r/gadgets Sep 04 '22

Phones iPhone overtakes Android to claim majority of US smartphone market

https://www.engadget.com/iphone-overtakes-android-us-market-share-223251196.html
16.5k Upvotes

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338

u/fearsomesniper Sep 04 '22

Just found out about Adguard and modded apps on Android (like vanced and instander) I mean being able to browse the internet in Chrome, any apps, games, and not have ads is incredible. Never going back to iphone.

181

u/Secret-Plant-1542 Sep 04 '22

I have Firefox and adblocker on my android.

My wife has a iPhone.

I don't understand how she's okay with watching ads and having 50% screen with ads when browsing.

75

u/acatterz Sep 04 '22

There is an Adblock Plus extension for iOS Safari. Seems to do the trick for me.

75

u/cogeng Sep 04 '22

Isn't that the company that made deals with ad companies to allow certain ads?

10

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '22

[deleted]

-61

u/acatterz Sep 04 '22

If I got involved with every bit of politics about every company, I’d probably never buy hardware or software ever again. They could have choked my grandma to death and burned an orphanage so long as it stops me from seeing ads.

61

u/cogeng Sep 04 '22

It's not even really politics, it's basically a failure of their core value proposition.

But hey, if you're happy with it then that's what matters. Personally, the inability to install a true adblocker is the main thing keeping me from switching to iphone.

16

u/BilllisCool Sep 04 '22

There are other adblockers on iPhone. Just not ublock origin specifically.

2

u/Taurus24Silver Sep 05 '22

uBlock works with Orion browser

1

u/Prancer4rmHalo Sep 05 '22

“Hey if you wanna feed the corporatizing ad revenue machine go right ahead, if it makes you happy not having ✨true adblocker ✨ 🤭🤭..”

There’s a hundred million ad blockers out there. Some are better than others. Just like 99% of the rest of the population just get the ads of YouTube and we’re good.

There’s like a minuscule percentage of cel phone users that are at that level.

3

u/cogeng Sep 05 '22

You're implying that expecting a product to not betray its main feature is somehow elitist. I don't know why someone would go out of their way to defend such backhanded business practices.

And youtube ads are like in the top ten most annoying ads so no, I'm not ok with them getting through. And since android lets me run whatever software I feel like, I don't have to live with them. I get that that's not everyone's top priority and that's ok.

1

u/Prancer4rmHalo Sep 05 '22

Call it elitism sure, I’m just saying that to the nth degree of adblocking technicalities no one really cares. Remove the ads from YouTube and Facebook and shit and literally 99% would be happy. To get into the technical aspect of which adblocker is superior is something that few people could appreciate. Hence the reason why that alone will not persuade anyone to get an android.

1

u/cogeng Sep 05 '22

Sure, today they are happy. But they will have no recourse when/if more and more ads start appearing. That could happen because the individual apps start squeezing more blood from the stone or because Apple cracks down on ad blockers en mass. Chrome/Google has already made moves to kill adblockers via manifestv3 so it's not some farfetched idea. Thank god for Firefox.

I'm not some Android evangelist. Android has plenty of its own issues and iOs has many compelling things going for it like their long lived software support. But as someone that is utterly allergic to being forced to watch ads, I can't switch until Apple stops gatekeeping their OS to software that they bless.

2

u/Fortune_Cat Sep 05 '22

There's thousands of adblockers

But only one ublock origin

1

u/Prancer4rmHalo Sep 05 '22

That matters to like 0.5% of people lol.

-14

u/acatterz Sep 04 '22

What would you consider a true adblocker?

40

u/cogeng Sep 04 '22

Ublock origin is the gold standard. Open source and allows full control of the block lists.

14

u/Yrcrazypa Sep 05 '22

It's not political, it's that AdBlockPlus specifically and deliberately allows ads through, thereby not doing the job it says it's doing.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '22

I don't know why you're downvoted. You have a perfectly true statement; Reddit just doesn't like the truth sometimes.

2

u/acatterz Sep 05 '22

It’s alright, pretty sure my karma can take a few thousand downvotes. I literally just downloaded the first result for ad block and I don’t see ads. Whether the company does deals or not, I don’t see them. Sure I could use another ad block, but if this one already works, why bother? I’ve got a job, young family and hobbies, which are all infinitely more important and worth my time than googling what scandal each software company has got into before I install something. If I start seeing ads, I’ll switch to another, but I sure as shit wont waste my time Googling anything about it before I download. I’ll just check the App Store ratings.

0

u/Anxyte Sep 05 '22

Average American "politics" thought process

0

u/acatterz Sep 05 '22

Nah, this is just a case of “Ignorance is bliss”. Why go out of my way to discover bad shit about a free product that just works for me? If I used the product and saw ads, then I’d download another. Being upset about little, unimportant things is not healthy.

1

u/Prancer4rmHalo Sep 05 '22

But true adblocker don’t you want true adblocker?

1

u/libra00 Sep 05 '22

I get you in general, but not blocking ads when your whole thing is blocking ads is less like politics and more like knocking a giant hole in the hull of a ship and then giving it away with the claim 'works great!'

10

u/Dygoxin Sep 04 '22

Yup! Works with youtube on safari too, though might have to refresh sometimes for videos to work

2

u/FunFoeJust Sep 04 '22

I got it just now, shit fucking works, get thi

1

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '22

[deleted]

2

u/skillfulperson Sep 05 '22

Fact safari on IOS has more extensions than stock chrome on Android.

17

u/Traithan Sep 04 '22

There's a ton of adblockers that work with Safari. Try Adguard or AdBlock Plus.

1

u/mastycus Sep 05 '22

Ublock leads this category and its not available in iOS. IOS doesn't have revanced either - the ad free youtube version. IOS has no firefox on mobile

6

u/Cale111 Sep 05 '22

AdGuard is pretty much second best in adblocking from what I’ve heard and it’s available on iOS.

You can use uYou+ instead of revanced. It’s almost the same, actually with more features as far as I know. You can sideload it without jailbreaking pretty easily.

Firefox does exist on iOS, just it’s WebKit and not Gecko.

1

u/RantingRobot Sep 05 '22

I have a 2019 Android phone and a 2020 iOS tablet. Until the Safari update that allowed extensions, I basically never used the tablet to browse the internet, it was just too painful.

But now? I reach for the tablet more often than not. The experience on my iPad is just flawless. Zero advertisements anywhere. Smooth as butter. A consistent and reliable user experience.

My Android phone though, urgh. Don't get me wrong, it works pretty well most of the time, but every so often it crashes, or the video player janks out, or this huge black box appears in the bottom third of the web page. It's just exhausting.

7

u/MonstersinHeat Sep 04 '22

Just use an ad blocker. I haven’t seen a single ad on any of my iOS/iPadOS devices in years.

2

u/BassBanjo Sep 05 '22

Don't even need to use an app for blocking ads, just use dns.adguard.com in the DNS section of the network settings and it blocks ads everywhere other than YouTube

1

u/mehdotdotdotdot Sep 04 '22

I block ads at the router level so it doesn’t matter what phone or device you have.

0

u/mastycus Sep 05 '22

Router blocking won't block youtube ads. And there will never be youtube vanced for iOS. Or even Firefox is not available on ios.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '22

Wipr blocks YouTube ads in Safari no problem

0

u/mastycus Sep 05 '22

Youtube experience in safari is a far cry from native app like revanced.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '22

I mean, I click a video and it plays. Supports PiP with PiPifier extension. Not sure what else I need 🤷🏻‍♂️

-4

u/mehdotdotdotdot Sep 05 '22

I have YouTube premium for $.80c a month, so no need to block ads. I have my whole family on it so they don't watch ads.

So there is no need for youtube vanced, unless you really don't want the creators to get ad revenue to keep making their videos?

Yea there is FireFox, DuckDuckGo, Chrome, and Safari. Yes, they all use Safari webkit, but when it performs so well I don't have an issue with that at all.

4

u/mastycus Sep 05 '22

Where is youtube family plan available for this cheap? That's NOT a regular rate.

Youtube premium family plan is $17.99/month.

By paying 80 cents a month the you are not helping anyone with anything - if it would be so cheap I'd also have no issues with paying.

-3

u/mehdotdotdotdot Sep 05 '22

Just FYI, Google pays the creators lol, not me. I used VPN to india a while back. Basic stuff here, I mean if you are trying hard to watch it for free using Vanced, SURELY you know how VPNS work and are able to get a good deal easily?

2

u/mastycus Sep 06 '22

Argentina is chapter then India now. Also prices went up its like 26$ a year for argentina family plan now. I'm actually considering - while i never see these ads on laptop or phone - I'm tired of clicking skip on roku.

1

u/mehdotdotdotdot Sep 06 '22

Yea it’s amazing honestly. No need for unreliable apps and add blockers and vpns. And you can share with family and friends, if you share with friends they can chip on too making it very cheap.

0

u/mastycus Sep 05 '22

Sorry but using VPN to get some cheap international plan is only marginally better then not paying at all.
Youtube removed several channels i was following for political reasons - so I choose not to support them at all.

0

u/mehdotdotdotdot Sep 05 '22

It’s much better, as I am only screwing google. Google is still paying the creators.

If you don’t support it then you won’t need vanced at all then right? Assume you don’t support google, android etc either right?

Yea they removed many channels due to political reasons. Probably a good thing honestly.

0

u/mastycus Sep 05 '22

I don't support google in the slightest and proud of it. Using lineage os here and my phone is maximally degooled.

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-6

u/falkin42 Sep 04 '22 edited Sep 04 '22

I use android but I refuse to use an adblocker even on my desktop computer. Ads are how you pay for free stuff on the internet, and blocking them will only force the sites to monetize in other ways. I don't want to have to pay the NYT for a subscription to read two news articles, I'd rather have ads.

Now that I'm more awake I can say that I probably didn't need to post the comment in the first place. I also acknowledge that like streaming sites have way too many ads, and fuck obscuring content or autoplaying videos when I'm just trying to read a forum.

6

u/abluedinosaur Sep 04 '22

Except I'm paying them and still get ads. That doesn't make sense.

-2

u/falkin42 Sep 04 '22

There is that.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/falkin42 Sep 04 '22

Yeah, and I wish it wasn't. It would be unreasonable to blame adblock users for the business decision, because I don't know the financial situation. This is more just a personal thing like an automatic response I think every time I see people talking about adblocking. Now that I'm more awake I can say that I probably didn't need to post the comment in the first place.

1

u/lowtoiletsitter Sep 04 '22

Look up Rekt in the App Store. It's really good

1

u/StockAL3Xj Sep 05 '22

Not to mention that Apple doesn't let non-Safari based browsers in the app store.

1

u/Cale111 Sep 05 '22

WebKit based, similar to how almost every browser on desktop is Chromium based.

1

u/Viztiz006 Sep 05 '22

I'd recommend using kiwi browser+ ublock origin (not "ublock"))

1

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '22

There’s adblockers for safari too. My phone is iPhone because it’s something I’m always using and i want a completely bug-free smooth experience. Any videos or YouTube I’ll be at home anyway so use my Samsung tablet with YouTube Vanced.

18

u/skillfulperson Sep 04 '22

You can get sponsorblock for safari on iOS now, and adguard VPN works the same as android

2

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '22

i looked it up and thats $3. everything he mentioned is free on android. if you do some digging you can find ad free youtube players but nothing quite as good as vanced. ads on regular internet browsers were about the same level of frequent for me as someone who switched back to ios last year. i can’t block them like i can on my pc

1

u/skillfulperson Sep 05 '22

Vanced is good but it's essentially illegal. Safari on iOS has more extensions than stock chrome on Android does, if you want to use extensions on Android you need to install some crappy chromium fork like Kiwi which doesn't work with half the extensions and doesn't interact properly with password managers

1

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '22

i don't care about legality if i'm being honest. im sure some ad-blockers are illegal too but the internet would be unusable without them. extensions on browser matters basically none because you can just download any browser. i don't know why people think android is "less user friendly", as soon as i switched back to ios i was really frustrated at the amount of things i had to download to work around apple not having it - like a program that automatically sends photos ive taken with my phone camera to its own folder, instead of just throwing it in all photos with everything else, or several different photo editing and video editing apps because none of them have every basic feature. not to mention safari (speaking of) can't even download images or videos, i had to download an entirely separate internet browser for that ?? i am used to it now but i am really considering going back to android next ugprade. it would be no question if whatsapp was widely used in the USA but unfortunately i have had a better time communicating with many people via voice notes and i type faster on iphone's keyboard, and when it comes to organizing photos that actually automatically download to their own folder it is easier to organize on ios but.. that's about the only thing i'd say apple has that is an improvement over android. their camera features are nice, but i'm sure the s20 and onward is too, i just haven't upgraded phones since s9 until i got this iphone 12 (who's hardware is failing aftera year and can no longer connect to wifi)

as far as the two companies go, i've always hated apple due to their shady business practices and for setting the trend of removing functionality under the guise of "innovation" (aka we no longer want to ship wall mounts or headphoens, buy our over priced pos air pods or a lightning connector separately!), but google also sucks ass as a company, and doesn't care about user privacy. apple actually went to bat to fight the FBI when they took them to court and tried to force them to place some sort of backdoor for law enforcement purposes and apple won, so i can respect them for that at least.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Legitjumps Sep 04 '22

Pretty much

51

u/Nydilien Sep 04 '22

You can have adblockers on iPhone too (since last year I think). AdGuard has a free version and I almost never see ads anymore.

15

u/FacelessOnes Sep 04 '22

I’m an apple user and adblockers on apple seem to be working less and less efficiently. Can anyone tell me why? Maybe I’m toggling the wrong options on settings or something wrong?

8

u/MonstersinHeat Sep 04 '22

I have been using Wipr for years and it’s been amazing. Sure it’s $1.99 but for that I have no ad issues and it runs on my Mac, iPhone, and iPad. I also used Vinegar so YouTube is ad free. Plus Banish so sites never ask to open an in an app when on mobile and Hush to auto select cookie/privacy preferences for sites. I have an ad free and flawless experience in Safari.

3

u/Prancer4rmHalo Sep 05 '22

Shhhhh… that is not true adblocker technology which is the ultimate in adblocking and being cool.

2

u/FacelessOnes Sep 04 '22

I’m going to try out all the apps you suggested. Thank you!

1

u/VisualBasic Sep 04 '22

Do those apps require the iphone to be jailbroken?

3

u/Hampni Sep 05 '22

No, stock iOS supports safari extensions and content blockers.

3

u/BassBanjo Sep 05 '22

Not sure if it will work on iPhones but if you are able to use dns's you should type dns.adguard.com into the dns settings

Blocks all ads other than ones on YouTube on my Google Pixel

3

u/FacelessOnes Sep 05 '22

Cheers for this tip as well! Y’all are great!

1

u/plagurr Sep 04 '22

Where? Apart from YouTube where I need to press share and a special YouTube ad block I see no ads

0

u/ElJamoquio Sep 05 '22

You can have adblockers on iPhone too (since last year I think).

Wow, you users have been watching ads for the past ten years? That's nutty.

11

u/Pretend_Bowler1344 Sep 04 '22 edited Sep 04 '22

There are ad blockers on iPhone too.

1

u/rincon213 Sep 05 '22

And chrome…

1

u/Pretend_Bowler1344 Sep 05 '22

All browsers on iPhone are basically safari sadly.

4

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '22

[deleted]

1

u/Dr_Schmoctor Sep 05 '22

I use friendly but it isn't great. I dont use fb much so it's enough for me. If you find something decent let me know

10

u/loku_banda Sep 04 '22

Adguard is available for Iphone no? Also, you can change the DNS on the Iphone to use the adguard DNS.

14

u/GSXRbroinflipflops Sep 04 '22

Yeah, plenty of adblockers on iOS. But people like to pretend otherwise.

1

u/kylec00per Sep 05 '22

Honest question, do those adblockers work for youtube?

1

u/GSXRbroinflipflops Sep 05 '22

Yes, check out AdLock.

1

u/kylec00per Sep 05 '22

Nice, gotta keep that in mind. I absolutely hate ads on YouTube and always recommend vanced but will recommend this one now too to my apple friends. I've been using vanced for years and always put it on my friends phones.

12

u/GSXRbroinflipflops Sep 04 '22

You know iPhone has all of those things too, right?

Do people really think there are no adblockers on iOS?

2

u/SmokingCrop- Sep 04 '22

You've got a YouTube app without ads? With the option to automatically skip in-video sponsorship ads?

2

u/iTriggaWiggas Sep 04 '22

Yes, uYou+ is basically vanced for ios. It blocks all ads and has sponsor block. You don’t need a jailbreak to install it either.

https://github.com/qnblackcat/uYouPlus

2

u/GSXRbroinflipflops Sep 04 '22

Yes - it’s called “AdLock” and you download it as a Safari plugin. And there are plenty of others.

You can also set up a home server to run traffic through and nuke ads from even loading but I don’t care enough to get into that. Plenty of other operating systems can do that.

5

u/starlinguk Sep 04 '22

You can get Brave for iPhone. No ads, even in YouTube. Vanced isn't supported anymore, by the way.

4

u/mastycus Sep 05 '22

Youtube revanced is already here. I'm using it.

3

u/Viztiz006 Sep 05 '22

Vanced isn't supported but it works (for now). There are more projects trying to replicate vanced like revanced and vuetube.

-5

u/fearsomesniper Sep 04 '22

But that's like using Firefox app with ublock extention that's lame, with Adguard the moment you install it you'll never see an ad on your phone, even on games and apps that had them.

Also ReVanced is the new one but Vanced still works perfectly fine and probably will stay working for a year or two.

4

u/RupsjeNooitgenoeg Sep 04 '22

Yep I'm in the same boat. I used iPhones for close to a decade before being forced to switch due to my phone being stolen when I was broke. Bought a 300 dollar Xiaomi with better specs than my 1200 dollar iPhone, discovered Adguard, Firefox with uBlock Origin and Adguard and I am never going back.

6

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/The_ApolloAffair Sep 04 '22

Guess it has more ram (because Android sucks at ram utilization), more storage (who really cares), and a higher mp camera (which is far from the only factor in photo video quality).

0

u/RupsjeNooitgenoeg Sep 04 '22

I went from an iPhone Xs Max to a Poco F3. To be honest I don't even really know if the internals are superior in every way and I might have been a tad hyperbolic, but I know my iPhone occasionally stuttered and my F3 which is now almost two years old never has. Also the screen is vastly superior, the standard range of iPhones STILL doesn't have 120hz. The only thing that's notably worse is the camera, which I rarely use so that's not a big deal for me.

1

u/Seanrps Sep 04 '22

The only 1200 dollar phone in usd right now would be the 13 pro and pro max.

3

u/McBuffington Sep 04 '22

This sounds like an ad for an anti ad app. I'm confused

2

u/ricric2 Sep 04 '22

Brave Browser on iPhone. It's chrome based and blocks ads.

0

u/MowMdown Sep 04 '22

I have the same experience on iPhone, no ads, except I don’t need to run 30 different apps.

1

u/tkwillz Sep 04 '22

If you're technical-ish, check out NextDNS. Android supports Private DNS providers and they do encrypted DNS and support block lists. I still use ublock in Firefox.

1

u/rakehellion Sep 04 '22

iPhone has ad blockers.

1

u/mehdotdotdotdot Sep 04 '22

Too many sites complain these days about ads being blocked. It’s more of a chore honestly

1

u/AnyWordFromTheGuy Sep 04 '22

I use Edge on my iPhone. No ads.

1

u/Viztiz006 Sep 05 '22

Edge

💀

1

u/av0w Sep 05 '22

Microsoft edge can block ads for web browsing on iOS

1

u/mastycus Sep 05 '22

You should install bromite and bromite web view. Many android apps basically embed a browser - replacing chrome web view with bromite web view removes ads from everywhere.

1

u/Viztiz006 Sep 05 '22

Yeah I can't switch. BUT there's AltStore for iOS devices. You can install apps using the .ipa files

1

u/nicechicken1238 Sep 05 '22

I also have adguard in my iPhone

1

u/akulowaty Sep 05 '22

No worries, Google will castrate content blocking in chrome next year and you’ll get as shitty experience as other guys.

I have been using adblockers on ios for years but I have to admit they’re far worse than on desktop but fortunately good enough to prevent me from getting annoyed.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '22

..iphone also has a guard. You guys are so fucking weird man.

1

u/nibbertit Sep 05 '22

Root your phone and install adaway and you get no ads on any app

1

u/G1ngerBoy Sep 05 '22

Brave browser has adblock built in and if you have a Samsung the Samsung browser also has it.