Thoughts on the #Apple antitrust case?
My first reaction is that it's going to be extremely difficult to prove.
I've long been critical of Apple's walled garden and their massive markups on components like storage and RAM, but I understand their appeal and clearly so do millions of customers.
I could have bought an iPhone but I chose Android devices because that's what I prefer. Does Apple really make it that hard to move away?
@voltronic only every time I contemplate a different operating system...so not a fan of Android devices. Not as durable, in my opinion, and there's a lot of PITA programming you have to do.
@joycereynoldsward
Neither of those things are true in my experience.
@joycereynoldsward
Well that's fine. We're each free to choose the devices we like better, and that's kind of my point. I don't see how what Apple is doing is explicitly anticompetitive, at least when it comes to phones.
@voltronic oh wait. I thought you were responding to something else. Sorry.
For direct comparison, I had an Android tablet and an iPad. The iPad is much more durable.
@joycereynoldsward
I would agree with you there. iPads are made much better than any Android tablet I've ever tried.
For phones you have way more options to compare. I think Samsung flagships rival their Apple equivalents in durability, for example.
@voltronic oh yeah. My son has gone to Samsung from Android.
@joycereynoldsward
I'm not sure that's what you mean. Samsung is the premier manufacturer of Android devices.
@voltronic I dunno. He has to do more programming with his phone than I do with mine.
@voltronic gotta agree about the anticompetitive thing. I know plenty of people with other OS devices and you can't pry 'em out of their preferred systems.
@joycereynoldsward
But that's really their choice, right? I'd say if anything locks you in, it's apps that don't have a direct equivalent in the competing app store.
One thing that's certainly true of Android is that it's incredibly fragmented, so one person's experience can't tell you much about someone else's.
Something like 90% of Apple device users are running whatever the latest version of the (single) OS is. The figure for Android users is less than half that.
@mcfate
That fragmentation is the price you pay for device choice, I suppose. The differing security patch levels are a real problem though. Google could fix that by requiring all manufacturers to keep pushing out those updates as a condition of the licensing agreement.
They'd put a bazillion tiny third-world cellphone makers in India and such right out of business, and they don't choose to do that, and GOSH.
@opie
I've come close to buying them more than once, but their lack of expandable storage always disqualified them from my consideration.
I must phone differently than everyone else...I have zero need for massive storage on my phone...I have a 256GB Pixel 7 Pro with 40GB used...I need to stop buying the 256GB versions...waste...
@opie One word: Music
@stueytheround @voltronic @joycereynoldsward
aight...all my tunes is in da cloud...I want it accessible from more than just my phone...so yeah, I'm doin phone differently
@opie
I'm with @stueytheround on this. I don't do streaming music because I want to own, not rent, the music from artists whom I support. And I want it in full quality. I refuse to pay for lossy encoded downloads or streams unless there is no other choice.
This is why I have a 256 GB microSD card with overflow on the internal storage. At some point pretty soon I'm going to upgrade to 1 TB.
@voltronic @opie @stueytheround @joycereynoldsward My hearing is bad enough I can't tell that much difference anymore between the two. So I just listen to whatever is least expensive.
@opie
Apart from using Amazon for convenience on my phone, all of my music outside of bandcamp purchases is hard copy. Vinyl and CDs. @voltronic @joycereynoldsward
@stueytheround @voltronic @joycereynoldsward
I friggin love bandcamp...FLAC download, 320kbps CBR encode to MP3, upload to cloud...
but I get it...I'm not an audiophile...I can def hear the difference tho...I'm just a lazy sucker for convenience... 🫤
@opie
Bandcamp is awesome. I really hope things don't go south following the buyout.
@voltronic For the timebeing I haven't noticed any difference. Time will tell. They'd be fools to mess with it. It's a winning formula. Customers love it, creators love it. @opie @joycereynoldsward
@opie @stueytheround @voltronic @joycereynoldsward
Yeah, call me a boomer. I still buy CD's & load them into my hard drive on both my desktop & laptop.
I create playlists for what I want to hear for my phone from my laptop. If something crashes, I still have the CD's to reload the music. #Backup. 🎶
@opie @joycereynoldsward @voltronic I lurve my Pixel 7.
@LiberalLibrarian @opie @joycereynoldsward @voltronic Trigger warning: This thread contains heresy.
@JolieSaboteuse
That depends which side you're on...
@voltronic my experience says otherwise.