I agree that this is needlessly nuanced, but it is possible. If you have a Mac you can transfer files between Mac and an iPad wirelessly or with a cable. iPads can also connect to external storage devices or Windows PCs if they are sharing the files. But it isn’t like Android where you can basically just plug it into a Windows or Linux machine and have direct instant access to its entire directory.

A bit pedantic, but it is also industry leading in revenue/profit. Even in Europe and parts of Asia. A first glance it is a pretty “duh” statement. But companies, like Samsung, see Apple’s price action and then move in unison toward it. Sure, you can get plenty of phones for relatively cheap these days. Often times with huge drawbacks or a lot of additional spying built in (or “features” like advertisements in notifications). Or you pay for it in other ways, such as not receiving more than a year’s worth of updates.

I feel this as well. I’m in a mixed device household, and sharing images and videos between each other is a real pain. Nobody wants to mess around with going to an iCloud or Google Photos link and grabbing images or video. In the USA, few people want to use third party messaging apps. My family certainly doesn’t. My kid’s friends certainly don’t, and so everyone sticks to iMessage.

Because iMessage really is the best in this region given what is actually used by non-outliers. I use both Android and iOS, Windows and Mac. There’s no comparison. iMessage has more features than Google’s solution. Google’s “RCS” is better than SMS/MMS but isn’t equivalent to iMessage. And cross-device support for it is a joke. Samsung has their own little bridge if you buy entirely into their ecosystem–apps included (sorry, Google Messenger). But there isn’t the same identical experience that happens like with Apple: iMessage on iPhone is the same as on iPad is the same as on Mac. No web QR codes to scan, no weird per-device limitations, it really just works. Handoff works like magic. I know, cliche, but Google doesn’t have anything that competes with the feature set. iMessage is so much more than group chats and text messages and pictures like Android users tend to characterize.

Google has no room to call out Apple for its b.s. with iMessage, either; Google has its own proprietary messaging apps. They’ve tried several times to replicate iMessage and lock people in. Their latest is RCS, which is really a misnomer because Google took the actual RCS standard and made it proprietary. That’s why there aren’t third party apps outside of a tiny number of outliers with special business arrangements with Google (such as Samsung). That’s why Google’s entire campaign to “shame” Apple (really, remind iPhone users of the pain of interacting with Android users) doesn’t go anywhere. Google is just as proprietary as iMessage. Google requires all traffic route through Google’s proprietary Jibe middleware and cloud infrastructure.

At this point I doubt Google would actually share their proprietary RCS with Apple given that they don’t share it with anyone else except Samsung, and only then because Samsung was moving to fork Android (or abandon it entirely) after Google got into the hardware business. We know Google has a private API for their RCS implementation and that they actively choose not to share it, because they’ve accidentally leaked it before and XDA devs picked up on it. There are a million SMS/MMS apps available, not so much for “RCS.”

People deserve to be paid for their labor. This is Lemmy; that’s the default position given our history. There are plenty of free as in beer and speech apps out there if someone doesn’t or can’t pay the price. But software development is hard work, especially if it isn’t a hobby. And a lot of Lemmy apps are hobbyists. That’s the communtiy phase we are in right now. And we are a smaller community, which means fewer paying customers, which means a higher overall cost. LJ can’t throw out an app for $5 and expect a hundred thousand to convert into paying customers off the backs of over a million downloads.

I’ll never understand this criticism of Sync. I hate subscriptions as much as most people, but with software it sort of makes sense because the work never ends. It isn’t like buying a bookcase or any other static item. And Sync, in this case, isn’t like what companies such as LG are doing where they are intoducing forced subscriptions into static firmware to extract maximum wealth from customers.

It all depends on your tolerance.

FireSticks are inherently easier to tinker with. But Amazon bends you over with shoving ads and spyware up your ass at every opportunity. It is baked into the UI design itself. It is very advertising-forward, with everything else designed around ads. And even the 4K max lags at times.

AppleTV really requires an iPhone to set up optimally. And it is locked down with no clear jail break at this time for most people unless you’re willing to solder (or if I’ve missed a new flaw in an update which opened the door programmatically). But Apple TV is fast and smooth, with no inherent ads of its own. It is honestly over powered for its purpose, probably because it can also play a fair number of iOS games.

Chrome Cast with Google TV is a fucking mess. It is severely under powered to the point of lagging. It has half baked ideas like profiles which don’t change anything. And it has ads as the focus of the design just like FireStick.

But you’re going to pay a subscription if you go with Apple TV and want something like Infuse. Jellyfin and Plex, of course, don’t require it.

And despite what people say, Stremio is absolute dogshit on a FireStick because of its mobile-centric UI.

If you plan to use a server like Plex and Jellyfin, all of them work—but Apple TV works best. If you need anything else out of it, probably the fire stick if you use a pihole to stop it from phoning home for more ads constantly.

Capitalism is a problem but it doesn’t mean everything has to be socialism. There can be an in-between.

It’s not even that to be honest. Socialism is characterized by worker ownership and operation of companies primarily. LJ is a sole proprietor exploiting nobody, not earning a wage via labor and not having to work because he under pays others to work for him. He’s just a worker like the rest of us.

I definitely agree that donations is not a viable long term path. Maybe in a different economic model. People need to be realistic. The general arguments they are making against Sync in favor of FOSS apps can also be made against them using FOSS apps by the FLOSS folks. People should pay if they can. And use a free third party app if they can’t, or don’t like how sync works.

I really don’t get the hate people are putting out there over this. This is why third party apps build strong ecosystems. You can find what you want.

I’m not paying any subscription for a free service

You aren’t. That would be your Lemmy instances patreon (or similar). I hope you support your instance because otherwise this entire service could fail.

You’re paying for the slick presentation and app features with Sync. I’m a software engineer. It is difficult work. Time consuming. Risky as well given this (sync) is literally the dev’s full time job.

That’s the beauty of third party apps; you can find a best match for you. But there will almost always be a quality and feature gap between people doing it for a hobby and people doing it for a career. That is why Apollo beat basically every iOS client. That is also why Sync beat the other Android reddit clients for me. And it has already beaten the free ones for Lemmy in my opinion.

I definitely feel the same way. I had been on Reddit since before the Digg collapse. Back when it was mostly nerds and other IT professionals like myself. Lemmy gives a strong wave of nostalgia. Sync for Lemmy makes it a pleasure to use on a tablet. The webpage is alright, definitely serviceable. But Lemmy has strength in the third party apps scene. Sync is the returning champion for my Android tablet. Happy to support his work again.

There is, sort of. It is a subscription similar to Apollo this time around. Maybe it was that way last time and I just forgot considering how long ago I had purchased the reddit app.

Here’s the post from the official Calckey account. Mali is, indeed, seizing domain names. Makes me wonder what is happening with Lemmy.ml. I really don’t want to get involved with Matrix just to find out.

LemmyGrad.ml is still up, though. For now.

In Liftoff, click the magnifying glass at the bottom of the app.

Enter the term you want to search for in the top box.

You can then pick which server/instance you would like to search.

Tap the search button, then tap “Communities” at the top of the app.

Well, fair enough point. But Google is preparing to actually become actionable and start issuing sweeping user bans.

I’m a dev. I know people who’ve run afoul of Google and had their accounts banned. They lose access to everything with zero recourse.

And it means they have to find new jobs because enterprise Google accounts are also affected. Especially if they are Android developers.

Google also has methods to trace people down if they make new accounts. That presumably extends to people accessing information without accounts. People are incredibly easy to finger print with just their browser and all the data it surrenders as a standard.

I’m not OP, but a big one was breaking a fair number of extensions/add-ons with a major browser update. I forget the exact details, and am not privy to the technical arguments within Mozilla, but I can see how it is a huge turn off for users.

FireFox was also extremely resource intensive at one point.

And their mobile apps are stubbornly bad. There’s no reason not to implement a real tab bar, for example. Card view is terrible on tablet devices.

It just seems like there are a lot of little things they do with FireFox.

Still, it isn’t FireFox trying to end adblocking and start blacklisting people from using services with no actual alternative.

Alphabet needs to be broken up, as does Microsoft and Apple.