In context, I clearly meant “most apps people use and need”. Almost all the streaming apps, all the corporate social media apps, all the payment apps, etc seem to be problematic.

Remember that the larger discussion is about the viability of protecting your privacy on Android vs iPhone. Sure everything is “possible” if you futz with it enough, you could even code your own OS and all your own apps, but the more you have to futz, the less viable it is for most people.

No please read my comment again. I know there are alternative stores. In practice, many mainstream apps are not easy to install using these stores. If you had done a 1 minute search, you’d find tons of people complaining about trying to degoogle their phone. I think almost everyone just gives up on at least a few apps.

Thanks for the clarification. Am I the only one that thinks autotldr is almost harmfully bad?

What do they do that they object to? Investigate the lack of privacy in cars? Advocate for open web standards?

People throw hate at it?

This sounds like selection bias. If you are sampling only people who are replacing their old iPhones, then they will obviously be more likely to have broken iPhones.

Even if the hardware lasts, most android phones historically don’t remain updated for more than a few years. Your OnePlus 8T is due to lose basic security support in October 2024, so one more year from now. It’s already lost OS updates. Meanwhile, my iPhone 6s from 2015 still works and is still receiving security updates this year!

Look I’m not looking to start a format war. I think android phones are great. But I’m cheap and concerned about ewaste. I just want something to work for as long as possible.

I buy iPhones because I’m cheap and they’re a better value. My last phone lasted me 5 years, and my current 11 pro is 3 years old and still going strong. If you don’t replace your phone frequently, then iPhones are much cheaper than Android phones.

You seem to be right: here is their app store policy. That’s helpful to know. They claim this is not sold to others and only used to recommend apps on the app store, but I may not be reading that right.

In theory, I understand some apps can be sideloaded on Android. But, in practice, can you actually get away with avoiding the Google app store for most apps? I’m skeptical.

Is that true? I thought apple’s business model was to not sell your data but charge more upfront. Do you have a source discussing this that you can point me to?

Edit: I’ve searched online and can’t find even a single article talking about Apple selling your data. I’m an iPhone user so I want to know. The most recent Apple privacy article I can find reports on how they’re closing fingerprinting loopholes in third party apps.

I definitely don’t want to be naive or credulous, but given how aggressively they’ve prevented third parties from gathering data, I’m cautiously optimistic. I don’t think this is a “both sides” situation, unless someone can point me to some information to the contrary.