Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Android has been a fraud for a long time now. Let's not pretend that the "open-source" mobile OS that was supposed to free us all from vendor and telco tyranny ever approached that promise.

Did they even really try?

As far as iCloud "alternatives" go... Android doesn't offer ANY legitimate syncing infrastructure to compete with iCloud, open or not.



You can install syncthing-fork or nextcloud


Thanks for the info.

If you have to install it, though, developers can't count on it being available to all or even most users.


Neither are legitimate competitors to iCloud


In some instances, nextcloud is better than icloud


You're comparing on-demand-cloud with setup-your-own-server-and-configure-everything-yourself-cloud

Those are two different markets


Only a small fraction of nextcloud users setup their own servers.


Nextcloud has on-demand (if by that you mean a SaaS product)


You can sync a backup over webdav on GrapheneOS.


A backup is not all a replacement for iCloud.

The point is to sync application data between native apps running on different (and even different kinds of) devices. PIM-style data (calendar, contacts, notes, bookmarks, and so forth) probably comes first for most people. Apple has also added useful stuff like Wi-Fi passwords and E-mail account configurations.

And then developers can create their own entries in the iCloud data store for their own apps. This is hugely useful.

I'm not aware of any similar facility that comes with Android, but I'd be happy to hear about it if there is.


You can use nextcloud for all pf that, not that I’d recommend it. There are solutions, even hosted ones.


Is there something else you'd recommend?

Regardless, though, if it's not built into the OS, developers can't rely on it being present on a majority of users' phones.


I switched to Android from iPhone because the sync options for iPhone are garbage.


But you neglected to state what built-in Android facility you find to be superior to iCloud for syncing data between applications.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: