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Google's shocking developer decree struggles to justify the urgent threat to F-Droid
(www.neowin.net)
this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2025
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iOS would be the better alternative, if it wasn't for the hardware they run on. After all, Apple is infamous for their blatant planned obsolescence on their iPhones since the iPhone 6. Unfortunately, Google seems to be following Apple in this way as well since they launched an update that made the Pixel 6a's battery so much worse than before. Therefore, we must all have a dumb phone + Linux phone set up...or something
I can agree on Apple not really having a properly supported hardware repair ecosystem, and actively working against third party repair.
But the software? When Samsung and friends had 2-4 years of security updates, Apple had almost twice that. The iPhone XS still has support, 6 years after end-of-sale, 7 years from release. Normal people can’t be expected to flash their phones with LineageOS. The situation is slightly better nowadays, but Samsung still seems to be depreciating 3 year old devices: https://endoflife.date/samsung-mobile
To add, Apple has actually been making amends regarding repairability. It's small steps, but leagues ahead of what's offered for popular android manufacturers, while still maintaining their IP68 ratings on most devices.
I can't speak to how they make their parts available to third parties (seems to be a grey area), but there has been a reasonable focus with the last couple generations of iPhones that ensures the device can be repaired from either side.
Overall, the tide seems to have shifted. If you're going to be at the mercy of a corporate giant in order to keep up with modernity, then Apple is currently holding the dimly lit torch of consumer rights.
Yeah, if Android effectively kills fdroid, then it essentially becomes like iOS. Whilst you can technically still sideload, apps must get certified by Google themselves and there's no way they'll allow 90% of fdroid unless its their Google Play versions.Tbf though, I didn't know the background thing, which just goes to show that neither of them are ideal. Especially since Apple locks down their devices really hard which turns things like transferring files without a cloud service into a challenge. Therefore, in the future, I might just use a dumb phone for basic phone calls and text messages (meanly just for things like job applications or services like pharmacies) and a Linux phone for everything else. That's assuming Linux phones have evolved just enough to be usable alongside a dumb phone for what it can't do, which is SMS.
They learned from it. The phone toggles itself when the battery health is at 80% max capacity, but this is toggleable. Also, the iPhone 11 still runs smooth.