Anytime you have to make a claim that something is the best that means it isn't the best. Excellence always speaks for itself.
Quotes like that are meaningless unless they are able to articulate a reason why they believe it to be true. As others have mentioned, Apple has hurt their business model by stopping much of their ad tracking. Clearly they want more users to be on Android... hence the vague and inaccurate claims about Android being better.
Android users switching to iOS annually: 14%. iOS users switching to Android annually: 4%. I guess the "better" part must be pretty well hidden within the operating system.
Since nearly the dawn of the duopoly, Apple and others have claimed that some annually significant percentage of Android users have switched to iOS. Oddly though Android continues to exist a decade and a half later, and in good numbers. How can that be if 10-14% of the ecosystem switch to Apple devices every year and smartphone adoption numbers aren't rising?
A conundrum.
"Apple's iOS, however, reigns supreme in the United States. Android takes the top spot at 70.89% market share globally, beating iOS by a 42.53% difference with a 28.36% market share. Meanwhile, in the US, Apple continues to dominate at 57.39% market share, beating Android by a 15.12% difference."
Apple's market share is growing and in the US, Apple has now passed Android by a considerable margin. So, where people can afford to buy nice things, Apple wins. In third world countries where the average selling price for a phone is $200, sure Android wins because Apple doesn't even compete in that low end part of the market. There is no conundrum.
gatorguy said: Since nearly the dawn of the duopoly, Apple and others have claimed that some annually significant percentage of Android users have switched to iOS. Oddly though Android continues to exist a decade and a half later, and in good numbers. How can that be if 10-14% of the ecosystem switch to Apple devices every year and smartphone adoption numbers aren't rising?
Hint: it's not 14% of the entire Android user base. It's 14% of iPhone buyers in a given year.
Oh. So 15 years later nearly the entire current iOS ownership base comes from what were originally Android owners? 10-15% every year is a substantial turnover, in total a collectively huge percentage of today's iPhone owners, and a massive Android ecosystem loss. Goodness, how have they survived?
Of course marketers on both sides are going to cherry pick data to make claims. The whole world of marketing is about bamboozling people who don't think too deeply about things into believing one thing or another.
Let's move past the talking points and get to a real technical analysis of what makes a good piece of technology that enriches our lives. And how the actions of the companiesbehind those technologies sets an example for future generations. With that in mind, it's not surprising to see the current behaviour of tech company leaders.
You're talking to a person who is so partisan in his product choices he goes into the others' camp to talk shit about their choices, not rational and certainly not reasonable, just very very childishly predictable where everything out of his mouth is the utterly simple, "contra-Apple," comment. That's not cogent thinking or arguing and it definitely won't be from that ilk what is an admirable and noble desire to achieve.
gatorguy said: Since nearly the dawn of the duopoly, Apple and others have claimed that some annually significant percentage of Android users have switched to iOS. Oddly though Android continues to exist a decade and a half later, and in good numbers. How can that be if 10-14% of the ecosystem switch to Apple devices every year and smartphone adoption numbers aren't rising?
Hint: it's not 14% of the entire Android user base. It's 14% of iPhone buyers in a given year.
Oh. So 15 years later nearly the entire current iOS ownership base comes from what were originally Android owners? 10-15% every year is a substantial turnover, in total a collectively huge percentage of today's iPhone owners, and a massive Android ecosystem loss. Goodness, how have they survived?
Of course marketers on both sides are going to cherry pick data to make claims. The whole world of marketing is about bamboozling people who don't think too deeply about things into believing one thing or another.
Let's move past the talking points and get to a real technical analysis of what makes a good piece of technology that enriches our lives. And how the actions of the companiesbehind those technologies sets an example for future generations. With that in mind, it's not surprising to see the current behaviour of tech company leaders.
You're talking to a person who is so partisan in his product choices he goes into the others' camp to talk shit about their choices, not rational and certainly not reasonable, just very very childishly predictable where everything out of his mouth is the utterly simple, "contra-Apple," comment. That's not cogent thinking or arguing and it definitely won't be from that ilk what is an admirable and noble desire to achieve.
I used to have good debates with GG about Google's technology and the motivation of the people behind it, but now it seems that talking points are the order of the day. Which is the same reason I don't bother with social media: paid shills dominate the conversations. They're probably mostly automated at this point.
gatorguy said: Since nearly the dawn of the duopoly, Apple and others have claimed that some annually significant percentage of Android users have switched to iOS. Oddly though Android continues to exist a decade and a half later, and in good numbers. How can that be if 10-14% of the ecosystem switch to Apple devices every year and smartphone adoption numbers aren't rising?
Hint: it's not 14% of the entire Android user base. It's 14% of iPhone buyers in a given year.
Oh. So 15 years later nearly the entire current iOS ownership base comes from what were originally Android owners? 10-15% every year is a substantial turnover, in total a collectively huge percentage of today's iPhone owners, and a massive Android ecosystem loss. Goodness, how have they survived?
Of course marketers on both sides are going to cherry pick data to make claims. The whole world of marketing is about bamboozling people who don't think too deeply about things into believing one thing or another.
Let's move past the talking points and get to a real technical analysis of what makes a good piece of technology that enriches our lives. And how the actions of the companiesbehind those technologies sets an example for future generations. With that in mind, it's not surprising to see the current behaviour of tech company leaders.
You're talking to a person who is so partisan in his product choices he goes into the others' camp to talk shit about their choices, not rational and certainly not reasonable, just very very childishly predictable where everything out of his mouth is the utterly simple, "contra-Apple," comment. That's not cogent thinking or arguing and it definitely won't be from that ilk what is an admirable and noble desire to achieve.
I used to have good debates with GG about Google's technology and the motivation of the people behind it, but now it seems that talking points are the order of the day. Which is the same reason I don't bother with social media: paid shills dominate the conversations. They're probably mostly automated at this point.
Agreed fully, there used to be some great technical conversations to be had, for many of us it started at MacRumors but when that site went to the trolls, we migrated here where there still existed some good discussions. Those, sadly, seem to be leaving here as well, save for the small and rare pockets (esp when Mike or Marvin chime in with some great insight and info). People seem more interested in the partisan tit-tat bickering than acknowledging that product preference need not be partisan (and aren't for a large group of us), and where agnostic technical discussions can be quite stimulating for everyone regardless of which product s/he prefers.
Anytime you have to make a claim that something is the best that means it isn't the best. Excellence always speaks for itself.
Quotes like that are meaningless unless they are able to articulate a reason why they believe it to be true. As others have mentioned, Apple has hurt their business model by stopping much of their ad tracking. Clearly they want more users to be on Android... hence the vague and inaccurate claims about Android being better.
Android users switching to iOS annually: 14%. iOS users switching to Android annually: 4%. I guess the "better" part must be pretty well hidden within the operating system.
Since nearly the dawn of the duopoly, Apple and others have claimed that some annually significant percentage of Android users have switched to iOS. Oddly though Android continues to exist a decade and a half later, and in good numbers. How can that be if 10-14% of the ecosystem switch to Apple devices every year and smartphone adoption numbers aren't rising?
A conundrum.
"Apple's iOS, however, reigns supreme in the United States. Android takes the top spot at 70.89% market share globally, beating iOS by a 42.53% difference with a 28.36% market share. Meanwhile, in the US, Apple continues to dominate at 57.39% market share, beating Android by a 15.12% difference."
Apple's market share is growing and in the US, Apple has now passed Android by a considerable margin. So, where people can afford to buy nice things, Apple wins. In third world countries where the average selling price for a phone is $200, sure Android wins because Apple doesn't even compete in that low end part of the market. There is no conundrum.
Apples marketshare is even greater in Japan when compared to United States, and they have a healthy share in China (among those that can afford), because of the sheer size of China that market is larger than the United States market, and they are growing slightly in South Korea because if you have a choice in Korea, you would rather buy a Apple device than a device from any other Asian country, and the same is true in Japan and China in reverse, Apple is winning three ways.
Apple is also not doing too badly across the world among those that can afford their products, because they’re not looking to go low end like Android, which is part of the reason Samsung is having trouble (profit wise) across the world, the other reason is the rise of the Chinese companies in the low end of the market.
Apple is slowly grinding Samsung into the dust in the United States, and with the dawn of a new Apple ecosystem coming up, Samsung and Google are in more trouble down the road, the Apple Vision Pro which combines tech elements, in ways that highlight very strongly what a vertical computer company is capable of.
Personally I much prefer Android but Android comes in infinitely more flavors than iOS so it's impossible to have used them all to any real degree. The same applies to iOS and the changes from one versión to another.
I'd say that over recent years, iOS has taken a huge amount of influence from Android. Although it is a two way street, it definitely looks like Apple is loosening it's grip on key areas like personalisation.
For me, as someone who constantly has to dip into iOS to resolve issues, it can be very frustrating to see how some things seem so kludgy there.
That could be due to my wife's particular situation/configuration or how certain apps 'behave' but it doesn't feel intuitive to me.
You are not alone on the bolded part. It is my experience as well.
"how certain apps 'behave' but it doesn't feel intuitive to me" - I also have the same feeling but I always thought it was due to me being born and brought up with Windoze OS. I am surprised to see this from you, a person who has primarily MacOS experience.
I'm pretty much 'old school' in many ways and all my macs are vintage now. Like me! LOL.
I have never used Windows though as a daily driver. I only touch Windows to try and solve problems.
I tend to see things differently to the majority. For example, I was overjoyed when Intel hit their performance bottlenecks from around 2009 onwards.
It kind of killed the need to upgrade to more modern systems just so that the system wouldn't creak under the weight and lack of RAM!
I literally had no need for a new system for a full 10 years and surely more if Apple’s terrible iMac thermal design hadn't killed the graphics card in it. That was unheard of in those days. For my needs it would have sufficed for many more years (full disclosure: it was an I and powerful from the get go).
That was from a 'power' perspective.
From a software perspective things were different and I really hated the changes that appeared from around when they got rid of 'save as...'
I didn't like many things after that. Sometimes little things like how Disk Utility, erm, had its 'utility' taken away. Hiding the System Folder etc.
iTunes was breaking under its own bloat at the time and the whole syncing process was getting terribly out of control.
I remember once just adding a book (a..pdf), less than 1MB, and watched in agony as iTunes went through its seven or eight step sync routine - and failed! Utterly.
A long story but definitely a WTF! moment.
That all bled into iOS.
I just wanted to be able to copy a file over to an iPhone and have it read but Apple was saying 'no' you MUST jump through all these hoops and do it 'OUR' way.
This kind of situation has been seen too often and in the end Apple has changed how it does things. But only after a lot of suffering.
Now we have the 'Files' app but for far too long people defended the 'Apple Way'. Attachments being forced into the cloud? Why?
When AirDrop arrived it was hell on earth to get it to work but you had to have iCloud, WiFi AND Bluetooth on to even have a chance. Why?
Why not include the same file transfer BT profile from Mac OS (now macOS) on iPhones and let users transfer files directly?
Scrolling screenshot captures? I just draw an 'S' on my screen with a knuckle (yes, knuckle gestures) and it's done. It just works.
Text manipulation and positioning? I've never known that to be good on iOS.
Safari? No thanks. I've lost count of the times my wife has had to abandon something and have me do it on my phone.
I utterly detest the scrolling wheels for date and time input.
Maybe I should write up a list but over recent years, when I check up on 'what's new' on iOS I get Android deja vu or I say 'wasn't that feature already there?'
Apple seems to be finally giving users more customisation options. At last!
Then there are the glitches that, when I put them side by side with my phone, seem too many to be healthy.
Wireless charging stops and requires a restart.
Call ringer stops working and needs a restart.
Wi-Fi or Bluetooth flunks out and requires a restart.
Etc.
I have enjoyed using Android because it hasn't 'got in the way'. In my case it's EMUI or MagicOS but there has been a lot to like. The customisation. The flexibility. The possibilities.
It's true that the experience is sometimes tainted by the app you are using. For example the other day my wife asked me via WhatsApp how to share a product within the Amazon app. I just said hit the 'share' button. Her answer? There is no share button. What?
It kind of makes you think of that is some app limitation or if it is related to something at an iOS level.
The same with WhatsApp and many apps that have easy to access features on Android yet seem convoluted on iOS.
Multi user? I can set up a guest user on my phone.
App Twin? I can run two Whatsapp or Facebook instances etc.
Slowing down over time? Somehow a common gripe on Android phones yet guaranteed not to happen on mine due to the 'Born Fast, Stays Fast' promise from Huawei/Honor.
I wouldn't consider myself a power user on either system but Android meets my needs while iOS often ends up with my wife asking me how to do something that is 'easy' on my Android.
It is important to remember that 'my' Android is just one of many and for all the talk of stock Android being a favourite of many, I like mine a lot and the biggest irony of all is that Huawei/Honor phones are often described as being similar to iOS (at least upon casual inspection).
gatorguy said: Since nearly the dawn of the duopoly, Apple and others have claimed that some annually significant percentage of Android users have switched to iOS. Oddly though Android continues to exist a decade and a half later, and in good numbers. How can that be if 10-14% of the ecosystem switch to Apple devices every year and smartphone adoption numbers aren't rising?
Hint: it's not 14% of the entire Android user base. It's 14% of iPhone buyers in a given year.
Oh. So 15 years later nearly the entire current iOS ownership base comes from what were originally Android owners? 10-15% every year is a substantial turnover, in total a collectively huge percentage of today's iPhone owners, and a massive Android ecosystem loss. Goodness, how have they survived?
Of course marketers on both sides are going to cherry pick data to make claims. The whole world of marketing is about bamboozling people who don't think too deeply about things into believing one thing or another.
Let's move past the talking points and get to a real technical analysis of what makes a good piece of technology that enriches our lives. And how the actions of the companiesbehind those technologies sets an example for future generations. With that in mind, it's not surprising to see the current behaviour of tech company leaders.
You're talking to a person who is so partisan in his product choices he goes into the others' camp to talk shit about their choices, not rational and certainly not reasonable, just very very childishly predictable where everything out of his mouth is the utterly simple, "contra-Apple," comment. That's not cogent thinking or arguing and it definitely won't be from that ilk what is an admirable and noble desire to achieve.
I used to have good debates with GG about Google's technology and the motivation of the people behind it, but now it seems that talking points are the order of the day. Which is the same reason I don't bother with social media: paid shills dominate the conversations. They're probably mostly automated at this point.
It's unfortunate you feel that way. I still do the same research-before-posting I've done here for well over a decade, and if you look at my posts from the last several months I think you would see I'm far less partisan than you and a handful of others would assume. I don't cherry-pick facts, or at least I try not to, but I won't swear I'm always 100% successful.
One thing you can count on is I actively avoid attacking a person rather than an idea and generally treat every member respectfully whether it's offered in return or not. I see that as a net positive for AI forums and their discussion threads. The forum would be better off for all if that were more common.
Personally I much prefer Android but Android comes in infinitely more flavors than iOS so it's impossible to have used them all to any real degree. The same applies to iOS and the changes from one versión to another.
I'd say that over recent years, iOS has taken a huge amount of influence from Android. Although it is a two way street, it definitely looks like Apple is loosening it's grip on key areas like personalisation.
For me, as someone who constantly has to dip into iOS to resolve issues, it can be very frustrating to see how some things seem so kludgy there.
That could be due to my wife's particular situation/configuration or how certain apps 'behave' but it doesn't feel intuitive to me.
You are not alone on the bolded part. It is my experience as well.
"how certain apps 'behave' but it doesn't feel intuitive to me" - I also have the same feeling but I always thought it was due to me being born and brought up with Windoze OS. I am surprised to see this from you, a person who has primarily MacOS experience.
I'm pretty much 'old school' in many ways and all my macs are vintage now. Like me! LOL.
I have a combination of many new and old systems of all kinds. Over the years I've used Commodore, Atari, Intel PC, Mac, SGI, Sun (probably more I can't remember).
I have never used Windows though as a daily driver. I only touch Windows to try and solve problems.
I've used Windows from 3.1 to 11, but stopped using it daily when I discovered Linux (way before Android was a thing). It was nice to have a computer which didn't need to be rebooted daily, and I was studying computing science at the time, so it fit well. After that I only used Windows for games and cross-platform testing.
I tend to see things differently to the majority. For example, I was overjoyed when Intel hit their performance bottlenecks from around 2009 onwards.
It kind of killed the need to upgrade to more modern systems just so that the system wouldn't creak under the weight and lack of RAM!
I see things differently too.
After studying many operating systems in school and coming to understand the design behind them, plus working on rock solid UNIX systems, I really wanted to support the systems which had the best design and thinking behind them. At the time, Macs were still stuck on the old Mac OS, which was archaic, and I could see that the execs had no vision (just riding out existing technology). I was pretty keen on a DEC Alpha running Linux, but it was prohibitively expensive for a student.
The Wintel monopoly was in full force, and I certainly wasn't a fan of their business tactics (locking PC vendors into paying for Windows even if they didn't bundle it).
Then I read about Rhapsody (what eventually became Mac OS X) and how it used the Mach microkernel (great OS design at the time) and I knew I had to get a Mac as soon as it was released. And yes, Windows NT was also based on this kernel design (probably the only version of Windows I enjoyed using), but the business tactics are what kept me from supporting Microsoft.
So the TiBook was where I started with Mac.
I literally had no need for a new system for a full 10 years and surely more if Apple’s terrible iMac thermal design hadn't killed the graphics card in it. That was unheard of in those days. For my needs it would have sufficed for many more years (full disclosure: it was an I and powerful from the get go).
I only ever owned one iMac (27" i7 circa 2011), and it still works to this day, though the fan rattles terribly. Can't say that it was my favourite Mac, but it was a powerhouse and the big screen was beautiful for its time. The only Mac I've ever seen with hardware problems was the infamous MacBook Pro that switched GPUs between Intel integrated graphics and NVIDIA (would crash shortly after switching to NVIDIA). That's the one which led to a class action lawsuit and Apple to cutting ties with NVIDIA.
From a software perspective things were different and I really hated the changes that appeared from around when they got rid of 'save as...'
I've designed Mac apps which follow Apple UI guidelines for years and don't remember that ever being something Apple pushed. They did make it so that Mac apps would automatically save the application state periodically (autosave became a default behaviour if your app used their APIs), and I remember some apps replacing save functionality with that feature so that users didn't have to remember to hit save all the time. But it was never mandated that apps remove "save" or "save as..."
I didn't like many things after that. Sometimes little things like how Disk Utility, erm, had its 'utility' taken away. Hiding the System Folder etc.
Not sure why you didn't just use Terminal for everything. Apple realized that most power users were just using the command line for advanced functionality and so they stopped making things which could accidentally damage the OS/system easily available to everyone (probably because of the support costs and/or lawsuits). But it was always there if you knew the commands. And you could find apps which wrapped those commands if you really wanted (I downloaded a nice firewall rule management app which wrapped the ipfw commands).
iTunes was breaking under its own bloat at the time and the whole syncing process was getting terribly out of control.
I remember once just adding a book (a..pdf), less than 1MB, and watched in agony as iTunes went through its seven or eight step sync routine - and failed! Utterly.
A long story but definitely a WTF! moment.
I'll agree that iTunes was a bit of a mess for a while. But no one else at the time had anything better. I remember a few mobile phone manufacturers were actually hijacking the syncing functionality from it for their own phones instead of writing their own syncing software. Now THAT behaviour (much like the clone and own behaviour of Google) is something which really makes me say "WTF! Pay for the development of your own damn software!"
That all bled into iOS.
I just wanted to be able to copy a file over to an iPhone and have it read but Apple was saying 'no' you MUST jump through all these hoops and do it 'OUR' way.
This kind of situation has been seen too often and in the end Apple has changed how it does things. But only after a lot of suffering.
Now we have the 'Files' app but for far too long people defended the 'Apple Way'. Attachments being forced into the cloud? Why?
<many more points related to wanting features to stay the same>
With iOS, Apple was trying to remove as much complexity as possible from using computers. Part of removing that complexity was realizing that most people who use computers end up with a mess of files everywhere that they don't know how to navigate (or don't care). And navigating them on a small screen would just make it more difficult. So they were designing the system to automatically route files/documents into the apps which could handle them. Just choose the right app to open the document in, and each app manages a set of documents related to it. Global search allows you to find your documents no matter which app they're in. Which I actually thought was a pretty clever system, but obviously limiting for some scenarios, which is why they eventually created the Files app (where you can see the underlying folders each app is using for it's files). But I'd be willing to bet that most iPhone users barely touch, if at all, the Files app.
Just as we moved away from computers using punch cards, added screens, put all the components in one box, added a graphical interface, etc, etc, things need to move forward and become easier to use. Apple is one of the few companies willing to take risks, potentially making mistakes along the way, to move things forward. But there are always some people desperately wanting things to stay the same because they only see one way to do things. They aren't willing to shift their perspective and embrace new ways to do things, as they likely did when they were younger and still learning about life.
Here's a relevant piece of art which caught my eye in Berlin while I was there recently:
gatorguy said: Since nearly the dawn of the duopoly, Apple and others have claimed that some annually significant percentage of Android users have switched to iOS. Oddly though Android continues to exist a decade and a half later, and in good numbers. How can that be if 10-14% of the ecosystem switch to Apple devices every year and smartphone adoption numbers aren't rising?
Hint: it's not 14% of the entire Android user base. It's 14% of iPhone buyers in a given year.
Oh. So 15 years later nearly the entire current iOS ownership base comes from what were originally Android owners? 10-15% every year is a substantial turnover, in total a collectively huge percentage of today's iPhone owners, and a massive Android ecosystem loss. Goodness, how have they survived?
Of course marketers on both sides are going to cherry pick data to make claims. The whole world of marketing is about bamboozling people who don't think too deeply about things into believing one thing or another.
Let's move past the talking points and get to a real technical analysis of what makes a good piece of technology that enriches our lives. And how the actions of the companiesbehind those technologies sets an example for future generations. With that in mind, it's not surprising to see the current behaviour of tech company leaders.
You're talking to a person who is so partisan in his product choices he goes into the others' camp to talk shit about their choices, not rational and certainly not reasonable, just very very childishly predictable where everything out of his mouth is the utterly simple, "contra-Apple," comment. That's not cogent thinking or arguing and it definitely won't be from that ilk what is an admirable and noble desire to achieve.
I used to have good debates with GG about Google's technology and the motivation of the people behind it, but now it seems that talking points are the order of the day. Which is the same reason I don't bother with social media: paid shills dominate the conversations. They're probably mostly automated at this point.
It's unfortunate you feel that way. I still do the same research-before-posting I've done here for well over a decade, and if you look at my posts from the last several months I think you would see I'm far less partisan than you and a handful of others would assume. I don't cherry-pick facts, or at least I try not to, but I won't swear I'm always 100% successful.
One thing you can count on is I actively avoid attacking a person rather than an idea, and generally treat every member with respect whether it's offered in return or not. I see that as a net-positive for AI forums and its discussion threads. The forum would be better off for all if all that were more common.
Glad to know you're still there. I certainly try not to attack others and keep discussions from getting personal (or political) as well. However, I'm less the "here's a bunch of links to web articles" and more about measuring the quality of the technology (both at a technical level and a human level) and the business principals behind it (very important to me). Those are things which can't easily be handled by quoting facts alone. Where the talking points and group speak fall down and you need to reflect on what you really value and want to support.
Personally I much prefer Android but Android comes in infinitely more flavors than iOS so it's impossible to have used them all to any real degree. The same applies to iOS and the changes from one versión to another.
I'd say that over recent years, iOS has taken a huge amount of influence from Android. Although it is a two way street, it definitely looks like Apple is loosening it's grip on key areas like personalisation.
For me, as someone who constantly has to dip into iOS to resolve issues, it can be very frustrating to see how some things seem so kludgy there.
That could be due to my wife's particular situation/configuration or how certain apps 'behave' but it doesn't feel intuitive to me.
I have just the same problem with my girl-friend’s Android phone
The irony here is so thick. Instagram was originally an iOS app only. But of course Facebook, I mean Meta, purchased Instagram and then the founders left. This douche dongle wouldn’t even have a job if it weren’t for iOS.
Given that different people value different things, what I appreciate most is that we have choices. Android and iOS reflect different design philosophies and each OS has its strengths according to those approaches. A "hot take" that provides no context is just click-bait designed to waste energy.
I happen to prefer a system that (in addition to the technical aspects mentioned by @Auxio) requires less RAM and fits pretty seamlessly into the rest of my personal digital ecosystem and is not funded by the surveillance apparatus that seeks to turn all of us into commodities. I understand that I am trading some flexibility and customisability for these features; happily, it remains my choice.
I am also astoundingly happy that the people who prefer to spend their time elbows-deep in code and configuration settings have a toy to play with as well - it keeps me from endless conversations about things I don't (any longer) care about.
With general-purpose devices you can always argue that the device that is "better" for the most activities is overall the better device - that's perfectly logical. But as a practical matter, if a given device does everything you want/need it to do then why do you need to compare it with anything else?
gatorguy said: Since nearly the dawn of the duopoly, Apple and others have claimed that some annually significant percentage of Android users have switched to iOS. Oddly though Android continues to exist a decade and a half later, and in good numbers. How can that be if 10-14% of the ecosystem switch to Apple devices every year and smartphone adoption numbers aren't rising?
Hint: it's not 14% of the entire Android user base. It's 14% of iPhone buyers in a given year.
Oh. So 15 years later nearly the entire current iOS ownership base comes from what were originally Android owners? 10-15% every year is a substantial turnover, in total a collectively huge percentage of today's iPhone owners, and a massive Android ecosystem loss. Goodness, how have they survived?
It seems math, more accurately statistic, is not your strong point. The 14% is the percent of new iPhone buyers every year, that had switched from Android. Not 14% of all Android users or 14% of all iPhone users.
Here's a simple way to look at it ......
Apple is now selling about 230M iPhones a year. Out of that 230M sold, about 14% were to Android users switching, about 80% of them to current iPhone users upgrading to a new iPhone and about 6% to first time mobile phone buyers. So out of 230M new iPhones sold every year, about 32M (14% of 230M) were bought by Android users switching to iOS. Apple have about 1B iPhones in use now. (There's about 3.5B Android phones in use.) So that only comes to about 3% of the iPhone user base. (And about 1% of the Android user base.) The reason why the iPhone user base did not increase by any where near 230M in a year is because 80% of new iPhones sold went to current iPhones users. Plus there is a much smaller percent of current iPhone users that switches to Android every year.
The iPhone user base changes every year by the ....... (number of new users that switched from Android) + (number of new mobile phone users) - (number of iPhone users that switched to Android). The 80% of iPhone users that upgrade to a new iPhone every year do not have any affect on the current iPhone user base number. You can now see that it's going to take a lot, lot lot more that 15 years (at a 14% switching rate of new iPhone purchases) for the entire iPhone user base to come from Android. And a 1% Android user base loss (due to switching). is not a massive ecosystem loss.
Personally I much prefer Android but Android comes in infinitely more flavors than iOS so it's impossible to have used them all to any real degree. The same applies to iOS and the changes from one versión to another.
I'd say that over recent years, iOS has taken a huge amount of influence from Android. Although it is a two way street, it definitely looks like Apple is loosening it's grip on key areas like personalisation.
For me, as someone who constantly has to dip into iOS to resolve issues, it can be very frustrating to see how some things seem so kludgy there.
That could be due to my wife's particular situation/configuration or how certain apps 'behave' but it doesn't feel intuitive to me.
You are not alone on the bolded part. It is my experience as well.
"how certain apps 'behave' but it doesn't feel intuitive to me" - I also have the same feeling but I always thought it was due to me being born and brought up with Windoze OS. I am surprised to see this from you, a person who has primarily MacOS experience.
I'm pretty much 'old school' in many ways and all my macs are vintage now. Like me! LOL.
I have a combination of many new and old systems of all kinds. Over the years I've used Commodore, Atari, Intel PC, Mac, SGI, Sun (probably more I can't remember).
I have never used Windows though as a daily driver. I only touch Windows to try and solve problems.
I've used Windows from 3.1 to 11, but stopped using it daily when I discovered Linux (way before Android was a thing). It was nice to have a computer which didn't need to be rebooted daily, and I was studying computing science at the time, so it fit well. After that I only used Windows for games and cross-platform testing.
I tend to see things differently to the majority. For example, I was overjoyed when Intel hit their performance bottlenecks from around 2009 onwards.
It kind of killed the need to upgrade to more modern systems just so that the system wouldn't creak under the weight and lack of RAM!
I see things differently too.
After studying many operating systems in school and coming to understand the design behind them, plus working on rock solid UNIX systems, I really wanted to support the systems which had the best design and thinking behind them. At the time, Macs were still stuck on the old Mac OS, which was archaic, and I could see that the execs had no vision (just riding out existing technology). I was pretty keen on a DEC Alpha running Linux, but it was prohibitively expensive for a student.
The Wintel monopoly was in full force, and I certainly wasn't a fan of their business tactics (locking PC vendors into paying for Windows even if they didn't bundle it).
Then I read about Rhapsody (what eventually became Mac OS X) and how it used the Mach microkernel (great OS design at the time) and I knew I had to get a Mac as soon as it was released. And yes, Windows NT was also based on this kernel design (probably the only version of Windows I enjoyed using), but the business tactics are what kept me from supporting Microsoft.
So the TiBook was where I started with Mac.
I literally had no need for a new system for a full 10 years and surely more if Apple’s terrible iMac thermal design hadn't killed the graphics card in it. That was unheard of in those days. For my needs it would have sufficed for many more years (full disclosure: it was an I and powerful from the get go).
I only ever owned one iMac (27" i7 circa 2011), and it still works to this day, though the fan rattles terribly. Can't say that it was my favourite Mac, but it was a powerhouse and the big screen was beautiful for its time. The only Mac I've ever seen with hardware problems was the infamous MacBook Pro that switched GPUs between Intel integrated graphics and NVIDIA (would crash shortly after switching to NVIDIA). That's the one which led to a class action lawsuit and Apple to cutting ties with NVIDIA.
From a software perspective things were different and I really hated the changes that appeared from around when they got rid of 'save as...'
I've designed Mac apps which follow Apple UI guidelines for years and don't remember that ever being something Apple pushed. They did make it so that Mac apps would automatically save the application state periodically (autosave became a default behaviour if your app used their APIs), and I remember some apps replacing save functionality with that feature so that users didn't have to remember to hit save all the time. But it was never mandated that apps remove "save" or "save as..."
I didn't like many things after that. Sometimes little things like how Disk Utility, erm, had its 'utility' taken away. Hiding the System Folder etc.
Not sure why you didn't just use Terminal for everything. Apple realized that most power users were just using the command line for advanced functionality and so they stopped making things which could accidentally damage the OS/system easily available to everyone (probably because of the support costs and/or lawsuits). But it was always there if you knew the commands. And you could find apps which wrapped those commands if you really wanted (I downloaded a nice firewall rule management app which wrapped the ipfw commands).
iTunes was breaking under its own bloat at the time and the whole syncing process was getting terribly out of control.
I remember once just adding a book (a..pdf), less than 1MB, and watched in agony as iTunes went through its seven or eight step sync routine - and failed! Utterly.
A long story but definitely a WTF! moment.
I'll agree that iTunes was a bit of a mess for a while. But no one else at the time had anything better. I remember a few mobile phone manufacturers were actually hijacking the syncing functionality from it for their own phones instead of writing their own syncing software. Now THAT behaviour (much like the clone and own behaviour of Google) is something which really makes me say "WTF! Pay for the development of your own damn software!"
That all bled into iOS.
I just wanted to be able to copy a file over to an iPhone and have it read but Apple was saying 'no' you MUST jump through all these hoops and do it 'OUR' way.
This kind of situation has been seen too often and in the end Apple has changed how it does things. But only after a lot of suffering.
Now we have the 'Files' app but for far too long people defended the 'Apple Way'. Attachments being forced into the cloud? Why?
<many more points related to wanting features to stay the same>
With iOS, Apple was trying to remove as much complexity as possible from using computers. Part of removing that complexity was realizing that most people who use computers end up with a mess of files everywhere that they don't know how to navigate (or don't care). And navigating them on a small screen would just make it more difficult. So they were designing the system to automatically route files/documents into the apps which could handle them. Just choose the right app to open the document in, and each app manages a set of documents related to it. Global search allows you to find your documents no matter which app they're in. Which I actually thought was a pretty clever system, but obviously limiting for some scenarios, which is why they eventually created the Files app (where you can see the underlying folders each app is using for it's files). But I'd be willing to bet that most iPhone users barely touch, if at all, the Files app.
Just as we moved away from computers using punch cards, added screens, put all the components in one box, added a graphical interface, etc, etc, things need to move forward and become easier to use. Apple is one of the few companies willing to take risks, potentially making mistakes along the way, to move things forward. But there are always some people desperately wanting things to stay the same because they only see one way to do things. They aren't willing to shift their perspective and embrace new ways to do things, as they likely did when they were younger and still learning about life.
Here's a relevant piece of art which caught my eye in Berlin while I was there recently:
I'm fine with change if the change makes sense to me.
File management in userland on iOS only made some sense way back in the very early days of iOS and even then was questionable. File management (as in files and folders) isn't 'complexity'.
Files and folders work.
Things as mundane as email attachments became an issue because Apple refused to support them on-device and wanted to shunt users up into the cloud. That was just unnecessary. By the time iOS came around, everybody was familiar with the concept of a 'Downloads' folder.
The notion that somehow space is constrained on mobile screens and therefore it's better to avoid classic folder structures due to complexity doesn't make sense either.
Everyone understands the concept of folder structures and interfaces with cloud content via mobile without issue using folders. Why would they experience issues navigating local storage?
The core of the system itself is directory based. I can understand the idea of abstraction and wanting everything to be filed and retrieved by apps, but only to a point and that only really works for some limited scenarios and is limiting flexibility for the user and simply ends up causing headaches. To the point that Apple had to give in in the end and try to remedy a situation its own design caused, but it is still an issue.
The best option would be to simply allow users to manage their files and have the system deal with it. Of course, that would make it work like Android but then again, Apple's approach was shortsighted from the outset so that is inevitable.
Even in the old days iTunes would be flexible enough to allow you to add files from anywhere or copy them to a central location. Users were still at the mercy of an archaic syncing process that was fraught with issues and extremely slow.
Terminal is a power tool for power users. It is only there in the first place because because the root system uses shells. It's for users who are accustomed to command line interfaces and who use them regularly. Just like programming, you really need a breadth of 'extra' knowledge like syntax requirements etc to feel comfortable. The Mac was created to free us of prompts.
I've dabbled with Terminal only because of limitations at higher levels with applications. Often shortcomings at higher levels.
Yes, Terminal can do what Disk Utility did but that doesn't tackle my point. That was that functionality was eroded to make things easier for Apple, not the user.
Exactly the same thing happened with iTunes.
We use applications like Word the way we do for a huge reason and it is precisely to get away from command line interfaces.
If I wanted 'power' in text creation I would use TeX. Sometimes I've had to, but 'coding' text and compiling files is only a valid option (like with Terminal) if you are accustomed to it and are going to use it regularly.
In terms of 'new' versus 'old' and technology advances, some things always surprised me.
Finder was technically much better in OSX than Classic Mac OS. Just like modern file systems are better than older ones.
The problem from day one was that the 'new' Finder was a pale shadow of its former self in spite of its solid foundational changes. The Classic Finder always gave you the sensation it was one step ahead of you. Ready to give you what you wanted just when you needed it. It may have been built on a house of cards (like HFS) but in its own way, it was surprisingly solid and nimble. Robust even.
So, along came OSX Finder and all its modern underpinnings but it felt lobotomised and along with it came the spinning beach all of death. In usability it was very much a step back.
Better technology doesn't always lead to better solutions in userland.
Apple has got many things wrong with iOS on a conceptual level and has had to change tack in some key areas. The same has happened in hardware. Files is just one example. Customisation is another and again the 'complexity' notion comes back into focus. The iOS settings panels have always been a mess.
This is a situation that never needed to exist in the first place and, in its essence, was also resolved back in Classic OS.
Simple Finder.
The debate over simplicity vs complexity played out within Finder and was resolved by a toggle switch. Erm, simple. If you wanted to keep things simple, simple finder was there.
My Android phones have always had the option to hide complex settings away but it was always an option, never an imposition.
I have always challenged the 'Apple knows best' line. Apple definitely doesn't and it has shown over the years.
Safari was introduced as a smiley face for WebKit. It was touted as a small, lightweight, fast browser. It had to be because Apple couldn't go head to head with Firefox or Chrome at the time so they played on the 'simple' theme.
However, that was never going to cut it, and slowly Safari has been laden with more functionality (along with WebKit) over the years. There are still way too many areas where it just fails and Chrome will do the job. The reasons are many but in userland, getting the job done is what matters.
That aspect, as people try to do more and more on their mobile devices has exacerbated the limitations within iOS and is possibly the reason why iOS has been adopting so many features that have been present on Android. A few years ago I got the sensation that almost every new feature announced at WWDC was already present on Android and it was widely commented on at the time.
When HarmonyOS was revealed in 2019 the concept of multi-device interoperability was brought to the fore and their developer conference through up a screen showing the different device operating systems and how each system was effectively 'siloed' from the rest. Getting them to 'talk' to each other 'natively' was going to be problematic unless the system had been designed with multi device interoperability in mind from the outset.
Since then every WWDC has given us something along the multi device interoperability line. The question has to be. At what cost? Are they kludging it together like Classic MacOS reached its goals? Are they re-tooling things at a foundational level?
Are the different Apple operating systems designed for distributed file systems, shared busses, distributed security, seamless networking?
The entire networking stack for HarmonyOS was re-written to provide the backbone for everything sitting on top of it. From speed, through stability to security.
I see the 'new' functionality' (sometimes announced but labeled as coming sometime in the future) and wonder what's going on down below the surface.
At the end of the day, 'change' boils down to if it improves things for users. Change for the sake of change (especially aesthetic design change) can be frustrating. Especially if things change too much in a relatively short period of time.
Whatsapp on iOS and Android is an example. Although apparently not a system related change, they are playing with moving the 'state, chats, calls...' tabs from the top of the screen (where they are on Android) to the bottom (to where they are on iOS).
I've seen stealth updates where they move to the bottom of the screen and then suddenly they are at the top.
When similar changes are made at an OS level it raises questions and those questions often lead to very poor answers.
gatorguy said: Since nearly the dawn of the duopoly, Apple and others have claimed that some annually significant percentage of Android users have switched to iOS. Oddly though Android continues to exist a decade and a half later, and in good numbers. How can that be if 10-14% of the ecosystem switch to Apple devices every year and smartphone adoption numbers aren't rising?
Hint: it's not 14% of the entire Android user base. It's 14% of iPhone buyers in a given year.
Oh. So 15 years later nearly the entire current iOS ownership base comes from what were originally Android owners? 10-15% every year is a substantial turnover, in total a collectively huge percentage of today's iPhone owners, and a massive Android ecosystem loss. Goodness, how have they survived?
It seems math, more accurately statistic, is not your strong point. The 14% is the percent of new iPhone buyers every year, that had switched from Android. Not 14% of all Android users or 14% of all iPhone users.
14% last year. Then 14% the year before. Then another 14% in 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, etc.
Sounds like it might be approaching a majority of iPhone owners having once been Android owners. But as you said, I'm neither a mathematician nor plan to be.
An iPhone 8, from 2017, runs the latest version of iOS.
[drops the mic]
Even if a lot of more recent features are left out on older iPhone updates it is a major plus for iOS over Android. I've no doubt that a 3-5year OS upgrade window is a source of dissatisfaction for some percentage of Android device owners. With that said, Android doesn't depend as much on an OS update in order to get the more recent features upgrades. Many are offered directly thru Google app updates. There are positives and negatives to both ways of supporting old phones.
Android users switching to iOS annually: 14%. iOS users switching to Android annually: 4%. I guess the "better" part must be pretty well hidden within the operating system.
Since nearly the dawn of the duopoly, Apple and others have claimed that some annually significant percentage of Android users have switched to iOS. Oddly though Android continues to exist a decade and a half later, and in good numbers. How can that be if 10-14% of the ecosystem switch to Apple devices every year and smartphone adoption numbers aren't rising?
Comments
"Apple's iOS, however, reigns supreme in the United States. Android takes the top spot at 70.89% market share globally, beating iOS by a 42.53% difference with a 28.36% market share. Meanwhile, in the US, Apple continues to dominate at 57.39% market share, beating Android by a 15.12% difference."
https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/android-vs-apple-market-share/#:~:text=Apple%27s%20iOS%2C%20however%2C%20reigns%20supreme,Android%20by%20a%2015.12%25%20difference.
Apple's market share is growing and in the US, Apple has now passed Android by a considerable margin. So, where people can afford to buy nice things, Apple wins. In third world countries where the average selling price for a phone is $200, sure Android wins because Apple doesn't even compete in that low end part of the market. There is no conundrum.
Apple is also not doing too badly across the world among those that can afford their products, because they’re not looking to go low end like Android, which is part of the reason Samsung is having trouble (profit wise) across the world, the other reason is the rise of the Chinese companies in the low end of the market.
Apple is slowly grinding Samsung into the dust in the United States, and with the dawn of a new Apple ecosystem coming up, Samsung and Google are in more trouble down the road, the Apple Vision Pro which combines tech elements, in ways that highlight very strongly what a vertical computer company is capable of.
I have never used Windows though as a daily driver. I only touch Windows to try and solve problems.
I tend to see things differently to the majority. For example, I was overjoyed when Intel hit their performance bottlenecks from around 2009 onwards.
It kind of killed the need to upgrade to more modern systems just so that the system wouldn't creak under the weight and lack of RAM!
I literally had no need for a new system for a full 10 years and surely more if Apple’s terrible iMac thermal design hadn't killed the graphics card in it. That was unheard of in those days. For my needs it would have sufficed for many more years (full disclosure: it was an I and powerful from the get go).
That was from a 'power' perspective.
From a software perspective things were different and I really hated the changes that appeared from around when they got rid of 'save as...'
I didn't like many things after that. Sometimes little things like how Disk Utility, erm, had its 'utility' taken away. Hiding the System Folder etc.
iTunes was breaking under its own bloat at the time and the whole syncing process was getting terribly out of control.
I remember once just adding a book (a..pdf), less than 1MB, and watched in agony as iTunes went through its seven or eight step sync routine - and failed! Utterly.
A long story but definitely a WTF! moment.
That all bled into iOS.
I just wanted to be able to copy a file over to an iPhone and have it read but Apple was saying 'no' you MUST jump through all these hoops and do it 'OUR' way.
This kind of situation has been seen too often and in the end Apple has changed how it does things. But only after a lot of suffering.
Now we have the 'Files' app but for far too long people defended the 'Apple Way'. Attachments being forced into the cloud? Why?
When AirDrop arrived it was hell on earth to get it to work but you had to have iCloud, WiFi AND Bluetooth on to even have a chance. Why?
Why not include the same file transfer BT profile from Mac OS (now macOS) on iPhones and let users transfer files directly?
Scrolling screenshot captures? I just draw an 'S' on my screen with a knuckle (yes, knuckle gestures) and it's done. It just works.
Text manipulation and positioning? I've never known that to be good on iOS.
Safari? No thanks. I've lost count of the times my wife has had to abandon something and have me do it on my phone.
I utterly detest the scrolling wheels for date and time input.
Maybe I should write up a list but over recent years, when I check up on 'what's new' on iOS I get Android deja vu or I say 'wasn't that feature already there?'
Apple seems to be finally giving users more customisation options. At last!
Then there are the glitches that, when I put them side by side with my phone, seem too many to be healthy.
Wireless charging stops and requires a restart.
Call ringer stops working and needs a restart.
Wi-Fi or Bluetooth flunks out and requires a restart.
Etc.
I have enjoyed using Android because it hasn't 'got in the way'. In my case it's EMUI or MagicOS but there has been a lot to like. The customisation. The flexibility. The possibilities.
It's true that the experience is sometimes tainted by the app you are using. For example the other day my wife asked me via WhatsApp how to share a product within the Amazon app. I just said hit the 'share' button. Her answer? There is no share button. What?
It kind of makes you think of that is some app limitation or if it is related to something at an iOS level.
The same with WhatsApp and many apps that have easy to access features on Android yet seem convoluted on iOS.
Multi user? I can set up a guest user on my phone.
App Twin? I can run two Whatsapp or Facebook instances etc.
Slowing down over time? Somehow a common gripe on Android phones yet guaranteed not to happen on mine due to the 'Born Fast, Stays Fast' promise from Huawei/Honor.
I wouldn't consider myself a power user on either system but Android meets my needs while iOS often ends up with my wife asking me how to do something that is 'easy' on my Android.
It is important to remember that 'my' Android is just one of many and for all the talk of stock Android being a favourite of many, I like mine a lot and the biggest irony of all is that Huawei/Honor phones are often described as being similar to iOS (at least upon casual inspection).
One thing you can count on is I actively avoid attacking a person rather than an idea and generally treat every member respectfully whether it's offered in return or not. I see that as a net positive for AI forums and their discussion threads. The forum would be better off for all if that were more common.
I have a combination of many new and old systems of all kinds. Over the years I've used Commodore, Atari, Intel PC, Mac, SGI, Sun (probably more I can't remember).
I've used Windows from 3.1 to 11, but stopped using it daily when I discovered Linux (way before Android was a thing). It was nice to have a computer which didn't need to be rebooted daily, and I was studying computing science at the time, so it fit well. After that I only used Windows for games and cross-platform testing.
I see things differently too.
After studying many operating systems in school and coming to understand the design behind them, plus working on rock solid UNIX systems, I really wanted to support the systems which had the best design and thinking behind them. At the time, Macs were still stuck on the old Mac OS, which was archaic, and I could see that the execs had no vision (just riding out existing technology). I was pretty keen on a DEC Alpha running Linux, but it was prohibitively expensive for a student.
The Wintel monopoly was in full force, and I certainly wasn't a fan of their business tactics (locking PC vendors into paying for Windows even if they didn't bundle it).
Then I read about Rhapsody (what eventually became Mac OS X) and how it used the Mach microkernel (great OS design at the time) and I knew I had to get a Mac as soon as it was released. And yes, Windows NT was also based on this kernel design (probably the only version of Windows I enjoyed using), but the business tactics are what kept me from supporting Microsoft.
So the TiBook was where I started with Mac.
I only ever owned one iMac (27" i7 circa 2011), and it still works to this day, though the fan rattles terribly. Can't say that it was my favourite Mac, but it was a powerhouse and the big screen was beautiful for its time. The only Mac I've ever seen with hardware problems was the infamous MacBook Pro that switched GPUs between Intel integrated graphics and NVIDIA (would crash shortly after switching to NVIDIA). That's the one which led to a class action lawsuit and Apple to cutting ties with NVIDIA.
I've designed Mac apps which follow Apple UI guidelines for years and don't remember that ever being something Apple pushed. They did make it so that Mac apps would automatically save the application state periodically (autosave became a default behaviour if your app used their APIs), and I remember some apps replacing save functionality with that feature so that users didn't have to remember to hit save all the time. But it was never mandated that apps remove "save" or "save as..."
Not sure why you didn't just use Terminal for everything. Apple realized that most power users were just using the command line for advanced functionality and so they stopped making things which could accidentally damage the OS/system easily available to everyone (probably because of the support costs and/or lawsuits). But it was always there if you knew the commands. And you could find apps which wrapped those commands if you really wanted (I downloaded a nice firewall rule management app which wrapped the ipfw commands).
With iOS, Apple was trying to remove as much complexity as possible from using computers. Part of removing that complexity was realizing that most people who use computers end up with a mess of files everywhere that they don't know how to navigate (or don't care). And navigating them on a small screen would just make it more difficult. So they were designing the system to automatically route files/documents into the apps which could handle them. Just choose the right app to open the document in, and each app manages a set of documents related to it. Global search allows you to find your documents no matter which app they're in. Which I actually thought was a pretty clever system, but obviously limiting for some scenarios, which is why they eventually created the Files app (where you can see the underlying folders each app is using for it's files). But I'd be willing to bet that most iPhone users barely touch, if at all, the Files app.
Just as we moved away from computers using punch cards, added screens, put all the components in one box, added a graphical interface, etc, etc, things need to move forward and become easier to use. Apple is one of the few companies willing to take risks, potentially making mistakes along the way, to move things forward. But there are always some people desperately wanting things to stay the same because they only see one way to do things. They aren't willing to shift their perspective and embrace new ways to do things, as they likely did when they were younger and still learning about life.
Here's a relevant piece of art which caught my eye in Berlin while I was there recently:
I have just the same problem with my girl-friend’s Android phone
I happen to prefer a system that (in addition to the technical aspects mentioned by @Auxio) requires less RAM and fits pretty seamlessly into the rest of my personal digital ecosystem and is not funded by the surveillance apparatus that seeks to turn all of us into commodities. I understand that I am trading some flexibility and customisability for these features; happily, it remains my choice.
I am also astoundingly happy that the people who prefer to spend their time elbows-deep in code and configuration settings have a toy to play with as well - it keeps me from endless conversations about things I don't (any longer) care about.
With general-purpose devices you can always argue that the device that is "better" for the most activities is overall the better device - that's perfectly logical. But as a practical matter, if a given device does everything you want/need it to do then why do you need to compare it with anything else?
Here's a simple way to look at it ......
Apple is now selling about 230M iPhones a year. Out of that 230M sold, about 14% were to Android users switching, about 80% of them to current iPhone users upgrading to a new iPhone and about 6% to first time mobile phone buyers. So out of 230M new iPhones sold every year, about 32M (14% of 230M) were bought by Android users switching to iOS. Apple have about 1B iPhones in use now. (There's about 3.5B Android phones in use.) So that only comes to about 3% of the iPhone user base. (And about 1% of the Android user base.) The reason why the iPhone user base did not increase by any where near 230M in a year is because 80% of new iPhones sold went to current iPhones users. Plus there is a much smaller percent of current iPhone users that switches to Android every year.
The iPhone user base changes every year by the ....... (number of new users that switched from Android) + (number of new mobile phone users) - (number of iPhone users that switched to Android). The 80% of iPhone users that upgrade to a new iPhone every year do not have any affect on the current iPhone user base number. You can now see that it's going to take a lot, lot lot more that 15 years (at a 14% switching rate of new iPhone purchases) for the entire iPhone user base to come from Android. And a 1% Android user base loss (due to switching). is not a massive ecosystem loss.
File management in userland on iOS only made some sense way back in the very early days of iOS and even then was questionable. File management (as in files and folders) isn't 'complexity'.
Files and folders work.
Things as mundane as email attachments became an issue because Apple refused to support them on-device and wanted to shunt users up into the cloud. That was just unnecessary. By the time iOS came around, everybody was familiar with the concept of a 'Downloads' folder.
The notion that somehow space is constrained on mobile screens and therefore it's better to avoid classic folder structures due to complexity doesn't make sense either.
Everyone understands the concept of folder structures and interfaces with cloud content via mobile without issue using folders. Why would they experience issues navigating local storage?
The core of the system itself is directory based. I can understand the idea of abstraction and wanting everything to be filed and retrieved by apps, but only to a point and that only really works for some limited scenarios and is limiting flexibility for the user and simply ends up causing headaches. To the point that Apple had to give in in the end and try to remedy a situation its own design caused, but it is still an issue.
The best option would be to simply allow users to manage their files and have the system deal with it. Of course, that would make it work like Android but then again, Apple's approach was shortsighted from the outset so that is inevitable.
Even in the old days iTunes would be flexible enough to allow you to add files from anywhere or copy them to a central location. Users were still at the mercy of an archaic syncing process that was fraught with issues and extremely slow.
Terminal is a power tool for power users. It is only there in the first place because because the root system uses shells. It's for users who are accustomed to command line interfaces and who use them regularly. Just like programming, you really need a breadth of 'extra' knowledge like syntax requirements etc to feel comfortable. The Mac was created to free us of prompts.
I've dabbled with Terminal only because of limitations at higher levels with applications. Often shortcomings at higher levels.
Yes, Terminal can do what Disk Utility did but that doesn't tackle my point. That was that functionality was eroded to make things easier for Apple, not the user.
Exactly the same thing happened with iTunes.
We use applications like Word the way we do for a huge reason and it is precisely to get away from command line interfaces.
If I wanted 'power' in text creation I would use TeX. Sometimes I've had to, but 'coding' text and compiling files is only a valid option (like with Terminal) if you are accustomed to it and are going to use it regularly.
In terms of 'new' versus 'old' and technology advances, some things always surprised me.
Finder was technically much better in OSX than Classic Mac OS. Just like modern file systems are better than older ones.
The problem from day one was that the 'new' Finder was a pale shadow of its former self in spite of its solid foundational changes. The Classic Finder always gave you the sensation it was one step ahead of you. Ready to give you what you wanted just when you needed it. It may have been built on a house of cards (like HFS) but in its own way, it was surprisingly solid and nimble. Robust even.
So, along came OSX Finder and all its modern underpinnings but it felt lobotomised and along with it came the spinning beach all of death. In usability it was very much a step back.
Better technology doesn't always lead to better solutions in userland.
Apple has got many things wrong with iOS on a conceptual level and has had to change tack in some key areas. The same has happened in hardware. Files is just one example. Customisation is another and again the 'complexity' notion comes back into focus. The iOS settings panels have always been a mess.
This is a situation that never needed to exist in the first place and, in its essence, was also resolved back in Classic OS.
Simple Finder.
The debate over simplicity vs complexity played out within Finder and was resolved by a toggle switch. Erm, simple. If you wanted to keep things simple, simple finder was there.
My Android phones have always had the option to hide complex settings away but it was always an option, never an imposition.
I have always challenged the 'Apple knows best' line. Apple definitely doesn't and it has shown over the years.
Safari was introduced as a smiley face for WebKit. It was touted as a small, lightweight, fast browser. It had to be because Apple couldn't go head to head with Firefox or Chrome at the time so they played on the 'simple' theme.
However, that was never going to cut it, and slowly Safari has been laden with more functionality (along with WebKit) over the years. There are still way too many areas where it just fails and Chrome will do the job. The reasons are many but in userland, getting the job done is what matters.
That aspect, as people try to do more and more on their mobile devices has exacerbated the limitations within iOS and is possibly the reason why iOS has been adopting so many features that have been present on Android. A few years ago I got the sensation that almost every new feature announced at WWDC was already present on Android and it was widely commented on at the time.
When HarmonyOS was revealed in 2019 the concept of multi-device interoperability was brought to the fore and their developer conference through up a screen showing the different device operating systems and how each system was effectively 'siloed' from the rest. Getting them to 'talk' to each other 'natively' was going to be problematic unless the system had been designed with multi device interoperability in mind from the outset.
Since then every WWDC has given us something along the multi device interoperability line. The question has to be. At what cost? Are they kludging it together like Classic MacOS reached its goals? Are they re-tooling things at a foundational level?
Are the different Apple operating systems designed for distributed file systems, shared busses, distributed security, seamless networking?
The entire networking stack for HarmonyOS was re-written to provide the backbone for everything sitting on top of it. From speed, through stability to security.
I see the 'new' functionality' (sometimes announced but labeled as coming sometime in the future) and wonder what's going on down below the surface.
At the end of the day, 'change' boils down to if it improves things for users. Change for the sake of change (especially aesthetic design change) can be frustrating. Especially if things change too much in a relatively short period of time.
Whatsapp on iOS and Android is an example. Although apparently not a system related change, they are playing with moving the 'state, chats, calls...' tabs from the top of the screen (where they are on Android) to the bottom (to where they are on iOS).
I've seen stealth updates where they move to the bottom of the screen and then suddenly they are at the top.
When similar changes are made at an OS level it raises questions and those questions often lead to very poor answers.
[drops the mic]
You implied basic mathematics...in a forum post!