I use iPhones for myself and the family because they just work. I don’t shell out for the latest models, this as-new iPhone 12 I’m on now works just fine. I use Linux for everything else but my requirements for a phone are totally different to what I need from a PC. I don’t need freedom or the ability to tinker or hack it. I need my phone to operate as a reliable appliance and a mobile wallet, so I appreciate features like Apple wallet and Face ID. Other people’s requirements might differ but I think it is just a case of horses for courses.
But don’t get me started on all the advanced features of the iPhone that are hidden so well behind the pretty ui most people will never ever realise they exist..

Apple absolutely does spy on their customers. They've just taken this clever approach where they say they don't, and for some bizarre reason everyone just accepts it.

They probably don't spy as much as Google does, but let's face it they're definitely collecting info.

It only works on pixel devices though right.

What do you think iCloud is for? Do you they are just be nice offering a cloud storage solution, or do you think maybe they get something out of it?

Well everyone says, and has said for years, that the best phone would run iOS but with the hardware innovations of Android phones.

Hell we're on the 7th generation of foldables and Apple still hasn't got one. I get they're not for everyone, and that's fine, but they should have the option.

If Apple offered an iPad that I could fold up and put in my pocket I might actually consider switching over. I'm not particularly bothered by iOS on a phone but iPad OS on a foldable phone I'm pretty sure that would sound like hotcakes even if it was 3K.

It might simply be my my use patterns but in my experience they tend to require a battery replacement in that time. Apple charged so much for the replacements it's often not really worth it unless you get some guy in a strip mall to do it

Rumor has it Apple wasn’t happy with the crease in folding phones and didn’t want to launch a foldable until they could solve the crease problem. Supposedly, they are gearing up to launch theirs next year and Samsung will be adopting apples solution for the crease problem then too.

iCloud is just a set of services Apple offers for their customers. Complete with vendor lock in. There’s no indication they are selling that data though if that’s what you are asking.

So one is potential ewaste (Oneplus with an uninformed user) the other is absolutely ewaste.

Again I really don't see your point?

What’s there to innovate, really? That ship has sailed back in the ‘90’s.

Nokia, Motorola, Sony-Ericksson and a bunch of other companies put out a ton of really neat phones. Tech moved so fast, every six months you’d see new leaps: introducing a color screen, Bluetooth, new ringtone formats, WAP, installable apps, etc.

These days we’ve pretty much settled on boring rectangular slabs. Innovation means yet another camera, a .01 mm thinner phone, a faster screen… none of it really exciting.

We all need phones. And yes, iPhones just work. There’s nothing wrong with buying a thing that just works. I don’t need my toaster to ‘innovate’ either - just to make toast predictably, you know?

Mate, I even lowballed the 95% number. It's probably closer to 98-99% of smartphone users that want nothing to do with custom ROMs.

This is coming from a person who has used them on every single Android I've owned (including an Oneplus).

So there's a 98% chance of a mainstream Android phone becoming ewaste within 2-3 years (admittedly, flagships now can get longer support because of pressure from Apple). If you think your iPhone is slow after 5 years, you can literally still sell it. There's still a market for it, and it'll continue getting at least security updates for a while. Some people report phones getting slow, but you know what? It's a minority. Plus once you wipe it of all your shit when you sell it, it'll be way faster again lol

So no, Apple isn't perfect (if they were, they'd let you flash other operating systems), but first party support is still more important to 99% of people than third party support is. I keep my OP 7 Pro around because it can run Android 15 smooth as hell and I've got an app I want to develop eventually, but I can't use it as my main phone these days (yay play integrity API) and on the custom ROM the battery drains pretty fast despite the phone not even having a SIM card in it and being used fairly little.

The oldest iPhone to get a security update this year is the 6s. It came out in 2015. From the company most hated for planned obsolescence. My last Android phone, the OP 7 Pro, released in 2019, got its last security update in 2022 or 2023, I forgot the exact date. Plus it took me hours to chase down the exact stock ROM I had to flash to downgrade the OS and get the bootloader unlocked last year. Oneplus had killed the downloads on their website, I ended up finding some on someone's google drive and some through wayback machine I believe. Don't remember which one actually worked in the end. This is NOT something a normal person would want to go through, I have ADHD and had more important work to do, which is why I ended up flashing my phone lol

I just extrapolate from NVMe SSDs which are currently ~$55 for 1TB, so ~$40 for 750GB = 1TB - 250GB. It's really hard to find info about the true cost of internal storage on mobile devices.

Why not blame both?

Apple are launching a folding phone next year in the same way that Fusion is a decade away.

They've been saying that since the launch of folding phones and the crease thing is just an excuse. No one who actually has ever experienced a folding phone cares about the crease. But if it was actually a solvable problem, I'm pretty sure engineers at Samsung are smart enough to be able to work it out, I don't think we have to leave it up to the Apple geniuses.