Apple's First Android App Makes It Easy To Move To iOS 174
Mark Wilson writes: Apple has released its first ever Android app. No, there's not an Android version of Safari or anything like that, but a tool designed to simplify the process of switching to iOS. The predictably named Move to iOS will appeal to anyone who was persuaded to switch allegiances by the release of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, or indeed iOS 9. The app can be used to move contacts, messages, photos and more to a new iPhone or iPad, and is compatible with phones and tablets running Android 4.0 and newer. It works slightly differently to what you may have expected. Rather than uploading data to the cloud, it instead creates private Wi-Fi network between an Android and iOS device and securely transfers it.
Quick poll (Score:5, Insightful)
Rate the chances of a reverse app to assist migrating from iPhone to Android making it into the Apple store?
I'll go with never.
Re:Quick poll (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, and in my mind that is what makes Android a far superior ecosystem, freedom.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Quick poll (Score:4, Interesting)
Many Android devices have alternate OSes (Cyanogenmod, etc) that support the device for far longer than the OEM did.
That's another example of the freedom you get with the Android platform instead of iOS.
Android, Fuck yeah!
Love my Android but... (Score:3)
I have never owned an iOS device, in fact I stick to Nexus devices with a 3 month S4 stint few years back.
I still don't want to move to iOS, but I am pissed at the android manufacturers.
Why can't they give me better battery life, LG G4 has a 3000mah battery, iPhone 6 has 1810mah, then how the hell does it manage to last longer than the G4.
Fortunately Camera's are starting to compete and exceed, but the battery life still sucks.
Yes, I know the android's do more, the services from different apps keep running,
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I think it's because iOS is much more lightweight than Android, especially pre ART Android which was doing JIT optimization on every app at runtime.
iOS's design is very Apple at a technical level, less is more. Android uses the "Everything and the kitchen sink" type of design.
They both have pros and cons as you've noticed.
Re: (Score:2)
Dunno - my wife has and loves her iPhone, but I bought a G2 earlier this year...
I actually prefer my little G2, and it has better battery life than my wife's phone. I have the same 3k mAh battery you do (which is why I bought it); it puts up with a day of very heavy use, and almost always has 33% or so left when I charge it at night, in spite of having Airwatch on the thing ($@#%ing corporate email security requirements...)
If it helps, I disable/delete the shitware (especially things like Facebook), and am
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it puts up with a day of very heavy use, and almost always has 33% or so left when I charge it at night
Wow. That's UNimpressive!
Admittedly, I don't know what you classify as "heavy use"; but my (now 1 gen old) iPhone 6 plus usually lasts at LEAST 3 to 4 DAYS before I have to charge it.
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It's a cheap phone I bought for the purpose. And yes, it works wonderfully.
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Why can't they give me better battery life, LG G4 has a 3000mah battery, iPhone 6 has 1810mah, then how the hell does it manage to last longer than the G4.
Two reasons:
1. Apple is the hands-down master in both battery technology AND power-management techniques. For example, just LOOK at the hoops they jump through on OS X to eke every erg out of their batteries (this article [arstechnica.com] is now two OS-generations old, so the techniques described therein have gotten even better). And for another example, look at the new iPad Pro. It even changes the screen [apple.com] and digitizer [arstechnica.com] refresh rates (separately) for better battery life and improved performance when needed.
2. They make th
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Many Android devices have alternate OSes (Cyanogenmod, etc) that support the device for far longer than the OEM did.
To be fair, that's not a very high bar... most Android OEMs never bother to support their devices. To be doubly fair, iPhones can be jailbroken too.
And no, I don't own an iPhone (I have an LG G2, because paying $215 for a decent unlocked GSM phone is a lot smarter than a contract or an overly-expensive new-shiny).
Re: (Score:2)
What alternate versions of iOS for iPhone are out there and used by some significant population?
Sounds interesting.
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To be doubly fair, iPhones can be jailbroken too.
At least a few of the Android vendors that don't bother to support their products either provide unlocking+rooting instructions, or even an app to allow the user to do that on their own. Apple actively combats jailbreaking, so I wouldn't consider the two situations comparable.
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Many Android devices have alternate OSes (Cyanogenmod, etc) that support the device for far longer than the OEM did.
That's another example of the freedom you get with the Android platform instead of iOS.
Android, Fuck yeah!
"Many" meaning about 500 across all ROMs, including the sort-of and the formerly supported ones (Yes, even Cyanogen drops support for older phones). Problem is, OpenSignal [opensignal.com] found 24,093 distinct Android devices in their recent survey, up from 18,796 last year.
So the chances that a random Android phone can be upgraded with any of those alternates is still lower than 1 in 10. Way lower.
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My comment was that it's possible to install your own variant of Android well after OEM support has been discontinued, because the OS is free software/open source.
There are many lollipop roms for even 2010 era phones and older.
How many iOS devices from 2010 got updated to iOS9?
How many iOS devices from 2011 will get iOS 9+1?
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Near as I can tell, no Lollipop Rom supports anything from before 2012, mostly because the device manufacturers are still using proprietary blobs that require specific
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The problem with iOS is no the upgrading.
It is the downgrading to an older OS version. It is not impossible but painful complicated.
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I did ask but apparently you can't read or your mac fanboy skills are lacking, let me enlighten you:
Apple's 2010 Phone Release:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
How many iPhone 4's are listed here, I'm just a moronic Android user so I can't tell :(
http://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-con... [osxdaily.com]
I see an iPhone 4S but that's the 2011 era phone we just discussed.
Please help me Apple fan boy, I want to understand!
Re: (Score:2)
There's a difference between the user choosing to hold back an upgrade and the upgrade not even being available for a particular piece of hardware. The vast majority of PCs that shipped with Windows Vista or Windows 7 "will get" Windows 8.1 or Windows 10, so long as the CPU supports the NX bit and SSE2 instructions. The big difference is that Windows has a cost reason for "choosing to hold back an upgrade" from Windows Vista, which iOS and Android lack (except for early iOS upgrades on Wi-Fi-only devices wh
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So you're saying you think Android sucks? How so?
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Well 25 years ago you might have run some ultraportable with a variant of MS-DOS in ROM and a five year old home computer that doesn't run an OS at all, with the option of running CP/M.
Only in the 90s the DOS/Windows computer with hard drive became the almost universal standard so everyone could read the same floppies and you could upgrade or change OS.
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None of my iOS devices are 'entitled' to an OS update. So they're no different than my Android devices, except being slightly older.
So, that means you have a first gen iPad, or an iPhone everything from the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4s is "eligible" for iOS 9. In fact, it's the same list as for iOS 8. I admit I don't keep up with the iPod Touch compatibility, that for some reason, seems to be not as good as the iPad and iPhone.
But, NO Android Device can boast more "upgrade eligibility" than iOS devices. None.
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a LITTLE more freedom in what actually makes it into google play
Plus the ability to install arbitrary APKs, plus the ability to install third party curated app stores.
Sort of a big difference.
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the ability to install arbitrary APKs
For a second I forgot this was an Android story, and shuddered.
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So this effectively makes Apple terrorists. Using the freedom enjoyed by an organization of people against them for political gain.
What in THE FUCK have you been smoking?!?
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Actually I bet they do let a similar app from Google in the store, should Google ever put one out, simply for the reason that it would be less of a PR headache and would save them from potential litigation.
Granted, the nature of such an app would probably mean that the app really needs to come from Samsung or HTC or LG or something and they might tell those guys to fuck right off but if Google do
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Well, according to the Switch to Android [android.com] instructions, while it's not one app, G
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Rate the chances of a reverse app to assist migrating from iPhone to Android making it into the Apple store?
I'll go with never.
Worth trying. If it got blocked you'd have a nice anti-trust suit against Apple.
Re: (Score:2)
Rate the chances of a reverse app to assist migrating from iPhone to Android making it into the Apple store?
I'll go with never.
Worth trying. If it got blocked you'd have a nice anti-trust suit against Apple.
Really? Have you ever tried to migrate someone's email and contacts off of AOHell? Yes, there are third-party apps that purport to do it; but AFAIK, AOL themselves has never made it easy.
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Perhaps you should google what a "trust" is.
A single company can not form a trust or be anti-trust.
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Perhaps you should google what a "trust" is.
A single company can not form a trust or be anti-trust.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
http://www.rt.com/news/249733-... [rt.com]
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After the Microsoft suit from the late 90's, early 2000's, anti-trust in computers is dead.
In what country? The European Union applied more substantial penalties to Microsoft than did the United States.
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It won't make it to the App Store, but you can put one on yourself now if you like since you can now side load apps onto iOS9 as long as you build them from source without paying the $99 developer fee.
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It won't make it to the App Store, but you can put one on yourself now if you like since you can now side load apps onto iOS9 as long as you build them from source without paying the $99 developer fee.
Really? That's pretty cool! Does that work sort of like the way the Developer app-distribution does/did? Or what?
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It won't make it to the App Store, but you can put one on yourself now if you like since you can now side load apps onto iOS9 as long as you build them from source without paying the $99 developer fee.
Really? That's pretty cool! Does that work sort of like the way the Developer app-distribution does/did? Or what?
I'm not 100% on the details yet - it seems to have been mentioned on AnandTech during the iOS9 roundup and reviews - I'm sure someone will provide more official details soon. There was no fanfare from Apple about it, so it might ultimately turn out to be an error with Xcode. I am hoping not.
Xcode has always been free, of course, and this new development (if accurate and not misquoted) is clearly designed to encourage app development, and even if true will be limited to those with a Mac or the ability to run
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The chances are zero because Apple doesn't allow apps that reference Android. And because it wouldn't have any users anyway.
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There is already one for BlackBerry -- Device Switch. It's been there for over a year. Great app. Works like a charm. I'm sure that's where Apple got the idea.
Apple has had "Migration Assistant" for years and years for OS X; long before Hackberry even existed. Works spectacularly. And at some point (can't remember when, but it was awhile ago) they added Windows migration support to Migration Assistant. Have never tried it.
Reviews (Score:4, Insightful)
I pre-ordered an iPhone 6S and I'm moving over from years of being on Android phones. I'm very interested in this app. I took a look at the review on the Play Store (which are mostly one-star reviews), and they all seem to be from Android fan boys about how switching to an iPhone will be the worst decision one can make. Other reviews seem to criticize the apps design scheme.
These are phones, people. It's not a religion. These things aren't your children.
Re: (Score:2)
I pre-ordered an iPhone 6S and I'm moving over from years of being on Android phones. I'm very interested in this app. I took a look at the review on the Play Store (which are mostly one-star reviews), and they all seem to be from Android fan boys about how switching to an iPhone will be the worst decision one can make. Other reviews seem to criticize the apps design scheme.
These are phones, people. It's not a religion. These things aren't your children.
Damn it. For some reason Firefox had logged me out so I ended up posting this as an Anonymous Coward.
Re:Reviews (Score:5, Funny)
So the captcha requirement did not tell you that you were commenting as AC? Something tells me you are a perfect fit for IOS /snicker
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So the captcha requirement did not tell you that you were commenting as AC? Something tells me you are a perfect fit for IOS /snicker
I don't actually post enough on Slashdot to notice the difference. Also, I'm an American. I don't read before I click. Also, your signature line seems very apropos:
When you cant win, ad hominem.
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I was joking, not seriously making an argument, the /snicker should have given that away.
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I was joking, not seriously making an argument, the /snicker should have given that away.
I was joking as well (hence the American joke), but your signature was too good to pass up. Beers.
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Some of the reviews are because Android apps are supposed to at least TRY to conform to the design spec of Android, and Apple crapped all over that.
One of the big benefits of Android is that Google does not take a heavy-handed approach to filtering what makes it into their store, and Apple is slapping them in the face with an app whose function AND design would both be instantly rejected if the positions were reversed.
You think Google would be able to get a Material-designed app into the iOS app store-- let
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These are phones, people. It's not a religion.
Burn the heretic!
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Please. I've rarely ever seen an iSheep rant and rave on like a Fandroid. Both camps are pathetic but one is certainly more vocal.
Its the idle condescension that is so irritating. Hearing someone gush about the new Apple pay, you point out that Google had NFC payments before, and you hear about how "Apple always does it second, and better". Point out counter-examples (like iOS keyboards, which took years and are still crippled and awful), and "why would you ever want to do that?"
I have no beef with folks who can just admit they prefer the aesthetic or have some other preference for Apple. The assertions that its just universally "b
Re: (Score:2)
There's two definitions of secure here. One is whether it can be hacked effectively, and Apple really doesn't do well there. Another is how it works in practice. If I have two casual users, and give one an iMac and one a Windows equivalent, and let them surf the net for six months, who will have more malware?
Politically correct (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not just inertia. If you have a load of paid Android apps and want to switch, you need to buy them all again for iOS.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Depends, really.
For disposable stuff like phones, I have and recommend the Android route. You don't keep a phone for long enough (on average) to call it an investment, since 2 years is a bit of a stretch for most owners.
For the relatively durable stuff? It depends.
For the typical email/Facebook/flash-game user, a typical i3 or i5 laptop for $300-$500 or so is just fine, and will last 2 years on average if treated gingerly.
Now for me, it's a bit different... I bought a 15" MacBook Pro as my primary laptop in
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The laptop stuff from MSI, Gigabyte etc. looks (at least looks) good. They are motherboard vendors, and graphics card vendors too so I trust them more than HP/Dell/Packard Bell etc. at making hardware, and it's not littered with stickers.
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The laptop stuff from MSI, Gigabyte etc. looks (at least looks) good. They are motherboard vendors, and graphics card vendors too so I trust them more than HP/Dell/Packard Bell etc. at making hardware, and it's not littered with stickers.
But there's a HUGE difference between getting some Contract Manufacturer to stuff a PCB and doing the industrial engineering necessary for an entire PRODUCT.
Apple has a PROVEN track-record in the latter, Gigabyte and MSI, er, don't.
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To be more explicit vendors that make graphics card anywhere from 20 watts to 250 watts and more know at least something about cooling.
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They're made of the same stuff, and assembled by slave labor, let go of the fantasy.
That statement says volumes about what you DON'T understand about Industrial Design, Contract Manufacturing, and Process Control.
Apple's got it; ALL the others don't.
There's a LOT more to creating a well engineered, well manufactured product than stuffing some low-quality parts on a Printed Circuit Board and punching out a case from some shit-grade, thin-ass sheet of Aluminum, or can't-wait-to-crack styrene-type Plastic.
A former boss of mine went to work for Fairchild, and consequently, got to see som
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Of course a MacBook is going to blow a three hundred dollar netbook out of the water, a twelve hundred dollar quality laptop? Not so much.
The $800 Dell (forgot which line) lasted less than six months before the motherboard fried...
The $1000 (-ish) HP EliteBook ran waaaaaaaaay too slow in spite of its i7, and ate three separate hard drives (and got RMA'd twice) before I gave up on it. Lasted less than a year.
The $1100 Samsung RC-512 felt like cheap plastic (the laptop lid actually *flexed* whenever I picked it up), and towards the end of its useful life I was forced to set CPU affinity on certain applications, or else I'd blow the thermals and
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That said, I'm not the kind of person that views a six hundred dollar smart phone as "disposable", so I'm not really apple's key demographic.
I treat phones as disposable because they are all too easily dropped, stolen, scratched, beaten-up, lost...
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I'm sure we can keep them easily for 2 or 3 years.
The G2 runs a clean version of Android, the Zenfone2 has some bloat that can easily be disabled, and ZenUI is surprisingly fast and good.
No way I will spend $700 on a phone!
Re:misses the point entirely. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's your opinion on why people switched away, but if you use actual facts - i.e., adoption rates of phones and polls conducted asking people why they bought the phone they did the main reason that people switched away from iOS was that they didn't offer large phones and Android manufacturers did.
When the 6 and 6+ launched the trend swung back the other way.
I'm sure there were some converts because of price, but from the adoption numbers it's pretty clear people wanted bigger phones and went to Android to get them only to come back when Apple also offered them.
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but from the adoption numbers it's pretty clear people wanted bigger phones and went to Android to get them only to come back when Apple also offered them.
What numbers?
Android still outsell iPhones by about 5:1 worldwide, and the launch of the larger iPhone didn't change much. In fact, Apple has lost market share since their peak of 2012.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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but from the adoption numbers it's pretty clear people wanted bigger phones and went to Android to get them only to come back when Apple also offered them.
What numbers?
Android still outsell iPhones by about 5:1 worldwide, and the launch of the larger iPhone didn't change much. In fact, Apple has lost market share since their peak of 2012.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Apple's numbers from polling people who buy iPhones. They have been tracking this for several years and have determined that an increasing number of people buying iPhones are switching from Android.
The overall numbers of Android phones sold worldwide is irrelevant - only the proportion of iPhone users who were using something other than iOS on their previous phone.
It's no surprise that Android phones outsell iPhones overall - Android phones cover the whole gamut from premium to basic, while iPhone is only i
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Apple's numbers from polling people who buy iPhones
Yeah, of course we should blindly trust these numbers.
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Apple's numbers from polling people who buy iPhones
Yeah, of course we should blindly trust these numbers.
Wow, the Apple Hate is strong in this one!
Who cares if you trust the numbers. Apple clearly trusts the numbers enough to write and publish an app for the Google Play store because it believes it will be worth the effort (whatever small effort it costs them to assign people to develop and test it).
I'm not sure what your point is here? Apple has said that an increasing number of iPhone buyers are coming from Android (something it mentioned after the 6 and 6+ launch, and which seems to be continuing) and so it
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There is probably more people switching from iPhone to Android. Why? Because more smartphones are being sold than ever.
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There is probably more people switching from iPhone to Android. Why? Because more smartphones are being sold than ever.
So?
How does that affect the metric of "number of new iPhone users who used a non-iPhone"?
Apple has collected this data. It has talked about this data. It has shown this data during keynotes. They obviously believe that there are enough Android>iOS switchers out there to make the release of a migration app worthwhile (or at the very least, officially support the one that has been on the Play store for some time - it is effectively a licenced version with official Apple artwork and support).
It doesn't matt
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Apple's numbers from polling people who buy iPhones. They have been tracking this for several years and have determined that an increasing number of people buying iPhones are switching from Android.
The overall numbers of Android phones sold worldwide is irrelevant - only the proportion of iPhone users who were using something other than iOS on their previous phone.
An increasing number of people buying iPhones are switching from Android because Android is so damned ubiquitous now. If the proportion of people buying iPhones instead of any other type of phone is increasing, and the number of people upgrading from previous versions of iPhones isn't significantly smaller than with previous models, then you have something significant to report.
Saying that an increasing number of people buying iPhones are switching from Android just implies that the Android share of the market has gotten pretty damned big.
But the size of the Android market itself is not the important metric - everyone knows it is large. The issue is whether Apple thinks it is worth making a migration app - the only thing that will tell them if this is worthwhile is the figure for "what was your previous phone before this iPhone?" survey answer, which Apple knows.
The reason for that figure is immaterial - either way, Apple sells lots of iPhones and the total is seeming to rise regularly - and it wants to make the experience of owning one good
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Oh I see, so on one hand we have unsubstantiated rumours about some unspecific data that Apple supposedly collects claimed by someone on Slashdot who has a history of being a rampant Apple fanboy that will happily lie for the cause, and on the other we have actual statistics showing Apple's market share is still stubbornly sat at about 14% and not growing and Android's still sat happily at about 80%.
I'm having a hard time trying to figure out which to trust here, it's a real tough one.
Well, since you forgot to log in I can see why you'd have trouble understanding that the metric by which to judge whether to release a migration app is the number of people who have migrated to your platform from another platform, which is data you can easily collect (and has been shown during WWDC keynotes on slides), rather than the raw marketshare numbers for that rival platform, regardless of what you believe the status of the Holy Platform War to be.
Keep up, kid! It's not difficult, at least for those
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but it really got bad during the financial collapse of 2008.
Ya know what was really strange to me? During the deep recession of late 2008 to 2010, Apple's stock (and marketshare) SURGED, while the rest of the industry TANKED.
As you mentioned, Apple products are not bargain-basement; but for whatever reason, they weathered the economic storms of the Recession with AMAZING performance!
Frankly, it amazed me, too. But facts is facts, and you didn't check them. So here [zdnet.com] you [appleinsider.com] go [linkedin.com]...
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Google maps "public transport" is - cough - usable since a year or two.
Neither apple maps nor google maps are in any way great for using public transport.
You are better of with a paper map.
Depending on zoom level they only show stations but no routes, or stations vanish if you zoom in deeper.
Note to Google and Apple: public transport forms a grid like roads, stations only are completely pointless.
Speaking about Berlin or Paris, e.g.
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What, the morons are the perfect market for $600 phones. You just price it into their monthly.
Look at all the brand new cars you see in apartment parking lots. There is a reason they are living paycheck to paycheck and it's not because the check is too small. Those people will always spend 10% more than their income.
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Once every few months I try syncing my iPad Mini with iTunes, mostly when I need to back it up. I agree, it's so
Money in my bank account? (Score:3)
Does it deposit $400 in my back account? Because that's about the price difference between the lowest priced current iPhone and what I spent on my last 2 phones, which were previously Android, and currently Windows. I don't particularly like iOS, and probably wouldn't choose it anyway, but the high price of the devices is what really keeps me away from even considering it. Especially considering that my last 2 phones have been very sufficient in their specifications, and I really don't think I'd have a better experience with my phone if it was 3mm thinner, or had a slightly faster processor.
The other thing I like about Android and Windows is that with the phones I choose, I can use an SD card to expand the storage. This is something that's important to me because even a small amount of media (videos, photos, music) can quickly fill up the 16GB iPhone. For $15 I can get a 32 GB MicroSD, and be able to bring way more stuff with me than I could on an iPhone, for a fraction of the price it would cost to upgrade to an iPhone with a reasonable amount of storage.
Re:Money in my bank account? (Score:5, Interesting)
The phone is expensive, no question, but my last iPhone lasted me 4 years and I expect this new one to do the same. I get support during those 4 years and I don't have to wait for updates. The resale value is really good, too. The cost of an iPhone is a lot less if you consider how much you can sell a phone that's still in good shape.
But these are all trade-offs, and I won't pretend they're not. I get a lot of things that are important to me by buying an iPhone, but I trade off being able to buy a new, cutting edge phone every year because it costs way too much. If I want to sell it, I can, but I have to go through the ordeal of selling it.
I *do* regret buying a 16GB phone (I thought I would be okay because 16GB was always plenty on my iPhone 4, even with a healthy music playlist), but streaming music and some smart cloud offloading definitely make this phone liveable, even with games and apps and podcasts. If there's one complaint I have--and that the Apple community and pundits have--it's that stupid 16GB tier.
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Updates are the reason that I went with Windows this round over Android. My last Android phone never saw a single update, and was stuck on 2.3 for the 3 years I owned it, even though it was released 6 months before Android 4 came out. Windows Phone seems to be much more likely to get updates than most Android phones. I've already received 1 update on my current phone that I've had for 5 months, so it's already a better track record than my last Android phone. As long as it gets Windows 10 (which it seems
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The phone is expensive, no question, but my last iPhone lasted me 4 years
That's cute. I had the same phone all the way through highschool and 3/4 of the way through my uni life. And I changed degrees halfway through.
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I'm still trying to figure out what "more" my company issued Galaxy S5 does that my original Galaxy S didn't. No really. Maybe it plays better 3D games, but I have a computer for that.
People upgrade phones because people masturbate over features, style, and specifications. Very few people are doing anything "more" now.
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My phone is also my in-car GPS, my primary camera, my facebook/twitter/tumblr/rss machine, the device I do my home budgets on and the device I'm most likely to turn to for entertainment, since I don't really have enough time to sit at a computer to play games.
Most of that was possible on my iPhone 4, but my iPhone 6 does all of it a lot better.
And when I say my iPhone 4 'lasted' 4 years, what I mean is that I gave it to my Mom after 4 years. It's still in use, and because what she needs is just a phone and
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The other thing I like about Android and Windows is that with the phones I choose, I can use an SD card to expand the storage. This is something that's important to me because even a small amount of media (videos, photos, music) can quickly fill up the 16GB iPhone. For $15 I can get a 32 GB MicroSD, and be able to bring way more stuff with me than I could on an iPhone, for a fraction of the price it would cost to upgrade to an iPhone with a reasonable amount of storage.
So what? You're going to carry a wallet-full of SD cards around, just waiting to lose, break or corrupt one (whoops! I guess I shoulda backed that up...)???
SD Storage-expansion SOUNDS like a good idea; but in practice, it really doesn't fit well with the idea of "my phone goes with me everywhere".
And with a 128 GB iPhone being available, do you REALLY need more than that WITH YOU at one time? If so, make it available via a home server over VPN. Honest, that's a MUCH more REASONABLE solution than carryin
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You have a profound misunderstanding of the use case. And you grow increasingly annoying.
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I rather have a keyring full with SD cards to put into my iOS device than a server in a VPN.
First of all: without iTunes you barely can not "install" / download anything onto you iPhone, so a VPN is pointless.
Secondly, I don't have the hardware nor time, nor knowledge to install me a VPN at home.
Thirdly: I live in Europe. And I'm not a german but a european, in other words, I spent perhaps 50%, perhaps even only 30% of my time in germany.
So: cellular connections are so expensive I never use them. The idea t
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The great thing about SD card expansion isn't that I can swap out cards, but rather than I can choose the amount of storage I have available on my phone without paying ridiculous amounts of money for it.
That's the problem with the iPhone. I would have to spend $200 more, totaling $850 to get the 128 GB version. Instead, I could buy an Android or Windows phone with SDXC support for $300, and spend $60 for a 128 GB Micro SD Card. $360 total for the Android or Windows setup, or $850 for the iPhone. That's a
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At the end of the day the phone does what I want: makes calls, does email and text, takes some pics, play my music (although it's crap compared to iOS or Android in that regards) and play a couple of games (the selection is terrible though). It will do for a while though.
Yeah buddy! Sounds like QUITE the upgrade over your iPhone (rolls eyes)...
What a ringing endorsement of Windows Phone (pun intended).
iPhone to iPhone app? (Score:2)
The only options when one replaces an iPhone with another is to start from scratch or do a complete copy of the old phone. Admittedly the latter is a doddle with iTunes, but I'd actually just like an option to copy messages and call history. The rest I'm happy to start from scratch with, but I haven't found an easy way to do it.
Hotel Cupertino (Score:5, Funny)
On the information superhighway, cool wind in my hair,
Warm smell of Doritos, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a touchscreen with light
My laptop's too heavy and my dumb phone sucks
I had to stop for the night
There she stood at the genius bar;
I heard The Joshua Tree
And I was thinking to myself,
"This could be Heaven or this could be Siri"
Then she swiped to unlock it, and she showed me the way
There were hipsters down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say...
Welcome to the Hotel Cupertino!
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely interface
Plenty of apps at the Hotel Cupertino
Every other year
Have to buy new gear
Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends
She got a lot of app developers she calls friends
How they code like some monkeys, in a shop filled with sweat.
Some code to remember, some code to forget
So I called up the CEO,
"Please bring me my 'i'"
He said, "We haven't had that spirit here since 2009"
And still those hipsters are calling from far away,
Amber alert in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...
Welcome to the Hotel Cupertino
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely interface
They livin' it up at the Hotel Cupertino
Alibis you bring...
There's just one more thing...
Selfie sticks now with bluetooth,
Instagrams look like ice
And she said "We are all just prisoners here, of the Apple device"
And in the Apple store,
Nobody ever feels fleeced
They trade in all their old device,
But they never pay the least
Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the OS I was on before
"Relax, " said the genius,
"It is programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave!
How I read this: (Score:2)
How I read this:
"Company releases tool that utilises its competitor's openness in order to suck in your data into a system that doesn't have that same ease of transfer functionality in return."
It sounds very much like a one-way-street to me. But I don't use Apple, except in my job, so I may be unaware of some great export tool that makes it really easy to bring all your contacts etc. out of an Apple device to put it in standardised formats for you that need anything but the device you're using to export fr
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Why would I think it used the cloud? This is the exact same process that my Moto X used to migrate from another Android phone to my new one.
Because for almost everything you do Apple wants you put stuff on their servers*
And I say that say someone with a MacBook, iMac, iPad and 2 different iPods
* A few years ago I saw the great quote of "Whenever you see the term 'the cloud', replace it with 'someone else's computer' "
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Why would I think it used the cloud? This is the exact same process that my Moto X used to migrate from another Android phone to my new one.
Because for almost everything you do Apple wants you put stuff on their servers*
And I say that say someone with a MacBook, iMac, iPad and 2 different iPods
* A few years ago I saw the great quote of "Whenever you see the term 'the cloud', replace it with 'someone else's computer' "
While I agree with your "Cloud" sentiments, I cannot agree with them in regard to Apple's "Migration" Apps, which, AFAIK, have NEVER depended on the Cloud.
For one thing, it would take FOREVER.
For another thing, someone who purportedly has all the Apple gear you claim to possess, would surely know by now that NONE of Apple's "Migration" or "Update" procedures involve CLOUD storage. OS X's "Migration Assistant" uses a direct Firewire or Thunderbolt connection (or WiFi, IIRC). iOS Devices are "Migrated" us
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BUT, the likelihood of Apple getting cracked by malicious ithugs is not so remote.
While I agree that "The Cloud" is generally evil, every single thing going to/fro iCloud is end-end encrypted with AES128 encryption; so NOTHING on Apple's Servers, at least as far as User's Data goes, would be useful to any reasonable amount of hacking efforts.
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well over here in Asia the last 2 years saw a big flow back. People like their iphone 4 and iphone 4s, but then they liked the big screens of certain new androids more, with the 6 plus I noticed a good number of people switching back.
So, what that means is that, they ended up HATING Android, and would rather go through the PITA to move BACK to iOS than to suffer with Android for one minute more.
Thanks! That's VERY interesting. Especially since people generally will defend their platform choice, even if they don't really "feel" it.
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So this is more detail about the people I know; I don't know about others but it is quite obvious in the met
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The predictably named Move to iOS will appeal to anyone who was persuaded to switch allegiances by the release of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, or indeed iOS 9
I know money can be a powerful motivator, but how many people could that be, really? I feel like everyone has pretty much picked their side at this point. I'm genuinely curious... though that doesn't mean I'm not being snarky.
More than you think. Apple's own numbers are showing that there are still a lot of people switching, hence the release of the app. It will likely tail off somewhat now that the sizes of the iPhone are set - they had a lot of converts when they released the 6 and 6+ last year.
Re:Why would anyone do that? (Score:4, Insightful)
My last several phones were flagship phones from Samsung and Motorola.
I don't want to turn this into an 'Android vs Apple' debate, but I'll list my current grievances with Android:
Updates. Updates suck and are always cause for panic. Sometimes they work well, sometimes they don't. And if they don't, it takes a long time for a fix to come out (if at all). I had this problem with my Galaxy S3. There was an update that killed the battery life. No fix for it ever. The S5 recently (February) had an update to 5.0 and it caused tons of issues. Most people are still dealing with those issues.
Anywhere in the Google/Manufacturer/Carrier chain updates can be blocked because someone doesn't want to support or test them, or because they just want you to upgrade to a newer phone. The Moto G may skip the carrier portion, I'm not sure.
Every day I need to cancel the scheduled update to my phone. It pisses me off. I don't want it. But evey morning I need to stop it from happening or I'm going to get it anyway. And if I accidentally hit the wrong button in a waking up fog, I'm screwed.
I don't like the way Notifications work in the newer Android OSs.
Google Play Services & other Google apps seem to start eating into my battery life.
Apple solves a lot of these problems:
Updates. Apple has gotten these wrong in the past, for sure. But at least they fix them and do it quickly. Tons of people bitch and it makes the news. Things get fixed.
Updates come right from Apple to the phone. They don't have to go through the carrier at all. Apple's current (and upcoming) iOS work on devices all the way back to the iPhone 4S (which dates back to 2011). That's product support. Hell, Verizon still sells iPhone 5Ss new and CPO iPhone 5s. That's not to say that I'd have an iPhone that long, but knowing it'll be supported is good and help resale value quite a bit.
I can choose when updates come in. I don't get bugged every day. If I deny an update, it doesn't ask me again and again.
Notifications/Silence/Vibrate works a lot better than on Android Lollipop. I know it's a feature that they originally stole from Android.
Decent music/album art/photo syncing with a computer.
It sucks that the latest crop of Android devices don't have removable batteries anymore. I really liked that feature.
Things I'd miss on Android phones:
The blinky light LED on the front. I really like the notification light. I like being able to glance at the phone and see what I've missed.
The goddamn 'Back' button on the hardware. There's no reason not to have it.
Removable external storage.
Install apps from anywhere. I hate Apple's 'walled garden' approach.
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what da phuk???scheduled phone update? Nah, just turn the bloody thing off... turn off 'allow automatic downloads' - that's the option in my Sony Xperia and it's unchecked by default...
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what da phuk???scheduled phone update? Nah, just turn the bloody thing off... turn off 'allow automatic downloads' - that's the option in my Sony Xperia and it's unchecked by default...
That only works for applications, not for the OS itself.
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> Rather than uploading data to the cloud, it instead creates private Wi-Fi network between an Android and iOS device and securely transfers it. suddenoutbreakofcommonsense?
No, not sudden.
Apple's "Migration Assistant" in OS X has been happily transferring data between Macs (and PC -> Mac) using either a FIrewire, Thunderbolt or peer-peer WiFi connection for YEARS and YEARS.
Why would they change now?
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They are still making loads of money with the iPhone - but their global market share is shrinking relentlessly. This is just proof that they have seen the writing in the wall.
ORLY?
Then how do you explain THIS [appleinsider.com], or THIS [bgr.com]?