I was an iOS supporter until iphone 5 then I discovered the beauty and freedom of Android.
To this day with Samsung s22+
But currently I am a bit tired, there is no android phone that I am passionate about, oneplus has given me nothing but problems, Samsung with exynos is a disaster (not to mention the new blockages at sideload and the green stripes on the display), I don’t even want to go near all the other Chinese brands, and Nothing is not what it promised to be.
I want to go back to iOS but there are a few things holding me back:
-
how can sideload be managed on iOS? Are there modified apps like youtube, reddit?
-
I follow a lot of NSFW channels on telegram, discord and reddit itself, are there any problems on iOS? are there ways around this? (my girlfriend has iOS, and every time I want to forward an nsfw gif she doesn’t see it)
-
surf the sea, is it complex on ios? Especially in terms of gaming?
TBH only yt, nsfw and modded apk keep me on android. Thanks a lot in advance
Sideloading apps on iOS has gotten a lot easier. I use sideloadly. It has to connect to your computer (wirelessly) once a week but does this automatically in the background. I’m still running Apollo, the best Reddit iOS app this way.
I have YT premium through Sri Lanka for $3/mo. Sponsorblock works in safari.
ROM apps like delta are in the App Store now. I have no idea about phone gaming otherwise.
Never ran into any content filtering.
If your gf uses iOS try it out there first and see how you like it.
New iPhones release on a pretty strict schedule each September so even if you don’t want the new model best to wait for older ones to be discounted.
You just keep buying the wrong phones, Samsung is shit and the China companies steal all your data. Try Pixel, nothing but good experience with them and if you want another OS there is GrapheneOS for the Pixels. IOS is a closed system and definitely The worst for piracy and privacy, even though they want to sell you their stuff with “privacy” in mind (its better than chines phones though)
Chinese companies steal your data
Try Pixel
lol
Putting GrapheneOS on the Pixel is good advice though
Pixels are arguably the most private android since you only get Google tracking. With other androids you get Google tracking on top of all the other tracking
If there’s tracking it’s not private.
You can basically disable most Google tracking though a good DNS that blocks that traffic.
Have you checked the source code that they actually respect private dns setting for their tracking? Or otherwise verified that no traffic goes to google tracking servers?
Since i see the tracking domains being blocked in my protocol yes i can say that, also, i can see the stuff going through my network, nothing there.
You can basically disable most Google tracking though a good DNS that blocks that traffic.
So only most but not all. Therefore it’s not private if there’s any tracking. Thus a de-googled version is the only option.
You won’t get rid of google tracking you on Youtube or Gmail, because thats literally part of how it works. If you don’t use Google apps, the Android itself won’t do shit. But that’s basically what de-Googled means so yeah obviously.
You won’t get rid of google tracking you on Youtube or Gmail,
For gmail that’s true (one should use something else anyhow). For youtube you can use an alternative frontend like NewPipe to avoid tracking.
If you care about privacy you should use a trustworthy paid email. They even aren’t that expensive. You can get them as low as 1 € / month.
Contrary to popular belief, pixels are surprisingly private, more than Samsungs or the China phones at least. Google will still try to up sell it, but they do on all Android devices.
Get a Pixel, install GrapheneOS and you’re done.
I would have gotten a pixel years ago
No expandable storage
The specs are also mediocre
If Samsung is shit now and Google Pixel is a tossup for QA issues, where do to go? OnePlus? Sony Xperia?..ASUS?
can’t wait for my s22u to die so i can do that
You can wait for a cat to fall into a garbage can or you can push a cat into a garbage can and get it over with.
i would never do that to a cat and i don’t have money for a new one
Cats aren’t really that expensive, are they?
Sadly, google cats aren’t part of the cat distribution system.
i can’t even afford to eat every day
Given how expensive phones are in terms of environmental cost you really shouldn’t be buying new phones unless your current one’s broken to the point of unusable.
Why not Nothing, if you don’t mind my asking?
I’ve also thought about Fairphone as my next one.
And I’ve thought about an iPhone like this too - if you have adblocking via a home router or pihole or some such then why not? Piracy could be done indirectly and just play/stream from Jellyfin or some such. But my thoughts are not well enough along to be of any use to you there, just to say that your ideas don’t seem crazy to me. Buttery smooth operation, actually pleasant to hold and use (not burning a hole in my hand after not even a minute of standard web browser usage as my own S22 does, probably bc of my Blokada VPN adblocker?), so long as the downsides can be mitigated.
Pixels seem to be to be entirely too imbalanced to me to include a super expensive camera that I barely use and barely any stats that I actually do (game emulators or whatever) - I really want a Nexus except they don’t make those. Even OnePlus doesn’t make those flagship killers anymore. I doubt they exist at all tbh.
Another idea is to get like an old OnePlus 7-ish device and just immediately replace the OS with a custom ROM. Fast charging is both good and bad - great utility but leads to heat issues later in the battery’s life.
I almost just want a cheap piece of crap dumb phone at this point, so that I don’t have to spend hundreds of hours researching every damn thing that the manufacturers are trying to do to me and ways to get around them without leaving (literal!) scorch marks on my hands.:-( But I also want Google Maps and maybe an Uber app in an emergency so that’s what holds me back.
So with that I think I’ve recommended just about literally everything now in this comment… :-P
I almost just want a cheap piece of crap dumb phone
Looked into a KaiOS device? Not entirely dumb, GMaps is only the web version so no voice navigation etc.
But might be something of interest to ya?
KaiOS
It looks interesting - thanks for the tip!:-)
This does sound quite cool!
My Nothing is the most unstable Android device I’ve ever owned and they don’t ever actually fix anything just come out with childish gimmicks.
I think the last one was Chat Gpt integration which turned out to just be a widget that launches chatgpt if you manually install it and even that only worked for a couple of weeks and chatgpts own widget is better so what was the point.
YIKES!? So it’s a marketing gimmick then? Not the ChatGPT, that’s obviously one, but the Nothing phone itself? So sorry to hear that:-(, but at least you are spreading the word so as to help others avoid that for themselves.:-)
I do have higher hopes for the Fairphone though.
Yep every article you ever see about them is some type of gimmick or another and most of them last about as long as Nothing Messages did.
Well OnePlus definitely jumped the shark, and it sounds like its spinoff Nothing did as well:-(.
I really suspect in future years it’ll be revealed Nothing is a oneplus brand, I mean I know a lot of people already suspect it but yeah I d say Nothing is to One plus what Honor is to Huawei.
Oh the “connection” is well-known I thought: the cofounder of OnePlus Carl Pei left the latter company in a huff, when it decided to switch from the gorgeous buttery smooth OxygenOS to the cheap piece of crap ColorOS (not just similar to but the identical one used in the Chinese Huawei phones) and in the process started the Nothing phone company. And because OnePlus phones used to be amazing but right around the time he left they became crappy, people had high hopes for the Nothing phone company that he would bring some of the old goodness - for the tech “enthusiast” market - with him.
However, it sounds like both companies make crap phones nowadays, just like every other major phone company (except Apple phones are gorgeous and amazing, it’s just that iOS makes you want to drive a nail into your brain). We are no longer capable of purchasing what we want (cheap to moderate price with a balance towards higher specs and far far lesser camera, and without bells and whistles like wireless charging, but has some like fast charging - what the “flagship killer” market used to offer!), there is only what they wish to sell us.:-(
my girlfriend has iOS, and every time I want to forward an nsfw gif she doesn’t see it
Say what? There’s no content censoring that I’m aware of. I’ve had no issues looking at all kinds of NSFW/NSFL content.
Regardless, you’re likely not going to enjoy the lack of modified apps and game piracy; I don’t do either of those. Maybe it’s possible but you’ve gotta jump through so many hoops IMO it wouldn’t be worth it.
Zero issues with NSFW though, that’s bizarre to me. There’s screen time web content filtering but I believe that only affects safari.
My partner can’t view webp/webm content on ios either. It’s a real pain once in a while.
Yeah but there’s a difference between’doesn’t support webp’ and 'blocks porn*
I can tell you that there are channel marked as NSFW that share video and gif and if I send it to my gf, on her phone (even with nsfw enabled) she get the message “this channel is used to share pornographic material” while on android I can see everything.
What do you mean by channel, like on Telegram?
This is a region specific Telegram setting if so, it’s not iOS. Tell her to disable the adult content filter.
Apple did something a while back to limit nsfw stuff on iOS. There was a setting in discord that you had to change to see nsfw stuff and some communities you had to join it from the desktop before you could view it on the phone.
I’m remembering more now, Apple had a policy that was like we might block your app if it’s for nsfw. So some apps got worried and limited nsfw stuff on iOS.
iOS is probably the most locked down option you can pick. The EU even told Malus to open it up and Malus tried to fuck around. Now they might be in for some monetary justice, but that might take a year or two. Emulation was even only recently allowed, but only of old shit like Windows XP.
Android is still the most open, mainstream, phone OS out there. Get yourself a phone that can run a ROM like LineageOS, eOS, FairPhone or (if you want to give Google more money for surveillance) a Pixel to put GrapheneOS on it (easy process, you just need a browser and USB-C cable). That’ll get you more freedom to keep the phone alive longer and optionally become more private (if you can learn to live without Google).
To save money, you don’t even need to buy a new one. Get a refurbished phone. They are often 100-200€ cheaper than new phones and are sometimes as good as new.
iOS will lock you in, give you less options, and cost you loads to boot.
- I used to do side loading on iOS for a modded YouTube app (uYou+) but now I just use YouTube in the browser with AdGuard and Vinegar extensions. There’s ways to sideload and auto refresh the certificate that don’t need you to connect the phone to a computer which apparently work pretty well (I used AltStore which was pretty annoying because it doesn’t do that).
- Usually I think you just have to enable NSFW on a computer/via the browser for it to work in the app. At least that how it is for Telegram iirc. Generally there shouldn’t be a problem accessing anything.
- No idea, the only thing I play on my phone is Shattered Pixel Dungeon and I bought that
read the megathread. rentry.co/megathread
Mobilism is a source for pirated ios apps, but it’s quite limited. I agree with the people mentioning pihole, but if you have to block ads on-device change the dns settings and/or use brave browser, which has the most adblock capabilities on iOS. Altstore is an alternative appstore (AltStore PAL in europe costs 1,50 a year in europe iirc) which has alot of cool apps and allows sideloading of ipa files on-device. I generally do recommend a pixel with grapheneOS, though I haven’t tried it myself yet.
Edit: Forgot to mention some of the downsides of AltStore, which includes needing to refresh the app once a week wirelessly or wired via a computer running Altserver
- For nsfw I use Quix but its shareware
- For youtube I use Yattee
- I don’t use reddit since some of us moved to lemmy
- For gaming I use RetroArch
- I don’t know how are things with sideloading
Have you looked at Sony phones? I recently switched to the Pixel Fold from a 1 Mark IV. Sony phones are some of the best IMO.
Sony excels at product, sucks at marketing. Their phones are truly fantastic.
OMG I was a Sony user long time ago, Xperia X was so so beautiful!
iOS is probably the worst choice if you want to sideload apps. I would recommend sticking with Android and run your Samsung into the ground (maybe flash a custom ROM?) before getting something like a Fairphone.
Besides, what do you want to be “passionate” about in mobile phones? To me, they’re just tools for browsing the web, playing games, and staying in contact with friends and family while on the go; anything extra is superficial.
Actually I love to testing modded app, rooting, changing roms, with samsung and oneplus I lost this because install a custom rom brings a lot of issue with banks, camera (damn camera2 api) and so on almost all modern phone is not convenient to go to a custom rom
so you are choosing to go from having issues with those things to not being able to do it at all? I don’t understand. isn’t finding/solving the issues part of the testing you mention?
I dont think its possible -or easy- to install custom roms on samsungs since they dont allow unlocking the bootloader
Wait WHAT BLOCKS ON SIDELOADING for Samsung?? I’m not in the loop
Normally it’s blocked by default which is pretty easy to get around (It’s just a setting toggle) but apparently Samsung added a second “safety” autoblocker to a recent update. (Which can also be turned off, so I’m not sure what all the fuss is about, aside from being a mild inconvenience.) https://www.androidauthority.com/enable-sideloading-one-ui-6-1-1-3463446/
Interesting. I don’t like this at all. Remember AT&T tried this with locked phones (or something like that I believe) where unknown sources was completely gone?
Ya it’s not a good look of things to come, but so far it’s not a huge issue (yet).
Ya it’s not a good look of things to come, but so far it’s not a huge issue (yet).
Not a huge deal now, but…I don’t like this move…I don’t like it AT ALL…
Ah yes here is is
https://xdaforums.com/t/q-how-to-enable-unknown-sources-on-att.1031463/
Normally I wouldn’t worry about it, Samsung just apes everything Google does. It’s part of their tug of war, basically Samsung is saying “if you ever pull a Huawei on me and disable every Google feature I’ll still have a copy of everything”.
Then again the US market is wierd so I don’t know. You can unlock Sony bootloaders everywhere else without a hitch but they cut a deal with US carriers so they won’t give unlock codes to US models. If Sony did deals like that so can Samsung.
Wait so when if I bought a Sony phone from then directly they wouldn’t fucking let me unlock it??
Just to be clear, I’m talking about bootloader unlock (so you can root it and install custom ROMs) not carrier unlock. Normally Sony offer bootloader unlock codes on their website, but not for US models.
Carrier (network) lock and unlock is done by the carriers, manufacturer doesn’t care.
Oh bootloader was exactly what I was talking about. Would this be the case if I bought it directly?
Yes, sorry. The way you bought it makes no difference. The unlock code is generated on the Sony website based on the IMEI of the first SIM slot. They can tell when it’s the IMEI of an US model and will refuse to give out the code.
Have you looked at Sony phones? I recently switched to the Pixel Fold from a 1 Mark IV. Sony phones are some of the best IMO.
Came here to say, why is OP dealing with all these bloatware companies? Samsung is the Apple of Androids - decent hardware decent OS for those who like it, but ridiculously bogged down with prevention features.
I also have the Sony Xperia 1 IV and it’s been stellar. Lineage support if I don’t want the main Android, otherwise I’m pretty much free to do whatever I want on the phone. Plus I actually have a headphone jack still and an SD card slot.
Sonys have the stupid 21:9 aspect ratio that’s like a tv remote. Camera also sucks vs the competition despite sony making the lenses and their own standalone cameras
Sideloading is quite bad. If you’re in the EU, I know you can use AltStore PAL, which costs money (~€1.50 a year), but all you’ll be getting is emulators, virtual machines, clipboard managers, and torrent clients.
There is another method for sideloading that works anywhere and lets you download modified apps, but it is very limited, tedious, and probably insecure. I’ve done it, it’s not worth it. Better to stay on android or use a browser with adblock or something.
I don’t think iOS has any specific limits to do with NSFW stuff, I’ve never heard of anything anyways.
Pirating games is probably not going to be worth it either since you have to sideload apps with the second method.
Other types of piracy are probably fine. If you have AltStore PAL you can get a torrent client and an emulator.
I have recently gotten an iPad, because my carrier had a banger of a deal (30% off on the 2024 Air, 48 months payment no interest) and my Huawei tablet was getting long in the tooth, so I jumped.
I have owned Android since the first Galaxy (no number), tablets since the first 7" Galaxy Tab.
I have gone through a few tablets, 3-4 Samsung, Lenovo, Huawei, a couple of no names, and I got the iPad, because for tablet things is still the reference. Best experience hands down.
Would I get an iPhone? NO WAY.
The iPad is an occasional use device. I use it for media consumption, some social media (not much of a user) and for graphics stuff with the Affinity suite, which BTW is reason enough to get an iPad if you do design/photo. It’s the device for when the laptop is too cumbersome, or overkill. It’s great to take notes, scribble, sketch. It’s awesome to edit pics on the go, which I do a surprising lot.
But… Apple limits what I can do. Too much.
Would I accept the constraints of iOS in my main electronic device? No. I can live with the iPad’s constraints because I have a super capable phone (a 4 year old Xiaomi which is truly fantastic), which I can tune as I wish, and because it’s use case is fairly well defined. I would not compromise with my phone. Simple things like changing the launcher, what goes on my lock screen like alternate number / emergency contact, or whatever clock I want, or the keyboard, or installing apps from wherever I want, or rooting and changing the ROM (not all phones) or not dealing with iCloud bullshit, or having proper Firefox with extensions, or torrenting, or any of the tweaks, modifications, or whatever that make my Android MINE.
Just search for “things that iphones can’t do”. You’ll have reading for an afternoon.
THIS ^
Thank you so much, I didn’t think about Firefox, I’m a firefox user on every system I have, and I rely a lot on extensions. And I have my little server with sonarr, radarr, jellyfin and syncthing that is not so much, but it works and I had fun making it, I don’t want to lose the joy of do what I want with my phone.
Same here. iOS is so severely limited compared to Android it would be unusable to me as an phone.
As a tablet I use it 99% for streaming apps (music and series) that I put on while cooking or doing chores, 1% as a backup device for things like access to my bank app.
