Finally time to ditch Apple ecosystem?

[Ethrem]

But not degoogled Android phones.

Yeah I would imagine that would not be an AOSP feature.

 

[ian87w]

T-Mobile is killing their 3G 10/1 supposedly. Sprint 3G 1/1/2022. Sprint LTE 6/30/2022. T-Mobile 2G will be last 12/2022.

They stopped activating non-VoLTE devices on June 16th.

T-Mobile's 3G shutdown is back on schedule for October

Also, Sprint's LTE network now has an end date

www.androidpolice.com

They have plans to convert all of that spectrum to 5G so it’s definitely going to happen eventually. The big fight they just had with Dish over these shutdown dates tells me that they’re not going to slow their plans down unless the government makes them and there has been no sign of that happening.

Tracfone has begun letting customers know they have to upgrade. Since Straight Talk is a Tracfone brand, I’m sure they’ll be getting notices out soon enough.

Got an email that I have to upgrade flip phone for VoLTE

My 91yr old Mom uses a basic flip phone (LG-440G). She has the $30 plan which is renewed every 90 days. Her phone uses AT&T network. A few years ago they sent her that LG phone for free. This email is not offering any free upgrades. When I click the link they don't have any new flip...

www.howardforums.com

Wow, even 3G get the shutter.

And here in my country, 3G is actually becoming more usable than LTE since everybody now use LTE phones and overcrowded the LTE bands... True story. I now often switch my phones to 3G to get some connectivity.

 

[Ethrem]

Wow, even 3G get the shutter.

And here in my country, 3G is actually becoming more usable than LTE since everybody now use LTE phones and overcrowded the LTE bands... True story. I now often switch my phones to 3G to get some connectivity.

I have gotten kicked to 3G on T-Mobile a few times and it’s been barely usable. Pretty sure that the carriers here are using as little spectrum as possible for their 3G network already anyway.

T-Mobile’s 5G here runs 200+Mbps all day long with 500Mbps peaks early in the morning. Since midband doesn’t travel as far as the lower bands, higher tower density is needed, so capacity grows by that much more when it’s done properly. T-Mobile has a whopping 226MHz of midband spectrum here so they could easily run 100MHz+100MHz 5G and use a 25MHz channel to add additional LTE capacity.

 

[Ethrem]

I just got my Pixel 3 XL finally. Wow, what a fast device! It’s definitely true what they say about Google optimization because it feels faster than my LG G8 which has a faster SoC and 2GB more RAM.

Charging it up and then I’m going to flash Graphene and see how that goes. I decided that I’m okay with losing some of my banking apps, I’ll just replace the apps with browser shortcuts so that I can do my monthly routine of checking and paying all of my accounts without needing to install the apps.

I don’t think I’m going to have any problem with this switch back to Android. If stuff doesn’t work on Graphene I’ll either put it on my iPad or go back to stock and use NetGuard. The downside with NetGuard is it uses up the VPN service slot which is a problem since I have a VPN that also uses that service.

 

[uwdude]

Hey ya,

I'm using Apple hardware for more than 15 years now and thinking to ditch the whole ecosystem. In the past when the iPhone came out we all were amazed about how easy everything was to use, the sync went flawlessly - including contacts, cal and music via the local sync. Remembering this time when using Windows Mobile with ActiveSync on USB connections with Outlook was pain in the...

That was the point were Apple kept me in their ecosystem and the beginning of upgrades of Apple products. Several things changed, Cloud is everywhere and you can do most of your stuff directly on your phone. With more and more products even the systems got more complex and complicated. Sounds easy to handover a call from iPhone to Mac and works mostly but can also be pain when this includes AirPods to switch the active device on demand. Mostly this results in a dropped call... There are many little but cool features within the Apple ecosystem e.g. when coding at work on a Mac (I'm always listening to music via AirPods) and my phone rings, I can directly answer the call on the Mac. Spotify fades out with the music, the call is answered and I'm still in the focus without any further harder interrupts; it's like a mate is just speaking to me. No need to take of the headset, looking away from the screen, taking the phone etc. I love this features - as far as they (mostly) work as expected. Currently I'm running on Beta on all my system and Focus mode is finally synced across all my devices. This is awesome since I only set focus mode on an no device interrupts me, when I need the full focus for my stuff.

This are only some examples of little cool features, but are they really needed and worth? My full photo library is synced to iCloud, shared albums, shared space with my wife. It just works more or less (sometimes there're sync struggles that may need just some time to sync). In the past many friends and family members used at least iPhones (but mostly not Mac or iPad) but we were able to use iMEssage and Facetime but most of them moved to Android and therefore use WhatsApp for further communications.

At the moment I'm playing with a Samsung S20 5G running Android 11. I love the Google ecosystem more since it is more cloud based and feels more like the source of truth. Everything is directly synced to the cloud and all devices are fetching the updates. Google Photos is the best tool I've seen so far - the face recognition is awesome and it already allows me to use custom email domains (where we still do not have any further updates from Apple except of "iOS15 supports custom domains" where nothing is visible yet). The S20 is a really great device, I love to side load apps to get rid of ads in further apps and services like YT, running open source applications and especially able to run multiple apps at the same time. DEX mode is awesome, it really feels like a computer when running on an external display with keyboard and mouse and should be able to replace the desktop for most people. Currently I only use my Mac at home maybe 2 hours a month. With DEX I could also develop further in applications, having full shell tools etc.

With the new Macs and M1 chip apple released a monster of power but will limit me for further new hardware upgrades since I need to make sure to support x86. Therefore I need VMs running Windows and Linux in x86 mode - at this point I can say that a new Mac for business is out of scope and will use me to perform a switch. This is mostly the reason why I'm thinking about to leave the Apple ecosystem. Within the next year I need to ditch the Mac and will loose all the nice features - maybe this is the best time to migrate everything and to switch to Android. With PushBullet on Android and "Noti" (OpenSource app) I'm able to recreate a iMessage like setup for SMS/RCS and WhatsApp on Mac, Linux and Windows systems.

But I'm sure I'd still miss some cool things like CarPlay, etc.... Still unsure, even like it seems there isn't any other way!?

Just be aware that eventually you will more than likely find yourself locked out of anything you had inside the ecosystem, like has happened to me. I changed devices years ago, so I no longer have any of the "trusted devices" for two factor verification, and the recovery key that I have, Apple says is not valid, so I can no longer access thousands of dollars in iTunes purchases accumulated over the years. Poof, it's gone. I cannot even access the Apple support forums without verifying, which I can't do anymore, lol. Needless to say I'll never be purchasing another Apple product again. Ever. So just be aware, basically you're starting over. But I am glad I'm out at least.

 

[nickdalzell1]

I just put my SIMs into my Thunderbolt and my Breakout. They feel like an upgrade from what I had before. Well, they charge insanely slow but oh well (is that a part of Li-ion aging? they charger slower?!) but they pre-date Google integration entirely (even the so-called 'Google Maps' on my Thunderbolt is just a slightly rebranded AOSP version, along with 'Google Play Music'. No Play Services) If I feel the need to be even more private, I got a Samsung Flight II slider in the drawer.

 

[torana355]

Eh, I switched 10 years ago. Was an easy transition.
I don't wear a watch so it's no factor for me.

My last iPhone was the iPhone 4. Switched to Android and never looked back, they have only closed the gap to Apple since then so happy days. Still use Apple Macs as I work in the Graphic Arts industry and I know them so well.

 

[nickdalzell1]

I just went even farther into the privacy bandwagon and got the Flight II going via Straight Talk. I really missed sliders. I don't even know if data works (it has a 3G icon but I think the browser requires a gateway that doesn't exist anymore) but I don't care since all I've been doing this year with my main line is texting folks and taking notes. Playing music also.