Unfortunately, iOS simply does not allow apps like Briar to run reliably in the background[1]. Unless Apple changes its thinking about iOS, Briar or other similar apps would never work reliably.
Switching ecosystems is a huge pain, I started with iPhone and eventually moved to Android and back again to iPhone. When you use a lot of the Apple/Google Services, it's not really easy to just switch over
I guess it's easy if a person cares enough about it? I'm the relative PITA in my family because I prefer to put everything on a paper calendar and mostly use my phone for Signal, iMessage, occasional email, some photos, and internet, including toe-dips into this forum as my social media engagement. I'm in my 40s, grew up with a Commodore64, and am disenchanted with computers now (while still using them for a few things- life's messy, and that's okay). Surveillance capitalism is more of a threat to much of what I care about (includes partcipatory democracy and mutual aid), and it makes sense to both push back and find a better path.
Humans have done okay for a hundred thousand years+ without computers, with some dark ages here and there when people get greedy.
No larger screen has ever had issues with permanent damage from regular use. They just aren’t a good fit for most people in their current durability state. Anyone who totally baby’s their phone can use them, but that’s about it. Also, they’re pretty much all in an extreme price bracket. You could buy a small tablet and a regular flagship phone for the price of one of the galaxy folds.
People didn't like the OG Xbox "Duke" controller. They complained left and right.
I'm a tall adult male. Every other controller is tiny to me.
My max phone size is just about right on the ProMax iPhones. They should be a little smaller - but only a little, like 1-2 mm width. I've got big hands, and I love a big screen.
huh? Those things are a novelty. I may be aging into fuddy-duddy land, though. If I keep using a mobile phone, I like the smaller ones that easily fit in one hand and most pockets, I want it to last a decade or more (this iphone is from 2018, I think), and I like it just powerful enough for communication, browsing, and photos. Done with games.
To try to see another view, though, if the tech is there and not too harmful (that's relative- I think our venture into computer-land is immensely harmful in many ways) and durable enough, it seems nice to protect the screen? Except if grit gets between the glass?
Android isn't AOSP, and Android isn't open source.
It's safe to assume that every large tech company is spying on everything you do - including Apple. (Remember they're legally required to do so in the UK, and probably in more countries but it only leaked in the UK)
Android is more trustworthy not because of that but because it lets you install apps that haven't been approved by corporate overlords first.
I don’t blindly trust Apple either, but I believe enough of what they say and consider the gaps when they don’t say something. They fight things like the UK E2E encryption requests… but also, having owned both Android and Apple devices, and managing my own iOS devices and the Android devices my parents own, I definitely feel like the iOS devices are more secure and less prone to bad actors via App Store. I think safari is more anonymizing than chrome.
The (US) government already has too much access to us, and I think Android is more open to them than iOS. The government has cameras in public and access to our banking data, I’m not gonna protect myself from them by choosing one platform more than the other, or one bank more than the other.
What I don’t want, though, is to be annoyed to death or scammed. My choice is more front loaded by that consideration. If I find out that Apple accedes to backdoors though, I’d have to live without both Android and iOS.
Whether you want to call it a “restriction”, “a lack of permission without being X type of activity”, or “it works because the app exhibits Y behavior”, it’s all functionally a restriction.
You can run some background activities that are not audio apps, but you’re at the mercy of iOS’s decision to keep your task active or not. If you’re off the charger, all bets are off. iOS’s dev docs make this very clear.
Not sure what you mean with fundamental. As mentioned in the thread parent comment links to, the issue lies in enforced limits and lack* of general mechanism available to developers to allow background execution for any kind of app or/and purpose. No one said iOS itself lacks the functionality for background execution.
*In the same thread, it is noted that this lack is by choice and special-purpose mechanisms are preferred instead to prevent abuse.
It's not an issue of sideloading or censorship in iOS. It's a product decision related to background apps (they kill the running process with no recourse to bring it up again on its own).
In Europe it's been ruled that since Apple makes no pretense of being competitive, they don't have to be, while Google has to actually deliver on their open platform promises.