To be fair most people saying "[android/OEM skin] looks like iOS" also don't know how iOS looks, they just think that having squircles and blur is being an iOS clone
There's always the under-the-hood changes from Android upstream, and Samsung keeps adding customization options every update. Without rooting or 3rd party apps, no other OEM comes close to OneUI's customizability. For me, that's a huge plus.
I meant specifically 3rd party apps, because Samsung has the Good Lock suite of apps, which needs to be installed from the store. They work somewhat as a beta testing of features or advanced controls for existing features, and many of the features are added to new updates, for instance, the quick settings easy access up to One UI 5.1 (Android 13) is only available via Good Lock's Quick Star module, but seems to be built-in on One UI 6 (Android 14)
The “Quick Panel” [...] in terms of the look, it’s a pretty shameless copy of iOS’ Control Center
What is the penchant for these journalists to say everything looks/is copied from Apple? The quick settings menu looks nothing like iOS control center, unless they're talking about both having buttons and a blurred background. Also I believe Samsung's design is older than Apple's, at least first iterations of it.
I think this is a rare time that Google remembers the rest of the world exists. In here in Hungary, android 13, and the setting was available and was already on.
I think one of the biggest issues with FOSS-minded people is that they automatically consider open source software private, safe and having good intentions in mind, but they never actually go beyond the surface to check if it actually is.
Brazil has a thing called PIX. Universal (bank to bank), instant, 24/7, free of charge (except for business, but the fees are way lower than credit card transaction fees). It doesn't use blockhain, crypto or none of that, and it simply works. I think every bank and financial institution is required to provide PIX to their customers, and you can easily send money to anyone using a registered phone number, email, CPF (social security number (and no, we aren't as paranoid as americans about it)) or a randomly generated key.
PIX entered beta testing in late 2020, and soon enough was widely available in the country, to absolute approval. It's so easy to open bank accounts and have a PIX key that even homeless people with access to internet (which is also easy to get) have PIX and ask for money through it. Physical money is fading fast and people are loving it in Brazil.
There's a very vocal Samsung-hating bandwagon on every Android related community. Generally these people never used a Samsung device before or they're Pixel fanboys and bloat is everything that's not made by Google and just want to embrace the barebonesness of AOSP.
Thanks for the list, pretty much everything there is absolutely irrelevant to me and where I live, mas generally it's just about Trump.
On a side note, I also get very irritated that the news and world news communities are mainly news about American right wing politicians