Android is struggling to keep its market share in the United States, as Apple continues to take over in the market. But, despite Android as a whole losing ground, Google Pixel phones are becoming a bigger slice of the US market.
Counterpoint Research reports that, in Q2 2023, US smartphone shipments dropped by 24% year-over-year. That includes both iPhones and Android phones, and virtually every brand saw a drop in shipments. Samsung saw US shipments drop by 37% while Motorola saw a 17% drop. TCL saw the biggest decline at just shy of 70% year-over-year, and even Apple saw a 6% drop.
I agree with the rest of your post, but not this. The best android experience to me is the one that isn’t the most locked down, but the one that is most open and customisable - Samsung. I’ve got a few pixels, and funnily enough my last Pixel I owned was what lead me to switch to an iPhone. I figured if I was going to have a heavily locked down non-customisable phone, it may as well be the one that’s the best at it, which is the iPhone.
How exactly is a Pixel locker down and not customisable?
One thing that drive me nuts on Pixels is how uncustomizable the launcher is. Can’t even change basic things like the grid size or whether I want Google widgets locked permanently on the homescreen. Then, if you replace the launcher, gesture navigation gets all janky.
This. I have a pixel and i despise the launcher. Google search bar locked to the bottom of every screen, google calender locked to the main screen. The 3 buttons navigation bar is the worst i have seen and has zero customization options.
Why not load a rom(that supports relocking) and lock it?
On the launcher you can change basically nothing. Can’t move or remove the at a glance widget or the google search bar that takes precedence over your app bar. Can’t change the size or number of quick setting icons. Can’t change icon packs. Can’t change the grid size. Can’t change the task switcher look.
You can basically change nothing other than the accent colour.
You can literally change the launcher.
And you still literally can’t change the quick settings tiles or the theming etc.
Also changing the launcher fucks up gesture navigation.
There’s decent customization for the quick settings tiles, what are you looking to do? Also never had changing the launcher fuck up gesture navigation. I use NeoLauncher without any issues at least.
What customisation for quick settings tiles is there? I want to be able to have 12+ on screen at once if I want to, I want to be able to change their size, etc. I don’t want them to be those huge arse ugly blobs.
It’s a known thing. Google basically slightly broke gesture navigation for third party launchers, likely intentionally. It still works, but it’s buggy and worse than on the default launcher.