CerebralHawks

1. You got me there. I can probably get a gently used iPhone from a generation or two back and maybe get down to $300, but I dunno about $200. You’re 100% right on that one, and more to the point, mid-range Android isn’t nearly as bad as it used to be. One of the biggest secrets in mobile is that performance has plateaued.

2. You can only block ads OS-wide on Android if you’re rooted. AdAway (and I suppose others like it) edit the HOSTS file which trumps DNS. DNS is what iPhone users use, and what unrooted Android users use. The problem with DNS isn’t that it doesn’t work — it does — it’s that bad actors can tunnel around it. So Google, great example, the app I mean, has its own DNS. They have various reasons but what it boils down to is “we can tunnel around your ad blocker.” They definitely do this on iOS. They probably do it on Android. But editing HOSTS can beat that. And no, I don’t get ads on YouTube, either — but I do not use the app. You can, if you’re on Android and you’re rooted and you have a good HOSTS file. I can block YouTube ads with Safari and uBlock Origin (yeah, we got it now) but it’s just DNS. I will concede that the best way to browse on a phone is Firefox for Android with uBlock Origin. Us iPhone users wish we had that. We don’t. But we can get close. Really, the only ads I see are in the App Store. It’s become a cesspool of shit.

3. I don’t sail on my phone. I’ve tried, a few things don’t work. I have computers for that. I have a good/decent emulator that works good. As far as movies, music, shows, audiobooks, I have a Plex server and my iPhone has no problem accessing that. I bet you could use an Android phone as a Plex server though. Not that I’d want to. But you probably could. Maybe. Like with root? I dunno. But anything on my iPhone (not counting Plex stuff), I can get on your Android phone. And vice-versa. I mean, not to use your Android phone as an example, that’s kinda hostile, I mean if I have an iPhone in one hand and an Android phone in the other, I got no problem getting stuff from one to the other. Either way. Best if they’re on the same WiFi, but I can make one a hotspot in a pinch.

Actually, the first phone to do a lot of things was actually an Android — good and bad! The first fingerprint reader, I think may have been the Motorola Bionic? But it was like an electric razor, it had these things you roll your finger across. It was weird. Not like what we have now. Likewise, I’m pretty sure an Android phone was the first one to pull the headphone jack. It was just because Apple did it right when they brought out the AirPods that people cried foul (rightly so). Memory card? Apple never supported them (they’re too slow), and Android phones famously didn’t support them… I think the Nexus phones? Pixel too. I don’t think any Google-branded phone had a memory card slot.

More expensive does include the foldables, and you can’t say they don’t count because they exist. I wouldn’t count the diamond-crusted Android phones, those are super limited edition. But anyone can go buy a fold or a flip, so they have to be considered. Right now the top iPhone costs $2000 in the US. It’s a 2TB iPhone 17 Pro Max. Android gets higher, albeit with folds, but it does get higher, and the performance isn’t any better.

As far as Samsung specifically: the chip in the Galaxy S25 is faster than the one in the iPhone 16 Pro/Max, but it also loses more power when it throttles for getting too hot. That really only means anything in high-end gaming, though. For day-to-day usage the Samsung will clock higher. It’s only going to get 3-4 years of support though, if that, and they still sell your private information. You can’t even use Samsung Health without agreeing to let them sell your private medical data (whatever you put in it). So no, it can’t do everything an iPhone can do. It can’t keep your medical information private, which is enshrined in law in many countries, but if you agree to let them sell it, that goes out the window. Why would you give that up when you don’t have to?

What about it is better? Honest question, from someone who uses both.

So yeah, on Android you can do a little more with home screen customisation. It used to be a lot more — I can’t believe it took Apple how many years to figure out how to place an icon to the right of or below an open space? It’s closer now, they both steal from each other, but you can do a lot more. My Android phone is partly a cosplay prop: it’s a real-life NookPhone, from Animal Crossing. My icons are huge, they’re the ones from the game, but they open real apps, and they’re in a 3x3 grid. Definitely can’t do that on iOS. But I don’t need that on my daily driver. And many people say — and I’m inclined to agree — that when an app is on both, it’s better on iOS due to fewer hardware configurations to support.

Also, we have Delta, the emulator that backs everything up to, ironically, Google Drive. So I can show you this app on my iPhone. I can also AirDrop you any game I have. Long press, share, AirDrop, find your iPhone, you open it with the same app, you got it now. Super easy. But I can also uninstall the app, it removes all the files and whatnot. I can go into Files, double check all my games are gone. Saves, all of it. Then I reinstall it. Nothing… but as soon as I sign into Google Drive, it re-downloads everything. I just wish the emulator ran on the Mac, too — I’d have cross-device sync. Also, the emulator is Nintendo only, no PlayStation, no Sega, nothing like that.

And then the privacy issue. I think it’s wild so few people care about their private information being sold. Then again, Facebook, TikTok, and others are huge. So I might be the outlier caring about that. But I still do.

And their flagship costs more than the iPhone 17 Pro but has performance closer to the iPhone 11 and they still sell your data off the back end.

Android was a fine alternative to iOS for a minute… like in 2012 with the Galaxy S3 and Jellybean. Now? I don’t get it. You pay more, you get less, all because — what? Gmail was once cool?

They took your headphone jack. They took your memory card slot. They took your back button. (Anyone remember the menu button?) Now they’re taking sideloading.

What is even the point of Android? It isn’t freedom. I see it as capitulation to Big Data.

I’m not saying Washington/the US is better than China. But, the devil you know. Also, the devil we know (the west) has probably lied to us in a few ways about China. I remember as a kid I believed children in China were starving. I also remember hearing that they kill female babies (and often not humanely) because of their one child policy. My dream when I was a kid was to save all those girls and educate them and teach them basic fighting skills… may have been like a Charlies Angels kind of thing going on in my head.

I suppose I should have updated my information before saying that… last I checked, there weren’t, but I don’t know how old that information is.

TikTok was run by a fascist regime: China. It’s just, most Americans are not of much interest to Beijing. Their intelligence probably wants to know what is trendy in America so it can better appeal to us and influence our elections to serve their interests, but Beijing is probably not concerned at all with you or I as individuals. But if they can get us to vote for a candidate they support by showing us the parts of that candidate that we agree with, we can be used as a tool by Beijing. Now Washington wants that power.

I don’t like it either way.

Eh, I’ll “have at” TikTok for being shit because historically, it has been. It’s driven by memes and trash.

That said, over the past couple years I’ve heard lots of good things. “BookTok” and other -Tok’s being communities within the service — I admit I don’t know how it is because I’ve never used it — but also, the rapid decline of YouTube has made me seriously consider getting on TikTok just to have something different. My resolve to be anti-TikTok has greatly reduced over the last couple years, as an “old guy” who does not like “social media”.

So yeah, credit where it’s due.

I’d love for the Fediverse to have a strong alternative, but again, the costs of running a video server that is anywhere close to being “widely used”…

Honestly I just thought it was funny they got rid of the cracker and the barrel.

Through the course of the controversy, I learned that the “cracker” was the Uncle Herschel mentioned in the menu a few times. He’s a character of theirs, something of a mascot, though a much subtler one than most other restaurant mascots. He’s in the art but his name isn’t widely advertised. A couple menu items have his name in them (e.g. Uncle Herschel’s Breakfast), but the name is not connected to the mascot in the logo.

Oh, I also thought it was funny that they said they changed the logo to be more inclusive (I guess of people who don’t look like Uncle Herschel), but they still don’t operate in California due to that state’s progressive policies, so they can shove their “inclusive” talk. Actions speak louder than words. They do hire women, and people of color, which is a great start for a restaurant so steeped in “Southern values,” but you can’t say nobody is excluded from the table while excluding an entire state based on the politics of its government. That’s just as dumb as rock groups refusing to play whichever Southern state did a stupid thing most recently.

TikTok was never good. Have at it.

Though, he is always free to start his own MAGA-themed video service, much like he did with Truth Social. I think the problem is — and if he doesn’t know it, he’s been advised, with crayons and hand puppets — that running a server serving video is orders of magnitude more expensive than running a server hosting a text-based social network.

They should never automate the pope.

An AI chatbot that knows the Bible front to back would be a good idea though, as it can help church members after hours and whatnot. The problem is, this proposed AI would also know all the loopholes and straight up plot holes in the Bible and would be jailbroken by atheists in seconds to essentially admit the Bible is a work of fiction. I mean, just using facts, if the AI has access to different versions of the Bible and other apocryphal texts, it should be able to work out what was changed and when. And the Bible says you’re not supposed to change it, but I don’t see any Christians rushing to learn Aramaic (the language Christ would have spoken, or rather, the language spoken at the time Christ was alleged to have lived). Even in more recent centuries (but before the time of anyone alive today), the Bible was in Latin and only priests were allowed to know what it said. But even Latin was a translation — an interpretation.

How is “installing Linux” not easy? Download Ubuntu and run it. They make it easy.

You mean Arch? You mean something where you have to build it yourself and use the command line? That’s not necessary to run Linux. Or to say you ran Linux. Sure, it might be more efficient, or it might be better at some things. But I have to ask where your goal post is if you say installing Linux is not easy. Ubuntu makes it easy and I imagine most of them do as well.

Or maybe I’ve just been using computers so long I take what I know for granted. I dunno, it’s easy for me.

I was a Mac user for maybe two months when a beta came out. With ease, I created a new partition, downloaded the beta, and ran a beta (of macOS Sonoma) in the partition. I dual booted on a MacBook Air, my first Mac, which I’d only had a couple months. Okay now granted, Mac is easy mode most of the time, but they made it real easy. Though I fully understand “the average user” wouldn’t know where to start, let alone have the thought that that could be done.

So, maybe I am the weird one. But it’s just normal to me. Just how I am.

A lot of tech has gotten better.

I mean, except Windows. Obviously.

Or I should say Microsoft. I booted up my Xbox yesterday to play Cyberpunk and was greeted with a full-screen ad for Borderlands 4.

Removed by mod

I doubt it’ll go anywhere, and I’m not sure it should.

Do we want tougher moderation on social media? Does social media need to be policed?

Most social networks have report tools. They also have blocks.

If someone is rude to you online — honestly, happens all the time. People have a bad day or whatever. I’ve said something, not even meaning to, that set someone off and they’ve stalked me across communities. Even in the last few weeks I’ve been on Lemmy. But, if someone is consistently negative toward you, you can block them. You can also ignore them. You could even call them out on their bullshit and then ignore them, and that’s what I did. Maybe it wasn’t the best course of action, this guy’s probably got a girlfriend or maybe a kid he’s beating up when he doesn’t get his way with people online. But I have no control over that. What I do have control over is how I feel when people talk to me any kind of way. The way they act could be because of any number of things. The way they were raised, the way they’ve been treated, maybe they burned their hand cooking and they’re just mad at the world right this second and they say something rude. I got no control over any of that whatsoever. What I do have control over is how their words make me feel and how I react.

Maybe that’s something kids can’t just pick up, but maybe it’s something they should learn. Bullies aren’t going to go away. People aren’t going to stop having bad days. But if they’re taking it out on people through social media, they aren’t a physical threat to you — they can be safely ignored.

Adding a bunch of extra moderators and safety features and all that won’t change things. It won’t make people behave better. We can’t make them do that. We can try. Maybe AI can be used to detect hostile posts and tell people they can’t use the network for an hour, tell them to go touch grass or something… but they’ll just hop on over to another network and do the same shit there. And there will be so many false positives. So I think we should just ignore hostility. On something like this, you can downvote it. If it’s the same person, the network may even show you that you’ve downvoted this person multiple times, and you can then decide to block them. But maybe they’re helping someone in another community. Block them and move on. It’s faster and it works better.

My what is literally commenting? My phone? My computer?

And yes, I’m aware a lot of highly technical people use Linux. This whole “next year will be the year of Linux on the desktop” is silly. We can talk for days about what highly specialised platforms use Linux. It doesn’t matter until Boomers are using it and not questioning. Which they have been for years since Android is mobile Linux.

Desktop anything is down, statistically, worldwide. I’ve been using computers for over 40 years. When I started, only nerds and geeks used them. The cool kids only used them when they had to, in computer/typing class… which was an elective when I was in school. It was never required. At some point, computers became cool. Then smartphones came out, and all of a sudden everyone’s running Linux (Android) or UNIX (iOS), only they don’t know it. They don’t need to know it. And now computers are suddenly not cool anymore, because it’s all about smartphones these days.

So it’s not a push for Linux (the kernel, Linux is a kernel, not an OS, Android, Arch, Gentoo, Fedora Core, Mint, Ubuntu and others are distributions that bundle the Linux kernel with other stuff), it’s a push for Linux on the desktop. But even that’s not good enough, it’s gotta be the command line. And Boomers are never gonna use the command line. Neither are kids. It’s a moving target that will never be reached. The original idea? Give Linux a market share? We did that 15 years ago. The only reason Windows has any market share left is some schools and businesses and governments use them. *nix has been the majority for over a decade now. But it’s never been “the year of Linux on the desktop.” *nix has been in the palm of everyone’s hands since 2007 (iPhone; Android was 2008, so close enough for Linux specifically). And 2008 was 17 years ago. Next year, there will be kids old enough to vote (in the US) who, for their entire lives, have existed in a world where *nix dominated.

Ah, I knew someone would misread that. What I meant as “a fucking joke” was that it made a mockery of everything I thought I knew about Windows.

Can regular users even use Red Hat anymore? Fedora Core is the open source spinoff. I loved using Red Hat in the 90s and I never warmed up to Fedora Core.

On iPhone, absolutely. On Mac, I’m not sure. I know I can use the disk manager to make a new partition, install whatever OS on it I want — though, my Macs are both ARM64, so I’m quite limited there — and boot to it. I’m not sure if it’s fair to say “the bootloader is unlocked” though. Since it’s Apple’s bootloader. I don’t know if I can change it. Like on Android, when I used to mess with custom firmware ~10 years ago, we’d replace the garbage Android bootloader with TWRP (Team Win Recovery Project) and that would give us the option to make backups and to flash custom forks of Android (e.g. CyanogenMod, AOKP, etc.). And some of those bootloaders were locked down pretty tight (like HTC’s) where some were wide open (like Samsung, before Knox was a thing).

Install??

Mac guy, and I remember trying Linux inside Windows and installing it while using it. For someone with 30 years of experience with Windows, Linux was a fucking joke — as in the mockery it made of everything I knew about Windows. It felt like magic. It’s not very deep though — people need to realize Linux is still very much a project. macOS is a complete product, but it’s not free and it’s tied to proprietary hardware. Still, these days I see the choice between macOS and Linux. Windows doesn’t even make the ballot for me.