[HN Gopher] Setting up phones is a nightmare
___________________________________________________________________
Setting up phones is a nightmare
Author : bariumbitmap
Score : 85 points
Date : 2026-02-26 19:36 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (joelchrono.xyz)
(TXT) w3m dump (joelchrono.xyz)
| addaon wrote:
| The article is about how setting up /Android/ phones is a
| nightmare.
|
| Contrasting it to my experience setting up iPhones is...
| dramatic.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Yes, its a nightmare because Android is becoming more and more
| like iOS: anything that the user used to be able to do... they
| can no longer do.
|
| Android phone manufacturers want $1200 for something that is a
| toy, just like the Apple iToys.
|
| Nobody wants those, and nobody wants this. Google needs to get
| out of the business and let the FOSS community handle it.
| latexr wrote:
| That type of rhetoric won't get you what you want. Don't
| dismiss something just because you don't like it.
|
| iOS devices are not toys, and even if they were there is
| value in toys, and even if there weren't it is provably false
| that "nobody wants those".
|
| Furthermore, if Google dropped Android it is misguided to
| believe "the FOSS community" would handle it and everything
| would be roses. What you'd have then are a couple of hardware
| vendors (like Samsung) publishing their own forks and dozens
| of different incompatible open-source versions that would get
| no traction.
| bigyabai wrote:
| > iOS devices are not toys
|
| iOS devices are. My iPad is the most useless piece of
| technology I own, calling it a "computer" is an insult to
| the actual computers I own. It's a toy, and not even a fun
| toy compared to my Nintendo Switch.
|
| Android handles serious workloads fine, macOS takes
| software seriously. iOS is the only operating system that
| treats gatchapon as the pinnacle of high-performance
| workloads.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Hell, I'll double-down if you really disagree with me.
| ChromeOS, the operating system/spyware installed on
| e-waste like Chromebooks, has a more serious OS than iOS.
| It is more functional and capable, and undeniably the
| better professional OS. I say that with no love for
| ChromeOS.
|
| iOS exists in a class of it's own, functionality-wise. A
| class much closer to game consoles than anything
| resembling a computer.
| latexr wrote:
| > Hell, I'll double-down if you really disagree with me.
|
| No wonder the world is in its current state, if when
| faced with disagreement the reaction is "I'll plug my
| ears and dig my heels in deeper" instead of "I wonder if
| I'm missing something".
|
| > ChromeOS (...) has a more serious OS than iOS. It is
| (...) the better professional OS.
|
| For starters, there are professionals (as in, people who
| get paid to do a job) who do their work on iOS. Not
| programmers, but writers, illustrators, animators, video
| editors, photographers, film makers... Maybe _you_ can't
| (or refuse to even try?) doing your work on an iOS device
| --I certainly choose not to--but that in no way means no
| one does.
|
| But all of that is irrelevant when you consider the very
| true fact of life that _not everything is about work_.
| Many people want something else, and not making all one's
| computing decisions around work is healthy.
| bigyabai wrote:
| > there are professionals (as in, people who get paid to
| do a job) who do their work on iOS
|
| I don't doubt it. There are people who get paid to do
| their work on a web browser, if iOS wasn't capable of
| _that_ it would be a travesty. The flexibility of iOS
| pales in comparison to _the absolute worst_ desktop OSes,
| like Windows and ChromeOS. The DAW, IDE and NLE software
| on iOS outright cannot compete with the offerings on
| Windows, macOS and Linux.
|
| > Many people want something else, and not making all
| one's computing decisions around work is healthy.
|
| You've conceded the original point, then. I can do "real
| work" with an Xbox, toy shovel or Lego bricks, but it's
| still a toy at the end of the day. The real tragedy is
| that iPad and iPhone hardware doesn't _have_ to be
| limited by toyetic software. It 's entirely Apple's
| choice to restrict my iPad from supporting WINE, having
| Linux containers and running _actual_ IDEs that aren 't
| arbitrarily gimped by distribution terms.
| chuckadams wrote:
| let's maybe not engage the patently obvious troll?
| bigyabai wrote:
| Only if you can't refute me.
|
| I don't think my comment is controversial among most
| iPhone owners, it's only the hardcore ecosystem
| enthusiasts that debate it. Most people really _do_ treat
| their iPhone and iPad like a set-top box or games
| console; it 's the minority who rely on it for work. A
| passionate minority, certainly, but nowhere near the
| market share Windows and ChromeOS carved out. iOS and
| iPadOS compete from the sidelines, still struggling to
| displace (or match) Windows.
| latexr wrote:
| > Only if you can't refute me.
|
| You have been refuted. Repeatedly. But as you yourself
| have said, you double down on disagreements. So I
| understand why you have been called a troll.
|
| > it's only the hardcore ecosystem enthusiasts that
| debate it.
|
| That's not true at all. Case in point, I don't care for
| phones. What I did care for was your exaggerated
| rhetoric. As someone who is critical of Tim Cook and
| modern-day Apple (especially around the state of their
| software), I'd rather criticisms remain grounded in
| things the people at Apple can understand and fix, not
| made up ramblings that make them dismiss critics as
| lunatics to ignore.
|
| Your tone changed drastically from the original post. You
| went from derogatory terms and claiming "nobody wants"
| iOS devices to them having a "passionate" user base and
| recognising they can be used for work.
| mikestew wrote:
| _Nobody wants those, and nobody wants this._
|
| Just because _you_ don't want it doesn't mean <checks
| notes...> a billion or so people don't want an iPhone. Or
| rather, a phone they don't have to dick with straight out of
| the box.
|
| OTOH, I don't really even know what you're on about. Android
| is a nightmare because...it's like iOS, which is "take phone
| out of box, restore from backup, sorted"? That doesn't even
| make any sense, especially in light of what TFA describes.
| mhitza wrote:
| For many people around my area, iPhones are a status symbol
| choice. Not a coherent or direct software+ecosystem choice.
|
| I've seen arguments around chosing iPhone for their camera.
| But the vast majority that is tech iliterate stops around
| that argument.
| mikestew wrote:
| _For many people around my area, iPhones are a status
| symbol choice._
|
| People in your area are very forthcoming. Not once have I
| ever heard someone vocalize that they bought an iPhone as
| a status symbol. "Easy to use", "it's what my friends
| use, and they like it", but never "it makes me appear
| higher in the social strata". They might think it, and
| I'm sure some do, but it's not said out loud. Or maybe
| that's not why the majority buy iPhones, dunno.
| mhitza wrote:
| My area is eastern europe. Where an iphone is like 3-4
| minimum wage salaries or so. People take loans to buy
| iphones! And you could probably also correlate them with
| luxury item buyers, around here.
|
| Good thing the US message color thing is isolated over
| there and the peer pressure on Gen Alpha hasn't reached
| us.
|
| But yes, I stick to my claim. You don't have to hard
| press those people to tell you that they don't use phones
| "for poor people" . The idiom is local and used both
| ironically and literraly.
| bdangubic wrote:
| iPhone is a status symbol is more places than it is
| "normal" to pay $1k+ for a phone (this is yearly or less
| salary in most of the world). gotta come down from the
| ivory tower
| chuckadams wrote:
| It's just a "high-end" good here in the States. Elsewhere
| it's a luxury good, on par with a Rolex. I use an iPhone
| because of the smooth UI, the integration with my Mac,
| and the less-evil company that spies on me less. But
| let's not kid ourselves, these things are spendy, and
| conspicuous consumption is still a thing.
| encom wrote:
| Paying 2000 USD for a phone absolutely is a status
| symbol. And nobody actually _says_ a status symbol is one
| - like nobody says _look at my Rolex watch, I paid 50000
| USD for it_. Nobody needs a 2000 USD phone and nobody
| needs a 50000 USD watch.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| The problem with buying a $2000 iPhone as a status symbol
| is that no one knows whether you bought the $1100 256GB
| model or the $2000 1TB model unless you tell them.
|
| But someone that cares about watches knows whether you
| paid $5000 or $50000 for your Rolex just by looking.
| joe_mamba wrote:
| _> Not once have I ever heard someone vocalize that they
| bought an iPhone as a status symbol._
|
| This might come as a shock to you, but people don't
| vocalize and share their desires and impulses on why they
| buy or do certain things, why they dress a certain way,
| why they sleep with certain people, etc. Apple's entire
| brand was built on being different and desirable at the
| lizard brain level.
|
| In many parts of the world, people even take bank loans
| to buy iPhones simply because it's the device that all
| rich people, politicians, athletes, celebrities,
| influencers use. They don't buy based on the specs and
| reviews, they buy on what their lizard brain tells them,
| and no tech company does that better than Apple.
| fn-mote wrote:
| > Android is becoming more and more like iOS: anything that
| the user used to be able to do... they can no longer do
|
| The article shows this is not true, if you know the similar
| process for iOS.
|
| The article could be compared to the iPhone setup process.
| There are some preferences to uncheck, but there is no third
| party spying software on an iPhone when it arrives. Contrast
| to Samsung.
| butILoveLife wrote:
| To be fair, they are doing with a Samsung phone, and Samsung is
| the Apple of Android (Big marketing budget, mid quality if we
| are being generous).
|
| Samsung as a company is a universal No Buy. The fact OP bought
| Samsung makes me raise an eyebrow.
|
| Credit to Apple where credit is due. When I unboxed my first
| iphone, I was happy to give Apple all my personal information,
| birthday, emails, ssn.... It was bizarre, I'm usually
| apprehensive to give this stuff away, but Apple made it fun.
| Within a few days, I was disappointed by a lack of widgets,
| slow transitions between screens, and a buggy podcast app. But
| the damage was done, my company was out $600 and Apple had my
| contact info.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Samsung's UI and software behaviour may be shitty in general,
| but they're one of the few manufacturers reliably offering
| timely long-term security updates. When you go beyond
| Samsung, you quickly end up with brands promising "quarterly
| updates" or having months-long delays fixing CVEs.
|
| Plus, when they do something novel, they do it quite well.
| Their flagship phones have great price/performance if you buy
| them a month or two after launch (often for three quarters of
| the launch price + free earbuds/smartwatch + cashback), their
| software suite is quite complete and generally well-
| localised, and they have support channels non-English support
| channels available.
|
| I do wish they'd fix some of their terrible software design
| crimes and stop the endless race to the bottom shoving
| product placement into their apps, but it's hardly a no-buy
| to me.
| microtonal wrote:
| Pixel is much cleaner and ships security updates monthly
| like clockwork. Plus you can install GrapheneOS and you get
| security updates multiple times per month, no AI nonsense
| and sandboxed Google Play Services if you need it.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| It's pick-your-poison. iPhone setup is eight hundred screens,
| half of which are upsells for Apple services, but at least it's
| only Apple services. Android setup, if you're not on a Pixel,
| is an invitation for the vendor's dozens of "partners" to all
| get your money and all your data.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| My personal experience is that the setup procedure wildly
| depends on the phone's vendor.
|
| The biggest difference between setting up a Pixel and an iPhone
| I experienced was that Google asked for certain settings
| beforehand that I had to turn off in the settings after setup
| on iOS. Both would've been a lot faster if I hadn't tried to
| disable optional account stuff.
|
| Contrast that to Samsung, _especially_ their non-flagship
| models, where the setup wizard took forever because of the crap
| Samsung added to the process.
|
| That said, I do appreciate some "tutorial" parts of the setup
| process on Android. When I first set up an iPhone, I got the
| distinct impression that Apple assumed I already knew how to do
| everything. Their interface isn't exactly intuitive if you
| haven't used iOS before, no matter what online forums may
| claim. It took me several tries and a Google search to figure
| out how to remove apps, for instance. Perhaps one might find it
| an annoying extra step you're going to skip as a power user
| who's used to the platform, but it felt strange to be dropped
| into a strange, new operating environment with no instructions.
| monooso wrote:
| A _Samsung_ phone. I 've owned several (not Samsung) Android
| phones, and have never had to deal with such nonsense.
| dismalaf wrote:
| On Samsung phones you can skip making a Samsung account. All
| the Google bits still work and it's basically the same as
| having a Pixel, except you'll have a few unused apps, a
| different camera and phone app and a very slightly different
| UI.
| morsch wrote:
| I had to guess arcane adb permission commands to stop a
| 2025 Samsung tablet from nagging the user about creating a
| Samsung account. It just kept showing up multiple times a
| day. But nice enough hardware with the promise of long
| updates at a reasonable price.
| dismalaf wrote:
| This article is a disaster. Beyond logging into your Google
| account nothing they described in the article is required to
| set up an Android phone.
| iberator wrote:
| It is not. Takes like 30 seconds
| Pikamander2 wrote:
| If you want your brand new phone to be filled with adware apps
| and obnoxious default settings, sure.
| dismalaf wrote:
| Customizing it to your liking is different than "setting it
| up".
| hagbard_c wrote:
| You bought the wrong phone and/or put the wrong distribution
| on it. Having said this it does take more than 30 seconds to
| get a new device up to your personal specs unless you're fine
| with whatever vendor distribution runs on it - which can work
| if you choose the right vendor but mostly ends up with your
| device serving someone else. I'd say it takes closer to 30
| minutes than 30 seconds but I'm fine with taking this time
| given that my average Android phone lifetime is a bit over 8
| years. I'm currently using a Redmi Note 5 Pro from 2018 which
| I'll soon relegate to second device status once I have a
| replacement, probably a Motorola G75 or something similar.
| That device should also last me around 8 years. Before the
| Redmi I'm using now I used a Motorola Defy from 2010 which,
| incidentally, is still in use as a trailer camera. Android
| devices can last a very long time because the firmware is
| open. Eventually they'll be too slow or lack the memory to
| support more recent Android distributions - which is what
| made me replace the Defy with the Redmi - but that does not
| mean they end up taking space in a drawer somewhere. They're
| in use here as trailer camera, media player, 3D printer
| controller and more.
| sonofhans wrote:
| "Phones" in the title is doing lots of heavy lifting. "Android
| phones" is the key missing piece.
|
| I love Free software too, and I wish I could run more of my life
| on it, but it's no longer my hobby. I like cars, too, but I don't
| work on a hobby car. The author's experience is why I use
| proprietary stuff like Apple for these parts of my life. A new
| Apple device is usually a non-event: charge it, authenticate,
| wait for the back to restore while you go about your business.
|
| The cost of more freedom (in this case, from proprietary
| toolchains and data lakes) is needing to exercise more control
| (compiling custom Android images). I just, honest to god, don't
| want to spend the time on it. A kid, a house, cats, getting old.
| I like that someone else has solved multi-device backup and
| restore, and I feel happy watching it happen so perfectly, even
| if I'm not the one controlling it.
| jraph wrote:
| A lot of the complains expressed in this article are distinctly
| from the proprietary parts.
|
| Stock Android, and especially stock Samsung, is far from being
| a free software solution.
|
| A turnkey solution based (almost exclusively, and except the
| driver blobs) on free software would be to buy a phone running
| something like /e/. I think they also provide backups.
|
| Of course, stuff requiring SafetyNet (or whatever Google
| current oppressive attestation system) may not work (though
| microG makes some of it work).
| microtonal wrote:
| _I think they also provide backups_
|
| Sort of. They use SeedVault, but a bunch of apps are not
| backed up. When restoring another set of apps do not properly
| restore
| hagbard_c wrote:
| What is it in your life which makes it 'impossible' to use free
| software, Google-free AOSP-derived Android distributions being
| part of this? I run close to exclusively free software and have
| done so for decades and have yet to feel the need to change
| this. Of course there are exceptions, e.g. I need to run
| proprietary applications for banking and electronic ID but
| those are the exceptions to the rule. My server runs only free
| software, on desktop I sometimes run an older version of
| Sketchup to start modelling things but that's the only non-free
| package I use there. We have children, a cat, a dog, 4 horses,
| a farm, a large forest, the works. We have multi-device backup
| and restore as well. Things work fine, using free software, not
| using 'the cloud'. Where are the sticking points for you and
| what would it take to take those away?
| fn-mote wrote:
| The author is technical, but apparently the parents are not.
| "It works for me" turns into "just spy on my family members".
| tonyarkles wrote:
| For me, "impossible" isn't the case. I'm deeply technical and
| could 100% run a setup like you're describing. For me it's,
| sadly, convenience and priorities. I oscillate between Linux
| and OS X for desktop/laptop use, have used Linux for server
| use for decades, have used both iOS/iPadOS and Android for
| tablets "in production", and have only used Android as a
| secondary phone for doing development, and only iOS for
| primary phone use.
|
| Convenience-wise, this is true both for the small daily stuff
| and large occasional stuff.
|
| Day-to-day:
|
| - For work I have to deal with .docx, .xlsx, .pots, and .pdf
| on a regular basis, both reading and authoring. Libreoffice
| mucks up formatting in both directions for Word documents.
| Web Office365 sucks in comparison to desktop O365. Linux PDF
| viewers are fine until you have to fill out a form and
| digitally sign one.
|
| - Mechanical CAD: my team uses Fusion 360. There's Windows
| and Mac versions. I haven't tried it under Wine. I suspect
| it'd be painful. I've tried some OSS solutions. Not pleasant.
|
| - ECAD: KiCAD has grown up and has become my primary ECAD
| tool. Hooray!
|
| - Time Machine: for my Linux machines I have a great setup
| that pushes backups to Backblaze B2 using restic. For my
| current laptop, I plug an external drive in every morning and
| Time Machine does its magic. I also run the B2 script for
| off-site occasionally.
|
| - Phone calls: OS X and iOS have fantastic hand-off. I do
| most of my work communication through Teams and Slack, both
| of which work fine on Linux. Phone calls, though... if my
| phone starts ringing, I get a notification on my laptop and
| can just click "Answer" to take the phone call through the
| headphones I'm already wearing.
|
| - Clipboard integration: I actually started writing this
| comment on my phone and then decided to move over to my
| laptop. Copying it on my phone automatically put it in my
| clipboard to paste on my laptop.
|
| Hardware compatibility:
|
| - My last Linux desktop was fabulous. Happily drove a 4K
| display, I loved living in XFCE every day. There was one
| issue that was extraordinarily frustrating: if the machine
| sat unused for somewhere around 24-72 hours it would enter a
| very strange power state. The machine was still powered up to
| some degree, but was completely unresponsive. I could use it
| every day with no issue, for weeks. If I didn't use it for
| that 24-72h timeframe, boom, it would get into this state.
| This only ever happened to me while I was travelling. I did
| several deep debug dives into this to no avail, including at
| one point setting up the kernel logger to log over serial to
| another embedded machine. I pointed a security camera at it
| to see if, say, a cat or some other obvious physical thing
| was causing it. I ended up hooking up an Ethernet-controlled
| power bar so that I could power cycle it and access the data
| that was on it. Tried multiple kernels, many different kernel
| command-line options, never did get to the bottom of it.
|
| - My older 2014 Mac Mini that sat next to it was bulletproof.
| I could do 98% of what I was doing with the Linux desktop
| machine remotely on that machine just fine. Mostly there were
| some embedded Linux tasks that wouldn't work well on the Mac.
|
| OS Updates:
|
| - My current phone (iPhone 12 Pro) is 6 years old. It's
| running the latest OS. You can have an experience like this
| with stock Android distributions if you very carefully
| research which vendors and specific devices use... I forget
| what it's called... Google One? My dev phone is a Nokia and
| it got updates for a long time. I don't remember when/if they
| stopped.
|
| - The idea of having to custom compile or hunt down OS
| updates from a third party destroys the convenience of this
| for me. I want to spend essentially 0% of my life thinking
| about what to do for an OS for my phone or tablet.
|
| - My old 10-year-old Macbook Pro finally stopped receiving
| updates a year or two ago. It runs Linux now quite happily.
| It's a fantastic Linux machine.
|
| Occasional new device setup:
|
| - Back to the article, the Apple "I have a new
| phone/iPad/laptop" story is just unbeatable. I couldn't even
| tell you what the steps involve because they involve
| virtually no thinking at all. It's roughly "hold your new
| device near your old device". You maybe have to log into it
| first. It requires no thought at all.
| nyarlathotep_ wrote:
| > My last Linux desktop was fabulous. Happily drove a 4K
| display, I loved living in XFCE every day. There was one
| issue that was extraordinarily frustrating: if the machine
| sat unused for somewhere around 24-72 hours it would enter
| a very strange power state. The machine was still powered
| up to some degree, but was completely unresponsive. I could
| use it every day with no issue, for weeks. If I didn't use
| it for that 24-72h timeframe, boom, it would get into this
| state.
|
| This has always been my core Linux desktop woe--there's
| always, no matter what CPU GPU (including (and most often),
| no dGPU at all) combo/distro I've used, been sleep wake
| issues of some variety.
|
| I've had AMD CPUs with both fedora and Ubuntu that would
| never sleep if they weren't woken to desktop (i.e if not
| logged in, then allowed to automatically turn off the
| display) they'd never sleep. On those and any of the
| machines since, I never get more than a month of uptime
| without it being unresponsive when trying to wake it or
| similar, regardless of if Kernel updates have been
| installed etc.
| dismalaf wrote:
| 95% of what was written in this article isn't required to set
| up an Android phone. You can literally log into your Google
| account on first boot and everything is done for you,
| automatically.
| fn-mote wrote:
| The point is that you have to turn off preferences and
| uninstall apps that come with the phone. (Samsung apps and
| OneDrive are mentioned.)
|
| So you don't _have_ to do this, but if you don't, you are
| under even more surveillance and experience more advertising.
| GuestFAUniverse wrote:
| At least Samsung doesn't sync folders. Meaning: if they were
| organized before by topic they aren't there after syncing via
| their "Samsung Smart Switch Mobile" to a new Samsung phone. A
| lot gets synced, but it's not like an image with full DSC
| (desired state configuration) afterwards.
|
| Pretty mediocre -- not totally useless, but far from a
| seamless experience.
| kiwijamo wrote:
| Maybe Samsung has changed how the first boot works compared
| to stock Android, but this definitely has not been my
| experience across several Samsung devices. Also many apps
| store their data in different ways which doesn't always
| survive a device migration/backup. Only cloud-only apps have
| a good experience, wheras anything that stores data on device
| can be hit and miss depending on how easy individual apps
| manage its backup.
| II2II wrote:
| > I use proprietary stuff like Apple for these parts of my
| life. A new Apple device is usually a non-event: charge it,
| authenticate, wait for the back to restore while you go about
| your business.
|
| Most of the author's criticisms were centered on avoiding
| account creation and third-party apps. I'm not sure I would
| give Apple the benefit of the doubt here since the motivations
| are different: Apple is far more interested in locking
| customers into their own ecosystem. On the Android front, that
| isn't all that different from getting a Pixel. Of course,
| getting an Android based Samsung adds an extra company who
| wants to do the same as well as selling space to third parties.
|
| While Android being more open does add complexity, it is mostly
| limited to those who buy devices produced by another vendor or
| those who _choose_ to exercise their freedom (e.g. by choosing
| to install a third-party version of Android, or installing a
| third-party "app store", or developing their own software).
| t0bia_s wrote:
| _that isn 't all that different from getting a Pixel._
|
| Paradox is, that with Pixel device you can get most freedom
| and security togather. Installation of GrapheneOS is easiest
| custom ROM installation that could possibly be.
| iririririr wrote:
| > Installation of GrapheneOS
|
| and you get absolutely nothing in return. Yeah you will
| have root access sometimes. But other than that, android is
| not opensource anymore.
|
| I mean, it never was because you had hundreds (no
| exaggeration [1]) closed-binary blobs running (not to
| mention a whole OS on things like radio and camera, running
| on their own SoC), but now you cannot get even close to a
| proper of the userspace since google already anounced they
| will not be mainlining anything back to AOSP
|
| [1] zero source for kernel pieces, even for pixel
| https://github.com/GrapheneOS/device_google_laguna-
| kernels_6...
| II2II wrote:
| > and you get absolutely nothing in return. Yeah you will
| have root access sometimes.
|
| You get improved privacy and security, at least on some
| fronts. By default, GrapheneOS does not provide root
| access and recommends against rooting the device. Is
| there a trade-off? Certainly. Security and privacy are
| always at conflict with what a completely open platform
| can provide. Given the amount of access to personal
| information that goes through our devices and the number
| of bad actors out there (both behaving legally and
| illicitly), some people believe it is worth the price. At
| least GrapheneOS offers more transparency than Android or
| iOS.
|
| The bit about clamping down on open source, that is very
| much disappointing. I doubt that it is going to go away
| entirely in Android. On the other hand, hopefully it will
| provide incentives for companies to explore developing
| more open alternatives and consumers to explore buying
| more open alternatives. It won't be a huge market, but
| many of us have avoided growing so dependent upon the
| current platforms that we couldn't simply walk away.
| adamsmark wrote:
| iOS now has a ton of dialogs and set up steps and the
| occasional dark pattern in selling you various cloud based
| subscriptions to Apples various services.
|
| Having said all that, yes Android is pretty bad. I think it's
| the in the nature of platform owners to get their hooks into
| yoh as much as possible.
|
| When I set up Linux Mint, there was none of this.
| cmiles74 wrote:
| It took a good while for me to figure out that a family
| member had inadvertently signed up for an Apple Music account
| that they were not using.
| iririririr wrote:
| Apple going from being "the new microsoft" to being "the
| new AOL"
| metalman wrote:
| a big chunk of apples valuation is that they can just tell you
| to bend over the day they decide to aquire half a trillion
| dollars, fire half there workers, and demonstrate the creative
| way there user agreaments are bieng interpereted, and that you
| can get a trump phone if you dont like it. this is the company
| that has signed an exclusive deal to provide phones for the
| ZGF, zionist genocide force, so dont even bother, ok?
| cmckn wrote:
| To be fair, setting up a new iPhone (without restoring from
| backup) is a pretty long-winded process these days. You have to
| make about 50 decisions on various features, tap through
| numerous info screens, set up Face ID, Apple Pay, voice
| recognition, etc. etc. It feels like every team at Apple wants
| _something_ in the onboarding flow.
| nomel wrote:
| All of those security related screens you listed is why I
| like Apple: security related things are local to secure
| enclave, not in cloud.
| nazgul17 wrote:
| *Samsung phones. Known for a long time for their crapware
| infested devices. At the other end of the spectrum, Pixel
| phones are quite easy and smooth to set up.
| hollow-moe wrote:
| I fear every single time I have to switch phones. Being degoogled
| means I first have to choose hardware based on custom ROMs
| compatibility, and fight the thing to just install the ROM. Then
| the fun begins, for every single stupid feature I have to install
| and setup a solution (app) optionally restoring a backup
| individually. Contacts, calendar, files, maps, passwords, airtag
| protection, email, IM, keyboard, weather, notes, smart
| garbage:tm:, alternative YouTube client...The state of current
| tech is pityful, if it wasn't what I was doing to put food on the
| table I wouldn't want any of this garbage 10 meters near me.
| Edit: Before any of the geniuses here says "at least you can use
| alternatives" I don't want to hear your copium, it's obvious this
| won't last.
| nvartolomei wrote:
| Upgraded to one of the latest iPhone recently. First time I
| clicked on "transfer data from old phone". I'm used to
| reinstalling the operating system every couple of months from
| when I used Windows. It took maybe 15 minutes with close to 0
| interactions. Everything was transferred. I was already
| authenticated in apps. What took manual steps was eSIM transfers.
|
| I don't remember exact steps so there could have been a bit more.
| But it was an impressive experience and I told my geek friends
| about it. They were surprised this is the first time I used this
| feature.
| sentientslug wrote:
| eSIM transfer also typically doesn't require any intervention,
| usually it just goes across to the new device
| wtmt wrote:
| The key word here is "typically".
|
| Transferring eSIM from one iPhone to another can be
| restricted by the carrier. Here in India, the second largest
| carrier (Airtel), does not support the native iOS eSIM
| transfer process. It's a separate set of steps (the ones
| published on Airtel's website won't work, despite customer
| care claiming that it does). What works is almost like
| applying for a new or replacement eSIM.
| microtonal wrote:
| Same here, KPN, NL. You have to install the KPN app on the
| new phone and log in. Then you request an eSIM on the new
| phone. You get an SMS auth code on the old phone. You fill
| the auth code on the new phone. Then you have to remove the
| eSIM from the old phone (with the new one not provisioned
| yet). Then confirm on the new phone and cross your fingers
| that provisioning works. Presumably (according to the docs)
| when it fails, you can reprovision the old phone again.
|
| The process made me so anxious the last few times, that I
| went to the carrier shop and asked for a nano SIM. Now life
| is bliss again.
|
| It seems that eSIM is primarily an advantage when you need
| to get a new SIM, but other than that I don't really see
| much of an advantage for me as a customer.
| microtonal wrote:
| For some reason, iMessage always ends up in a very weird state
| when I transfer to a new iPhone. Also, some apps don't get
| restored settings, but I think they opt out (usually banking,
| credit card, insurance apps, etc.).
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Google has APIs to do the same. In fact, it works on most apps.
| The biggest exceptions are security sensitive apps (2FA,
| password managers) and WhatsApp for some stupid reason. If
| you're a HN Android user who turns off any form of data sharing
| like me, you wouldn't notice, though, as this requires the
| "back up my data" checkbox during setup of the old and new
| phone to work conpletely.
|
| Another issue on Android is that iOS allows for syncing data
| through the user's iCloud, which can be gigabytes in size, but
| Google has you use the Google Drive API which sucks and
| involves handing over credit card info.
|
| The Android file transfer has another trick that Apple doesn't
| seem to do, which is fully offline local sync rather than going
| through the cloud. This has reliability issues and requires
| both devices to stay on and nearby while the transfer is in
| progress, but on slower internet connections the process can be
| a heck of a lot faster thanks to modern wifi speeds.
| alliao wrote:
| i typically don't want to re-enter credentials etc, so I always
| do encrypted backup via itunes.. took 6-7hrs just transferring
| photos quite hands off most of the time but still painful,
| can't imagine what android guys go through
| deejaaymac wrote:
| If you use android and don't choose GrapheneOS then idk what to
| tell you, its been an awesome experience with no issues for the
| last ~5ish years I've used it.
| microtonal wrote:
| Yep, no cloud storage upsells, no pushy AI crap, just a fast
| barebones smartphone and you can pick what you want on top.
| dismalaf wrote:
| This is literally the midwit meme...
|
| Here's how you actually set up an Android phone:
|
| - log into Google account
|
| - select a few checkboxes (basically just if you want to restore
| apps or not)
|
| - done, everything else is automatic
|
| All the fuckery they decided to do because they think they're
| tech savvy wasn't required.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| You don't sound very tech savvy yourself to be honest! Well,
| certainly not security conscious or in anyway concerned about
| data privacy.
| lnrd wrote:
| Giving an Android phone to elderly/non-technical people is asking
| for trouble imho. They will eventually tap their way into
| installing suspicious apps, adware or even straight up malware.
| It's inevitable, they are not aware of what they do and how to
| avoid the many risks of the digital world. I remember having the
| same struggles of OP when setting up a cheap android phone for my
| grandma, the amount of bloat, adware and misleading content I had
| to remove was incredible (and some couldn't even be removed). The
| irony was that after a few months of light usage, the phone was
| in a state even worse, full of downloaded apps and opened
| suspicious websites in the browser. She would swear she never
| even noticed any of those.
|
| This is one of the cases in which giving them an iPhone with its
| walled garden has great benefits. You can also setup parental
| control on top of that already locked down ecosystem.
| microtonal wrote:
| FYI: you can also set up parental controls on Android.
|
| Parental control is a also a hot buggy mess on iOS currently.
| Our daughter has an iPhone with parental control set up and a
| bunch of apps that are whitelisted regularly refuse to start at
| random moments (blocked by parental controls). We hoped that
| iOS 26 would finally fix it, but nope.
|
| It doesn't really matter, both phone ecosystems are a mess, but
| in different ways.
| rationalist wrote:
| My mother can no longer do the stuff she used to on her iOS
| phone because it is so complicated compared to the iPhone 4 I
| gave her a long time ago.
|
| I screen her emails with her consent, very easy to do with
| Fastmail that imports her Yahoo mail into a folder she doesn't
| see and then I move okay emails to her inbox.
| SuzyM wrote:
| Have you tried Assistive Access mode?
| https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/assistive-access-
| iphon...
| rationalist wrote:
| I have not heard of it before, thank you. I will try it
| out.
| SuzyM wrote:
| No problem! :)
| skybrian wrote:
| But I thought sideloading wasn't a real problem and Google is
| just locking it down because they're evil :-)
| xigoi wrote:
| "Sideloading" does not play a role in this. All of the
| crapware is on Google Play.
| GuestFAUniverse wrote:
| Galaxy Store is the clown car version of Google Play--
| luckily mostly unnecessary.
| uyzstvqs wrote:
| If your relatives are significantly tech illiterate, I'd skip
| the smartphone entirely and go for a locked-down Linux desktop
| + feature phone. The most dangerous apps are big legitimate
| ones.
|
| If you do go for a smartphone, my experience tells me that
| there's no difference between Android and iOS. The biggest
| sources for shady apps are the Google Play Store and Apple App
| Store. Shady stuff on the web can be easily defeated using an
| adblocking browser, which is essential for older relatives.
| MattDamonSpace wrote:
| Sir a Linux desktop recommendation for non-tech-literate
| elders is just silly
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Setting up _enshittified devices_ is the nightmare. Don 't curse
| out on all phones because they made a poor purchase decision.
| You're literally buying it wrong. Next time go with a slightly
| used device that's _fully supported_ by GrapheneOS and marvel at
| the frictionless setup.
| ray_v wrote:
| Is it not clear that's it's just the well-known phenomenon,
| "enshittification" at play?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
| juancn wrote:
| iPhones are basically effort free, it takes a while, but 99% of
| it is transferred without a hitch, some poorly written apps may
| need an extra step.
| freitasm wrote:
| Another thing that annoys me on Android is the setup experience
| itself. All my recent device presentcthe same behaviour: login
| with a Google account, transfer data, setup voice assistant and
| some other defaults,done.
|
| Then after the first app updates is done, a notification comes
| with "let's finish setting up your phone" and again asks to setup
| voice assistant, check defaults and whatever else is in the flow.
|
| Has no one noticed that the setup flow seems to run twice?
|
| And it's not one specific device. I do it with eight to ten
| devices a year, from different OEM, writing reviews and testing.
| They all have the same behaviour.
| freitasm wrote:
| Another annoying thing: very few apps are copied from old
| device to new devices and bring their settings and most
| importantly login. Of about 80 apps on my device, only five or
| so are ready to use after a migration.
|
| Going through dozens of apps, doing logins, 2FAcand changing
| settings is a PITA.
|
| Devs do a poor job on that front.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Developers basically need to opt out not to use that feature.
| 2FA apps do that for understandable reasons (including on
| iOS).
|
| In my experience just about everything but WhatsApp and maybe
| Signal work out of the box for apps downloaded through GPlay.
| Animats wrote:
| I'm dreading having to buy a new rugged Android phone. I have one
| where all the stuff I don't want is turned off. F-Droid, Firefox,
| FairEmail, DuckDuckGo, no Google account. Getting a new phone
| into that configuration may not be possible. The major brands are
| more and more locked down, and the minor brands can't be trusted.
|
| I have a Cat phone now. The actual manufacturer, Bullett, went
| bankrupt. Can't get the small rubber parts needed to maintain the
| waterproofing.
|
| Suggestions?
| Gander5739 wrote:
| You could get a pixel and flash grapheneos. Most stock roms
| will require google services.
| teekert wrote:
| Sounds like setting up Windows. The amount of explaining of "why
| you don't want or need that" was insane. I got Ubuntu down to 10
| min or so. Including my fav apps. (I won't make the comparison to
| setting up NicOS with a ready to go config ;))
| hkbuilds wrote:
| The worst part is that it keeps getting harder, not easier. Every
| new phone setup asks you to connect more accounts, enable more
| permissions, and configure more services.
|
| I recently helped a family member set up a new phone and it took
| over 2 hours. Between 2FA migrations, app re-authentication, and
| trying to figure out which backup actually had their data, it was
| miserable.
|
| Phone manufacturers have zero incentive to make cross-platform
| migration easy. Apple wants you to stay on iPhone. Google wants
| you to stay on Android. The user suffers.
| suzzer99 wrote:
| > I recently helped a family member set up a new phone and it
| took over 2 hours
|
| I give a silent thanks every day that my dad still has a flip
| phone and no desire to upgrade.
| lsc4719 wrote:
| Why don't use `smartswitch` built-in feature of Samsung phones?
| hvenev wrote:
| I personally call this process of setting up a new device,
| whether for me or for someone else, "shit shoveling". It is
| something of a ritual.
|
| In the former case the thing that needs to be removed is the
| entirety of the OS (and if that proves to be impossible, the
| device is returned or discarded), and in the latter it's a scan
| of all apps and removal of all unnecessary apps, my grandma does
| not need Samsung Galaxy Games, thank you very much.
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| "I bought terrible Google slopware and struggled with it"
|
| Insightful stuff. Adults buy iPhones.
| bossyTeacher wrote:
| Vivaldi over Firefox. I would love to hear the reasoning.
| layman51 wrote:
| Same here! I'm assuming it has more to do with the mobile app
| experience than anything else.
| user3939382 wrote:
| I do SIP and Asterisk. I read the title and was like I know
| right! Oh smartphones. Setting it up is the tip of an iceberg
| whereas consumers and society as a whole are pay huge prices in
| several currencies for phones which are tremendously over
| engineered for and not fit for, purpose. The entire stack from
| Von Veumann to 5G has to go.
| timedude wrote:
| None of those problems exist on GrapheneOS. In fact i regularly
| do a clean wipe and am up and running again in minutes.
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