Google 4a user here. They pushed an update while I was on a ski trip in Korea - I updated an hour before getting on my bus and.. the application launcher started crashing on unlock. I couldn't open any apps.
Thankfully, I was able to get into the settings and switch to Lawnchair without a working "desktop UI", but without a second application launcher I would have been totally screwed. I checked the Play Store afterwards and saw hundreds of people with the same issue.
On Linux I can choose which "security" updates to install, and only install those. Why can't Windows and Android provide such a feature?
Stuff like this is why I keep printing entrance tickets and the like. I don't want to end up in a situation where I have to trust software that is known to have new bugs every months to get into a place without any sort of backup.
>Stuff like this is why I keep printing entrance tickets and the like.
I almost got completely screwed by my pixel updating right before a concert while I was already out of town. Luckily my wife was able to login to my computer and forward the tickets to someone else that I was with, but it was a close call because she was walking out the door to do something herself when I managed to get ahold of her.
In this case, if you don’t have a phone that can display Ticketmaster’s code, you’re just SOL, since they decided to break being able to just print out your code.
> Why can't Windows and Android provide such a feature?
Windows does.
Android "can't" because the OS is a partition image with libraries not intended to be updated piecemeal, not a collection of loosely related external projects like Linux is.
Desktop Linux doesn't actually do that unless you're trying to use a rolling release distribution. The way stable distributions work is that the packages largely remain the same for a given major version throughout its lifespan, but individual packages can still receive security updates.
I've had "stable" distributions fall over upgrading between their major versions.
But you missed the point that Android's system image is immutable and updates are atomic. A user can't screw it up. This is not an insignificant feature, and it's something you also get with something like Fedora Silverblue. Which then also doesn't let you pick and choose what updates to get.
Major version upgrades occasionally break things because they're a new feature release but are then trying to migrate configuration from the existing system. But the same thing happens with "atomic" upgrades if you're trying to migrate existing configuration, because the bug is really in the migration system that didn't properly handle that configuration variance, not because the packages aren't upgraded atomically. Which is why phones sometimes do break on major version upgrades for the same reason.
Piecemeal updates are also absolute hell to support - they rapidly lead to an untestable combinatorial explosion of possible software loadouts. Even Ubuntu doesn't officially support installing packages from a mixture of point releases (e.g. installing Ubuntu 24.10 packages on the 24.04 LTS); it might be technically possible, but if anything breaks, you get to keep the pieces.
>Google 4a user here. They pushed an update while I was on a ski trip in Korea - I updated an hour before getting on my bus and.. the application launcher started crashing on unlock. I couldn't open any apps.
I had that happen like a year ago while I was getting ready to go to a concert in another state. Luckily I was able to call my wife have her login to my gmail and forward my digital tickets to someone else in my party.
Apple also has an advertising company. And they track you, but they get money by selling you stuff mostly. I’m deep into the Apple ecosystem system and they don’t force updates, try to upsell me every time updates are installed. I have no ads on the apps I use. They are quite happy for you to fork over gobs of money and call it a day.
Googles primary source of income is ads. All this stuff they do is the primary way they get money. People need to stop being surprised this is where they ended up.
> I’m deep into the Apple ecosystem system and they don’t force updates
My iPad is pretty naggy to install updates, moreso than my Pixel phone even. iOS doesn't automatically update like Android does, but if anything that seems less like it's because Apple disagrees with that and more because their update system is so shit they can't get away with it. It's inexcusably slow to apply updates.
> try to upsell me every time updates are installed
They are the only ones to have lost a lawsuit for doing literally this. Batterygate wasn't that long ago, surely you didn't forget about it already? Heck class actions about it are still happening in various countries!
Basically, Google tracks peopple everywhere. They track what news you read, where you shop, and what political party you support. Apple does none of this. No one tracks people on the Internet like Google. Facebook doesn't. Amazon doesn't. X doesn't. Microsoft doesn't (the own Bing). Apple certainly doesn't.
You will get tracked by those even if you use an Apple device. The key difference between Android and iOS is that Android gives users the ability not to be tracked. iOS (even MacOS) doesn't even let you uninstall Apple News. iOS won't let you get your location or install an app without telling Apple. It won't even let you run a browser other than Safari, which has known data leaking vulnerabilities. User control is the key privacy feature.
Apple does it one way, Google does the same thing but another way. Instead of locking everything down, preventing you to use any other browser than safari for instance, they push you to use their spyware. Android might be open source, but the Google play services are not and if you ever tried to do anything without them, you'd know it's impossible.
Both tracks you by forcing you to use their app that works as spyware.
Also, you missed the point of my comment. The comment I replied to basically was saying Apple and Google are equivalent because Apple sells ads (they sell search listings in the App store search and may run an optional advertising service for apps). My point was they are not equivalent because Apple does not track people around the web like Google does. The other things is Apple has released a lot of privacy features which interfere with the advertising spying machine.
At best, Google pretends to improve privacy. Google's business is basically building a profile on each individual so they can serve the most relevant ads to that person. They make more money when they serve relevant ads (ads people will see, and maybe buy something based on the ad). Google has no interest or incentive to protect privacy because their business depends on invading privacy.
> My point was they are not equivalent because Apple does not track people around the web like Google does.
That's a pittance of privacy. Apple sells your search results out to Google, cooperates with NSA surveillance and institutes online DRM for your apps. They do not care about protecting you from tracking because tracking users is official policy for Apple in both iOS and MacOS.
It is pathetic to watch people on this site rush out to defend Apple like they aren't part of the problem. If you have witnessed Tim Cook's behavior over the past 10 years and still hold hope for Apple, you are not paying close enough attention.
> At best, Google pretends to improve privacy.
Google still published AOSP source code. That's not "pretending" to improve anything, it's an outright statement about the transparent security of their product. I hate AdSense and consider it an anticompetitive scourge on the internet, but I don't see Apple making commitments to security on the level of Google. Last I checked they were still trying to sue security researchers...
If you think Google is "pretending" to improve privacy, how can you deny that Apple pretends too? The reason people drill down on this isn't to defend Google, it's to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you do not actually know what Apple's stance is on this and cannot confirm it with hard evidence. You are repeating marketing and whitepapers, hoping that it's correct.
Thankfully, I was able to get into the settings and switch to Lawnchair without a working "desktop UI", but without a second application launcher I would have been totally screwed. I checked the Play Store afterwards and saw hundreds of people with the same issue.
On Linux I can choose which "security" updates to install, and only install those. Why can't Windows and Android provide such a feature?