Comment by mg

My pixel 8 does not stay where I put it. Without a case, it will slide right off of any slightly tilted surface.

It should be illegal to put glass on the back of a phone.

A mystery about Apple is that some of its software are ridiculously bad. iTunes sync was one of them. Another example is removing iCloud sync used to wipe out the content on the disconnected devices. Screen Time is pretty much unusable. It's really hard to batch update photos in iphone. Heck, it's even hard to batch move app icons on iphone screen.

What good is optimizing for the open web when the Pixels lack a sufficiently fast processor for bloated web pages. Haven't tried the 10 yet, but Pixel 9 is sufficiently slow that you can see tearing artifacts when you scroll. This is at least two or three years behind the modern Qualcomm in Samsungs let alone Apple.

I think photos on the pixel are messed up (long-time iphone user who switched for the pixel 9 folding pro), you have all these folders that by default don't get backed up, it took me ages to understand I had to go in settings and manually check all new apps that I install for photos to back them up (and display them in my gallery). It's never clear what's the "offline" vs "online" view of google photos (and why there are other google photos apps).

With a bit of fiddling I can finally backup my whatsapp photos, but oh boy why aren't the default saner?

For Chrome, it's inconsistancies after inconsistancies. First, I couldn't read PDFs from there, now I can but I can't edit the URL when I edit a PDF, also no built-in app to read PDF, it's crazy.

As someone who started on Android but switched to Apple many many many years ago, I still find things like this that are quibbles for me, but in general my preference for Apple is because of security/privacy, battery life management, performance, update longevity, and hardware quality.

That said, I think it's worth noting that #1 hardly bothers anyone because most people put their phone in a case, and that can quickly resolve this. #2 isn't a real problem, because you can absolutely sort your photos into folders, they're call albums though, and this is a first-class workflow in the Photos app since they switched from iPhoto to Photos about 6-7 years ago. For #3, I don't want my web browser having file system access via an API and I don't use Chrome.

> This makes web apps first class productivity applications I can use to work on my local files. Impossible on iPhones.

The thing is that web apps are always a worse experience if you have native apps. Linux and Android (and now also Windows) depend on web apps because they don't have good quality native apps. For Apple devices you can always find a top quality native app to use, so web apps aren't any concern. The only people I have met who want to use apps in their browser on MacOS are Linux refugees who were attracted by the "specs" of Apple devices. It's a bit like buying an electric car and lamenting the lack of a gearbox. You don't need it anymore.

File System Access API has some serious issues. To quote Mozilla's position on the topic

> There's a subset of this API we're quite enthusiastic about (in particular providing a read/write API for files and directories as alternative storage endpoint), but it is wrapped together with aspects for which we do not think meaningful end user consent is possible to obtain (in particular cross-site access to the end user's local file system). Overall we consider this harmful therefore, but Mozilla could be supportive of parts, provided this were segmented better.

I think most users would probably be better off without this proposal.

2: you can organize photos into folders but nobody does

3: I actively don’t want this nor would I want anybody I care about to have to deal with this.

But props to you for having an argument for Android aside from the usual “I have more control”

I think a lot of developers think like you, but most users of phones don't.

I don't think most people care enough to put time into organizing their photos, but would rather the phone or backend AI just find the photo they want by searching for it.

I'm not sure if most users even have a strong conception of "file" or really understand what data is physically on their phone vs "the cloud".

(The symmetry thing though probably does bother a lot of people regardless of their level of technical expertise.)

None of those things matter to me. What does matter to me is that to get stuff off my iPhone I have to do a weird sync process and/or use iCloud. Infact, a lot of my issues with the iPhone stem from refusing to use iCloud. Can’t use Apple Pay or FindMy.

For now I use Airdrop to move photos from my iPhone to the computer but it’s very error prone and fails 1/5 times and way more often if you try to do it with more than 30 images/videos. Is this situation better in the Pixel?

Regarding the second point, while I gladly agree the current iOS Photos app is a mess, doesn't it make sense to have photos in multiple albums? If I went on holiday to Brazil and made a nice photo of my son there, I'd like that photo to be in both the "Brazil holiday" and "Beautiful photos of my children" albums, not just in one folder.

My first smartphone was a cheap Android and then I switched to iPhone about eight years ago and mostly haven't looked back.

That said, Apple's behaviour around locking out wearables from key system APIs does have me reconsidering. I found the inconsistent sync and notifications on my Fitbit to be a pretty big source of annoyance and if that continues on the new Pebble I would consider switching back to Android just for that.

> sort them in folders.

They had that in iPhotos and dropped it in Photos. I missed it for about a month and then I got over it. I'd never sort my photos now, I can just search them or find them on the map.

If you want to sort photos by folder, no one stops you from using other apps. Google Photos itself is available.

Very, very few people want to spend time sorting all their photos, it's a fool's errand.

2/3 of your complaints seem to be down to Apple's insistence that filesystems are silly and should be hidden from users. Unless it's iCloud, then show the user 2 identical filesystems and scatter everything at random between the two. Really, it's a write-only filesystem. Apps will constantly save things there, but god help you if you ever want to find something.

> 1: When I put a Pixel on a table, it sits there stable.

That was the first thing I noticed. I assume the extra protuberance is to enable the insane zoom level but it goes full width for stability.

I have G85 Motorola - great phone (and primarily a phone/modem/camera) for the price, but it wobbles slightly.

Yes, I prefer Android, but have a M4 Air that goes everywhere with me to do actual work.

> 3: On Android I can use Chrome. Which means web apps can use the File System Access API. This makes web apps first class productivity applications I can use to work on my local files. Impossible on iPhones.

Safari has support File System Access API since 2022. Maybe you haven't kept up but Apple has done a 180° on PWAs in the past few years

For me, it is the ability to tether my laptop to an iPhone to use the data service on my iPhone. This alone made me give up on Windows laptops and Android phones. Sure, you can tether Windows laptops to Android phones. But, it is a slow and cumbersome process. I use this functionality frequently enough that it was worth it to switch platforms over it.

I use an iPhone because Apple is more focused on privacy, and I don’t really need that many features on my phone.

Of course it's a matter of taste, personality, culture, etc.

That's why flame wars about anything don't make sense, whether it is about Operating Systems, browsers, gaming platforms, text editors, phones, cars, coffee, or whatever else you can come up with to arbitrarily argue about.

I’d love to use the android phone, as they seem to have much better and actually useful AI integration, but they are not phones but “advertising company tracking devices with tacked-on end user functionality”. Similarly, Chrome is not User Agent, it’s Corporation Agent.

I like that I can run whatever software I want on it.

I do not like that it is overly locked down without rooting. But still way more open than iOS, regardless of what the mobile phone lawsuits from Epic decided.

To your 3: On iOS Safari, I can use extensions. That includes adblockers (uBlock origin lite) and others like Vinegar (allows youtube videos to play in background while display is off). No ads boosts productivity more than the file API - what would I need that for?

I prefer an iPhone but only because it has generally given me the best experience where I am not having to fiddle with anything.

Maybe android has changed but I made the swap, maybe a decade ago, because android had very weak boundaries on apps running in the background.

As someone who used Android for years and only recently switched to iOS the lack of file system access is really the only dealbreaker. It's damn annoying. The hardware is reliable and solid but why do we get such a crippled operating system ?

The older I get the more I value screen real state. And that foldable phone is really calling me.

Aside from that the fact that I can sideload apps. Run a VM. Work. All this with 16Gb of Ram.

And the list goes on and on.

Honestly having an iPhone these days feels more a punishment than something else.

I knew apple wasn't for me when I tried to sync and backup my stuff on something that wasn't iCloud. Its just plain unusable if you don't want to be fully entrenched in their cloud services.

FYI rumour has it the iPhones about to be released will have the same sort of full width camera module so the “wobble” won’t be an issue. Not that it ever was for me before, I have a case on it.

For #2, on iOS, you can move photos to shared albums and then safely delete them from library while retaining them in shared album. Shared albums use iCloud space, so it’s not ideal.

What web apps do you use that use the File System Access API?

Nope, i wish Apple would do this the way Android does. Most people here prefer Apple, not because of the crap iOS but because of the hardware.

Decision 3 is a no brainer.

Apple want you to use the apps they've curated , not web apps, not apps or games from 3rd party stores etc.

I think most HNers prefer iPhones because they seemlessly integrate with the rest of the ecosystem.

I’m a former Android user (bought a Nexus One on release!) that switched to iOS many years ago and I don’t miss Android as much as I thought I might.

To me the biggest thing to reflect on is how depressing it is that we must all fit ourselves into one of two boxes. My kingdom for a flourishing mobile OS ecosystem where we can all find the exact combination that scratches our itches.

I do t think I’ve ever met anyone who doesn’t use a phone case, all of which fix #1

> When I sit in a bus or in a cafe, I go through it and sort the new photos into folders.

This is exactly the sort of thing a lot of smartphone users (including Android users) won’t do.

The point of post-PC devices is to actually be post-PC. For many, futzing around with files isn’t the answer.

For instance I gave up doing this to my email years ago. It was very liberating. If I want something, I search. I can save searches I frequently perform.

iOS’s Photos app isn’t perfect but it allows me to find stuff just fine. I can search for places (“Seattle”), for things (“bicycle”) or even combinations (“plants Vancouver”). It’s pretty neat. And you can actually add stuff to folders (‘albums’) if you really want to.

> local files

iOS has them too. There are apps which allow you to access and manage local files — including the built in file manager. It’s not as laissez-faire as Android, though. Even the file manager has come a long way, and it’s improving further in iOS 26.

tl;dr — iOS isn’t for everyone, but it’s not like it’s not well-designed with a certain audience in mind.

I recently switched to an iPhone.

I legitimately struggle to find anything better.

(Battery, perhaps?)

I like Pixels because I can put Graphene on them.

I never want to sort photos in folders.

They also screw up the hardware.

When I use a fingerprint scanner on other phones, it works.

When I used it on my last Pixel (6 or 7, I cant remember) it failed over half the time.

How does one screw up biometrics this badly? Lack of care/QA on a $1k device.

GL with your Pixel.

Note: I'm not an Apple fan boi. I swap every couple of years so I maintain skills in both OSes.

1. You don't have a case???

>1: When I put a Pixel on a table, it sits there stable. Because the backside is symmetrical. When I put an iPhone on a table, it wobbles

So? Big deal...

Frankly, iOS could be a giant turd of an OS, at least it's somewhat privacy respecting(for the time being), I would still prefer it.

As long as it's that, it's light years ahead of Android. Which is a vehicle for Google to spy on you so they can sell your data.

These are all extremely minor issues. 2 and 3 are not even relevant to 99% of normal users. Very few people want to spend time manually organizing photos like that, and albums do essentially the same thing. The wobbling thing is a non-issue. It doesn't even wobble unless you're pounding down on the phone on a table.