Whenever someone sadly hits their personal "last straw" threshold for iPhone, one option to consider is the privacy&security-focused GrapheneOS variant of Android.
You can run GrapheneOS on recent models of Pixel hardware. (It usually has to be a unit purchased from Google, or that otherwise hasn't had OEM-unlocking disabled by the carrier that sold it.)
You might also try minimizing the apps that you depend upon, though GrapheneOS has put work into supporting apps in a bit more private&secure way. There's also the option of the F-Droid app store, if you want to try to avoid commercial apps altogether, but still need things like an OpenStreetMap app.
There were a lot of things I liked about iPhone, but I overall feel more respected by GrapheneOS.
If you end up liking GrapheneOS, and have the means, there's an optional Donate page on their Web site.
"Comcast's Xfinity Mobile broadband Internet access service ("Xfinity Mobile service" or "Service") utilizes Wi-Fi service - both Xfinity WiFi and Wi-Fi provided by other Internet Service Providers ("ISPs"). When not connected to Wi-Fi, the Service utilizes our carrier partner's mobile broadband Internet access service network and is subject to its network management practices and controls."
Basically they roam onto cellular when their WiFi is out of range.
3. OP keeps claiming that he never agreed to anything blah blah yes you did. When you sign up for anything with Comcast they make you sign an agreement that you agree to their ToS. See South Park episode "Human CentiPad".
4. The service OP signed up for is at a discounted price because of trade offs. The trade offs are that your device will prefer the Xfinity hotspots over cellular. That's literally how it works. That's why you're getting it for cheaper because the service sucks by design. That's on the customer.
5. People attempting to point these facts out have been getting downvoted which is just sad.
We don't know much about the OP's WiFi setup other than he chose to use his own equipment and not to use the carrier's gateway - which would broadcast its own, stronger, passpoint SSID in his apartment and likely these issues would go away.
Consider the following scenario: the OP's router is flaky and disassociates stations during which time the phone gets kicked off then "sees" the carrier's SSID from the neighbor and joins it. Now it's on that network. Suddenly this becomes a self-created problem. The solution is to not use Xfinity mobile or any other "Wi-Fi first" MVNO.
It can both be true that OP is getting what they asked for, and that this is a bad thing for Apple to unilaterally allow. How does Apple know that OP signed up to have their preferences ignored?
This has been going on for years. Not many people know of the deep integration between Apple and the carriers. Your iPhone, when a SIM is inserted, pairs it with a "carrier profile" which is downloaded from Apple's servers. This profile, among other things, has network settings and preferences such as the APN. That's why you need to have the phone connected to the internet to "activate" it; it's part of the provisioning process. These wifi offload networks (along with likely a setting if it can be disabled or not) is likely downloaded as part of that profile.
This is reminiscent of those "ad supported" ISPs of yesteryear that people would subscribe to then complain that it has ads.
Here's something Apple could do: pop up a dialog saying something to the effect of, "this carrier wants to manage your wifi settings. Agree? [yes] [no]". If the user doesn't agree, that's communicated back to the carrier who is free to not render the service. Presto, Apple doesn't have to take the carrier's word that I agreed to a third party managing my networks.
That it's been like this forever doesn't make it right.
ETA: the ad-supported ISP analogy misses the crucial distinction that the ISP knows I signed up for them to MITM my data. Apple knows nothing of the sort.
I like your fervour, but does any of what you said apply when cellular isn't involved and OP wants to use their own WiFi network but can't because of an unnecessary restriction in their phone OS?
Replying to the top-voted comment, for visibility rather than relevance, is something I haven't noticed much on HN.
I'm not saying it's wrong, but it seems to be unilaterally subverting the voting mechanism, with the rationale that person is confident the message is so important that the voting mechanism is irrelevant or can't be trusted.
A person could be right, in an instance, but imagine if everyone did that every time they were confident. We'd need a way to mitigate the conflicts from all that individual confidence. Maybe with a democratized voting system.
Nothing in the terms of service you linked says they can disable my devices ability to NOT join their network.
And their advertising absolutely does not suggest they are “WiFi first”, they advertise cellular service with hotspot access. AT&T and Verizon do the same thing (advertise all these great free hotspots you get).
No one intentionally signs up to lose control of their WiFi system on devices they own, so stop making excuses for Apple’s behavior.
As someone who reluctantly moved to iOS from Android and reluctantly stays on iOS there really is no other option for "normal" ("regular"?) users who don't want the Google crap all over their existence.
Graphene, Lineage etc are all excellent solutions for people who want to (or "can") get their hands dirty and can live without normal functions of "commercial" apps, for everyone else as of today there is just two option - Apple's iOS or Google blessed Android. I am not even talking about warranty and bricking woes.
This is a duopoly as clear as day. We can keep telling ourselves that we have options, we don't. It's settled, at least that is how it is right now (again, maybe except for "tinkerers" which I guess even I was until around a decade ago).
I will say GrapheneOS is much more usable than normal custom Android ROMs. Maybe this has changed but IME even Lineage based ROMs, official or otherisez don't have automatic updates the same way stock does.
But GrapheneOS and a few similar projects actual have fully automatic updates, for every Android security update and major versions.
Once installed which is very easy as long as your are starting fresh, GrapheneOS requires no effort to maintain. F-droid or even the Google Play Store works just fine once configured. The only apps that don't work are major banking apps and snapchat so not a big deal.
If you have family/friends that use smartphones but don't really use "Apps" then GrapheneOS is perfectly fine.
I am not 1% as technical as the regular HN contingiency - and i can only say - flashing a pixel 6 pro with graphene was smooth as silk.
Just requires some good reading and instruction following skills.
Amazing OS...works fast, UI doesnt change whenever it feels like...absolutely the best tech related thing i've done this year.
I would have been on it sooner if i wasnt so annoyed about needing to own a Google phone to use it :P
It's a duopoly. But what is the solution? Requiring developers develop for GrapheneOS? Or forbidding Apple from making iOS/iPhone secure enough to be used by at-risk individuals being targeted by nation state actors with n > $1M in resources to use on attacking someone (by forcing them to allow third-party app stores/downloading apps from websites/etc)?
The potential for manufacturers to abuse their customers when they control the full stack. Belllabs both Google and Apple. Hardware and software should developed by separate entities anyway. If it works for normal computers, it can work for small normal computers too.
> Or forbidding Apple from making iOS/iPhone secure enough to be used by at-risk individuals being targeted by nation state actors with n > $1M in resources to use on attacking someone (by forcing them to allow third-party app stores/downloading apps from websites/etc)?
This has always been a pretext. They could sell phones that allow you to do any of those things by default and allow the user to set an option that locks the device to only Apple's store until the device is factory wiped. That would not be any less secure for people who choose that option, but would give people the choice without tying that choice to the entire platform.
> It's a duopoly. But what is the solution?
That depends on who you are.
If you're a government, antitrust.
If you're anyone technical, buy a device that isn't always the easiest to use and then use your talents to make it better for everyone.
If you're in a managerial role at any kind of large enterprise, smart companies have purchasing requirements that penalize certain vendor behavior, by prohibiting purchases from them entirely or requiring them to come in some significant percentage lower than any competing bid. Make sure vendor-locked products get penalized by your company. Let the vendors know this is why they're not being chosen. (The reverse version of this also works: Have corporate charge individual departments a large premium for purchases of disfavored products. Then they have to decide how much they really need it and alternatives get attractive.)
If you're a regular person, don't buy anything that requires you to install an app on your phone. Use your bank's website and if you can't then get a different bank. Don't do business with companies that remove your choice of platforms, even if you still don't currently have one, so that someday you might.
For me that will require to change citizenship or get a visa or at least get the device shipped to another country at real exorbitant prices with essentially zero service or warranty
I use GrapheneOS on a Pixel 7 Pro daily and I can use banking, transport, and government apps just fine. There's only been one time I had to look up how to get an app working and that was trivial. I get notifications and can use the Google services I choose with permissions I pick. I can even use all the hardware features such as Google's AI image editing and camera features. Even installing GrapheneOS is done through a browser and takes just a few steps. If you are just slightly technically inclined I see no reason you can't use GrapheneOS, I haven't personally had to compromise in any way while I have gained complete control of my device.
Even if using GrapheneOS came with downsides, the amount of power you gain over your device would have been worth it. If you have a Pixel device you owe it to yourself to spend a few minutes finding out if you want to try GrapheneOS.
Here's the thing: Lineage is for people who "can live without normal functions of commercial apps". Graphene is not. Because all "normal functions" work on Graphene.
It's also super easy to install - you literally just need to press a few buttons in a web browser.
(Lineage is also not an excellent solution because it has severe security flaws and questionable privacy benefits)
Another vote for GrapheneOS here. I moved away from a great iOS experience to a great GrapheneOS experience nearly two years ago. Pixel 5. Works fantastic. Bonus: I get nearly two full days of battery life between charges, even with heavy use, because my phone is not full of apps and system services chatting away to their motherships all day. I have all the mobile apps I need and enough of the apps I want. (And probably a little more peace and useful disconnection because I'm "missing" some apps that I used to spend time with but I honestly can't tell you what they were or that I actually "miss" them. Ha.)
I'm still a happy MacOS desktop user and while I occasionally miss some mobile/desktop automagic syncing that Apple does so well (iMessage, Photos, etc.) I find this split GrapheneOS/MacOS life forces me to smartly use more Signal Messenger and suggest others try it too. And I use the amazing Syncthing on all my devices for mobile/desktop syncing needs like photos and more.
Also ... moving away from an iPhone, I moved from Apple Watch to Garmin Fenix and am super happy about that move also. Two weeks of battery life from a watch that's more durable, has physical buttons that I prefer, and is more customizable when I'm feeling nerdy. Garmin's philosophy on user data/privacy seemed to be very good compared to Google, Samsung, and other watches. And they're better built watches and meant for 24/7 hard use.
Kudos and donation to the GrapheneOS team. Also, their regular system updates work so smoothly, perfectly, if a little too frequently.
Maybe it's not forever, but I did this purely as an experiment with my Apple safety net waiting for me. The iPhone and Apple Watch have depreciated and gathered dust and haven't been touched in nearly two years. Time will tell...
Thank you. I previously relied exclusively on samsung to for phones, tablets, and smartwatches but decided to stop dealing with them after they decided to silently enable sending everything I typed to grammarly in an update. (Literally 2 decades of good will wasted).
If the next models remains secure with GrapheneOS, I'll be switching to using pixels exclusively instead. How long does GrapheneOS support pixel devices? A strong clear policy on Security updates was main reason why I stuck with samsung and continued to recommend them for so long despite them becoming more and more abusive.
Looking under the next section "Which devices are recommended?" it sounds like support is planned for the full life of newer devices that have 5-year update guarantees.
https://grapheneos.org/features
You can run GrapheneOS on recent models of Pixel hardware. (It usually has to be a unit purchased from Google, or that otherwise hasn't had OEM-unlocking disabled by the carrier that sold it.)
https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-support
https://grapheneos.org/install/web#enabling-oem-unlocking
You might also try minimizing the apps that you depend upon, though GrapheneOS has put work into supporting apps in a bit more private&secure way. There's also the option of the F-Droid app store, if you want to try to avoid commercial apps altogether, but still need things like an OpenStreetMap app.
There were a lot of things I liked about iPhone, but I overall feel more respected by GrapheneOS.
If you end up liking GrapheneOS, and have the means, there's an optional Donate page on their Web site.