Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years
I’m not surprised. I used Android devoutly, had a Galaxy S4, then an S8 when that started showing its age. I upgraded to an iPhone 12 when AT&amp;T ran the promotion to get a free one.<p>I wanted to keep liking Android. The amount of time I spent arguing vehemently that Android was superior made the switch hard, but several factors came into play for me:
- Extremely slow and fragmented upgrade of OS. This resulted in substantially older features and security patches.
- Privacy. iMessage’s encryption (though I stand by that it is gimmicky to only offer for iPhones, and I despise that) has a serious network effect. Apple is also far more transparent in what data they use, how they use it, etc.
- Ironically, price. At the time, the iPhone was cheaper than the equivalent Android phone.<p>The big downside is slower upgrades to the latest hardware features. Specifically, I am envious of the people who have 120 FPS phones, they’re beautiful. There is also a loss of customization, but truthfully I thought I’d miss it much more than I did. The fact that the iPhone “just works” is worth it to me.