[koolba]

Putting aside the walled garden of iMessage, what’s so special about iPhones that you can’t do with any other expensive smartphone?

The average person is just checking email, taking pictures of their food, reading garbage news sites, and watching mindless fad videos.

[diffeomorphism]

> that you can’t do with any other expensive smartphone

There are two, again two platforms that matter for phones. That's it. "Well, it is not 1, so we can just twiddle our thumbs and ignore the problem" is not at all convincing. And then people get sidetracked with "but the term monopoly taken literally means...". Yes, nobody cares. Antitrust is explicitly not just about that.

[jakewins]

iPhones don’t have Samsung product managers.

When my $1000 Galaxy started waking me up with Samsung push notification ads I had not opted in to, I knew I was done with Android.

[LtWorf]

The mistake was getting samsung.

But yes it should be widely known that android on samsung isn't the same as android on nokia or motorola.

[tomjen3]

Your first sentence used "you". The second said "the average person".

That is two different statements. HN users are not Joe Average. Apart from working with the Apple Ecosystem, I cannot get enough privacy on Android. The new changes does not mean that Android is acceptable, it just means that the Iphone is also not acceptable, leaving me with zero acceptable smart phones.

[wiseowise]

> Putting aside the walled garden of iMessage, what’s so special about iPhones that you can’t do with any other expensive smartphone?

Integration with Apple ecosystem, properly designed OS and not mishmash of dozens visual styles.

[ssizn]

It doesn’t suck.

That’s basically the reason me and every iPhone owner I know buy one.

[ryanschneider]

> It doesn’t suck.

Yet. If iOS News app is any indication of how bad their ads will be then I think they really will be hurting themselves in the long term. My guess is there are many like myself who now use Apple products as the “least bad” option rather than truly liking them anymore, that sentiment will grow way faster when people start seeing ads in more places.

I’m one of those people where consistent keyboard shortcuts is the main sticky feature, but that only let’s me put up with so much.

[ssizn]

I agree. The iPhone is indeed not perfect, but Android makes me grow white hair. (I don’t use the news app though. Can’t say anything about it. If they start putting ads around the system I will think of alternatives.)

[soundnote]

An acquaintance bought one and sent it back within the day. iOS is apparently "the worst non-meme OS" they've used in a while.