[specialist]

With Apple, one gets (more) freedom from harassment.

My partner is switching back from Android to iPhone. Her latest software update embedded ads everywhere and borked the contacts. It's too much.

Some of us are older, tired of doing tech supp, and just want stuff to work.

[izacus]

And you can get stuff that works without supporting closed ecosystems. Age is a bad excuse to not take a moment to check what you're buying.

[kup0]

Or maybe for some of us it's okay to use a closed ecosystem as long as we understand the limitations that come with it? Maybe it's worth it for what we perceive as the benefits of such a system?

"Age is a bad excuse" Do we need an excuse for using a closed ecosystem? It's a choice and one that doesn't have to be justified to anyone but ourselves.

[izacus]

You can choose to use whatever you like, but implying that good user experience requires closed ecosystem is a false dichotomy and those two aren't connected. There is absolutely no reason why iOS couldn't provide current user experience for majority of users and still allow applications with advanced functionality to be sideloaded.

Also you may choose whatever you like, but painting non-Apple ecosystems as being homogenous is completely wrong. There are several manufacturers providing other OSes with different features and throwing all Androids (and others) with same stroke does annoy people. Just because you cannot be bothered to check a difference between a Samsung and a Nexus device it does not mean that such difference does not exist.

[api]

I think you're exactly right and I wish people wouldn't downmod. I've been downmodded to hell for bringing up the same point on several occasions.

Open platforms have crummy UX, especially for people who are not computer experts. This explains why people are willing to make the bargain I outlined above. If open systems advocates are ever to offer a compelling alternative, they need to find alternative non-dictatorial ways to respond to these rather severe security and usability problems.

The first step to fixing a problem isn't to pretend it doesn't exist.