115 engineers on Hacker News describe using Android first-hand: 18 endorse it, 31 regret it, 13 are mixed.
“Android has been enshittifying at an alarming pace, too, although I don't feel like the Android experience from a software perspective is degrading or getting worse”
mixed · personal · jchw · 2026-10-16 · source ↗ · wrong label?“so I don't find out about some weird behavior that only occurs under Android 11 in prod”
mixed · production · cosmic_cheese · 2026-09-10 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I once tried mobile development in semi early days android... Native stuff has terrible developer experience.”
regret · personal · vasco · 2026-05-17 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've recently been using an Android phone a family member gave me after they upgraded and to my shock it's...fantastic?”
endorse · personal · SkyeCA · 2025-12-28 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I regret having wasted a good part of my career supporting Google with the Android enterprise.”
mixed · production · fidotron · 2025-10-29 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've been using a godsend feature that allows me to copy any text in any app (including text on images).”
endorse · personal · jaimehrubiks · 2024-12-26 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Regret it every day, facing shitty Android.”
regret · personal · numerosix · 2024-10-15 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Take note that Android is extremely fragmented and customized, especially in developing countries if that's your target market.”
mixed · production · muzani · 2024-05-20 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Android on the other hand was a nightmare. I had colleagues quitting in a rage and swearing to never again touch Android”
regret · production · MichaelRo · 2024-03-17 · source ↗ · wrong label?“The innovative period of Android Development where you can do anything is gone forever because of greedy corporations”
regret · production · 7 yr · prash2488 · 2023-12-27 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Android (at the time) had the habit of not putting images in managed memory, but separately.”
regret · production · alex3305 · 2023-12-23 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Only annoyance is Android has a thing where it doesn't allow apps that start on boot to automatically start getting GPS data”
regret · personal · kelnos · 2023-12-17 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Having used Android as my daily driver since Android 1.3, again, the default experience is pretty much ad-free.”
endorse · personal · 14 yr · indymike · 2023-04-17 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I started with the G1 and flashed custom roms and participated in XDA forums for years... Good riddance Android/Google, never again.”
regret · personal · sizzle · 2022-12-27 · source ↗ · wrong label?“As a long term android user, there are definitely great minimalist phones out there that give you a really good experience”
endorse · personal · magic_hamster · 2022-10-28 · source ↗ · wrong label?“We switched to distributing our own APK after Google forced Android App Bundles. Definitely sleep better at night because of that decision.”
regret · production · zkirill · 2022-10-27 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I'm no longer doing android development, thankfully (never again!)”
regret · production · notreallyserio · 2022-03-27 · source ↗ · wrong label?“in the end I realized the bugs in the OS were putting me at risk of physical harm or, at the very least, incredibly damaging data loss”
regret · personal · 10 yr · habosa · 2021-12-09 · source ↗ · wrong label?“never again to MBG, Android and especially Pixel”
regret · personal · censormenow · 2021-10-25 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Then we switched to the Pixel 2 and have been with the brand ever since.”
endorse · personal · 4 yr · ARandomerDude · 2021-09-19 · source ↗ · wrong label?“have had more than my fair share of headaches with Android audio, but have to say that the Oboe audio API in the newer versions of Android has made things quite a lot better”
mixed · production · tomduncalf · 2020-12-15 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I had android phones and did all the custom stuff & rooting from the G1 and forwards for many years, in the end i only regret not changing over sooner.”
regret · personal · Seanambers · 2020-12-13 · source ↗ · wrong label?“We tried to create an android app and we never were able to got it submitted... I'll never again try to create a business around an environment outside our control.”
regret · production · tobyhinloopen · 2020-05-14 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I regret using Android for many years, especially since Google, while I wasn't lookin, quietly moved from innovative and user-friendly to literally user hostile.”
regret · personal · zwaps · 2019-12-10 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Google's treatment of development is horrible and I don't want any part of it.”
regret · personal · jmiskovic · 2019-05-26 · source ↗ · wrong label?“that news was the last straw to make the boss decide we will stop selling Android 5 devices.”
regret · production · Fradow · 2019-04-17 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've been using it and so far it has worked fairly well.”
endorse · personal · jchw · 2018-12-26 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I have been a strict Android user for years... My only mobile apps are Android only and regret it. I was a big android advocate and now I am not.”
regret · personal · monkmartinez · 2018-09-20 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I am amazed by how well my mobile phone works (Android)”
endorse · personal · wslh · 2018-07-03 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I have been using Nexus phones for about the last 5 years now... Android and particularly vanilla Android have really closed the gap on iOS”
endorse · personal · 5 yr · GVIrish · 2017-12-26 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I did a three year detour to Android, but never again. Update after update things were broken”
regret · personal · 3 yr · microtonal · 2017-12-02 · source ↗ · wrong label?“it was a really hellish experience because I never managed to get things to sync right.”
regret · personal · qubex · 2017-12-02 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I tried an android back around the Galaxy Note 2 time frame and disliked it immensely.”
mixed · personal · myrandomcomment · 2016-12-06 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've been using Android since the G1 and am about to ditch it due to lack of updates being given to me on all the devices”
regret · personal · 7 yr · 72deluxe · 2015-07-28 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Android is not as polished as ios, I want to add.”
mixed · personal · billconan · 2015-07-24 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I have been using Android since the G1 and every i/o they have redesigned the interface.”
mixed · personal · 7 yr · 72deluxe · 2015-07-15 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Then Google bricked it with the 5.1.1 update... updating to the latest version bricks it again”
regret · personal · 2 yr · huehue · 2015-07-02 · source ↗ · wrong label?“The usablity of Android is at best "quite Ok". And so much app crap”
regret · personal · KobaQ · 2014-10-25 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've owned a Sony android device (Xperia SP) Never again. Total bag of crap.”
regret · personal · monstermonster · 2014-10-16 · source ↗ · wrong label?“If you're a current iPhone user, and haven't been a dedicated Android user, my advice would be don't. You'll regret it.”
regret · personal · ssmoot · 2014-09-09 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I have been using Android phones since 2010 (rarely on a stock ROM) and even now flashing anything is done with a prayer on my lips.”
mixed · personal · 3 yr · codelust · 2013-11-28 · source ↗ · wrong label?“When I tried Android, I got exactly same feeling of wild.”
regret · personal · eonil · 2013-11-25 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I was pleased with how far the OS had come since Eclair, but it still felt less responsive than even my 3-year-old iPhone.”
mixed · personal · bookface · 2013-09-21 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Yeah, you too can watch as "Android OS" drains the battery in 6 hours. Honestly, if you get a Nexus 4 be prepared to be a beta tester”
regret · personal · jrabone · 2013-08-28 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I like and have no problems with Android”
endorse · personal · edtechdev · 2013-07-25 · source ↗ · wrong label?“will return me to living in a pure Google Android experience”
endorse · personal · SwellJoe · 2012-11-03 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I regret buying an Android phone as the only update I received was 2.3 with their Sense UI crap-ware.”
regret · personal · azharcs · 2012-10-06 · source ↗ · wrong label?“If I had to pick one to use for the rest of my life, I'd go Android, without regret, for the open platform.”
endorse · personal · drivingmenuts · 2012-09-25 · source ↗ · wrong label?“My wife's experience with nexus s has been much more hassle free than mine.”
endorse · personal · rustynails · 2012-09-20 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Android is the better OS. I sold my iPad 2 and bought the Nexus 7 on the same day and I regret nothing.”
endorse · personal · Nicole060 · 2012-08-31 · source ↗ · wrong label?“fragmentation does cause us a lot of extra work. We have to track down and maintain physical phones from each vendor”
regret · production · jrockway · 2012-05-22 · source ↗ · wrong label?“after dealing with dead end upgrade cycles I just can not bring myself to switch.”
mixed · personal · kls · 2011-12-24 · source ↗ · wrong label?“The last upgrade actually seemed to introduce a random shutdown, making me actually regret upgrading the OS, but that's about the only problem I have.”
mixed · personal · qdog · 2011-12-16 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I prefer my Android's OS and app ecosystem.”
endorse · personal · bad_user · 2011-12-08 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've switched to an inexpensive Android phone, and I don't regret it.”
endorse · personal · morsch · 2011-10-17 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I will immediately go back to an android phone, and most likely a Droid.”
endorse · personal · codeslush · 2011-07-07 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Android has unbelievably crappy tools.”
regret · personal · nestlequ1k · 2010-12-30 · source ↗ · wrong label?“developing on Android after having worked on iPhone is a bit like waking up from a vivid nightmare”
regret · production · abstractbill · 2010-12-08 · source ↗ · wrong label?“By far my number one complaint is bugs. Some of them are so apparent and easily reproducible is simply inexcusable”
regret · personal · 1 yr · pbz · 2010-12-03 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've been using Android phones since the G1. The quality improvements over the last 6 months have been incredible.”
endorse · personal · 2 yr · ergo98 · 2010-10-17 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've been using Android solely for the past 2 months and I'm going to start developing for it soon. ... I love this OS, but this madness has to stop.”
mixed · personal · 0.17 yr · spiffworks · 2010-10-12 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've been using Voice Access on Android 17, but only sparingly, mostly to control my camera while it's mounted to a tripod”
neutral · personal · ButlerianJihad · 2026-10-29 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Afterwards we moved to Android (1.5, with 1.6 coming) and iPhoneOS.”
neutral · production · izacus · 2026-09-24 · source ↗ · wrong label?“it's capped by the Android TV CPU and poorly optimized driver stack”
neutral · personal · mrandish · 2026-06-26 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've been using Android for over a decade and my wife's iPhone is super confusing to me.”
neutral · personal · 10 yr · rr808 · 2025-12-28 · source ↗ · wrong label?“We have a nice Sony Android TV along with a pihole.”
neutral · personal · aceazzameen · 2025-12-13 · source ↗ · wrong label?“My hackathon kit from then was a dirt cheap Android tablet”
neutral · personal · PaulHoule · 2025-11-24 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I am always open to replacing my Android with FREE (as in freedom) alternatives.”
neutral · personal · masfoobar · 2025-10-15 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Everything is seamlessly synced across Linux, Android, and Windows.”
neutral · personal · apitman · 2024-12-17 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I was on Android 8, or 6, or something ridiculous, I can't recall now.”
neutral · personal · 5 yr · sourcepluck · 2024-12-17 · source ↗ · wrong label?“We use Linux and Windows boxes at home, and Android phones (for now).”
neutral · personal · hn_acc1 · 2024-12-17 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I'll still stay on Android since that's what I know to use (and to some extent, develop for)”
neutral · personal · MichaelRo · 2024-07-11 · source ↗ · wrong label?“embedded it and SQLite as the (non graphics) engine for otherwise native apps on iOS and Android”
neutral · production · mikemee · 2024-06-02 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I made an Android app AND REGRET USING REACT NATIVE!”
neutral · production · DecoPerson · 2023-12-13 · source ↗ · wrong label?“switching to iOS after 13 years of Android, I don't regret my decision.”
neutral · personal · 13 yr · digikazi · 2023-11-23 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've work from OS-less embedded systems, to device drivers, to Android porting.”
neutral · production · stusmall · 2023-11-23 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I'm an android dev using it to make websites, something I haven't done myself in like 15 years.”
neutral · production · cryptoz · 2023-10-31 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've been using Android Firefox for years.”
neutral · personal · recursive · 2022-12-26 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Originally our frontend was Android only. We ditched that app in favor of a Kotlin-js based web app”
neutral · production · jillesvangurp · 2022-05-26 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I use my Android Box (Chromecast with Google TV would work also) for Japanese IPTV.”
neutral · personal · kazinator · 2020-12-27 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've been using AOSP-derived distributions for as long as I've been using Android - close to 10 years”
neutral · personal · 10 yr · Yetanfou · 2020-11-14 · source ↗ · wrong label?“there's a ton of inexpensive AndroidTV devices out there but quality is all over the place.”
neutral · production · poutine · 2020-05-07 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've been using Android since the first public device was sold”
neutral · personal · 11 yr · lnanek2 · 2019-12-03 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I used to make Android apps and got a strike once.”
neutral · personal · duiker101 · 2019-09-20 · source ↗ · wrong label?“we switched to android at some point, purely because it was too much headache.”
neutral · production · jddj · 2019-02-12 · source ↗ · wrong label?“So we had to build native iOS and Android apps to support that, duplicating many features of our responsive webapp.”
neutral · production · cseelus · 2018-05-04 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Very much so, I see this all the time in production Android code. Someone throws in an iterator like this in an onDraw()”
neutral · production · vvanders · 2017-12-31 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I have been using Androids for a long time.”
neutral · personal · k3a · 2017-12-22 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've worked extensively in C++ for cross platform on iOS and Android.”
neutral · production · ahlwong · 2017-11-01 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Been android all my life. Bought almost every phone on the Google store.”
neutral · personal · DSingularity · 2017-10-04 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've been using Android for about 6 years now, and I'd estimate I spend $2-5 a month on apps”
neutral · personal · 6 yr · mcpherrinm · 2016-12-10 · source ↗ · wrong label?“we started with it and migrated it to Android a few weeks ago.”
neutral · production · girvo · 2016-03-30 · source ↗ · wrong label?“on Android we run the decompiled binaries through software making heavy use of finite state machines”
neutral · production · seibelj · 2015-11-18 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I have written Kotlin for an Android app now in production.”
neutral · production · staltz · 2015-07-25 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've developed for Android, iOS and WinPhone”
neutral · production · AdeptusAquinas · 2015-07-15 · source ↗ · wrong label?“We spent probably over 300k of that budget in testing on the next latest platform/latest android build/bugs”
neutral · production · kraig911 · 2015-07-09 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've been using the Android version for a few months and it works fine”
neutral · personal · 0.25 yr · jonasvp · 2015-06-27 · source ↗ · wrong label?“we do get crash reports coming in from select Android devices that still don't have some of the standard library from Java 7”
neutral · production · stickydink · 2015-06-09 · source ↗ · wrong label?“We use this right now in our mobile apps. The apps respond by calling back to FastMail to check for updates.”
neutral · production · robn_fastmail · 2014-12-23 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I work on developing my Android development and Rails development skill sets in my free time.”
neutral · personal · laughfactory · 2014-07-23 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I just got my Android phone and I agree.”
neutral · personal · reginaldjcooper · 2013-12-09 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've rooted my Android phone and I've been using LBE Privacy Guard”
neutral · personal · ToastyMallows · 2013-12-06 · source ↗ · wrong label?“We use linux for: redis, elasticsearch, HAProxy, DNS (bind), nginx, mail (exim) apache, wordpress, mysql, nexpose, backups, puppet, asterix, android builds and our internal mercurial.”
neutral · production · Nick-Craver · 2013-10-16 · source ↗ · wrong label?“At first I wasn't sure if I was leaving behind my Android phone, but I'm going to do it”
neutral · personal · reidrac · 2013-08-26 · source ↗ · wrong label?“This was fixed in Android 4.2 when we switched from BouncyCastle to OpenSSL as the underlying crypto provider.”
neutral · production · tjohns · 2013-08-11 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I've got my phone up to Android 4.0 after a stupid custom process from the manufacturer”
neutral · personal · jklio · 2012-11-04 · source ↗ · wrong label?“For some reason, this didn't happen even after using Android tablets, even with docking keyboards.”
neutral · personal · marshray · 2012-11-02 · source ↗ · wrong label?“the "HTC Sense" customized Android experience has always been bloated and of course, un-removable.”
neutral · personal · rkalla · 2011-12-07 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Each Android handset manufacturer can choose which Bluetooth stack they want to use. Unfortunately the L2CAP API calls we use aren't available in the Broadcom stack”
neutral · production · erohead · 2011-11-29 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I have been using android since the G1 launched, yet I have probably only spent about 50 dollars total on apps.”
neutral · personal · 3 yr · phaus · 2011-11-23 · source ↗ · wrong label?“For android, I've been using Rainy Days”
neutral · personal · gregable · 2011-11-02 · source ↗ · wrong label?“We had a native app developed in Android. When we decided to create an iOS version, we selected Appcelerator”
neutral · production · cmchien · 2011-06-20 · source ↗ · wrong label?“We switched to developing iOS and Android apps, and we never looked back.”
neutral · production · andrewljohnson · 2010-12-19 · source ↗ · wrong label?“We've been using a Google G1 as our low-end Android device for testing and see similar issues”
neutral · production · todd-parker · 2010-10-17 · source ↗ · wrong label?