 Simba7I Void Warranties
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT | reply to Bootes
said by Bootes:Apple is a hardware company. Riiight.. and the software that it runs just happens to make itself? How easy would it be to put in monitoring software when the entire platform is locked down?
..not to mention, if someone found out about it, they'd call it a "feature" to make their "experience" smoother and more enjoyable. Whatever.
At least I can utilize third-party firmware (Cyanogenmod, etc) on my phone. Can you? |
 BootesPremium
join:2005-01-28
Palo Alto, CA | Well you obviously couldn't tell that that part was kind of half kidding. That's why I winked.  However, it's still based on the truth. Android was created to keep mobile users using Google services, so they could advertise to you and have better access to information about you. I'm not someone that cares all that much about this, but many people do. If you can't see that Google's goal is to know as much about you as possible in order to target advertisements to you, you're in denial.
Obviously there are benefits to Android and benefits to iOS. I did install Android on my iPhone 3G, so I'm pretty sure that counts as third party firmware on an iPhone. In my opinion, the ubiquity of third party roms is a failure of the original product. I'm all for the ability to use them, but something is very wrong when they're as popular as they are.
As far as Apple vs Samsung, here's a major reason why I prefer Apple. There are of course others.
Customer support - If something goes wrong with my iPhone, I make an appointment online, show it to a genius who is friendly, speaks English well, and is fairly the knowledgeable. They do a few checks and hand me a new one. When something goes wrong with my laptop and I'm not near an Apple Store, they mail me a box with next day shipping and a next day shipping label to mail it back to them, they repair it and send it back out again the day they receive it, with next day shipping once again.
If my Galaxy Nexus arrives out of the box without working GPS, I call the Google Nexus support number and speak to a friendly, fairly knowledgeable american who does a few checks and then forwards me to Samsung. Where I speak to someone who does not speak English all that well, follows a simple script that does not show that they actually know anything about technology, and then forwards me to another Samsung person to setup the repair. Then I speak to another person over a terrible international phone connection who finally sets up the repair after having me do all the basic checks again. They then tell me to stay on the line for a recording of instructions on how to return my device and hang up. I wait a few minutes, no recording plays and I hang up. Luckily, I'm not an idiot and can handle the email instructions perfectly fine. So I return the phone with the ground shipping provided, which takes about a week, they then take about a week to fix the phone, and then ship it back with another week of ground shipping. In the end spending many hours on the phone and 3 weeks without my phone, luckily I have backups, but I don't expect most people to and I shouldn't need to use one in this case. |
