Summary

In an ideal world there would not only be 2 phone ecosystems. The only thing worse is a single phone ecosystem, so one has to walk across the aisle occasionally to make sure one is well rooted in reality.

TL&DR

  • Stick with an iPhone
  • A stock Android experience on Samsung would demolish 99% of my objections to the software; their software should be a value add customers choose, not something you have to endure for the hardware.
  • Locking the bootloader is consumer hostile; an “unlocked” phone on Amazon in the US is normally carrier unlocked, but often bootloader locked. This includes all first tier Samsung handsets I have seen on Amazon. The toted “unlocked” tag line almost seems willfully misleading.
  • Android is incredibly locked down; any broad pretense of being developer friendly is founded in fiction, and your ability to get root access to your device varies between manufacturers and handsets; you can sideload apps without going through signing, great. You can’t run stock Android on most US Samsung handsets.
  • Qualcomm have a doggy lock on US based Android handsets; don’t take my word for it, go and look for a non-Qualcomm device and the very real monopoly they wield will evidence itself. I would be way more open to a stock Android device, if I didn’t have to bend knee to Qualcomm. They are my primary pet peeve and the company I would most like to see struck with the anti-monopoly proceedings. At least 90% of going with an iPhone X was “Fuck Qualcomm” and Apple’s exploration of an Intel designed modem. (Which was a piece of shit, but not Qualcomm)

Background

I am a Linux freak (Arch, thanks for asking) and am still in denial of the death of both Linux based Nokia OSes that would have scratched my architectural itch way more than Android ever could. Google have made Android succeed, but it isn’t because Android is wrought by genius and implemented by gods. No, Nokia engaged in a little self immolation, RIM (Blackberry) said “Hold my beer” and little old Android provided the only game in town for people who either ethically object to Apple’s execution of the iPhone or people who could not afford Apple products. The complete lack of competition coupled with Google’s backing and heft are what underlie Android’s success. The problems are so manifest that Google’s answer to Android’s architectural shortfalls/failings (in a pique of Engineers Gone Wild) is to address the issue from the kernel upwards and onwards with Fuschia. I look immensely forward to Fuschia being broadly available. I hope I am alive to see it ….. in 2022 or beyond

I mean, if people didn’t use Android, what would they use? Tizen? Basically the same manufacturers that were spoon fed Symbian, and cocked it up, are the same ones defining the Android experience of the average Android consumer.

I paid money for the first iPhone (my first US pay cheque), got an iPhone 4 for work from a prior employer, and outside of that have lived an Android existence. My handsets have been:

  • Galaxy S II (Death by sweat, jog Hong Kong)
  • Galaxy Nexus
  • Nexus 4
  • Nexus 5
  • Nexus 6
  • Nexus 6P
  • One Plus One
  • Sony Xperia Z Google Phone Edition (Death by screen crack removing all touch)
  • ASUS zenphone (death by sweat, jog Bangkok)

Most of these phones had software controlled by Google (With the notable exception of the Xperia Z Google Phone Edition which was disconnected from updates after something like a year), so my exposure to both carrier and manufacturer tainted roms was limited. After this litany of handsets, I was ready to revisit Apple land, and grabbed the iPhone X which led to a torrid 2 year relationship where I could simply use my phone as a functional tool rather than investing time and thought into addressing a death-by-paper cut barrage of inconvenient snags.

Review

As mentioned; I don’t like monocultures. I also don’t like having to choose between the Google Play store and the Apple store with both taking 30%. It would be nice to see the Amazon store, the Samsung store and other Android stores gain traction and open up the Android platform to something beyond Google. That said, I have yet to see a piece of software written by Samsung I want to use. Their messaging application, their phone app, their browser. Every real Android application has to be installed in parallel to a half arsed Samsung stab at the real thing. I know people who are perfectly content with Samsung apps, and I applaud them, but I personally ended up with a million apps I had to hide as I tried to install myself to a stock Android experience. It is a little exhausting.

Then there is the matter of updates. Android 10 came out with a true black OLED friendly theme. Great; from the date of Android 10 availability I had to wait 6-9 months (and compulsively track) before I was prompted to install said upgrade. I get the impression some segment of the population would expect gratitude out of me for actually receiving an upgrade from a hardware vendor, but when you are used to Apple giving everyone day 1 access to an upgrade on hardware up to 5 years old, this kind of thing starts to grate. Especially when you know your handset is Project Treble compatible and the only reason baby is sitting in the corner is because your hardware leather daddy is taking 9 months to haphazardly erect his house of clouds of somebody else’s functional platform. “Please don’t fuck it up too much” - you pray nightly to the great horned god, with all the usefulness prayer normally carries. “And please get it the fuck out the door. kthxbai.”. Great code comes out of Google, goes into the ring with Samsung for 9 months where it is beaten shitless and eventually crapped onto your phone. In the time it takes to fabricate a human being, Samsung manages to metamorphosis a vaguely pretty butterfly into a moth.

Their hardware is awesome though; I am pretty sure that Samsung hardware with a stock Google experience option would dominate the Android world. I know recent Exynos devices have benchmarked poorly against their Snapdragon variants, but I would be even more juiced if they followed Apple’s lead and started pushed Exynos variants in the US.

Hopefully Fuschia will be less of a clusterfuck, and hopefully the people bright enough to ship (vaguely) stock software, will win out in the market. It is a pity we lost Blackberry OS 10, the Nokia Linux variants and yes, even Windows Phone.