Maybe.

I grew up reading Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Bentley Little, and John Saul. I now think horror movies are kind of silly. I like the Scream series because they’re smarter. They’re good slashers but you have the whodunit aspect as well.

I can’t speak for everyone though. And maybe it’s not so bad to be scared of horror? Like, isn’t that part of the fun?

Never got into horror games though. The problem I have with that is, being that it’s a game, either you have the agency to peek behind the curtain, or you don’t. With a movie, you only see what they want you to see. I never actually played horror games, as such, but there were a couple scary moments in games I have played, like Fallout 3 with the Dunwich Building. It’s a random building toward the southwest corner of the map that is not connected to any main or side quests. (I think one of the DLCs had a tie in to it, though.) When you go in, you find that you can’t leave the way you came in, and as you traverse the building looking for another way out, you see flashbacks that are handled like jump scares. It’s really not that scary, but the first time through might be. There’s a similar area in Fallout 4 (Dunwich Borers, so, same company) and you experience some of the same stuff.

Take out the “half your age plus” and you might be onto something.

They’re all boosting each others’ craziness so none of them drop the dreaded list that exposes all of them, and/or the people they owe favors to.

You know what I find deplorable? Spyware as a feature. Like Android.

Also, Google bypasses ad blockers. Say you have an iPhone, or an unrooted Android phone. You’re blocking ads? You’re using DNS to do it. The Google app, and Google apps in general, ignore the system DNS settings and use Google’s own DNS. There are some good reasons they do it, but the chief upshot for Google is, they get to inject ads into a device whose owner explicitly tries to block them. Since ads can also carry malware/ransomware, Google is intentionally opening a security hole in a device you may not be able to 100% secure, but could be fairly secure. Relatively secure. For a smartphone.

I actually got ransomware on a popular Android blog through an ad they served. I’d just wiped my phone — this was the last Android phone I’d owned. So I mean, I’d wiped the internal ROM. Repartitioned it, installed a recovery (TWRP, naturally), and then flashed a custom OS. Back then, you couldn’t get stock Android on a national carrier in the US. So, I was flashing a European CFW customised with the CDMA radios that the US was using at the time (we’re all GSM now like the rest of the world, I think the last CDMA towers, which were 3G, have been shut down but I’m not sure — Sprint and US Cellular were CDMA and they’re both part of T-Mobile, and Verizon was the big one and they’re all on the GSM tech now). Anyway, I hadn’t installed AdAway yet, I was just reading tech blogs, when my screen went red, said illegal content was detected on my device, pay “the FBI” so many thousand dollars in Bitcoin to unlock my device. I laughed, wiped the internal ROM again and started over… installing AdAway before going out to the open web. Lesson learned. But that’s the kind of thing Google intentionally opens its users up to by tunneling around the ad blocker. (I don’t name the tech blog because I contacted them and they were very helpful in identifying the source of the ransomware attacks and getting that advertiser de-listed. So there is no reason to “name and shame.” But it can happen to anyone, and without even going to “shady” sites.)

Yes. If you’re a free developer (you have to register as a developer to even do this), you have to re-authorise the app every 7 days or it gets “revoked” which means the app will not launch.

You also have to install a certificate that certifies the app(s) to you. This is generally safe, but you should be careful with trust certificates. You’re basically taking full responsibility for the code that’s being executed on your device. If you haven’t audited the source code (or if someone you trust hasn’t), it might be a risk.

If you used a signing service, someone has bought a bunch of paid developer licenses and they’ve given you the certificate for one of them. Once Apple discovers this, they’ll revoke that developer license which revokes your apps. The signing service will then issue you a new certificate. Revokes aren’t super common, or so they say (I’ve never used a signing service).

I don’t do it. The 7 day thing really isn’t worth it and they aren’t any iOS apps to sideload I care about.

Delta is the coolest emulator due to cloud sync and it’s in the App Store.

No. But we can sideload. Two apps for free, have to be authorized every 7 days. (It’s actually three, but the app that does this for you takes a slot, so that and two others.)

You can also get a developer license for $99/year that lets you do unlimited with a much longer authorization window.

AOSP and production versions of Android (what’s on the Pixel) are not the same thing.

Depends on your age to a certain extent. Older men tend to value monogamy more, but we’re also older and looking for a sure thing (if we don’t have it already). Chasing tail, bedding a different young lady every night, sounds fun, but when you need someone to take care of you, it doesn’t really make sense as opposed to a long-term relationship.

If you’re younger though, you got your whole life ahead of you… just be safe. And try to avoid the crazy ones. They deserve love too, but they also take a lot of patience.

Is that the first game? Yes, it was great. But the publisher was scummy AF and broke the game up into four parts. Now, granted, each part came with an anime DVD which gave you some of the back story/real world issues around the back story, so they did try to make it worth it. But still, it should have been one game.

Nice — I absolutely use SponsorBlock on desktop (/laptop). Did not know it was on mobile.

It’s the other way around, it’s down to GrapheneOS to support other hardware. They simply choose to focus on Pixels.

You’re onto something with the AirTags but you haven’t got it quite right. Every Apple device participates in the Find My network, which means any Apple device marked as lost will have its location reported, anonymously, by every other Apple device it can communicate with. This is a good thing, unless you’re being stalked via an AirTag placed on your person, but Apple has taken pains to mitigate this issue. One shoe company recently released shoes with AirTag compartments so parents could track their kids, and the placement should mitigate the beeping they can emit. Honestly the AirTags and Find My network do more good than harm, the impact to devices participating in the Find My network is minimal, and if it’s your device that’s lost, you don’t want people opting out so thieves can get away with stealing your stuff.

The open source thing is largely a myth, though. AOSP is what’s open source. The version of Android on Pixel phones and Nexus before them was forked from that and bundles a lot of closed source stuff, like Google Play Services, Gmail, and more. But it’s close enough to AOSP that devs can target it and it should run on most/all Android forks.

So then Samsung and others take AOSP and they fork it and make their own OS that is based on Android. They are required per licensing to use Android branding if they want Play Store access. There are other rules, like Chrome and/or Google has to be on the main launcher page, Play Services has to be included… if they don’t play by the rules, they can still fork Android, they just can’t use the name Android… like Fire OS and Switch OS. (It’s unclear if modern Switches use any Android code. Before they were released they were rumored to have forked Android. Switches absolutely do not run Android apps, but the OS borrows several cues from Android design language.)

AdAway isn’t in the Play Store? That was my ad blocker back in the day… on, like, Jellybean and KitKat.

Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised if Google has since banned ad blockers. They threaten their business model after all.

Not actually true, there are still some scam apps on the App Store. As long as they have recurring subscriptions, Apple doesn’t care too much. It’s the free apps that are just as good, they will bury, even if they have users.

As far as music, I agree. I use Apple Music because it’s the best streaming service for my needs and they pay artists better than the other big one. But on iOS you also have Marvis Pro and MusicHarbor. I couldn’t get that experience on Android. The actual Apple Music app is great on Android, and it has gotten better, but on iOS I still prefer Marvis, which is a frontend to Music.app.

Yes, my Android phone (Galaxy S10) has a headphone jack and a microSD card reader and a fingerprint reader. And it’s a flaghship. But it’s a 2019 flagship. (Still does things better than my iPhone 16 Pro Max, which is Apple’s flagship from last year, and still their current flagship model. Most notably, the Android keyboard is better.)

Do any new flagship Android phones have headphone jacks? Not that I need one. I’m 100% on board with AirPods. Love them. I own headphones but it’s a lesser experience. I have some decent (not great) over the ear Sennheisers (they were around $50, so not audiophile range, probably the brand’s entry model) and they’re good enough, but the AirPods are a better experience in many ways. But anyway, mid-range Android phones have headphone jacks, but they’re underpowered compared to flagships, and Android flagships are underpowered next to iPhones of the same year. So while granted, a mid-range 2025 Android likely outperforms my S10 across the board, I have no reason to upgrade what is essentially my backup phone.

Yes, ironically I just read another article about how Facebook/Meta has gotten around the ATT (App Tracking thing, I forget what the other T stands for) with in-app browsers. The article’s point was that all the beef between Apple and Meta is just for show and that they need each other like Apple and Google, Apple and Samsung, et al. So yeah, with you on that.

Memo about custom firmware? No. I did see the bit about Google blocking sideloading. True, I don’t follow Google/Android news as closely as I follow Apple news due to that being what I use.

That said, I know a fair bit about Android and used to do custom firmware. I know it’s never been easy, largely due to the carriers getting involved. I thought Pixels were unlocked though, at least those bought direct. In the early days when they were Verizon exclusive, the carrier bought ones were locked (this was 2016). Custom firmware in the last 5-10 years? I know a lot less about that.

As an iPhone guy, I always thought, what apps am I missing? It was mostly emulators. Then Apple allowed them, and I ask the question again.

Oh yeah, we have Delta, why doesn’t Android have anything like that? So, in a nutshell, I can uninstall Delta right now. App gone, games gone, saves gone, it’s all gone. No longer have any trace of it on my iPhone. Go to the App Store and download it. Empty library. Got to start over, right? Wrong. Go into Settings, connect Google Drive. It’s now downloading my games, my saves, my settings. Everything back where I was. Would be so cool if it were on all the platforms, so a game started on one could be picked up and played on another. Not necessarily Android <==> iOS, but more like phone <==> computer/tablet.

Yeah, so anyway, what can’t I get in the Play Store or the App Store that I actually want?

I get it’s a slippery slope and future implications. I get that. I’m just not seeing the issue now.

Also, it seems like Google has taken away all the things that would convince you not to get an iPhone. They took your headphone jack (though an Android was the first to do so). They took your microSD card slot. The tech always sucked, no one tried to make it better; past 16 or maybe 32GB the write speeds were too low to be usable. Now they’re coming for your sideloading? Honestly what is the argument for staying?

Not on Android. People love to stan for Android because “it’s open source,” but Android would have gone nowhere if Google didn’t buy it, and Google wouldn’t have bought it if they weren’t convinced it would let them scrape more personal data than Gmail. (And Andy Rubin made Android because he heard Steve Jobs say the iPhone would run OS X, and he thought he could probably whip up a Linux distro to run on a phone.)

You could get an iPhone and not run any apps by Google, Meta, Microsoft, X, or any of the other privacy-opposed companies. You’d also better change the default search off of Google. DuckDuckGo is an option. Ecosia might be. Not sure. The issue is, while Apple says they’re all about privacy, that’s based on them being a computer/hardware company first (and Google being a data company first). However, Apple is heavily leaning into services now — Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple News+, and more — and there are rumors they want their own search engine. So while Apple may be privacy strong now, you don’t know what they’ll be a year from now, or three, or five.

It’s like Tim Cook (Apple CEO) said about Facebook when they introduced the tracking limiter. “You can still give Facebook permission to track you all over the web, they just gotta get your permission first.” That’s true of privacy. You can still use Google, Meta, Microsoft, X, TikTok, and other privacy-violating companies’ products, but what you share is entirely up to you. You can use some of those services in Safari and block some tracking, or you can install the apps and allow it all. It’s up to you.

Or, you can buy a Pixel and reward Google’s business model, and put GrapheneOS on it. That is probably better, privacy-wise, than using an iPhone. But you’re still rewarding Google’s business model. And if they’re making so much money off your data that opting out isn’t even an option, why does the Pixel cost the same the iPhone does (and more, considering the Pixel Fold)? You are getting more RAM, but RAM is cheap. You’re not getting a better processor — Apple has won that race for years. Camera tech is about 50/50. Screen is up in the air — I think Apple’s is better, but Google et al use higher resolutions. Apple buys from the same companies but screens are made to spec which is why Apple’s are better than those by companies they buy from. Their spec is more demanding. “Good enough” is what passes in Android — it’s like how iPhones use NVMe and Androids use UFS. NVMe is more expensive, and it’s faster on paper, but in the real world? UFS is good enough. You wouldn’t see a difference, or a significant one, in real world usage. So what are you paying for in a Pixel? The lower specs plus the privacy/data factor should make the Pixel significantly cheaper… except Google is a publicly traded company, so they can’t sell it that low.

Apple may not be the best option, but they’re advertising that they are (with regards to privacy). And I think they’re trying. I’m not saying they’re saints. They are doing better than Google though. And you have to decide if that’s worth your money. And dealing with a crappy keyboard. The keyboard sucks.

I’m not sure. There have been times where I thought, this would be the perfect place for an ad break. And lo and behold… ad break. Sometimes they get cut off mid sentence and I think, either it’s automated, or maybe you’re right and they got a say but didn’t specify enough ad breaks so one was inserted semi randomly…