iOS doesn’t even have a damn file browser. How backwards is that.

Hasn’t helped most of them in western Europe though, in a lot of elementary schools they now teach about basic computer skills like how folders work (and they spend weeks on that).

It’s never been about a specific company or anything, it’s just that more people are using computers and don’t actually have to learn anything to use them.

Accurately made me giggle!

I wouldn’t say it’s lucky, there are tons of jobs that require & presume you to have the most basic knowledge about filesystem or folder hierarchy and the young hires I’ve had in the last few years act like I’m throwing them into an advanced calculus class. Mouths agape and eyebrows scrunched up as I slowly show them where files go, like I’ve invented fire in front of their eyes.

I did put your claim that most Android users know more than ios users, I think most phone users only know and care about the squares on their home screen. They’re all terrible, but at least they can’t break their device by default.

I’ve basically never needed to open the files app on Android or iOS except on rare occasions when I needed to find a downloaded file.

More people drive a car than understand how it works. They push the pedal and turn the wheel and get where they want to go. Of course that’s fine most of the time and we can’t all understand everything like a mechanic does. But when it’s something like a car or a computer that you use so, so much in your daily life and you don’t care to have even the most basic understanding of how it works… seems strange to me.

The way I see it, things have been filtered down to a design concept of “simplify until a toddler can figure it out” and that’s been followed by so many designs that everyone has overlooked all the drawbacks of designing in that fashion. People have become wildly content with simple apps that lack personal configuration or extended functionality because users now lack so much basic knowledge or expect crazy things to the point that if they come across any small issue they will call technical support, leave a crazed email, or complain loudly on social media long before they every actually considered solving the issue themselves or even checking online to see how others arrived at the issue. I kinda feel like I’m just rambling right now but for a long time society, at least here in the US, normalized and and removed negative connotations from the term “computer illiterate” to the point that it’s become not only the norm but the design goal.

I think it’s less to do with IOS vs Android and more to do with phone vs PC (potentially even ones where you had to use command prompt to do things). File systems, OS corruption, ability to replace parts, etc are not really things a typical phone-only user is going to deal with. There are a lot of primarily phone, tablet, Chromebook users these days and it abstracts away a lot of the lower-level stuff that millennials were forced to deal with to use AOL Instant Messenger to chat.

I would posit that most people working in business at this point don’t even need things as powerful as a modern PC.

I’m not going to speak to the rest of it but this hit a sore spot. You’re exactly right. Most applications that most office workers use are web based. Heavy lifting is done on the server or, more commonly these days, through SaaS. Most workers could do what they need on a Chromebook.

Obviously there are some exceptions but not too many depending on what business and department you’re in.