Major iOS Upgraded Disaster

[a1call]

Will I did go through the Samsung/Android branch for a while. My Samsung is still in perfect working order(which is probably why Samsung is not the most valuable company in the world while Apple is). But unfortunately Apple is always one step ahead of its competition. I recall reading at some point they were introducing phones they had developed 3 years in advance. I know many will disagree but you can't really compete with a company like that.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by a1call

Will I did go through the Samsung/Android branch for a while. My Samsung is still in perfect working order(which is probably why Samsung is not the most valuable company in the world while Apple is).

No, apple is the most valuable company in the world - for now - because it has successfully cultivated an ecosystem of cultish fanbois like yourself who respond to the ever-increasing crapification of the products (iOS-driven suck for the PC OS - the reason my macbook OS is frozen at the late, great, oh-so-stable-and responsive 10.6.8 - glued-together innards of devices which make it impossible to even replace a frickin' battery, fetishization of form over function - oh, you want actual I/O ports on that Mac? You'll need to buy a separate expensive dongle for that!, obvious user-abusive design changes like getting rid of the Magsafe connectors on the laptops, and abusive stuff like you describe related to backing up and upgrading one's iphone OS) with happily forking over added *thousands* of dollars in entirely unjustifiable-by-any-sane-measure outlays and cheerful cries of "Thank you sir! May I please have another?" Elon Musk's Tesla is another Silicon valley company which has successfully followed the same kind of strategy. It works until it doesn't - but when the final "we've had it and we're voting with our feet" customer exodus arrives, it's usually as surprisingly late in coming as it is massive.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by a1call

But unfortunately Apple is always one step ahead of its competition.

Ummm... No.

But if you want to drink that Kool-Aid, go ahead.

[paulunderwood]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

No, apple is the most valuable company in the world - for now - because it has successfully cultivated an ecosystem of cultish fanbois like yourself who respond to the ever-increasing crapification of the products [snip].

Also the exploitation of workers at its fabrication sites and for raw materials -- but I guess this is true for a lot of companies.

[LaurV]

@OP: do you mean that after all this, you still bought an apple phone?
(oh, I see Ernst said this already, more plastic.. )

[a1call]

No but I am planning to. It's a factor of how frustrated I am with the keyboard lag vs. how much I can put off the impulse of getting a new iPhone.
I am a CAD designer and I know that you deal with similar interests.
If I get a bit more talkative some day I will let you know how the augmented reality feature of the iPhone X by means of which you can measure dimensions in a picture makes it a must have gadget for me.

ETA But I can tell you that if I ever do get a new I iPhone, i Will never under any circumstances upgrade its factory built iOS.

[LaurV]

Haha, ok, we are quite interested in knowing and learning. We are still the proud owner of a Samsung Galaxy S2 phone, with which we get along very well, but sometimes we miss our Gigabyte GSMart "brick".

[GP2]

Android is a fragmented platform – many custom versions, many old versions floating around and in fact vastly predominating in numbers – which makes it harder for developers to write apps and harder to sell them.

But the showstopper problem, the dealbreaker, is that critical security updates arrive months late or never. Every manufacturer out there has to adapt Google's fixes to their own stupid custom version, and they either can't do it in a timely fashion or they just never bother. There's really no support at all for phones more than a year old.

Maybe you don't want security updates, but that just makes you some kind of cyber anti-vaxxer. There's an eternal arms race between platform suppliers and hackers and there's really no choice but to keep up on the treadmill, unless you want some script kiddie looking over your girlfriend's nude selfies.

Security updates aren't a problem if you buy Google's own Pixel phones, which run standard up-to-date Android. But Google is a software company that can't master the supply chain, and in any case, if their own phones ever grabbed significant market share, that would just multiply their antitrust woes. So in the end that's not much of an option either, Pixel will never really be a factor.

So it's Apple, by default, despite their faults. That's not fanboyism, it's just that there's really no other choice.

[rogue]

I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to software updates. I do my best to ensure that I have the latest (stable) versions of software, especially OSes ,due to all of the security concerns with older software.

It is most difficult to deal with changes that completely redesign the UI to a point that it is harder to use. Outside of iTunes, Apple has done a decent job of making their software user friendly.

I occasionally run into the "its too old and won't run on the current OS", but I'm okay with taking that risk. When that does happen I always find that I can replace with something better or that I don't need the software that no longer works.

Pardon my raniting...

The company I work for was so frustrated with people not taking Windows OS and security updates that it made that no longer an option. IT will forcibly install updates and reboot computers if the user has not taken the time to install the update and reboot within the window, which is typically two weeks between the release of the update and the force install. For them it came down to security vulnerabilities that they did not want to be exposed to as they had have problems in the past with viruses getting in house due to employees not installing patches that have been available for a long time.

I personally get frustrated with co-workers who neglect to update their IDE and other 3rd party software. They routinely run into problems that they want me to solve. They don't like me telling them to upgrade as I won't look into it until they do. Sometimes they refuse because "I don't have time" or "it might break something". They end up spending more time trying to investigate and solve the issue then actually installing the current version of software. Unfortunately in the end they typically accept that it doesn't work with that version and just assume it will work without ever upgrading. I have one co-worker whose IDE is so terribly broken that he can barely code in it and cannot debug with it at all. He has wasted days (if not weeks) working around these problems rather than spending 15 minutes re-installing with the current version of the IDE and configuring it per well-documented instructions.

I consider it analogous to "an apple a day" with medicine. It is far easier to eat an apple a day then trying to eat a bushel at one time once every few months.

[retina]

I don't believe all the "security updates are necessary" nonsense. I still run WinXP and FF3.6. And still no security problems. Just don't be stupid and download all the crap on offer. Turn off JS, it isn't needed actually. And use a firewall. That's it. Old stuff still works as long as the old stuff hasn't had the designed in obsolescence like all the latest shiny crap on offer today. All the brainwashing about "if you don't update then hackers, terrorists and paedophiles will overrun your system" it just isn't true. Exercise a little care and you'll be perfectly fine.

[M344587487]

Originally Posted by GP2

...
So it's Apple, by default, despite their faults. That's not fanboyism, it's just that there's really no other choice.

You state that Pixel is a valid alternative for the security conscious, that sounds like a reasonable solution. Another potential route (not for the faint of heart) is to root your phone and deal with security yourself.



There is a problem with android IMO and it mainly comes down to google's overbearing presence.They have involved themselves in pretty much any typical task you do on a phone for the big data slurp. At least unlike apple you can take steps to de-google an android device (F-Droid for FOSS apps, rooting, removing crapware, removing google apps). You can take some steps with apple devices but really the walled garden has you in a vice.