After years of using iPhone something had to give – my wallet. As much as I enjoyed the UX and security it provided, even though it gets boring to be locked down that hard, when it costs more than a full-spec laptop I fail to jusitfy it.

Recently I went with an Android phone with a lot of hesitation. As most of you who know me are well aware of, I loathe Google. I have no trust in them nor what they do what so ever.

When a company that has so much data on individuals has someone on the board saying you should not expect any privacy if you are online, I lose all trust in them – not forgetting respect.

At first glance Android is not too shabby. The UI is nice enough. Not as smooth as iOS. The greater freedom is really nice. Now I do not care that much for customisation, as long as it looks good. It is more the access to the file system, or at least my home folder, I care about and will have trouble giving up. Also, being able to use Termux and VIM is pure bliss.

I started out on Android 7 and boy was the settings menu a mess. I prefer Linux. I run it on my laptop and servers. Still, it is clearly mainly crafted by engineers still. UX in some apps, and desktop environments is something that makes you wonder sometimes. Sure, the backend code is amazing, but the frontend is often a mess.

But I digress…

Android 7 Settings felt like it was designed by five drunk frat boys that have never touched a computer in their life. That this was a settings meny for something that had reached version 7 is beyond me.

Android 8 is a big improvement tho. Yet it still has that Linux feeling that gnaws at me. That it is some kind of hobby project. They have an idea what they want, but they are just still not sure what.

For now I will stick with Android until something really good that runs on the latest hardware and is Google-free comes along.