Is the typical Amiga old-timer an Android or iOS user today?

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by beezle

In regards to google maps on a slow device being a problem, that's only a concern if you're a mute
Have people really become so disconnected that they've forgotten how to ask people for directions? Often quicker than google maps regardless of the device a person uses. Nav Sat is more practical a digital method as well.

All in my opinion of course.

I've been to rural Scotland last week and trust me, I'd have been VERY VERY glad to see some human beings on some of those roads, but alas- there were none!

[beezle]

@ReadOnlyCat

Ah, sorry, I got stuck on the suggestion that a theoretical AmigaMobilePhone might behave much like an iPhone.
In terms of "feel" I don't disagree. It probably is closer than a default Android system.

[clebin]

Originally Posted by beezle

Much easier to justify replacing a phone that cost %10 or less though.
My android phone cost me $49 three years ago and is still kicking along fine.
About 12 months ago I also bought an android quad core bay trail tablet for $189, and it gives performance pretty well on par, often greater than any iOS device.

A lot of the devices that I see people replacing are mid- or high-range phones like an HTC One, Sony, Samsung Galaxy, etc, and I feel that's a fairer comparison. Although the base-level phones are getting better each year, they are going to lag behind in some ways. For one thing, I value having a really good camera on my phone and that's something you have to pay for.

That's much easier to swallow than 5-700 pounds, and infinitely more flexible given I can also run iOS, windows, Mac os, Linux, AROS, etc, etc software. (VMs and other software).

I question how useful that is. Do you hook up a screen, keyboard, mouse and if so, do you carry them around with you? Whenever I've tried anything like this, I find it awkward and end up asking myself "why don't I just use my laptop?" especially if it involves the (mis-)use of a touch-screen. It's great in theory but I can't seen it being more a tech demo TBH.

As for not trusting Google, fair enough, but why would a person sign in anyway? I never do.

This is the company that recently installed an extension to Chromium without users' consent that apparently used the microphone to listen in on conversations. The same company that drove cars around harvesting data from people's wifi networks. I wouldn't use the OS they built and think that not signing in stops them from scooping up whatever data they can get away with.

All in my opinion of course.

Likewise

[dreamkatcha]

I prefer Android, but find it's often a pretty flaky, inconsistent experience. For instance, every day I wake up before my alarm goes off so like to 'dismiss' it straight away. One day the option to do this will be there, other days it won't be.

Also, bizarrely enough, apps can merge into one another. If I click a torrent magnet link in the Javelin browser, it transmits the download to Flud - my torrent client - but then Javelin becomes Flud. Click the back button and the two things split apart again.

I've found crashes and lock-ups are more common than I'd like in Lollypop too.

I spent 10 years as a member of the Cult of Mac before it began to turn my stomach and I jumped on the Linux bandwagon instead. Thankfully there are no ultra hip, arty, designer types in every other movie trying to manipulate me into buying Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

[MrFluffy]

I have a android, but I'm not amazingly taken with it. Mostly I leave it switched off in the office or in the workshop on the bench as I don't like being contactable 24/7 anyway.

Its awkward to get beneath dalvik, the phone is reliant on chips with closed blobs, building a nfs module for it is a royal pain so it can't speak the same network standards as the rest of my kit (a "linux" based distro without nfs...) , my carrier keeps pushing and installing software to my latest Sammy without my consent etc that I really must get around to reflashing cyanogen or something.
Mostly, I use it as a emergency phone and for taking photo's in the workshop. I did tinker with bodhi linux on a archos android tablet for a while, but the hardware was a bit crap and full of firmware bugs and limitations.
I bought my wife a android smartwatch (pebbl irrc) but as anything but a bit of bling to pose with, its pretty crap having to remember to put it on charge all the time, and who the hell wants to get tweeted in realtime all the time?

What I really wanted was a phone running a modern version of familiar linux like I used on my compaq ipaq pda years before android came along. It was very competent, nice environment and open to tinkering, but lacked suitable mobile phone hardware on the market back in 2003 or whatever it was. That died a death after florian mueller (yes THAT florian mueller, paid microsoft professional shrill, sorry, consultant) got involved in the mailing lists and caused a load of bad feeling in the community, but all was not lost as a lot of the devs ended up on OpenEmbedded or Angstrom.

I plan to get a jolla phone next to have a play with it see how tweakable it is inside, or maybe a tizen based one. I'd go for a jolla now if they made a rugged one or otter made a otterbox style hardcase for their current hardware!

I've never owned a apple device and probably never will. I'm a low level tinkering sort of person, not a spoon fed media consumer hipster.

[clebin]

Originally Posted by MrFluffy

I'm a low level tinkering sort of person, not a spoon fed media consumer hipster.

It's good to know that's what I am. I'm off to ride my unicycle to the nearest craft ale bar now.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by clebin

It's good to know that's what I am. I'm off to ride my unicycle to the nearest craft ale bar now.

Don't forget to pick up some beard wax on your way

[Pyromania]

Originally Posted by Akira

True.

I'm in love with Windows Phone. I'm on my third WP phone.

Windows Phone, Yuk!

[nobody]

They are 2 unix phones, one is luxurious for dummies (iphone) and one for the masses (android). They have nothing in common with the Amiga. I guess people will choose one of them because they have no other choice.

[gimbal]

I've got a Galaxy S4 mini (Android) which I primarily use as a camera to capture memory moments - and the camera is actually bloody good for a phone! I'm not fond of the bloated OS with its many vendor-locked useless apps that I can't uninstall, but its only too easy to just hide what you don't need so no real bother.

And I've got a recent iPad Mini 2 which I'm absolutely loving to bits for purposes of Youtube/Netflix bed television and as an eReader. The retina screen, audio quality and battery on the thing are unbeatable, I can't deny it any longer.

But haters must hate, so I'm torturing the thing with a Microsoft universal keyboard (which turns it into a very comfortable netbook). Muhahahahaaaa!

[zerohour1974]

I am using an LG G3 Android phone. But when it comes to tablets I have both a Nexus 7 2012 model and an iPad Mini.

To be honest the N7 is not that great and recently I have tested it with Jolla, Ubuntu Touch and various custom rooms from XDA. As for iPad it's the most used iOS just makes better use of screen real estate compared to the Android tablet apps.

[jiffy]

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

What matters is which additional capabilities the product brings to you and how it makes your life simpler. If it does not, then that is fine, but why care about others?

I agree completely. I'm quite a computer geek and years ago, I bought a smartphone: an HTC Desire Z. Very nice. But I soon found out I only used it at home, doing nothing more than fooling around a bit. I never used it at work, not while travelling from home to work vv, nor anywhere else.

Also, I really hate being called privately (while at work, I'm on the phone several hours every day).

Easy and cheap solution: get rid of mobile phones altogether and get a nice tablet. Which I only use at home. Makes me a lot happier and saves me a nice amount of money every month.

I'm not against smartphones at all, they just don't give me anything I need. As soon as that changes, I'll get one again.

If I want to fool around, I'll grab my A500 or A600. Much more fun.

[OldB0y]

Originally Posted by nobody

luxurious for dummies

user here. Much prefer it to Android or the other one (Windows or something?). I'm not averse to tinkering, but couldn't care less about tinkering with a phone - I just want one that works, which the iPhone does most of the time.

I jailbroke my old iPhone 4 for a bit - mainly to run emulators - but playing 90+ % of Amiga/SNES games with a tiny touch screen just doesn't work unfortunately. So I gave up, and haven't jailbroken one since. As a result I could care less about owning an Android handset, as the ability to run emulators is about the ONLY thing the iPhone can't officially do that I want.

I don't consider myself part of the cult of Mac, and even agree that Apple products are expensive. However I work with all things Windows, and want nothing to do with it when I'm at home if at all possible. I also don't want to be family tech support, so my family use Mac's and iPhones as they rarely have major issues that require 'out of hours support'.

[Devlin]

I have an android phone.
It's used for two things, communication(calls, SMS, skype, email) and casting to my tv/chromecast.

i don't feel it's anything like the amiga.
i use it mostly like a phone and media remote.
I'd be fine with going back to a dumb phone or an older smart phone(aka Windows Mobile 5.0 era)

[Paul_s]

I'm on Android but my phone is pretty slow with (very) laggy performance (Samsung Mini S3) so I'm not too thrilled with it.

I too am finding 'Smart' phones to be more of a 21st century general nuisance than anything else. Would be happier with a simple phone for an Alarm clock and texting

[OldB0y]

Originally Posted by Paul_s

I'm on Android but my phone is pretty slow with (very) laggy performance (Samsung Mini S3) so I'm not too thrilled with it.

I too am finding 'Smart' phones to be more of a 21st century general nuisance than anything else. Would be happier with a simple phone for an Alarm clock and texting

Agreed - I'd be happy with a 'dumb' phone with good battery performance. My old Nokia 3310 could pretty much go for a week between charges. My iPhone 6 struggles to go 2 days between charges.

I could care less whether or not I can access facebook on the go, or reading the ramblings of an idiot on twitter whilst away from my desk.

Saying that, I do like the iPhone's satnav ability, but I can still live without that most of the time!

[Cpt. Hindsight]

Originally Posted by john1979

I also have a Windows Phone. A Lumia 735. Really great phone.

Windows phone user here as well.

I don't like the metro design of Win8 on a desktop computer, but it's working well on a smartphone with touchscreen and the camera of my Lumia is ace.

I'm thinking about upgrading to a Lumia 930, but for some unknown reason you can't use micro sd cards with it anymore.

[Amon_RA]

I've moved from S60 phones to Android back in 2009 (when I bought the G1). Using a Nexus 6 atm because I prefer the way Android is indented to be without the extra skins and bloatware running on top (making it unstable). I would never buy Apple products.

I don't have any iOS or Android devices, and the ones I've used didn't impress me.
I'll stick to my old-timey Intel NUC for computing, and my old-timey voip SIP phone for telephony.

[eXeler0]

It should probably come as a surprise to no one that some old timers here consider smart phones as some fancy crap they dont need and stick to their call/text only phones from the 90s.

However, personally, even though Im a retro guy at heart with more old consoles in the house than most (full list would hurt your eyes ;-) I consider smartphones "computers you can also make phone calls with" not "phones with way too many features".
And I use it as such. (For example I post here from the phone a lot...)
I do about 80% of the stuff I used to do on the computer on the phone, because it works just as well and I dont have to be in a specific location to do it. Hard to imagine ppl would not prefer that, but hey..

The reason I use Android is due to a couple of things. First of all, in the early days iOS wasbso restrictive with how you could do things, it drove me insane. (Its better now that they've copied the sane stuff from windows and Android though). The other thing was probably the thing about rooting for the underdog. Apple quickly became a very lonely #1 it took the Android camp a couple of years to be as good, that struggle reminded me a bit of Amiga vs PC in the early 90s.
A third reason was probably when I saw the kind of ppl that became iPhone fanatics. I realized I would never become someone like that. ;-)