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by redmerchant2 1096 days ago
For me, “it just works.” The amount of time configuring a OSX vs Windows work computer was huge.

For personal use cases it’s the same. Smartphones are so advanced that there’s not that much functionality I’d get. The benefit from customizability of an Android is less than the stability and ease of access of an iPhone. Maybe ad blocking is the only issue, YT on the phone is unusable, but I have a pi-hole for my home network so I don’t mind.

I still have a rooted Android and a jail broken iPad to mess around with. But beyond some nerdy stuff or hacking a mobile game, it’s mostly a gimmick.

5 comments

"It just works" is great until it just doesn't. Both our iPhones refuse to connect to iTunes via lightning cable. Nothing wrong with the file system, can view everything on the phone fine. I assume this is a software bug but the only option given is to factory reset the phones, which seems a little extreme.

But we can't use a third party app on the PC (you can find plenty to install, but they all use the same underlying iTunes software), or on the phone (some WiFi media transfer apps exist but don't work well for years of bulk data), or even just browse the file system like Android. So our only option is apparently paying for iCloud to get our media off the phone now, resetting, and hopefully putting it back on - which I don't have high hopes for since we had an issue in the past where iTunes bricked a phone when restoring from backup [IIRC iTunes didn't do the right system call to stop the Windows PC from sleeping, so it slept mid-restore, and next time we plugged it in, it automatically backed up the broken partial restore wiping the good backup].

The amount of time configuring a OSX vs Windows work computer was huge.

Both of which can run any software of your choice, which demonstrates that walled gardens aren't necessary for usability.

I spent many hours configuring my Macbook for work (including installing 3rd party apps that let you do things the default options don't) and there are many aspects of it I wish I could change but can't (at least without a lot of effort), but I could happily use Windows with very few tweaks. It's mostly personal preference as to what "just works" in both of these systems, but it's certainly nicer to have the option to change things you don't like.
It’s besides the point, but Windows has come a long long way to improve Windows client configuration (Intune, Winget, winget config files are in preview). MacOS is still reliant on third party tools like Brew or consumer oriented stuff like the App Store.
The existence of a company-sanctioned jailbreak process doesn't prevent your own non-jailbroken phone from "just working".