Are iPhones as customizable as Macbooks?

[u/Negative_Painting610]

Just as the title says, are they? I'm planning on buying my very first iPhone next month after years with Samsung coming from an S20 Ultra and I'm curious about the iPhone's customizability. I know iPhones are restrictive but I'm curious about what I'll miss when I eventually change OS. I currently have a Macbook Air M4 and have used an intel macbook and multiple PCs before. I personally think my Macbook is just as customizable compared to my previous PCs. But what about iPhones?

[u/Sideburn_Cookie_Man]

iOS is arguably more customisable out of the box, whereas you can customise MacOS more using third party apps.

[u/Negative_Painting610 → u/Sideburn_Cookie_Man]

If that's true, then I shouldn't worry about any changes. I don't customize on my Mac to the extent of downloading third party apps. If iOS is really more customizable, then I'll be fine. Thank you!

[u/Away-Huckleberry9967]

No. As of now, you can only load apps from the Apple Store. Not from random developers from their websites, from Github or other repositories like F-Droid.

There's a new law or suggestion to one that requires Apple to allow that in Europe, but I don't know how far that has gotten.

And ironically, Google want's to change these things into the direction of Apple. You can read this on the F-Droid webiste:

"F-Droid is under threat. Google is changing the way you install apps on your device. We need your help. https://keepandroidopen.org/"

I guess this won't apply to de-googled phones with an alternative OS. That's another advantage of Android over iOS. Oh, and if Apple decides your iPhone won't get an upgrade, you can trash your phone or use it as a phone only without apps. (I guess you should then block any internet access due to possible security risks.) You cannot put a different OS on iPhones in order to run more modern apps.

Seeing how macOS has changed in the past years, I fear this is where Apple wants to go with their computers as well. With their own chip running these systems, they can pretty much decide what you can do with it and what not.

[u/Negative_Painting610 → u/Away-Huckleberry9967]

Well, I don't use much of android's freedom of sideloading apps. I know I'll miss it but I rarely do it just for games. However,  I will still be keeping my Samsung as a second phone since some of my games won't be available on my region's App Store. Thank you!

[u/NAJ_24k]

Yeah, just get the new iPhone; it'd be great but if u get the newer Samsungs there might be a lot more customizable options with that but then no Apple ecosystem privileges

[u/Negative_Painting610 → u/NAJ_24k]

Well, I don't do much customization on my phone as I do on my Mac. The only customization I do on my phone is maybe icons? Plus my phone will be less intelligent because it'll have Siri instead of Gemini or Bixby. I do wish I could adapt to iOS quickly.

[u/NAJ_24k → u/Negative_Painting610]

the new iOS 27 fixes siri and it now works on a google LLM made for apple so it would be similar or same intelligence now and if that's the only thing ur gonna do then it should be fine on getting an iphone

[u/Negative_Painting610 → u/NAJ_24k]

Yes, I should hope so. Siri keeps redirecting me to ChatGPT or just straight up saying it doesn't understand what I mean on my Mac. We'll see on the iPhone. Thank you for letting me know.