2017 - A year leaving the Apple walled garden

[Phil A.]

Mod Note
I've tidied up some off topic bickering in this thread - can we please keep it on topic

 

[convergent]

I have too much sensitive information and I care too much about security to tolerate a flagship phone that leaves a three-month gap between security updates. Especially when the same manufacturer releases the same updates monthly in other regions. If they find it too hard to maintain all those regional variants equally, then how about dropping most or all of the unnecessary variants and providing better support for a more manageable selection.

Suit yourself. Life is about risk vs. reward. Most hacks come from the human doing something stupid, not some vulnerability in the code that requires a rare set of circumstances to occur for the exploit. I have yet to hear of a single case of a user being hacked due to Samsung being late with a patch. (I keep asking) So to me, the risk is extremely low.

Apple has gotten to where their "speed of patch" is becoming a nuisance since they more often then not require 3-4 attempts to get an update done right. That is also a risk. I'm on AT&T and about the longest I've gone is a month on a security patch. I have never had any update hit my Note 8 that required another one to fix it... and another... and another. So I am happy for now to receive patches/updates when they are tested and ready. If we start seeing exploits all over the place, then my opinion may change.
[doublepost=1519658976][/doublepost]

One morning I realized I was deeply embedded in the Apple ecosystem.
That was the morning when I smashed my iPhone, went to the store and 1.5 hours later walked out with a fully functional phone.

That is certainly a "pro" for the Apple column... no question about it. I'm left to buy SquareTrade for my Note 8 and will see what happens if it breaks.

For me apple products just tie so well in together that there is no way I wouldn't keep buying the products. everything works so well together with my daily life.

I love my Apple Watch so that alone will mean I will always have an iPhone. I'm very happy with my iPhone X even though it does cost me a lot per month with my carrier but with them I get a new phone every year.

I loved my Apple Watch and thought the same as you until I got my hands on a Gear S3, and find that I like it better in most ways. Definitely a pros/cons situation, and Apple has caught up a little. But the user experience and look/feel of the whole thing, especially for workouts, is far better for me on the Gear S3.

 

[Michael Goff]

I switched for a whole day again, then my USB C earbuds started messing up on my Pixel again and I’m moving the SIM.

Why is USB C so bad?

 

[bruinsrme]

Suit yourself. Life is about risk vs. reward. Most hacks come from the human doing something stupid, not some vulnerability in the code that requires a rare set of circumstances to occur for the exploit. I have yet to hear of a single case of a user being hacked due to Samsung being late with a patch. (I keep asking) So to me, the risk is extremely low.

Apple has gotten to where their "speed of patch" is becoming a nuisance since they more often then not require 3-4 attempts to get an update done right. That is also a risk. I'm on AT&T and about the longest I've gone is a month on a security patch. I have never had any update hit my Note 8 that required another one to fix it... and another... and another. So I am happy for now to receive patches/updates when they are tested and ready. If we start seeing exploits all over the place, then my opinion may change.
[doublepost=1519658976][/doublepost]

That is certainly a "pro" for the Apple column... no question about it. I'm left to buy SquareTrade for my Note 8 and will see what happens if it breaks.



I loved my Apple Watch and thought the same as you until I got my hands on a Gear S3, and find that I like it better in most ways. Definitely a pros/cons situation, and Apple has caught up a little. But the user experience and look/feel of the whole thing, especially for workouts, is far better for me on the Gear S3.

I must plead complete ignorance on this and I ask to educate myself.
How do you go about getting, say, a shattered screen on a Samsung fixed?

 

[Roadstar]

Apple has gotten to where their "speed of patch" is becoming a nuisance since they more often then not require 3-4 attempts to get an update done right. That is also a risk. I'm on AT&T and about the longest I've gone is a month on a security patch. I have never had any update hit my Note 8 that required another one to fix it... and another... and another. So I am happy for now to receive patches/updates when they are tested and ready. If we start seeing exploits all over the place, then my opinion may change.

Sounds like your device is getting maintained properly with monthly patches. We can only dream about that with NEE devices. However, it's not only Apple that botches an update every now and then. The Oreo build I got for my S8+ ended up being pulled shortly after I had installed it and now I got an update for it. In addition, it seems like someone at Samsung was aware of the initial release's quality as the build number was G955FXXU1CRAP

I loved my Apple Watch and thought the same as you until I got my hands on a Gear S3, and find that I like it better in most ways. Definitely a pros/cons situation, and Apple has caught up a little. But the user experience and look/feel of the whole thing, especially for workouts, is far better for me on the Gear S3.

I wore a Gear S3 Frontier for a month and while there were things to like about it, I figured I prefer my Apple Watch despite its shortcomings. It was disappointing to give up mobile payments on the watch after getting used to them and that one combined with occasional sluggishness with notifications (seems like a Tizen 3.0 issue) and not being able to control the smart lights (IKEA ones, they work also with HomeKit nowadays) at my home tipped the scale in favor of the Apple Watch.

 

[convergent]

I must plead complete ignorance on this and I ask to educate myself.
How do you go about getting, say, a shattered screen on a Samsung fixed?

Samsung has some authorized repair centers you could take/send it to, or you could get a local shop to repair it. I got mine from the carrier store, so would likely try there. With SquareTrade, my understanding is that they will pay for the repair or replace the unit if that is not an option. Without a doubt, this is no where near as convenient as going to an Apple Store, which is why I said it was a pro for Apple.

Sounds like your device is getting maintained properly with monthly patches. We can only dream about that with NEE devices. However, it's not only Apple that botches an update every now and then. The Oreo build I got for my S8+ ended up being pulled shortly after I had installed it and now I got an update for it. In addition, it seems like someone at Samsung was aware of the initial release's quality as the build number was G955FXXU1CRAP

I wasn't aware that the Oreo update had been officially released. Did it get pushed to you, or did you go looking for it? Either way, they found a problem and so didn't push it to everyone because I have not gotten it. Apple pushes everything out and recently it is always needing several more attempts to fix it. My wife is conflicted with what to do with these pushes; and her SE and iPad Air I don't want to upgrade so dealing with the nagging messages. Apple has just gotten annoying in some ways.

I wore a Gear S3 Frontier for a month and while there were things to like about it, I figured I prefer my Apple Watch despite its shortcomings. It was disappointing to give up mobile payments on the watch after getting used to them and that one combined with occasional sluggishness with notifications (seems like a Tizen 3.0 issue) and not being able to control the smart lights (IKEA ones, they work also with HomeKit nowadays) at my home tipped the scale in favor of the Apple Watch.

You lost me on the giving up mobile payments. My Gear S3 does payments way better than my Apple Watch. Its accepted in way more places, and seems to just work. The Apple Watch was so finicky I gave up trying. If you had any sluggishness after Tizen 3.0, a factory reset would have solved it.... at least for mine it did. And now I'm going 3-4 days between charges. Samsung has announced they are rolling out a consolidated SmarterThings app that will bring your home automation abilities to the watch. That is something I'd like to have, as we are adding more and more automation to our house. What really pushed me to the Gear S3 though was the UI and rotating bezel. Particularly when I'm working out or running and have sweaty hands, its so much better.

 

[Roadstar]

I wasn't aware that the Oreo update had been officially released. Did it get pushed to you, or did you go looking for it? Either way, they found a problem and so didn't push it to everyone because I have not gotten it. Apple pushes everything out and recently it is always needing several more attempts to fix it. My wife is conflicted with what to do with these pushes; and her SE and iPad Air I don't want to upgrade so dealing with the nagging messages. Apple has just gotten annoying in some ways.

At least in Finland it is. I noticed the news when the initial rollout happened, checked for updates on my phone and got Oreo, so I didn’t sideload from SamMobile or anything like that.

You lost me on the giving up mobile payments. My Gear S3 does payments way better than my Apple Watch. Its accepted in way more places, and seems to just work. The Apple Watch was so finicky I gave up trying. If you had any sluggishness after Tizen 3.0, a factory reset would have solved it.... at least for mine it did. And now I'm going 3-4 days between charges. Samsung has announced they are rolling out a consolidated SmarterThings app that will bring your home automation abilities to the watch. That is something I'd like to have, as we are adding more and more automation to our house. What really pushed me to the Gear S3 though was the UI and rotating bezel. Particularly when I'm working out or running and have sweaty hands, its so much better.

This is once again regional. We have NFC payment terminals more or less everywhere. Only local IKEA stores don’t take any kinds of NFC payments, other places from ice cream booths to grocery stores of all sizes take NFC payments and therefore also Apple Pay, so Samsung Pay’s MST feature isn’t that useful here anymore. And if it were, we wouldn’t be able to use it as Samsung Pay is not available in Finland and by the looks of it they’re not in any kind of hurry with introducing it. Maybe something to do with the banks, but as a user I couldn’t make any kinds of payments on my Gear S3 no matter how much I wanted to. So an Apple Watch that works pretty much everywhere has a definite edge here.

 

[convergent]

At least in Finland it is. I noticed the news when the initial rollout happened, checked for updates on my phone and got Oreo, so I didn’t sideload from SamMobile or anything like that.

This is once again regional. We have NFC payment terminals more or less everywhere. Only local IKEA stores don’t take any kinds of NFC payments, other places from ice cream booths to grocery stores of all sizes take NFC payments and therefore also Apple Pay, so Samsung Pay’s MST feature isn’t that useful here anymore. And if it were, we wouldn’t be able to use it as Samsung Pay is not available in Finland and by the looks of it they’re not in any kind of hurry with introducing it. Maybe something to do with the banks, but as a user I couldn’t make any kinds of payments on my Gear S3 no matter how much I wanted to. So an Apple Watch that works pretty much everywhere has a definite edge here.

Sounds like all of this is definitely regional.

 

[Vegastouch]

Interesting thread. My use is of a hybrid mutt compared to others in ere lol.

Router.... Asus router that is a couple years old and works great.

Computer...I have a ASUS Windows 10 all in one desktop and love it. Not sure what the screen size is, i forget but think it is 23" My Laptop is a Lenovo Yoga which i dont like. Going to replace it with a Surface Pro.


Phone and Watch .... Samsung Galaxy S7 and will be getting the S9. Dont have a watch, i dont lke to wear a watch.

Music .... I have over 1300 songs that ive loaded on my phone and tablet my self and when i stream i use Pandora or Slacker. I do have Google music too but never use it.

Home Automation .... None, dont see a use for it when i have to spends hundreds or thousands to buy products just to use Echo, the Amazon thingy or whatever those are called.

Car .... Neither vehicle has Google or the Apple one.

TV ....Samungs TVs throughout and i have a modded Amazon Fire TV box that gets everything....and i mean everything. Plus Cox Cable


Tablets .... We have Samsung Tab S2's and a 2017 iPad 9.7"

Pretty boring stuff!!

 

[Roadstar]

Sounds like all of this is definitely regional.

Yep. If we had Samsung Pay here and I could pay with the Gear S3, there's a good chance that I'd still have and use it. While the Apple Watch Series 3 battery life is good, the S3 was still a bit better.

 

[meerkat1990]

I find that practice so incredibly distasteful, getting people to pressure other people to change into their closed ecosystem in order for everyone else to get better quality messages, it's sneaky and abusive, that alone makes me want to switch away from everything Apple.
BTW. thank you for the initial writeup, well written interesting stuff!

Distasteful or not, it is a rather effective means of getting people to switch. Only 2 people in our family don't have iPhones and they just can't afford one. Other family members are so annoyed they are pooling money to buy these 2 iPhones because they are regularly left off family texts because the rest of the family doesn't want to deal with the green limitations.

Green is mean.

 

[bopajuice]

Distasteful or not, it is a rather effective means of getting people to switch. Only 2 people in our family don't have iPhones and they just can't afford one. Other family members are so annoyed they are pooling money to buy these 2 iPhones because they are regularly left off family texts because the rest of the family doesn't want to deal with the green limitations.

Green is mean.

Your family is raising $1500 to $2000 just so two people can participate in family text messages?

 

[mclld]

Lol smh

 

[Vegastouch]

Distasteful or not, it is a rather effective means of getting people to switch. Only 2 people in our family don't have iPhones and they just can't afford one. Other family members are so annoyed they are pooling money to buy these 2 iPhones because they are regularly left off family texts because the rest of the family doesn't want to deal with the green limitations.

Green is mean.

My Daughter has an Phone and the only one that does and we can text her just fine. I work out of town a lot and have roommates when I do and one of them has a iPhone and is very tech challenged and he manages to group text us that don't have iPhones.
Lol, I find the pooling of money so they can have iPhones really odd.

 

[meerkat1990]

My Daughter has an Phone and the only one that does and we can text her just fine. I work out of town a lot and have roommates when I do and one of them has a iPhone and is very tech challenged and he manages to group text us that don't have iPhones.
Lol, I find the pooling of money so they can have iPhones really odd.

It's pretty funny. I don't think it's the lack of ability to perform cross-platform messaging but the group think mindset that has deemed green to be bad or not cool. The whole blue vs green thing is like the new elitist thing for many. I prefer the iPhone because it's simple but also do like Apple Music Family but the biggest thing for the family is that out of 63 people there are only 2 Android users and they literally get left off some family comms because the sender doesn't want to see green. Some of the women won't consider dating a guy who isn't blue. smh!

I think that might be taking it too far but hey, people are funny.

Your family is raising $1500 to $2000 just so two people can participate in family text messages?

I doubt it. More likely a couple of used iPhone 6 devices or something in that vein. I don't have time to deal with it but it's important to some of them.

 

[Vegastouch]

It's pretty funny. I don't think it's the lack of ability to perform cross-platform messaging but the group think mindset that has deemed green to be bad or not cool. The whole blue vs green thing is like the new elitist thing for many. I prefer the iPhone because it's simple but also do like Apple Music Family but the biggest thing for the family is that out of 63 people there are only 2 Android users and they literally get left off some family comms because the sender doesn't want to see green. Some of the women won't consider dating a guy who isn't blue. smh!

I don't know what you mean by green vs blue. Never heard that before. And anybody not dating someone because they don't have a iPhone or vice versa, is just plain crazy. I personally don't care what phone anybody uses. It's just a friggin phone. Lol, man I think that's the lamest thing I've ever heard.

 

[ramram55]

Blue means the Iphone crowd, Green is ABAs Anything But Apple crowd. Hope I did not get the color mixed up, come some one confirm this ?

 

[Vegastouch]

Blue means the Iphone crowd, Green is ABAs Anything But Apple crowd. Hope I did not get the color mixed up, come some one confirm this ?

Lol, didn't know there was a designation,
..weird.

 

[tbayrgs]

Blue means the Iphone crowd, Green is ABAs Anything But Apple crowd. Hope I did not get the color mixed up, come some one confirm this ?

Yeah, messages from other iMessage users show up as blue colored in iMessage while standard SMS are green. Status associated with message color is moronic for sure. I personally use the color merely as an indicator that I have additional functionality available to me if I'm interacting with another iOS user.

 

[Vegastouch]

Yeah, messages from other iMessage users show up as blue colored in iMessage while standard SMS are green. Status associated with message color is moronic for sure. I personally use the color merely as an indicator that I have additional functionality available to me if I'm interacting with another iOS user.

Didn't know that but it's funny that receiving a green message bothers those other family members lol. Pretty dumb.

 

[Michael Goff]

Didn't know that but it's funny that receiving a green message bothers those other family members lol. Pretty dumb.

It means you’re going to be restricted to SMS/MMS deficiencies. I can understand being bothered. MMS is not good for sending pictures.

 

[Vegastouch]

It means you’re going to be restricted to SMS/MMS deficiencies. I can understand being bothered. MMS is not good for sending pictures.

Maybe if Apple didn't try to keep everybody in their own community it wouldn't be that way. It's why I like Android better, they try to make it good for everyone by being more open.

 

[meerkat1990]

I don't know what you mean by green vs blue. Never heard that before. And anybody not dating someone because they don't have a iPhone or vice versa, is just plain crazy. I personally don't care what phone anybody uses. It's just a friggin phone. Lol, man I think that's the lamest thing I've ever heard.

Haha, Lame or no, it's a thing. I've had people who i asked for their number to follow on a business interaction and get a response "You better be blue" with a little laugh. This matters to some people.

I must say I do prefer the Delivered and read indications and the live photo functionality I get when dealing with blues but it's certainly not a showstopper.

 

[Michael Goff]

Maybe if Apple didn't try to keep everybody in their own community it wouldn't be that way. It's why I like Android better, they try to make it good for everyone by being more open.

Even if they didn’t, the carriers are still hindering RCS adoption. They try to push MMS as if it’s a good thing.

 

[Vegastouch]

Haha, Lame or no, it's a thing. I've had people who i asked for their number to follow on a business interaction and get a response "You better be blue" with a little laugh. This matters to some people.

I must say I do prefer the Delivered and read indications and the live photo functionality I get when dealing with blues but it's certainly not a showstopper.

That isn't the same thing as being shallow enough to not date someone for what phone they use. Sounds like highschool stuff there.