The Google garden has its own walls now, doesn’t it? Aren’t they preventing side loading of apps now (or soon)? I’m not sure what other walls do or don’t exist at this point.

I have an Android phone, and I like Android better than Apple, but these days I’m struggling to see much difference between the two brands.

Restricting the easyness (for now).
Still fully available to do.

Edit:
Regarding the difference between Android and Apple:

• Android is still more open
• The operation and what you are able to do on macOS vs Linux vs Windows and Android vs iOS is waay different.
  • Try mounting an SMB share on macOS. Soo different vs just being able to do it on Windows/Linux and also mounting the subfolder instead of the top-level dir.

In what way is Android more open? (Serious question, because I’m really not clear on how.)

SMB: I haven’t used a recent version of MacOS, but we were able to do it pretty easily on my wife’s 2017ish MacBook, which we just replaced because Apple wasn’t supporting it any more. But I do use SMB on my Android tablet (and occasionally phone) to access my Linux server. Is that possible on ios?

It’s literally open source: source.android.com

You can at least set a custom Android ringtone without having to pay for it

You can also set a custom ringtone on iPhone for free. It’s just that, it’s a multi-step process and you need the GarageBand app.

support.apple.com/en-us/120692

yes its possible to connect to a SMB share inside the Files app on iOS.

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