Re: iPhone 16 Pro may have polished titanium frame instead of brushed titanium

On Mon, 1 Apr 2024 11:29:53 -0700, sms <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote

There had been times when Android manufacturers have copied a feature on the iPhone, but it happens a lot less now, if at all.

Android did copy the original user interface that Steve Jobs designed.
But then Android improved the homescreen app launchers while Apple kept the
homescreen capability the same for 15 years without improvements, where
only recently is Apple copying some of Android's homescreen capabilities.

I wish there were Android devices with a Ring/Silent switch like the iPhone used to have, but Android manufacturers never copied that and Apple eventually decontented it to save money.

Android also copied Apple's privacy feature of forcing companies by default
to ask for permissions and by displaying permissions with the green dot.
I wish iOS would copy the Android capability of repopulating another phone
EXACTLY like the original phone - down to the EXACT location of all the
folders and icon placement within those folders - and down to the EXACT
SAME versions and subversions of the apps that the app icons pointed to.
Even Windows & Linux can't do that. Only Android does that.

And to be fair, while Apple often is late with a useful new feature, that is already on Android, they had already planned to include it but they tend to meter out new features to create ongoing demand for new models.

Maybe that's why iOS only recently got only one thing from Android's
excellent homescreen launcher capabilities (the icon layout).
Unfortunately, iOS still can't change the name of default icons, nor can it
have the same icon in two or more logical places, nor can users delete
system apps (or re-install any deleted app) like they can do with Android.
That's one of the best hidden features of Android, which is that the
installer is ALWAYS saved on Android - it's never deleted - so you can
always re-populate any other phone with the exact same apps & versions!
These APK backup and restore apps aren't even needed since all they do is COPY the always-saved APK that every Android phone saves natively.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mobi.infolife.appbackup
But the backup-and-restore apps make it easier for the user because by
default, the Android copy of every APK is named "base.apk" for every app.
With iOS, you can't "extract" the IPA after the fact like you can with
Android, so with iOS, you're stuck if the version you want is no longer in
the Apple App Store - and even worse - with Apple - you have to have the
same AppleID in order to re-install an app.
With Android, a free app doesn't care what your Android ID is (as you don't
even need an Android ID as Google doesn't track every app like Apple does).

It would make no sense to put all the new features, at once, into a new model, when they can add them one or two at a time so that there is a reason to upgrade. Almost no iPhone users are going to switch to Android to get a new useful feature, they'll just wait until the iPhone offers it.

Everyone agrees with you that it's a completely different kind of person
who wants an iPhone, where that person will never like Android because it
doesn't restrict them (so they don't feel safe with Android's power).
Likewise, nobody who is used to Android's power to do whatever you want to
do is going to like being restricted by iOS where you can't even get the
privacy of the Tor Browser because WebKit won't allow that kind of privacy.

Android manufacturers don't have the luxury of slowly metering out new features because they are competing so intensely against each other.

Plus the developers add whatever they feel users want in Android, unlike
iOS where Apple decides what the users will get - not the developers.

A lot of the useful Android features that are missing on iPhone are conscious decisions by Apple to not include the feature in iOS.

Agree with you that Android developers add things Apple and even Google
won't allow (but Google can't stop people from installing apps that Google
doesn't like - such as FOSS replacement clients for every Google app).
There's a FOSS Ungoogled Chrome replacement client, for example.
And a FOSS Google YouTube replacement client that is way better.
And a FOSS Google GMail replacement client that gives the user privacy.
And a FOSS Google App Store client that gives the user privacy. About the only default native Google app that doesn't have a far better
(always more private & more functional) FOSS replacement client is GV.

The fanbois will insist that "no one needs that feature," without understanding the usefulness of it.

Some of the user centric features Android developers provided that aren't
on iOS because Apple prohibits the user from having these capabilities are
1. Multiple user and/or work accounts (or no account at all on the phone!)
2. Individual volume settings
3. Mock Location GPS spoofing
4. Install apps from anywhere
5. System-wide (non-root) firewalls (with HOSTS file ad blocking features)
6. Organize the homescreen by changing any icon name or any number of them
7. Remove any app from the user partition (without needing to be rooted)
8. Automatic phone call recording
9. Debugging of all the nearby Wi-Fi signals (even if not connected)
10. Graphical debugging of current-SIM cellular signals & antennas & freqs
11. Webkit won't allow installation of the Tor Privacy Browser
12. Webkit won't allow installation of the ungoogled Chromium browsers
13. Repopulate another device (or the same after a factory reset)     (where the exact app subversion is re-installed in every case!)
    (and where the exact location of every app icon is reproduced exactly!)
14. Delete any unwanted app (even system apps!) from the user partition
15. Use SMS/MMS/RCS messaging without having to make a Google ID 16. Install from the Google Play Store repo without needing a Google ID
17. Subscribe to YouTube channels without needing a Google ID
18. Block any app's access to Wi-Fi (forcing it to only use cellular data)
19. Block any app's access to cellular data (forcing it to only use Wi-Fi)
20. Replace every Google native app with a FOSS privacy aware client
22. FOSS app search engine that searches & filters the Google Play Store
23. Edit a file (for example a text or PDF file) using any editor you want
24. Communicate E2E with RCS That's just the first two dozen of many features & capabilities that
Android users enjoy that are impossible to do on any Apple iPhone because
Apple won't let iOS developers give their users these useful capabilities.
Someone should document all these Android capabilities that aren't on iOS
so they don't have to always be pulled out of our memory as dozens more are
on Android but which are completely missing on iOS because Apple won't let
developers provide these capabilities to their users.
What is Apple so afraid of anyway?