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this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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Android
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As an iOS user the bloat on android is a huge turnoff for me.
I’d potentially switch to a Samsung if it didn’t have all that stuff pre installed on it.
It may be the second biggest reason I’m sticking with iOS. Of fact, if they got rid of bloat and iMessage was available on Android, I’d jump over in a second.
Well there's your problem. You're looking at Samsung phones.
Honestly, they're one of the worst when it comes to bloatware. They do it because their devices are so popular that they can get away with it. Stick with a Pixel, and you can't go wrong.
(BTW, what's with iPhone users' obsession with iMessage? Google Messages has the same capabilities. Not trying to hate; genuinely curious. If your only experience with texting on Android is with using whatever came with your device, then I understand why you'd prefer Apple's implementation. That's the whole appeal of Android: if you don't like how a component works, you can swap it out.)
To answer the iMessage thing.
I’m from the states but live in a different country. It’s the easiest free way to stay in touch with family and friends.
A number of people have been like “just move to X and if they don’t follow, then forget about them.”
But it’s not really realistic to ask all the people I might contact throughout the year to switch to a new app in case I contact them.
So I truly feel locked in because of that.
Please elaborate further. What's so special about iMessage that it can be used in other countries, but every single messaging app for Android can't? Google Messages is free too. Again, not trying to hate. Just trying to understand.
I don’t know anyone who uses google messages and I’m not going to convince the 20 people on my group chat to switch to it since we only catch up a few times per year.
Random acquaintances that I contact a few times per year will also not bother to figure it out as it will just idle 9 months of the year.
It’s just a real roadblock that locked people into the platform.
I use Google Messages to chat with my family who mostly use iMessage. I can see all the reactions and stuff so there aren't really any compatibility issues. You don't need an iphone or iMessage to communicate with people on iMessage.
But if I use google messages, it will be sent as an sms. So suddenly I have to pay for every international text and call made.
I’m from the states, but I do not live there at the moment.
It’s much easier for me to keep iOS instead of trying to convert 100 people to use some other messaging app.
Where I live, no one uses iMessage and I have all the major chat apps installed. So it’s not a problem for me, but even my parents struggled to understand what WhatsApp was and they are decently tech savvy.
One thing about iMessage is that you can reply and send messages from all your Apple devices. I know the https://messages.google.com/ but the you need to keep it open on your computer for notification to come. Then there is the Facetime video/audio quality, it's miles better than Whatsapp, Google Meet or any other video calling app. You can easily share your screens, you can even start a call on iPhone and transfer the call easily to a Mac or iPad seamlessly without even cutting the call. Also the Whatsapp and Google Meet video call quality is like 140p vs 1080p on Facetime. For the average the user who has never used iMessage and Facetime they will never understand what they are missing but for others it's different case.
You don't really have to choose. I have WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal and Threema installed all at the same time. I don't like Apple and since there's no iMessage for Android (I guess), I can't use that. But that's not really my choice, it's Apple's choice. I won't let them lock me down into their ecosystem. Just send SMSes to the people you only have on iMessage and that don't understand why they are implicitly forcing their opinion on others.
99% of my contacts are iMessage only. It would be cheaper to just buy a second phone than to pay international calling and sms rates.
I have like 10 chat apps installed for local contacts. It’s just US contacts that don’t understand his to get off iMessage.
Can you explain what you mean by bloatware? Do you mean all the apps the phones come installed with, or do you mean something else? Would it be simple to uninstall what you don't want? Curious bc I have a Samsung phone.
Well here are a few examples.
I don’t like having Facebook and stuff on the phone. If I want the app, ill download it.
Secondly, I do not want multiple calendar apps and browsers on the phone by default.
I don’t need chrome and the Samsung browser.
I also do not think I need to setup a samsung account and a google account and have backups in both places.
I guess it’s just a little overwhelming.
I think this is a big part of why Android is losing popularity but the Pixel is gaining it.
Every manufacturer's excessive need to fill their phones with as many sponsored apps is getting to a point where people simply don't buy them anymore.
At least the Pixel sticks to their own Google ecosystem, much like the iPhone and is at least a bit less locked down than others.
But it still installs so many apps I don't want. I mean iOS allows you to remove almost any app that is preinstalled. Why doesn't google? I don't want drive, YTMusic. Their phones have alot of bloat installed.
If Pixel was available in my country in an official capacity that would be the one I would choose. But if I were in the market for an Android, I would go this route for sure. The bloat is more annoying than anything else.
Plus with a Pixel, its just google snooping. With anyone else, it is google and the oem snooping. It would be nice is google pushed using your phone as a desktop more. It could be their way into the desktop space.
I got a Samsung just because I like the phones the best, but otherwise I don't use any of the pre-installed apps that came with it and disabled/installed all of it.
I honestly think samsung has the best looking phones by far.
If iMessage game to android, I’d switch to a galaxy in a heartbeat, even with the preinstalled stuff. I figure a lot of that can be removed or at least hidden to an extent.
You do know that is up to the OEM right? Just like buying a PC. Of course if you buy a laptop from Wal-Mart from some weird company it's going to come with a bunch of nonsense on it.
We're talking about pixel, googles phone. It's going to come with the standard Google products installed.
Difference is that on a PC m you’re free to remove all of that bloat. On android you can’t, not without fucking around with external tools like ADB.
Thanks for the explanation. That makes sense. I've been less aware of that and on recently, after having the phone for a while, have I been deleting many of the pre-installed apps.
Samsung makes it incredibly easy to just disable all the "bloat" that you don't like - you can do it through the battery settings. Simply set the apps you don't want to be disabled and never let them start by themselves or run in the background. Problem solved.