Slow, extra data traffic, extra battery usage.

What are the upsides? I could see a phone being a great controller for a remote seedbox for sure.

Why would you torrent from your phone?

Wrong tool for the job…

My reasons:

1. Because it just works.
2. I can uninstall the trash apps that apple includes and use my own preferences.
3. Don’t have to deal with bloatware from two vendors (Google and Samsung for example)
4. Vendor lock-in. I started on iOS (iPod touch) and so I have a certain amount of app purchases that are iOS-only. This is the only one that galls me.
5. longevity / platform support. I’ve had this thing for close to five years, and the battery is only starting to fail in the last few months.
6. decent display. Samsung galaxy’s PCM brightness control gives me horrible eye strain.

Maybe it’s just Samsung that’s trash, I dunno. I tried hard to like android and in principle I should prefer Google’s more open ecosystem. But it just seems to enable every manufacturer of android phones to try to outcompete each other in how awful they can make the experience of owning their products, all in the name of trying to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

At this point is it even subterfuge?

They’re not hiding it any more.