Besides the ease of registration, the sync between devices make it easier. It can be frustrating not to be able to easily backup/restore/sync all your chats just like Whatsapp or Telegram. Yes, privacy/security, but i believe not everyone is chased by a state actor and you might want to have the option, as an opt-in maybe.
Thanks…As a DJI owner myself, I pretty much know how much it wanted to phone home. After some update of the app, the drone would not fly if it didn’t at least check home once every month or so. And it forcefully updated the drone so it would reject the drone from taking off. And it would expire the login on the older app if you wanted to keep it, so you were pushed in all directions towards a phone-home-based model. It wasn’t this way in the beginning, and after some initial checks, the app could be kept offline. But after I got burnt with after-sales practices, I’d rather keep other models in mind. Or at least one that is easy to hack and forget.
I mean if you want you should be able to download/compile to your phone model. With lineage its about as simple as downloading the source, running a specific single command that customizes the specific drivers for your phone, then hit compile and go take a coffee. You’ll end up with an installable image you can just copy to your phone.
Not using apple devices, sadly.