocked is only $30 cheaper....that is a far cry from “way less” than a XR. 

 

The XR also has a bigger display, better camera, better speakers, a faster SoC, and has dual sims. 

 

I would say a XR>>S9

Point taken although I'm talking costs with a monthly contract here in Germany where the S9 can be had without any upfront cost and for 20€ less a month than the XR. Could that be a Germany-only thing as far as Samsung goes?

[D13H4RD]

8 hours ago, Skyyblaze said:

Point taken although I'm talking costs with a monthly contract here in Germany where the S9 can be had without any upfront cost and for 20€ less a month than the XR. Could that be a Germany-only thing as far as Samsung goes?

Probably is. Over here, you can get the iPhones without an upfront payment.

 

To be honest though, deciding between the 2 is a lot about what you prefer. I’ll break down the pros and cons of each device

 

Galaxy S9

+ More features and stuff out of the box

+ Display has significantly deeper contrast due to being OLED

+ Fingerprint sensor if you don’t want facial unlocking 

+ Has manual camera settings in the native camera app if you care about that

- Curved edges not for everyone 

- Only supported for 2-3 years guaranteed, with the period after that being more lenient

- Does not support eSIM but some SKUs do have dual physical SIM slots

 

iPhone XR

+ More powerful SoC

+ Display less prone to burn-in due to being LCD, alongside better accuracy in relation to the P3 and sRGB gamut

+ Supported for 4-5 years at least 

+ Better camera processing (nearly identical hardware minus the S9’s stacked DRAM sensor)

- Only comes with a 5W charger (if you have an iPad charger, probably not a biggie but 5W is pretty slow)

- Does not have a headphone jack and no headphone dongle is included 

+/- Quite a bit bigger than the S9, so it depends on how much you value bigger phones 

[LexCalifornia]

21 hours ago, Skyyblaze said:

That's something I didn't think about, I wasn't aware that phone prices are so sensitive to the holiday season aswell as I usually buy my phones around late summer, thanks for the reminder What worried me though is that two carriers already told me the iPhone X will be pretty much effectively removed from sale as soon as the XR drops. As for the 6S, as much as I wouldn't really mind sticking with it as I outlined above that comes with a few troubles for me and I'm more than aware that this is a situation I have nobody to blame for but myself

 

My main source of dismay is mainly the iPhone 7 and 8 being a souped up iPhone 6 which robs me compelling low-cost upgrade options. But with me relying on jailbreaks to enjoy iOS I guess it's also part of me realizing that, after 10 years, it might be time to say goodbye to them as it gets harder and harder to achieve them with each generation. And I'm in Germany by the way.

Carriers tell you a lot that isn't necessarily true. Just take a look around. If I'm not mistaken, every major German carrier should still serve iPhone 7/8, even the plus models, at a huge discount. 

 

When phones come out you usually get them bundled with higher contracts for free or €1.- (it's German law that they charge 1.- at least, I think). Some carriers will even charge you 49.- or 99.- upfront.

 

I seem to always have jumped the uneven numbers when it comes to iPhones. 3G, 5S, 7. Since they didn't put out a 9, I gotta wait. :P

 

The Xr as the "low end" model will get cheaper in 6 months, it's usually always the same. Some carriers will "throw" it out for free even, if they can get you to renew your contract. A nice little chat or even phone call with them sometimes gets you more than the online-shop options are offering. Like "You know, I'm your customer for 10+ years, my whole family runs on your network, so what can you offer me?".

 

If you really want to go with Android, wait until the new update policy is in place. Google now wants manufacturers to support devices for at least 2 years (per contract). Which is new, welcome and long overdue. I've seen a lot of companies drop even flagship phones when it comes to support. Samsung for example can be really slow.

 

Otherwise read through the forums, especially manufacturer support forums and find out which flagship phones have problems and how common they are.

 

As for Germany, I'm a huge fan of Vodafone to be honest since they're offering great customer service (at least in the business department) and even some of their pre-paid plans can challenge monthly plans.

 

If you happen to have a newspaper subscription for a major German newspaper, you can sometimes get actual smartphones at a discount or a monthly rate and switch to pre-paid.

 

I've had 2 Android devices as my company supplied them, the first Samsung Galaxy S (which ended up having a discussion with a wall) and a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge (which got dim lines in the display after 1.5 years). The S7E at least was an amazing phone otherwise, the display was great and battery was decent. If it wouldn't have been for the huge delay in Android 8 support by Samsung, I might've stuck with it for a work.

 

Keep an eye out for Android bugs (as there are more than iOS bugs). Also Android uses more data due to background processes than iOS.

 

Also, I know that every company is collecting data nowadays but...: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/your-smartphone-is-spying-on-you-android-collects-10-times-more-data-than-ios/articleshow/65517731.cms

 

This is another reason why I'm not the biggest fan of Android.

 

But still, good luck with your search, I hope you'll find a nice phone. :) 

[Skyyblaze]

On 10/27/2018 at 6:07 AM, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

Probably is. Over here, you can get the iPhones without an upfront payment.

 

To be honest though, deciding between the 2 is a lot about what you prefer. I’ll break down the pros and cons of each device

 

Galaxy S9

+ More features and stuff out of the box

+ Display has significantly deeper contrast due to being OLED

+ Fingerprint sensor if you don’t want facial unlocking 

+ Has manual camera settings in the native camera app if you care about that

- Curved edges not for everyone 

- Only supported for 2-3 years guaranteed, with the period after that being more lenient

- Does not support eSIM but some SKUs do have dual physical SIM slots

 

iPhone XR

+ More powerful SoC

+ Display less prone to burn-in due to being LCD, alongside better accuracy in relation to the P3 and sRGB gamut

+ Supported for 4-5 years at least 

+ Better camera processing (nearly identical hardware minus the S9’s stacked DRAM sensor)

- Only comes with a 5W charger (if you have an iPad charger, probably not a biggie but 5W is pretty slow)

- Does not have a headphone jack and no headphone dongle is included 

+/- Quite a bit bigger than the S9, so it depends on how much you value bigger phones 

 

Interesting I had no idea regions could vary this much with the pricing of new phones. Thanks for the comparison between these two too, I'm honestly a person that doesn't mind messing with ROMs and making myself comfortable with a device even if it means I have to tinker with it. I'll keep an eye on prices over the next year and then see if I give Apple and the XR another two years or not. The biggest factor next to cost is the jailbreak situation as iOS is completely uninteresting to me without one.

 

On 10/27/2018 at 10:28 AM, LexCalifornia said:

Carriers tell you a lot that isn't necessarily true. Just take a look around. If I'm not mistaken, every major German carrier should still serve iPhone 7/8, even the plus models, at a huge discount. 

 

When phones come out you usually get them bundled with higher contracts for free or €1.- (it's German law that they charge 1.- at least, I think). Some carriers will even charge you 49.- or 99.- upfront.

 

I seem to always have jumped the uneven numbers when it comes to iPhones. 3G, 5S, 7. Since they didn't put out a 9, I gotta wait.

 

The Xr as the "low end" model will get cheaper in 6 months, it's usually always the same. Some carriers will "throw" it out for free even, if they can get you to renew your contract. A nice little chat or even phone call with them sometimes gets you more than the online-shop options are offering. Like "You know, I'm your customer for 10+ years, my whole family runs on your network, so what can you offer me?".

 

If you really want to go with Android, wait until the new update policy is in place. Google now wants manufacturers to support devices for at least 2 years (per contract). Which is new, welcome and long overdue. I've seen a lot of companies drop even flagship phones when it comes to support. Samsung for example can be really slow.

 

Otherwise read through the forums, especially manufacturer support forums and find out which flagship phones have problems and how common they are.

 

As for Germany, I'm a huge fan of Vodafone to be honest since they're offering great customer service (at least in the business department) and even some of their pre-paid plans can challenge monthly plans.

 

If you happen to have a newspaper subscription for a major German newspaper, you can sometimes get actual smartphones at a discount or a monthly rate and switch to pre-paid.

 

I've had 2 Android devices as my company supplied them, the first Samsung Galaxy S (which ended up having a discussion with a wall) and a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge (which got dim lines in the display after 1.5 years). The S7E at least was an amazing phone otherwise, the display was great and battery was decent. If it wouldn't have been for the huge delay in Android 8 support by Samsung, I might've stuck with it for a work.

 

Keep an eye out for Android bugs (as there are more than iOS bugs). Also Android uses more data due to background processes than iOS.

 

Also, I know that every company is collecting data nowadays but...: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/your-smartphone-is-spying-on-you-android-collects-10-times-more-data-than-ios/articleshow/65517731.cms

 

This is another reason why I'm not the biggest fan of Android.

 

But still, good luck with your search, I hope you'll find a nice phone.

 

Good point yeah, since I'm not in a hurry to buy a new phone as my contract still runs till Summer I'll monitor the situation. And yeah I know that the 1€ is mandatory I just figured it wan't worth mentioning in the grand scheme of things, even 49€-199€ wouldn't be a big deal to me aslong as I can keep the monthly-cost at 35€ or so. I barely call with my phone and 99% of places where I go have accessible WiFi, all I'm using mobile-data for is What'sApp/IM's and browsing forums with maybe a bit of Twitter usage here and there, I barely hardly the 500mb mark per month.

 

Ehehe that's fair, I mean you shouldn't break your habits like that

 

Like said I'll keep an eye on prices but I doubt I'll get any meaningful bonus as I tend to jump carries alot, before I've been with T-Mobile, then O2 and right now I'm with Mobilcom Debitel/E-Plus, I always go where the cheapest prices are.

 

Thanks for the tips about Android too, it feels more like my switch to Android is inevitable and I only delay it a bit longer and longer each time. While I prefer iOS, like said, I need my jailbreaks and I was already ready to jump ship last year because I didn't see the scene having much of a future. Then Saigon appeared out of nowhere and prolonged things, right now we have Electra and unCover for iOS 11 but I feel the scene falls apart from the inside more and more. Saurik disappeared, Cydia didn't get any meaningful updates in ages, 100% reliable jailbreaks can only be achieved with paid developer certificates, till a while ago the only working theming software was a huge battery and resource drain and there is a lot of infighting about monitarization and whatnot. Competition is good and I don't mind compensating devs for their work but setting most of the jailbreak scene up as commercial nowadays instead of donation-based rubs me the wrong way seeing how it all started. That and being on a firmware that can be jailbroken is more luck or patience on stock firmware these days, with very limited upgrade options. Up to iOS 8 everything was still great and fine but now It feels the Jailbreak Wonderland is slowly collapsing and Android is becoming the only place left where I can do what I want to do even if I like it less overall plus more and more apps and games refuse to run on jailbroken devices with no workaround.

 

Interesting about Vodafone, I heard terrible things about their landline internet business but maybe their mobile-division is different. I don't have a newspaper subscription but you remind me of somethings, don't power-providers do something similar? I'll keep an eye out for this.

 

Thanks for the impressions aswell, being on the latest and greatest OS isn't a huge deal for me as I'm used to be 1-2 versions behind on iPhones due to jailbreaks. I had no idea about the data-collection, that's quite terrible but if it's inevitable on the Android-side, while I don't feel happy about it, I don't feel too personally impacted. It might sound weird but I rarely do anything private or sensitive with my phone aside from messaging my friends and family. Everything else like banking and work I do on my Macbook with OSX.

 

And thanks, the Mi 8 looks damn appealing right now really

[LexCalifornia]

On 10/28/2018 at 1:19 PM, Skyyblaze said:

 

Interesting I had no idea regions could vary this much with the pricing of new phones. Thanks for the comparison between these two too, I'm honestly a person that doesn't mind messing with ROMs and making myself comfortable with a device even if it means I have to tinker with it. I'll keep an eye on prices over the next year and then see if I give Apple and the XR another two years or not. The biggest factor next to cost is the jailbreak situation as iOS is completely uninteresting to me without one.

 

 

Good point yeah, since I'm not in a hurry to buy a new phone as my contract still runs till Summer I'll monitor the situation. And yeah I know that the 1€ is mandatory I just figured it wan't worth mentioning in the grand scheme of things, even 49€-199€ wouldn't be a big deal to me aslong as I can keep the monthly-cost at 35€ or so. I barely call with my phone and 99% of places where I go have accessible WiFi, all I'm using mobile-data for is What'sApp/IM's and browsing forums with maybe a bit of Twitter usage here and there, I barely hardly the 500mb mark per month.

 

Ehehe that's fair, I mean you shouldn't break your habits like that

 

Like said I'll keep an eye on prices but I doubt I'll get any meaningful bonus as I tend to jump carries alot, before I've been with T-Mobile, then O2 and right now I'm with Mobilcom Debitel/E-Plus, I always go where the cheapest prices are.

 

Thanks for the tips about Android too, it feels more like my switch to Android is inevitable and I only delay it a bit longer and longer each time. While I prefer iOS, like said, I need my jailbreaks and I was already ready to jump ship last year because I didn't see the scene having much of a future. Then Saigon appeared out of nowhere and prolonged things, right now we have Electra and unCover for iOS 11 but I feel the scene falls apart from the inside more and more. Saurik disappeared, Cydia didn't get any meaningful updates in ages, 100% reliable jailbreaks can only be achieved with paid developer certificates, till a while ago the only working theming software was a huge battery and resource drain and there is a lot of infighting about monitarization and whatnot. Competition is good and I don't mind compensating devs for their work but setting most of the jailbreak scene up as commercial nowadays instead of donation-based rubs me the wrong way seeing how it all started. That and being on a firmware that can be jailbroken is more luck or patience on stock firmware these days, with very limited upgrade options. Up to iOS 8 everything was still great and fine but now It feels the Jailbreak Wonderland is slowly collapsing and Android is becoming the only place left where I can do what I want to do even if I like it less overall plus more and more apps and games refuse to run on jailbroken devices with no workaround.

 

Interesting about Vodafone, I heard terrible things about their landline internet business but maybe their mobile-division is different. I don't have a newspaper subscription but you remind me of somethings, don't power-providers do something similar? I'll keep an eye out for this.

 

Thanks for the impressions aswell, being on the latest and greatest OS isn't a huge deal for me as I'm used to be 1-2 versions behind on iPhones due to jailbreaks. I had no idea about the data-collection, that's quite terrible but if it's inevitable on the Android-side, while I don't feel happy about it, I don't feel too personally impacted. It might sound weird but I rarely do anything private or sensitive with my phone aside from messaging my friends and family. Everything else like banking and work I do on my Macbook with OSX.

 

And thanks, the Mi 8 looks damn appealing right now really

Well, if you need to use skins because the iOS look gives you eye cancer, then yes, there might be really only Android left for you.

 

Writing those jailbreaks is challenging, just take a look at the developer forums or r/jailbreak. It's interesting to watch but sometimes you can feel their pain.

 

I don't think I could get around the corner with 500 MB to be honest.  

I remember colleagues of mine going to the UK to buy their iPhone 5s because they saved a ton of money back then. German pricing is quite at the upper end tho. So it's always worth looking out for deals.

 

When it comes to networks, my main focus is always on stability and coverage. My company issued O2 bound phones in 2017 but since their coverage was so bad in some major European cities, we switched to Vodafone instead. I haven't had any issues with their business service. I can't tell about the normal service tho.

 

From what I've heard, anything cable in Germany is usually better than anything DSL. The apartment I still hold onto has a Unitymedia (?) line and that works fine when I'm there. 

 

Scrubbing through the Android side of things, that new OnePlus 6T is pretty appealing tho. But in the end it all comes down to software and my overall experience with Android wasn't that great personally so I'll be stuck with iOS till the end of the world I guess?

 

That Ubuntu phone from a years back died in a dark corner, sadly. I looked forward to that. But we'll see what comes next. I'm just off the Apple Event and when I think about how much power they nowadays pack into a tablet alone, I expect seeing much more capable phones in 2-3 years with full blown operating systems. Huge leap forward.

[Skyyblaze]

On 10/30/2018 at 4:51 PM, LexCalifornia said:

Well, if you need to use skins because the iOS look gives you eye cancer, then yes, there might be really only Android left for you.

 

Writing those jailbreaks is challenging, just take a look at the developer forums or r/jailbreak. It's interesting to watch but sometimes you can feel their pain.

 

I don't think I could get around the corner with 500 MB to be honest.  

I remember colleagues of mine going to the UK to buy their iPhone 5s because they saved a ton of money back then. German pricing is quite at the upper end tho. So it's always worth looking out for deals.

 

When it comes to networks, my main focus is always on stability and coverage. My company issued O2 bound phones in 2017 but since their coverage was so bad in some major European cities, we switched to Vodafone instead. I haven't had any issues with their business service. I can't tell about the normal service tho.

 

From what I've heard, anything cable in Germany is usually better than anything DSL. The apartment I still hold onto has a Unitymedia (?) line and that works fine when I'm there. 

 

Scrubbing through the Android side of things, that new OnePlus 6T is pretty appealing tho. But in the end it all comes down to software and my overall experience with Android wasn't that great personally so I'll be stuck with iOS till the end of the world I guess?

 

That Ubuntu phone from a years back died in a dark corner, sadly. I looked forward to that. But we'll see what comes next. I'm just off the Apple Event and when I think about how much power they nowadays pack into a tablet alone, I expect seeing much more capable phones in 2-3 years with full blown operating systems. Huge leap forward.

 

Sorry for the late reply!

 

It's not that stock iOS gives me eye-cancer but it's just way too limited, I can't even arrange the icons freely or let alone change to a different icon-theme. I don't necessarily put usability first on "home" devices. Sure if it's something I strictly need to get work done I don't care how it looks but with my private, daily-life devices I want a good mix of form and function and while iOS looks beautiful out-of-the-box, I don't like the thought of having a pretty house if I can't even rearrange the furniture. change the carpets or paint the walls to give a metaphor.

 

No doubt that coming up with these exploits is hard, I'm a member of /r/jailbreak and I don't blame anyone, I'm simply saying that maintaining and getting to a JB firmware simply becomes more of a hassle than it's worth it for me. And I see, interesting that the UK for instance is cheaper, the more you know.

 

Alright good to know about Vodafone, I'll look through a few user-review sites and see if I can find a general consensus for their normal service.

 

Hmm well from what I heard of friends who work for IT-companies, so many people switched to fast cable lines here between 2015-2018 that they are now hopelessly overloaded in some areas while the phone-network got less of a workload nowadays making it more reliable.

 

I'm curious, when was the last time you tried Android? I felt the same but I have to say starting with 8.0 Oreo  Android really starts to feel "okay" nowadays.

 

Yeah the Ubuntu phone was a huge bummer as it was a pretty interesting project but yeah I agree with you, we have exciting times ahead, I hope we just won't be too locked-down as users.

[LexCalifornia]

17 hours ago, Skyyblaze said:

 

Sorry for the late reply!

 

It's not that stock iOS gives me eye-cancer but it's just way too limited, I can't even arrange the icons freely or let alone change to a different icon-theme. I don't necessarily put usability first on "home" devices. Sure if it's something I strictly need to get work done I don't care how it looks but with my private, daily-life devices I want a good mix of form and function and while iOS looks beautiful out-of-the-box, I don't like the thought of having a pretty house if I can't even rearrange the furniture. change the carpets or paint the walls to give a metaphor.

 

No doubt that coming up with these exploits is hard, I'm a member of /r/jailbreak and I don't blame anyone, I'm simply saying that maintaining and getting to a JB firmware simply becomes more of a hassle than it's worth it for me. And I see, interesting that the UK for instance is cheaper, the more you know.

 

Alright good to know about Vodafone, I'll look through a few user-review sites and see if I can find a general consensus for their normal service.

 

Hmm well from what I heard of friends who work for IT-companies, so many people switched to fast cable lines here between 2015-2018 that they are now hopelessly overloaded in some areas while the phone-network got less of a workload nowadays making it more reliable.

 

I'm curious, when was the last time you tried Android? I felt the same but I have to say starting with 8.0 Oreo  Android really starts to feel "okay" nowadays.

 

Yeah the Ubuntu phone was a huge bummer as it was a pretty interesting project but yeah I agree with you, we have exciting times ahead, I hope we just won't be too locked-down as users.

Don't sweat it

 

I do understand that. For me personally it's easier to have the same layout on all my devices. I put usability very high on my must-have list tho. But I gotta say I enjoyed Nova launcher and the option to resize icons. Fun fact: I keep my first screen icon free. I wanna see my wallpaper from time to time.  The only thing I'm really missing is the ability to arrange icons so they're all on the lower end of the screen. Reachability is a useful feature but would be unnecessary if I could drop icons down.

 

Well, if you look at it from Apple's sides, it's not only that people can get around the App Store, it's a security flaw if a Jailbreak is discovered. Imagine being a software company that focuses on security and some *exaggerated* script kiddy is giving you hell for your money. The main reason a lot of companies are giving out iPhones instead of Android phones is the security iOS provides over Android in general. Every time a jailbreak is discovered, that sentiment takes a hit. But yeah, for the normal user it's different. 

Maybe Germany should open up its market for French providers. A friend of mine has an Orange contract with unlimited international calls, texts and internet for merely 30 bucks a month.^^ And he says their service is A+.

 

That's interesting. Which area are we talking about? My company has offices in Heidelberg, Frankfurt and Hamburg. You can gain a huge offload off your lines if you centralise your server hardware. For example, the closer your servers are to the DE-CIX framework in Frankfurt, the faster things get. But from there it becomes more complicated. If the service provider hasn't updated their nodes and made them reliable for huge loads - which most providers are reluctant to do because it costs a pretty dollar - things get slow. Compare the speeds in older industrial areas with the ones in newer industrial areas. Remember when companies wanted railroad access for their shipments so they built near a line? It's kind of the same with data line networks. Sadly governments barely understand the importance of fast internet nowadays so they don't invest enough in development and expansion of existing networks. 

 

The last Android phone I had was a Galaxy S7 Edge. And I nearly only bought it because it was such a beautiful device and felt so good in the hand. It was gorgeous! A bit too big for my taste but still a beautiful device. And the camera was pretty impressive too, especially that super fast auto focus. But in the end it comes down to software. Even security updates take Samsung such a long time to implement and over time that thing got slower. More App crashes than I'd like to have and I got annoyed by that split second it tool longer to open some apps. Ultimately the screen started having translucent lines so I had to send it in for repairs. And when it came back (they even put a new battery in), I just didn't use it anymore. There weren't any Android updates (especially to Android 8 ) on the horizon, although promised, so I gave it to my little brother (who's still happy with it) and relieved my company from another iPhone 7. If it collects dust on a shelf, they practically beg you to take one lol.

 

I think the thing I missed the most was the symbiosis of the eco system. If you already got a Mac it makes things so much easier. From answering messages without having to get your phone to even answering phone calls right from your desktop. I missed AirDrop and iCloud a ton when I used the Galaxy. And yes, I know, the Macintosh universe is pretty expensive upfront but - to me - it's worth it. I bought my last iMac in late 2010 and even tho it won't get Mojave, I expect it to get security updates for 2 more years. If that's done it's time for another upgrade. 2,200 dollars in 10 years for a computer that keeps working and being usable is pretty neat. And I don't have to put up with break-all-things Windows updates. My gaming rig was a whole other story. Non working drivers, GPUs (hey Asus!) that were bad right out of the box and needed a bios re-flash and... Windows 10. I invested at least 3-4 times the cost in that rig than I ever invested in my iMac. And, back to topic, you can't sync your Android phone just to your Mac. And that's kinda a deal breaker for me. Reliability, like I said, is something I value very highly. It's like buying a car. If you wanted it to just run, you got the last or pre-last Tahoe (at a discount of course). If you fancied your dealership too much, you got a Saab. Any Saab.

 

I think more variety on the market would do the consumer good. Symbian & Blackberry OS died because Nokia and BB didn't get the significance mobile OS's would have a few years down the road. "Nobody wants to use a touch screen!"^^
Ubuntu died because it couldn't get a real grip and although there were a number of people interested in, most consumers are afraid when they're hearing "it's a Linux phone". And back then, running desktop apps on phone hardware was... challenging to say at least.

 

But with the latest developments, things are getting interesting, finally. I mean, Photoshop is coming to tablets. iPads at least. I don't agree with a lot of decisions companies make and it will always be a quit-pro-quo, kinda. USB-C isn't as reliable as people would like it to have, vendors will scam you with cheap USB 2.0 USB-C cables, that camera bump on the new iPad Pro models is an atrocity of design (otherwise it's kinda nice) but taking away the headphone jack and then advertising DJ software on it... Well. The consumer will always be limited and locked down in a way. And sometimes I think it's the designer's fault. "Make it thinner", "Make it charge wirelessly", "All connections on one port". If designers would say "I could do it but it's just pure f***ery", things might be different. But that's just my five cents.  

 

Fast Auto-Focus of the Galaxy cameras, photo quality of the Pixels, reliability of iOS, icon arrangement of Nova launcher, built like a tank like the old Nokias, thin as the iPhone X, under-screen finger print sensor, sync ability like between iOS and MacOS, battery runtime of the CAT S41, looking like a bigger iPhone 5, no camera bump and a headphone jack. I'd be sold!  But I'm not getting what I want, am I?  

[Skyyblaze]

On 11/9/2018 at 12:19 PM, LexCalifornia said:

Don't sweat it

 

I do understand that. For me personally it's easier to have the same layout on all my devices. I put usability very high on my must-have list tho. But I gotta say I enjoyed Nova launcher and the option to resize icons. Fun fact: I keep my first screen icon free. I wanna see my wallpaper from time to time.  The only thing I'm really missing is the ability to arrange icons so they're all on the lower end of the screen. Reachability is a useful feature but would be unnecessary if I could drop icons down.

 

Well, if you look at it from Apple's sides, it's not only that people can get around the App Store, it's a security flaw if a Jailbreak is discovered. Imagine being a software company that focuses on security and some *exaggerated* script kiddy is giving you hell for your money. The main reason a lot of companies are giving out iPhones instead of Android phones is the security iOS provides over Android in general. Every time a jailbreak is discovered, that sentiment takes a hit. But yeah, for the normal user it's different. 

Maybe Germany should open up its market for French providers. A friend of mine has an Orange contract with unlimited international calls, texts and internet for merely 30 bucks a month.^^ And he says their service is A+.

 

That's interesting. Which area are we talking about? My company has offices in Heidelberg, Frankfurt and Hamburg. You can gain a huge offload off your lines if you centralise your server hardware. For example, the closer your servers are to the DE-CIX framework in Frankfurt, the faster things get. But from there it becomes more complicated. If the service provider hasn't updated their nodes and made them reliable for huge loads - which most providers are reluctant to do because it costs a pretty dollar - things get slow. Compare the speeds in older industrial areas with the ones in newer industrial areas. Remember when companies wanted railroad access for their shipments so they built near a line? It's kind of the same with data line networks. Sadly governments barely understand the importance of fast internet nowadays so they don't invest enough in development and expansion of existing networks. 

 

The last Android phone I had was a Galaxy S7 Edge. And I nearly only bought it because it was such a beautiful device and felt so good in the hand. It was gorgeous! A bit too big for my taste but still a beautiful device. And the camera was pretty impressive too, especially that super fast auto focus. But in the end it comes down to software. Even security updates take Samsung such a long time to implement and over time that thing got slower. More App crashes than I'd like to have and I got annoyed by that split second it tool longer to open some apps. Ultimately the screen started having translucent lines so I had to send it in for repairs. And when it came back (they even put a new battery in), I just didn't use it anymore. There weren't any Android updates (especially to Android 8 ) on the horizon, although promised, so I gave it to my little brother (who's still happy with it) and relieved my company from another iPhone 7. If it collects dust on a shelf, they practically beg you to take one lol.

 

I think the thing I missed the most was the symbiosis of the eco system. If you already got a Mac it makes things so much easier. From answering messages without having to get your phone to even answering phone calls right from your desktop. I missed AirDrop and iCloud a ton when I used the Galaxy. And yes, I know, the Macintosh universe is pretty expensive upfront but - to me - it's worth it. I bought my last iMac in late 2010 and even tho it won't get Mojave, I expect it to get security updates for 2 more years. If that's done it's time for another upgrade. 2,200 dollars in 10 years for a computer that keeps working and being usable is pretty neat. And I don't have to put up with break-all-things Windows updates. My gaming rig was a whole other story. Non working drivers, GPUs (hey Asus!) that were bad right out of the box and needed a bios re-flash and... Windows 10. I invested at least 3-4 times the cost in that rig than I ever invested in my iMac. And, back to topic, you can't sync your Android phone just to your Mac. And that's kinda a deal breaker for me. Reliability, like I said, is something I value very highly. It's like buying a car. If you wanted it to just run, you got the last or pre-last Tahoe (at a discount of course). If you fancied your dealership too much, you got a Saab. Any Saab.

 

I think more variety on the market would do the consumer good. Symbian & Blackberry OS died because Nokia and BB didn't get the significance mobile OS's would have a few years down the road. "Nobody wants to use a touch screen!"^^
Ubuntu died because it couldn't get a real grip and although there were a number of people interested in, most consumers are afraid when they're hearing "it's a Linux phone". And back then, running desktop apps on phone hardware was... challenging to say at least.

 

But with the latest developments, things are getting interesting, finally. I mean, Photoshop is coming to tablets. iPads at least. I don't agree with a lot of decisions companies make and it will always be a quit-pro-quo, kinda. USB-C isn't as reliable as people would like it to have, vendors will scam you with cheap USB 2.0 USB-C cables, that camera bump on the new iPad Pro models is an atrocity of design (otherwise it's kinda nice) but taking away the headphone jack and then advertising DJ software on it... Well. The consumer will always be limited and locked down in a way. And sometimes I think it's the designer's fault. "Make it thinner", "Make it charge wirelessly", "All connections on one port". If designers would say "I could do it but it's just pure f***ery", things might be different. But that's just my five cents.  

 

Fast Auto-Focus of the Galaxy cameras, photo quality of the Pixels, reliability of iOS, icon arrangement of Nova launcher, built like a tank like the old Nokias, thin as the iPhone X, under-screen finger print sensor, sync ability like between iOS and MacOS, battery runtime of the CAT S41, looking like a bigger iPhone 5, no camera bump and a headphone jack. I'd be sold!  But I'm not getting what I want, am I?  

 

That's totally understandable, I'm one of these oddballs that have incredible fun making an "art-project" out of my personal phone I have very high standards in terms of customization But yeah I also never really use icon pages to favor my wallpaper and setup. On my jailbroken iPhones I always just use the dock with one folder and then shove every single icon in sub-folders to that one folder. On my non-jailbroken iPad I have everything shoved into the dock with four folders and on Android I don't have any on-screen icons aside from a dock I made myself in KLWP and just call the App Drawer with a gesture.

 

Oh I totally get the security concerns around jailbreaking and such on iOS and I know that Apple takes their security very serious which is a good thing but I still feel it should be an user-choice. I might be an odd person but I don't care about security on my phone much as I do everything important and life-critical like banking on my Macbook. The most private thing I do on my phone is sending What'sApp messages and I don't use any social-media aside from Twitter which I don't associate with my real name. I will say I would happily buy an expensive iPhone and sign a legal waver that completely voids my warranty and exempts me from ANY Apple support if it would allow me to officially jailbreak it, an official Developer Mode so to speak.

 

Wow that's truly a great plan and offer, I would certainly not mind if we get contracts like that here

 

I'm not sure about which areas they talked about, I would have to ask them but what you say makes alot of sense. Yeah I can only shake my head when our government says that 10mbps is enough for the average person, that's a very nonsensical thing to say and very short-sighted to boot but I don't expect anything better by now

 

Hmm I never used a Samsung device before but yeah I heard their OS experience with TouchWiz can be less than ideal, I'm sorry you had such issues with yours. I know Samsung makes great hardware and screens but if the rest isn't up to the task then that doesn't matter much. That's why I'm so interested in the Xiaomi Mi 8, it has everything I would want hardware wise and I could unlock the bootloader if I ever need to and manually flash the latest Android version if things come down to this. Nice that your company provides you iPhones like this! If I had a guarantee that I could always jailbreak my iPhone's and if the community wouldn't be in the state it is now I wouldn't even think about Android but as of around 2017 that's no longer the case

 

As for the whole ecosystem thing, I totally agree if someone is invested in it Apple is best-in-class there! But again I'm a weird person and even though I have a Macbook, an iPad and an iPhone I don't use Continuity or any iCloud features because I feel I don't need them. I used to think differently and happily thought about such a "always-connected" future but then the great Playstation 3 PSN hack happened and this was like a wake-up call to me. At this time I used the same password for everything and while nothing happened I had to spend a whole day to change all my passwords, make unique ones and enable a few more security-features. Ever since then anything connected and cloud scares me, especially also since a friend of mine got socially engineered over his Amazon account somehow and his name was used to scam elderly people in my town. The police thankfully quickly caught the real culprit but yeah that was another scary "internet-moment" for me. Don't get me wrong, I love tech and the internet and I happily use things like PayPal and Amazon but I would rather forgo convenience for more privacy and security for where it matters to me. (And my phone isn't where it matters to me :P)

 

I agree that Apple hardware and OSX is great for working and I can work 100% more efficient with it than with Windows which is why I love my Macbook Air. I'm sorry to hear about your gaming PC though I build my own PC's ever since I'm 16 and I rarely ran into issues and if I did, they were most of the time caused by myself Building PC's is the most fun thing in the world for me! But yeah sometimes when things don't work it can just be annoying and frustrating

 

About more variety, I agree it would be nice but I have a hard time imagining who could make another OS that could compete with Android and iOS at this point if even Microsoft and "Linux" didn't manage, it would be a hell of an undertaking.

 

I haven't seen the newest iPad yet but yeah the removal of headphone jacks is a difficult thing, I wouldn't mind it if there would be USB-C adapters that could charge and provide a 3.5mm port simultaneously.

 

And ahaha as amazing as it sounds, sadly not, no For me I would be happy with a Mi 8 Pro like hardware that could dualboot Android and jailbroken iOS

[LexCalifornia]

1 hour ago, Skyyblaze said:

 

That's totally understandable, I'm one of these oddballs that have incredible fun making an "art-project" out of my personal phone I have very high standards in terms of customization But yeah I also never really use icon pages to favor my wallpaper and setup. On my jailbroken iPhones I always just use the dock with one folder and then shove every single icon in sub-folders to that one folder. On my non-jailbroken iPad I have everything shoved into the dock with four folders and on Android I don't have any on-screen icons aside from a dock I made myself in KLWP and just call the App Drawer with a gesture.

 

Oh I totally get the security concerns around jailbreaking and such on iOS and I know that Apple takes their security very serious which is a good thing but I still feel it should be an user-choice. I might be an odd person but I don't care about security on my phone much as I do everything important and life-critical like banking on my Macbook. The most private thing I do on my phone is sending What'sApp messages and I don't use any social-media aside from Twitter which I don't associate with my real name. I will say I would happily buy an expensive iPhone and sign a legal waver that completely voids my warranty and exempts me from ANY Apple support if it would allow me to officially jailbreak it, an official Developer Mode so to speak.

 

Wow that's truly a great plan and offer, I would certainly not mind if we get contracts like that here

 

I'm not sure about which areas they talked about, I would have to ask them but what you say makes alot of sense. Yeah I can only shake my head when our government says that 10mbps is enough for the average person, that's a very nonsensical thing to say and very short-sighted to boot but I don't expect anything better by now

 

Hmm I never used a Samsung device before but yeah I heard their OS experience with TouchWiz can be less than ideal, I'm sorry you had such issues with yours. I know Samsung makes great hardware and screens but if the rest isn't up to the task then that doesn't matter much. That's why I'm so interested in the Xiaomi Mi 8, it has everything I would want hardware wise and I could unlock the bootloader if I ever need to and manually flash the latest Android version if things come down to this. Nice that your company provides you iPhones like this! If I had a guarantee that I could always jailbreak my iPhone's and if the community wouldn't be in the state it is now I wouldn't even think about Android but as of around 2017 that's no longer the case

 

As for the whole ecosystem thing, I totally agree if someone is invested in it Apple is best-in-class there! But again I'm a weird person and even though I have a Macbook, an iPad and an iPhone I don't use Continuity or any iCloud features because I feel I don't need them. I used to think differently and happily thought about such a "always-connected" future but then the great Playstation 3 PSN hack happened and this was like a wake-up call to me. At this time I used the same password for everything and while nothing happened I had to spend a whole day to change all my passwords, make unique ones and enable a few more security-features. Ever since then anything connected and cloud scares me, especially also since a friend of mine got socially engineered over his Amazon account somehow and his name was used to scam elderly people in my town. The police thankfully quickly caught the real culprit but yeah that was another scary "internet-moment" for me. Don't get me wrong, I love tech and the internet and I happily use things like PayPal and Amazon but I would rather forgo convenience for more privacy and security for where it matters to me. (And my phone isn't where it matters to me :P)

 

I agree that Apple hardware and OSX is great for working and I can work 100% more efficient with it than with Windows which is why I love my Macbook Air. I'm sorry to hear about your gaming PC though I build my own PC's ever since I'm 16 and I rarely ran into issues and if I did, they were most of the time caused by myself Building PC's is the most fun thing in the world for me! But yeah sometimes when things don't work it can just be annoying and frustrating

 

About more variety, I agree it would be nice but I have a hard time imagining who could make another OS that could compete with Android and iOS at this point if even Microsoft and "Linux" didn't manage, it would be a hell of an undertaking.

 

I haven't seen the newest iPad yet but yeah the removal of headphone jacks is a difficult thing, I wouldn't mind it if there would be USB-C adapters that could charge and provide a 3.5mm port simultaneously.

 

And ahaha as amazing as it sounds, sadly not, no For me I would be happy with a Mi 8 Pro like hardware that could dualboot Android and jailbroken iOS

Hey, oddballs are cool!  
It's sometimes impressive how people combine a specific launcher with a wallpaper and icon arrangement on their Android phone tho. And yeah, maybe in a couple centuries we'll see the first screenshots of it in an art gallery?  hehe.
I have all my drawing and photo editors in a folder on my dock on my iPad lol. Kinda the only reason I bought that thing in the first place.

I think it's getting worse. If you take a look at the T2 chip and its references, that thing adds another level of security to Apple hardware. And on iOS you don't have a Terminal to shut it off. So yeah, I think after a decade of jailbreaking, it could be over. Soon at least.

If you look at it from a developer standpoint (the original developer point of view at least), it all sounds reasonable. You create a software and a 3rd party analyses it, develops measures to disable your security and creates hacks for it. You wouldn't be pleased to have that happen to your software unless your name is Microsoft and you just can't control it any longer.

 

But since a lot of customers are wishing for more customisation, Apple maybe should listen. A bit at least. But that also would kind of defeat their design language history and that's also a selling point for them. And a full developer iPhone edition would kind of mean to open up all the bits and pieces to people who are willing to pay extra and waive their warranty right out of the box. Although it sounds like an interesting idea. 

 

German phone plans are quite expensive. Especially if you look at what people's pay checks are there. ^^

 

10mbps? Lmao. That's... so 2008. ^^

 

I didn't like TouchWiz at all which is why I went and installed Nova launcher. Funny enough it took me longer to customise it to my liking than I'm willing to admit.  

 

What changed in 2017? Sorry, I never paid much attention to Jailbreaks tbh.

 

The Xiaomi Mi 8 would be one of the phones you'd have to import, right? So your government will slap what, 20% on top of the original price? That sounds rather expensive. *cough* foreign vacation trip & send the box home via UPS or something *cough*

 

Oh yeah, my company has been pretty generous so far when it comes to devices. First kinda questions was if I wanted to use a desktop or laptop and they added "...with a laptop you can work from home from time to time.". So that was an obvious choice

 

Continuity is a nice feature. Especially if you're doing something on the train and you're running slowly out of batter (which happens, I heard  ) and when you come home you can seamlessly keep on working on a bigger screen if you happen to have a (very expensive) desktop from that company. (Or upgraded your old one's bluetooth, HA!). iCloud is somewhat expensive if you need more than 50 GB compared to the competition but it works well and upload speeds are better than Microsoft's. Way better. Although at home a NAS is the fastest way to go. So, not everyone needs it but it's nice to have.

 

Security wise, personal, critical files should never be stored in the cloud. After all it's just "someone else's computer" tho. But also having your own file servers in a data centre somewhere is kind of expensive! Although... having my own data centre sounds like a dream. Hm. Gotta write that down lol.

 

Social engineering is the most interesting topic coming from a security driven point of view. A pretty simple example is the one of all those TV Evangelists we got over here. It's the biggest, ongoing scam we've ever witnessed. Using people's believes (and their trust) to drag all those pretty pennies out of their pockets. "Send me money and you'll do good in life." No sane human would trust such a thing in the first place but yet we have millions of citizens who monthly contribute to "the cause". Crazy. But glad they caught that sucker.

 

Security and privacy sadly don't really go hand in hand. You always gotta find the balance between those two. And I don't think there's something like a healthy balance. In an interconnected world, everything 'secure' is not really. At least not in the meaning of the word. So it all comes down to a personal decision.

 

If you like building PCs, try building servers. All that mighty hardware! *-* so fancy! I'd love to build an IBM Z14 from ground up tho! I love those machines. But it's not like I can walk in at IBM HQ and be like "lemme lay hands on that!"

 

True. If things don't work, it's frustrating. Especially if it's your own stuff that you bought with your own money for yourself. I mean, gaming in 4K is... nice? I guess. But dealing with all the issues like not properly coded drivers, Windows 10 trying to force other drivers (and everything else) down your throat while randomly smooching on your files? Seriously, that's nothing I wanna be part of anymore. Maybe I'm just getting old.  

 

Microsoft's approach to a smartphone OS wasn't that bad, visually. But developers didn't jump on that train. Their market share on mobile OS was shattered when Apple and Google invested billions into their respective OS. Fascinating to me is that Apple still earns more revenue out of it than Google despite Google having the far bigger market share. 

 

Google's problem tho is somewhat like Microsofts. They're making an operating system for endless different hardware. And that bears problems, always does. Sure, the hardware manufacturers need to provide drivers for their hardware (as they do in the PC world) but that doesn't always go smoothly. (Hello Nvidia!)

 

So for anyone else coming up with a mobile OS, it's the same obstacle. And if the Linux community isn't willing to jump in there anymore, then I also don't know who would.

 

There are a couple videos out there on USB-C audio and how 'good' it really is and where the problems are, so if Apple manages to finally make a headphone adapter that works, doesn't randomly disconnect at the slightest of movement and sounds good, it might not be that bad. But they haven't managed that since the iPhone 7 (because they're not paying attention over that "go all wireless or go away" mentality of theirs).

 

Oh, by the way, Satechi is already at it.

 

https://betanews.com/2018/11/08/satechi-aluminum-type-c-mobile-pro-hub-ipad-pro/

 

Dual booting iOS sounds interesting. So where's my pen test linux I can boot with iOS?? THAT would make my life so much easier! That and a... 60k mA battery bank