I am quite a bit more tech savvy than most and have been for as long as I’ve been old enough to use a computer. I started out with the android and Apple comparisons and didn’t just choose one because I liked a brand better or anything else. I genuinely like Apple products better and so far that hasn’t been changed. It’s not because I’m biased or close-minded, I’ve seen both sides and can personally find 0 upsides to android that would benefit me. Androids to me are clunky, cluttered, and their support with future software updates is extremely hit or miss. I could buy an expensive phone and it not get updates in a year or two. With Apple most phones are getting 5-7 years of software support, although I only keep them 2-3 years mainly because I want to get the latest features after a few years.
My Pixel 3 got 3 years of OS updates and still gets security updates. My experience with apple was that the updates kept coming for longer, but after 3 years they became too resource intensive for an older phone, and the lagginess got annoying. I buy phones NIB 2 years after the release date so they only cost about $250, but being a flagship phone still keep up with performance and photo quality. I could buy a 2 year old flagship Google phone every year for the same money and have an on-average newer and more enjoyable phone than if I bought a new iPhone every 5 years.
The way I’ve seen android suck many people in is with gimmicky features. For example, 9 or 10 years ago my friend got some Samsung that was popular then (summer 2013) that allowed you to wave your hand in front of the screen and the phone would respond by swiping home screens. It worked maybe half the time or less. How is that helpful or better than just touching your thumb to the screen? Now they’ve got folding screens and whatever else. Just examples but crap like that is why a lot of people try out android for a bit. And I’m sure many just plain like it better and that’s fine.
Something we definitely agree on is I find a lot of Android phones to also be cluttery and gimmicky, which is why I only buy AndroidOne phones - vanilla Android - No manufacturer or carrier BS. I was almost ready to (reluctantly) switch after a run of bloated Samsungs when the vanilla Android thing started to come to more models.
i will give them credit, they allow more customization but that’s about where the pros end, for me anyways. I don’t need crazy customization, I mostly need something organized and reliable that I can access all my content on. Apple does that nearly flawlessly other than a few bugs in the software that pop up now and then. If I want to get super technological and lost in the weeds on computer stuff, I’ll just use a computer, I don’t need that capability on my phone.
I from time to time end up using homebrew type applications that aren't written for or available on apple devices, and I like the customizability like being able to choose an entirely different interface. That customizability gives me the feeling like I'm running something that's mine, rather than feeling like I paid out the nose for the privilege of using it until it's too annoying to use.
As for the “it doesn’t suck you in because of how good it is, it forces you in by making their shit incompatible” - how? What is incompatible? They have their own cloud system, sure. They have a superior proprietary messaging system. Otherwise I don’t see what of theirs isn’t compatible with anything else. Android things are compatible across the different brands because they run the same OS from Google. Apple doesn’t. I don’t see how that’s a fault of Apple. That’s mostly a personal preference. Very few people with Apple products (or ecosystem) truly hate them and not everyone is a clueless sheep. There are plenty of those too, but both sides have them.
Apple could release apps on other platforms and solve the entire problem. The fact that an Android user can't just quietly install iCloud or Facetime but instead has to ask the Apple user to install Skype or Duo or Google Photos or OneDrive or tolerate using a half-ass option through a web browser to be able to use basic smartphone features with their Apple friends is nothing but Apple trying to use status shaming and peer pressure to "suck" more people into their ecosystem. Same thing with an Apple watch - you can use anybody's watch on an iPhone because everybody makes iOS apps for their device, but no dice if you want to use an Apple watch on an Android device. I have heart things in my family history so the fact that the Apple watch basically does a built-in EKG would be kinda nice, but not if I have to buy a new phone to work with it. That their business model is built around making it annoying to use third party devices and selling a culture (something Jeep and Harley Davidson are equally guilty of) I believe is generally understood.
I'm not sure what's superior about their proprietary messaging system. The only complaint I have about my messaging system is the features that don't go back and forth with Apple (such as reacting to a text). But the fact that it works one way and not the other, combined with Apple's usual strategy described above, I'd put my money on it being Apple's fault.
There's also no reason that everybody can't be using USB-C and have interchangeable peripherals. It's been USB on the other end for a long time now.
As for the dumpster fire situation with your wife’s phone not working when plugged into the computer, that is not typical. I’ve had probably 20 iProducts by now and never once had an issue like that. I did have an iPod classic refuse to load content from iTunes but that’s because I dropped it and screwed the hard drive. I do wonder if that phone could be brought back to life with a DFU or recovery mode reset via iTunes. Although if you're trying to recover content off of it then that wouldn't be good because those two reset methods will wipe it. You can't get onto the phone any other way?
One of these days I'll have her go through her free OneDrive account and clear up some space so she can upload them all there and then I can get to them. But I'm not aware of any other way to directly transfer the files to a computer (where I want them) than with the USB cable.
