I was an iOS supporter until iphone 5 then I discovered the beauty and freedom of Android.
To this day with Samsung s22+
But currently I am a bit tired, there is no android phone that I am passionate about, oneplus has given me nothing but problems, Samsung with exynos is a disaster (not to mention the new blockages at sideload and the green stripes on the display), I don’t even want to go near all the other Chinese brands, and Nothing is not what it promised to be.
I want to go back to iOS but there are a few things holding me back:
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how can sideload be managed on iOS? Are there modified apps like youtube, reddit?
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I follow a lot of NSFW channels on telegram, discord and reddit itself, are there any problems on iOS? are there ways around this? (my girlfriend has iOS, and every time I want to forward an nsfw gif she doesn’t see it)
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surf the sea, is it complex on ios? Especially in terms of gaming?
TBH only yt, nsfw and modded apk keep me on android. Thanks a lot in advance
Get a Pixel, install GrapheneOS and you’re done.
can’t wait for my s22u to die so i can do that
You can wait for a cat to fall into a garbage can or you can push a cat into a garbage can and get it over with.
i would never do that to a cat and i don’t have money for a new one
Cats aren’t really that expensive, are they?
Sadly, google cats aren’t part of the cat distribution system.
i can’t even afford to eat every day
Given how expensive phones are in terms of environmental cost you really shouldn’t be buying new phones unless your current one’s broken to the point of unusable.
You, my good person, have quite a way with words.
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I would have gotten a pixel years ago
No expandable storage
The specs are also mediocre
If Samsung is shit now and Google Pixel is a tossup for QA issues, where do to go? OnePlus? Sony Xperia?..ASUS?
OnePlus seems pretty good.
iOS is probably the worst choice if you want to sideload apps. I would recommend sticking with Android and run your Samsung into the ground (maybe flash a custom ROM?) before getting something like a Fairphone.
Besides, what do you want to be “passionate” about in mobile phones? To me, they’re just tools for browsing the web, playing games, and staying in contact with friends and family while on the go; anything extra is superficial.
Actually I love to testing modded app, rooting, changing roms, with samsung and oneplus I lost this because install a custom rom brings a lot of issue with banks, camera (damn camera2 api) and so on almost all modern phone is not convenient to go to a custom rom
so you are choosing to go from having issues with those things to not being able to do it at all? I don’t understand. isn’t finding/solving the issues part of the testing you mention?
I dont think its possible -or easy- to install custom roms on samsungs since they dont allow unlocking the bootloader
Pixel Phone with GrapheneOS is simply the best solution available right now.
And remember kids. Buy your pixel second hand
Just be careful. OEM lock can fuck you over big time
Checking in from GrapheneOS
word.
Am writing this on one in my second VPN only user profile. It’s like having two phones
* in the selected list of countries 😿
I got my pixel online before it was officially available in my country. If you can’t find anything locally you can message sellers from other countries on ebay or use a proxy store like this guy link who offers worldwide shipping.
there is no android phone that I am passionate about,
Not what you asked for:
A phone is a tool which should enable you to do stuff. Be passionate about friends, hobbies, art, not a piece of plastic.
Being forced to use iOS (work phone) and Android (Samsung, also work), both suck IMHO but Android sucks less.
My next Android will be a Pixel, as others suggested custom roms are the way to go, but even vanilla Android is more functional/open/practical for my needs than iOS.
I would never buy Apples shit with my own money: Dumped down, locked down and in the end you are renting a device from Apple to pay fees for their Appstore and Cloud offerings and vendor lock in. No thanks.
I will add that, after getting my first Pixel as my previous phone, I’ve found the Google vanilla Android experience is better than Android on other carriers that fill the phone with bloat that you can’t get rid of without rooting.
my girlfriend has iOS, and every time I want to forward an nsfw gif she doesn’t see it
Say what? There’s no content censoring that I’m aware of. I’ve had no issues looking at all kinds of NSFW/NSFL content.
Regardless, you’re likely not going to enjoy the lack of modified apps and game piracy; I don’t do either of those. Maybe it’s possible but you’ve gotta jump through so many hoops IMO it wouldn’t be worth it.
Zero issues with NSFW though, that’s bizarre to me. There’s screen time web content filtering but I believe that only affects safari.
My partner can’t view webp/webm content on ios either. It’s a real pain once in a while.
Yeah but there’s a difference between’doesn’t support webp’ and ‘blocks porn’
I can tell you that there are channel marked as NSFW that share video and gif and if I send it to my gf, on her phone (even with nsfw enabled) she get the message “this channel is used to share pornographic material” while on android I can see everything.
Apple did something a while back to limit nsfw stuff on iOS. There was a setting in discord that you had to change to see nsfw stuff and some communities you had to join it from the desktop before you could view it on the phone.
I’m remembering more now, Apple had a policy that was like we might block your app if it’s for nsfw. So some apps got worried and limited nsfw stuff on iOS.
What do you mean by channel, like on Telegram?
This is a region specific Telegram setting if so, it’s not iOS. Tell her to disable the adult content filter.
Fairphone 4 with eOS, escaping Google and Apple’s duopoly is quite liberating and not as hard as I thought it would be. Yeah, eOS is technically Android, but deGoogled.
iOS is way too locked down. Granted, it depends on what you do and what you need, but since you’re asking in this community yeah… not the best choice.
Honestly just get a Android phone that’s just pure Android OS and nothing else, you don’t have to deal with the added junk that Samsung or whoever want to add on top of the OS. e.g. Google Pixel is quite excellent for this. And even still, if you end up wanting a different OS try installing GrapheneOS & see how it goes.
I really want to jump on Pixel, because, again I hate how iOS is locked for everything. but I hate in the same way that G2 seems to overheat. I didn’t know grapheneOS this is interesting…
Pixel phone with GrapheneOS, it’s an unbeatable solution. Rock solid, reliable, safe & secure and private. A lot of people mentioned Pixel 8 gen to be really with very long-term support (about 7 years if I not mistaken), so that’s really worthy!
Edit: typo
I’ve been using two different (refurbished) Pixel phones with CalyxOS for over 3 years now. It is a really great experience :) And the photos the phones can take are great, too!
*cries in s23 ultra
There are other mobile OSs besides Android and iOS. That being said, iOS is one of the most locked-down restrictive platforms on the planet, and any “freedom” you have now can be taken away in a single update as soon as Apple gets an angry letter from Nintendo or the RIAA or whatever.
This comment has definitely stopped me from wanting to switch to iOS, I can’t do it, if I don’t sail the high seas I don’t feel comfortable, I only spend my money where I have a grain of apparent freedom
Long time Samsung user. Get a Pixel 8. Install Obtainium. Use it to install Neo Launcher and 99% of the apps you probably use. Or just switch to GrapheneOS. You will be happy again.
I also found filly changing my layout helps. My daily calendar, task list, and clock are the only things on my first home screen.
+1 for GrapheneOS
Agreed, grapheneos is great
Obtainium
Didn’t know about obtenium. I think pixel 8 seems the only good choice also if it’s pricey and I’m afraid that is a lot smaller than the s22+ that I think is a right size
Yea, they have gotten pricey. I ended up going down in phone size instead of getting the bigger 8, really like being able to reach all the way across the phone again. Using a tablet for reading things probably made a difference here, though.
Filly? What does that mean in this context?
I think they typoed “fully”
OH! Got it! Thank you! I was legitimately just like “is this new lingo I don’t know”
Yes, it’s new lingo, that’s what I was using. Mmmhmm. You should too… Totally…
I use a Pixel and would recommend one. I dont have much experience with apple devices but I’ve heard of people using https://sideloadly.io/ to sideload apps on iphones. No idea how well it works if at all.
Samsung is garbage IMO, and OnePlus has been getting worse for years. Pixels offer the smoothest experience. Nothing phones are really nice too.
Wdym about the gifs? there should be nothing stopping you from sending those on any device.
Sideloading is possible, but there’s more hoops to jump through than on Android. Plus an overall smaller amount of apps available to sideload.
Piracy depends on what you’re pirating. TV/Movie wise you’ll be fine, as well as ROMs for the few emulators iOS has (relative to android). I doubt you’ll have any luck with apps or mobile games.
Wdym about the gifs? there should be nothing stopping you from sending those on any device.
I forward gif from channel that maybe are marked as NSFW, I know that also some content creator makes 2 channel on telegram because if they are marked as NSFW are not shown on ios anymore.
Pixel are really expensive and I read that the 7 pro gets really hot, and I don’t like it, while the 8 it’s a bit small after the s22+
Dude, Pixels of any generation compared to iPhone are actually cheap. iPhone are the most expensive overrated phones ever made.
Like the other guy said, used/refurbished pixels are pretty good deals. The overheating is a bit overblown, yes some people get a bad device but you can just return it if it’s really bad. My experience with the pixel 7/ 7 pro is that it’s very smooth and don’t notice any overheating even in hot climate, and Android 14 and also the upcoming 15 updates helps with heat and battery significantly.
I’m really afraid of this, I’ve seen a video of a pixel 7 pro that stop a videocall on telegram for the overheating issue. I just can stand this, because I sometimes travel and I want to take picture and long long videos…
There are mountains of complaints in the googlepixel sub about the terrible tensor chip. Not sure why so many here are ignoring the inefficiency and overheating. The modem is also really bad
Pixels second hand are decently cheap from my experience
As I said to someone, pixel 7 is affordable for me, but I’m afraid of the overheat, the G2 seems really terrible soc
Some sideload services offer paid games for free
Xiaomi. Or poco, redmi… Same stuff. For 200 bucks you get awesome phones and you can usually always remove stock and install LineageOS. They are all freely uockable and still under warranty after that.
Get a model near its end of market life, buy new the oldest you can find… Unlock, install LineageOS, enjoy.
I bought my Poco X3 NFC for 160€ 4 years ago and still rocks today with LineageOS 21 (Android 14).
(It usually take 6 months to 1 year for each new model to get LineageOS support, so don’t buy the latest model Also worth looking if there is official support on LineageOS before buy, or at least some unofficial ports).
Asus Zenfone are nice as well
Can you unlock them easily and still have valid warranty as well? That would be a great point
Asus bootloader is locked. This brand is a dead man walking just like sony
It’s dead to me too then. Useless crap. Maybe the best hardware and software, but still closed crap.
Get a model near its end of market life, buy new the oldest you can find
This is a very good advice for someone who is buying a new phone to install a custom ROM on it, since they are indepandant effort they need some time to hack things and find workarounds
Yes, I am a maintainer for a 4 years old device, and I would love to be able to buy it new today! New battery and all.
First I would say best Android right now, is a pixel with custom ROM installed.
Sidload: there exists modified apps for iPhone. To install them you have 3 options (if not in EU) you can sideload using your personal free apple dev account, there you are limited to 3 different apps and you have to reinstall them every 7 days to keep them working, if you pay apple 100$ a year, you can upgrade to a “real” apple dev account without the limitations. Easiest way to self sign apps using above methods would be AltStore application. The third way is Sideloading using a service, that uses enterprise certificates to distribute such apps, those services are either expensive (e.g. BuildStore) or they inject ads into the apps you sideload (sorry, you have to “google” yourself).
I had no issues with NSFW on Reddit, Lemmy and discord yet, 🤔 for discord I don’t know if it changed since I used it. NSFW on telegram is blocked in the iOS app, but the webApp of telegram can be added to the homescreen and then it feels like an App
I use the sea via the self hosted arrr apps and have added the webUI of each to my homescreen, alternatively you can control your arrr apps using LunaSea app. For streaming, I use plex and jellyfin which both work great on iOS
For youtube, there were some modded apps, but I just went with premium via India, because that was more convenient.
I block ads on my phone by routing my internet through my server running adGuard and on device I use 1blocker as backup (since i payed for lifetime long time ago)
I have recently gotten an iPad, because my carrier had a banger of a deal (30% off on the 2024 Air, 48 months payment no interest) and my Huawei tablet was getting long in the tooth, so I jumped.
I have owned Android since the first Galaxy (no number), tablets since the first 7" Galaxy Tab.
I have gone through a few tablets, 3-4 Samsung, Lenovo, Huawei, a couple of no names, and I got the iPad, because for tablet things is still the reference. Best experience hands down.
Would I get an iPhone? NO WAY.
The iPad is an occasional use device. I use it for media consumption, some social media (not much of a user) and for graphics stuff with the Affinity suite, which BTW is reason enough to get an iPad if you do design/photo. It’s the device for when the laptop is too cumbersome, or overkill. It’s great to take notes, scribble, sketch. It’s awesome to edit pics on the go, which I do a surprising lot.
But… Apple limits what I can do. Too much.
Would I accept the constraints of iOS in my main electronic device? No. I can live with the iPad’s constraints because I have a super capable phone (a 4 year old Xiaomi which is truly fantastic), which I can tune as I wish, and because it’s use case is fairly well defined. I would not compromise with my phone. Simple things like changing the launcher, what goes on my lock screen like alternate number / emergency contact, or whatever clock I want, or the keyboard, or installing apps from wherever I want, or rooting and changing the ROM (not all phones) or not dealing with iCloud bullshit, or having proper Firefox with extensions, or torrenting, or any of the tweaks, modifications, or whatever that make my Android MINE.
Just search for “things that iphones can’t do”. You’ll have reading for an afternoon.
Same here. iOS is so severely limited compared to Android it would be unusable to me as an phone.
As a tablet I use it 99% for streaming apps (music and series) that I put on while cooking or doing chores, 1% as a backup device for things like access to my bank app.
THIS ^
Thank you so much, I didn’t think about Firefox, I’m a firefox user on every system I have, and I rely a lot on extensions. And I have my little server with sonarr, radarr, jellyfin and syncthing that is not so much, but it works and I had fun making it, I don’t want to lose the joy of do what I want with my phone.
iOS is probably the most locked down option you can pick. The EU even told Malus to open it up and Malus tried to fuck around. Now they might be in for some monetary justice, but that might take a year or two. Emulation was even only recently allowed, but only of old shit like Windows XP.
Android is still the most open, mainstream, phone OS out there. Get yourself a phone that can run a ROM like LineageOS, eOS, FairPhone or (if you want to give Google more money for surveillance) a Pixel to put GrapheneOS on it (easy process, you just need a browser and USB-C cable). That’ll get you more freedom to keep the phone alive longer and optionally become more private (if you can learn to live without Google).
To save money, you don’t even need to buy a new one. Get a refurbished phone. They are often 100-200€ cheaper than new phones and are sometimes as good as new.
iOS will lock you in, give you less options, and cost you loads to boot.
