after being an iPhone user for 6 years and recently switching to android (first a pixel, then one plus) I can say with confidence Google's hardware approach sucks. Android can do a lot more than iOS but it does most of the simple things in a user unfriendly way
I recently switched from a pixel to the iPhone X since the pixel 2 seemed very underwhelming to me. I'm honestly surprised how easy the switch was and how much more I like the X/iOS than the pixel/android. The one thing iOS is sorely missing is the notification bundling.
I tried the same thing and my biggest problem with iOS is that it feels like you can't cancel most animations. They take forever and you have to wait for them to finish either for it to actually allow you to continue or to be able to reliably hit the next target. It just felt so much slower than Android.
Android has three buttons rather than one, reducing menu fatigue. System settings are more customizable and generally easier to and more intuitive to use. Launcher screen be replaced by 3rd party app. Keyboard can be replaced by 3rd party app. Browsers can run any engine they want. Apps can host code. Terminal is a first class citizen. Phones can have the bootloader unlocked legally. Supports launch screen widgets. Better integration with Google services.
Sorry if iPhone now supports any of these. It didn't when I switched over from a 4.
I don’t know exactly what you mean by system settings, but iOS has a decent settings system. Android’s settings page UI is better, but iOS has a really impressive range of settings especially if you go into the accessibility menu. It has all sorts of detailed changes you can make to the UI and control scheme for the phone.
>Keyboard can be replaced by 3rd party app.
iOS has this now.
There are some things I miss from Android - one is the notification LED. Accessibility sets will let you use the flash as a notification light, but it’s a little bit more than I need.
Face ID is fantastic. I love how it sensors my message notifications until I look directly at the screen (this is configurable).
It is if you are a programmer. Must everything be locked down and controlled by a corporation for our safety? Are you aware of any issues this has caused on Android?
People are used to how their phones work, it's a form of lock-in. I can't figure out how a Mac works, never mind an iPhone. I just get annoyed in the first 10 seconds and give up. If iPhone could be made to work more like Android, I'd switch to the superior Apple privacy story. As it stands I really hate using Apple UIs.
Atleast give some constructive complaints, hating the UI sounds like a personal rant and not a good one as well when the whole world copies Apple's UI.
You open xCode, nothing appears, it just changed top menu.
You click on any other app in the meantime, and you need to go back to dock to do same action that opened it in first place.
You try to maximize window? For some reason it will move to other desktop.
You try to drag a window to the side, like in every other OS, to have it on half on screen? Nooo, users prefer long clicking on little maximize icon.
(and there's a ton of other hidden actions like this, looks like new users should just right click every control possible to discover them)
Mouse support is completely broken, looks like acceleration is optimized for touchpad, and you cannot fix it in settings.
And worst of all, I have to deal with this 'perfect UX' because, no you won't be able to develop an iPhone app on your Linux PC.
Should I tell my clients that I won't do iOS version of their app and that I don't care that their frontend will not have workarounds for bug ridden Safari?
I didn't have to buy Microsoft hardware to support Edge and Windows Phone.
I didn't have to buy Google hardware to support Android.
I had to buy Apple hardware to support iOS and Safari.
So no, I'm not free to not have a mac standing next to my real computer.
hating on iPhone? It's explaining why both parent comments don't share the same opinion. Everything else I said was very explicitly subjective, am I not allowed to express that I don't like using something?
> whole world copies Apple's UI
That is absolutely false, outside of the Apple marketing machine. Everyone copied Xerox and UI subsequently evolved byways of everybody copying everyone else in one way or another. I've also yet to see an integrated menu on Windows or Linux (although I am sure there exists some exotic window manager that does it) - so there's one concept that hasn't been copied and is entirely invented. There's also the Office ribbon. The modern iteration of flat UIs was born of the Metro interface language, a Microsoft invention - this now features strongly on both macOS and iOS.
This is also not true, Microsoft made it pervasive: between 1996 and 2017 MacOS has only ever peaked at roughly 10-15% market share. It is during this period that the market cap of computer users increased from millions (which can hardly be called "popular") to billions.
This is also shifting the goal posts. Your original comment had absolutely nothing to do with "who made UI popular."
> Why is every mobile UI a copy of the first Iphone.
Windows Mobile was definitely not a copy of the first iPhone.[1] I already pointed out that it was, in fact, Apple who took inspiration from Metro - which was the first iteration of the modern flat UI.
No they didn't.
What they did is show the world how to create a marketing campaign.
They took it to the point when people thought that Apple invented 3g when iPhone 3g went out, when it was on market for almost 10 years, and it was an update to what everyone else had already.
iPhone was way behind Symbian and Windows mobile at date of launch.
It didn't even have multitasking...
Also, use some arguments instead of switching topic every reply.
You accuse me of switching topic and then go and talk about 3g, how about practice what you preach?
Thank you for making my point I, you can do all the marketing you want but in the end you cannot sell a shitty product which Symbian and Windows Mobile learnt the hard way.
Apple succeeded because the user experience worked.
You have been so blinded by your hate for Apple that you cannot even accept that all the companies which you mentioned (you forgot to mention Blackberry) could not adapt to a new revolutionary interface. They were so stuck in the past that they refused to move.
> There are no iOS ones, since you cannot customize anything besides wallpaper and ringtone there, everything locked
Hahah that is the Apple way, you have to live in the walled garden, normal people like that. Of Course you won't understand this point.
I think I finally understood why you dont get it, you are looking at this from your selfish perspective, you are not thinking from the average consumer's perspective. Once you see that you will understand why you are wrong.
Let me know if you dont understand I will help you out.
You are wrong again, how many times have you been wrong. I do have top tier Android phone as well.
Have you given macOS a serious chance? When I first tried it out, almost 10 years ago, I HATED it. But eventually I was convinced by my brother to give it a genuine chance for a week. Since then, I haven't gone back. Whenever I setup a linux PC, the first thing I do is fix the hotkeys to match macOS.
If you have used Windows since Win95, CTRL+Left/Right is most-likely muscle memory. This hotkey also works in most Linux programs, including Vim and the terminal. It's practically as universal as ALT+F4. macOS does its own special thing. This is by and far the largest issue I have with macOS. It might sound silly, but keep in mind that I get thrown to a different desktop multiple times a minute, completely losing mental context each time, because I am using something that has the same effect everywhere else.
Assuming I could change the hotkeys to something less inane, I still wouldn't go near the ecosystem. I flat out refuse to spend $1700 on these specs[1] (i5 with Intel graphics), when I can spend $1899 on one of these[2] (i7 with GTX1060).
The iPhone is a different story and I might try it.
Not one single thing you wrote would be considered basic usability for 99% of smart phone owners.
> Many Android apps are more mature and have more features than iPhone equivalents.
Lol. Ok. Even the most ardent Android supporters don't claim that Android's app ecosystem is nearly as mature as Apple's.
> Slow handsets after 1.5 years
Slower handsets after your battery has degraded enough that your phone risks shutdown, thereby prolonging the life of your device and ensuring it's available when you need it. Easily resolved by getting a new battery.
So you want to say the recent battery fuck up by Apple was totally unintentional?
Of course software updates are designed to slow down your device after some years and it doesn’t matter if you use Apple/Microsoft/Google.
I'd like to see that list of Android 8 bugs and then compare it to iOS 11. You just need to look at the frequency of iOS 11 point releases to see what a mess they've created. They've released 10 iOS 11 updates so far and number 11 is just around the corner.
Characterizing iOS 11 as a mess is a gross exaggeration. If you told 99% of iPhone user's their phone was a mess, they wouldn't know what you were talking about. I would say Android version fragmentation is a significantly larger mess than anything Apple has ever done.
> You just need to look at the frequency of iOS 11 point releases to see what a mess they've created
Another interpretation is that they care more about software quality, and are fixing things that would be left broken by other manufacturers.
More Frequent updates doesn’t neccesaraly mean more bugs. It mostly means that they can patch the OS much more quickly and easily.
Also some of these updates are feature updates and many of the updates on iOS correspond to updates to play services as much as they aren’t updates to the core OS.
And if you want things like "receiving updates" and "no bloatware, stock android" you have to compromise on the hardware side. Gets even worse when you add phone carriers and warranty to the mix (depending where you live).
I just hope Treble will allow us to install a signed stock ROM (custom ROMs don't count in my book) on any device so all that matters is the hardware and customer support.
yeah, it's more like a theoretical option, because rooting voids warranty, plus you have to have technical knowledge how to do it. It is difficult to imagine my dad rooting phone :)
I bought a 1st gen Pixel in December 2016, so it's just over a year old. I'm delighted with every part of the hardware, except the screen. After around 6 months I noticed that the nav buttons are really badly burned in where the nav buttons are located([1] picture is not mine but it demonstates what I mean, I believe at this point mine is much worse than in this picture).
This is due to the nav buttons being constantly visible in most apps, an option to hide them and only spring up when required would be perfect. It's not the end of the world but it's one of those things that once you notice it you can't forget it.
Had this problem on my (beloved) Samsung Galaxy Nexus (i9250). It was released in Oct 2011, so I'm surprised it's a problem they still haven't fixed. I suppose longevity is only a small consideration to Google.
Yeah, it's quite a shame because I've always found the Google made phones to be the best. I had the Nexus 5 for 3+ years, and never had a problem with it. I think when it comes time to replace the Pixel I will have to look at other Android phones.
There must be an option in Display settings, named “Display Burn-In protection”. Do you have it enabled? Just curious, because I just purchased a Pixel 1.
Nope I cannot find that setting. I previously searched for such a setting and could not find it. Nothing in the display settings relates to burn in sadly.
I have a Pixel XL if that makes a difference but I doubt it, as they are practically the same phone.
> This is due to the nav buttons being constantly visible in most apps, an option to hide them and only spring up when required would be perfect.
Samsung has that on the Note 8 (the 5 still had hardware buttons, I'm not sure about the 7, or other lines, though the Note 8’s dimensions means that it is probably the phone that needs it least for real estate reasons, so I'd imagine it's across the line.)
Yeah my colleague has an S8 and it also has this function. It is possible to enable "Immersive Mode" on the pixel through an app and giving it root access through ADB. However it would be much easier if google just made it a toggleable setting.
Some people value headphone jacks, micro-SD expansion, dual-SIM support or other features that dont exist in the latest Pixels. These are all features that modern iPhones don't have either, so its a little hypocritical to call out Google if that is whats meant by the "sucks" part.
Only 2000 people are moving from HTC to Google, according to the article. HTC will then leave the phone market. I expect Google to continue following Apple's lead and remove more features. They also have to try to stop their IP from leaking out, and go through some culture shock working in Taiwan.
This is an opportunity for investors to hire the other HTC staff who refuse to join Google for ideological reasons (open designs, repairability) or who just didn't get hired. There's probably a few other people from iFixit, WebOS, Fairphone hanging around here.
YC Summer 2018 is open. I'm in Taiwan. Who wants to make a business plan?
Google has had a large data centre in Taiwan for ages. I suspect it's going to be more of a case of HTC staff having culture shock when joining Google.
How about this: most users do not care. The only thing I used from what you mention was headphone jack, but with iPhone 7 I got Beats X and all I can say: good riddance. I will argue that for most iPhone users whatever earbuds they find in the box are good enough.
SD cards? Why would I want that…
I have no idea what I'm going to do once my OG Pixel stops being supported. The lack of headphone jack is a serious concern to me. It truly blows my mind that so many people are capable of accepting this!
I can accept the lack of removable storage and battery. But the headphone jack? That's just the end of the line for me.
You've probably heard this from other people, but I recently switched from a Pixel to a Pixel 2 and was worried about losing the headphone jack as well.
Surprisingly, it hasn't bothered me at all. The battery life is long enough (and fast chase is fast enough) that I never need to charge my phone and listen to it at the same time, and I haven't noticed any difference in sound quality using Google's provided dongle.
Yep. Back when they were much more simple (like gingerbread?) I felt they hit the usability peak. My Pixel 2XL has a lot more features. It's certainly faster and better in almost every way, but it has so many trivial user experience bugs that it blows my mind that QA isn't fired.
If you could still use your gingerbread phone, you might be amazed how far it's come. I found an old Galaxy phone with 2.3 on it, and it was incredible how differently I remembered it. It was slow and clunky, and ugly by today's standard.
Has the responsiveness improved? It has been a while since I tried out android (htc one and galaxy s4) but I think the biggest thing that drove me back to iphone is UI.
Android's QA has always been terrible. As a Nexus user, I guess being a beta tester was part of the deal, but there's no way I'm spending $900 on a Pixel 2XL to replace my Nexus 6P. Nothing justifies the premium price really.
> most of the simple things in a user unfriendly way
Care to elaborate? The thing I value about Android is how I can setup the things "my way" vs. "Johnny Ive" way and so make important things far more simple to do than on iPhone.
Also interesting that you chose to test waters with sub par hardware vs. going top of the line Samsung. Both Google and OnePlus are well known to have hardware reliability issues.
You mean it sucks because one can customize it? I remember when I got the iPhone 3gs back then and was surprised you couldn't set a background picture.
Oh and these days iOS is still very locked down. So it just works because you are not allowed to do much. (Like having an app like Tasker for example, or choosing if your USB port on your phone should be used for storage, charging only, or even charging other devices).
Why would I want to customize it? It's the same reason I stopped using linux between 2010 and 2017 (I just built an Ubuntu box for DL, dual booted with windows ofc). The more "stuff" is abstracted away so I can get done what I need to is ideal for me.
So you would not want to be able to easily just plug in your phone into the PC and transfer files normally without having to install iTunes etc. (and even that can't do it)?
You would not want to automate certain things? (Like if you are on work wifi, automatically mute phone for example)
You wouldn't want to be able to get OBD II data from your car through your phone?
Wouldn't you want to be able to use Firefox with a firefox engine and not safari webkit?
and and and
All these are possible with stock android. Not even talking about hacky customizations.
No, I really don't have a need to transfer the proverbial "files" straight from my PC to my iphone. I don't need it to be a USB stick. I like that itunes manages my phone. And I have my icloud documents in my phone anyways in case I need them, which I never have.
I was at Google during the Motorola years. There was no integration whatsoever, by design. The Android team bent over backwards not to give Motorola any special access.
I remember reading somewhere that they did not integrate to not alienate other phone manufacturers, they were trying to avoid making the manufacturers feel like second class citizens.
It did. The have a majority of the market. They don't make money selling phones. They make money selling ads. As long as all the phones are using google search and ads they do well.
Simply put so that the oems like Samsung were not allienated into forking Android or going with another OS not that Samsung and Lg didn't try going with another OS.
Presumably to avoid any impression of special collaboration between Google and Motorola that would have spooked the large Android OEMs of the time - Samsung, HTC and LG.
This time will maybe probably actually be different despite Google's short strategic attention span. Seems to me that the main difference between then and now is that Google is probably less concerned about alienating the other Android device OEMs now that Android is more entrenched.
To speculate a little more wildly it's possible Google's motive is also to push the current Android manufacturers to "up their game" in the same way Google Fiber may have been a subtle threat to internet service providers.
also, Samsung has Tizen as a hedge / card against Android; so this may also be Google building up its leverage.
As you suggest, perhaps this iteration of hardware will be like Microsoft Surface. Well built, slightly more pricey hardware that set the bar for the industry..?
Apple comes across as people friendly, a hardware company who provides a tangible, usable set of products. Google comes across as what they are, an ad company with a semi-decent search engine and an OK web mail and docs platform. I stick with my i-devices and Fastmail.
What Apple or Google or any other company comes across as is mostly in the eye of the beholder and can be influenced by many, sometimes trivial things. As an example my perception of Google has changed in recent years, not so much due to them shedding projects but more due to the intense politicisation of the place and the censorship which followed. I don't use the search engine directly, preferring to go through a third party to gain a semblance of anonymity. The Android project still gets my vote as long as AOSP remains viable, as soon as that road is cut off I'll jump ship to something else. To me Apple seems to be more in the business of herding their flock of users, trying to extract as much profit from them as feasible. They know which strings to pull to make keep most users from leaving the flock but recently more and more have strayed to the edge and beyond.
Agree with this - however I am consistently awestruck by Google Earth. It rarely helps me in my day to day life (apple/google maps work fine for that) but I never grow tired of zooming in on a tiny fishing village on some remote island in the Pacific or a random settlement high in the Himalayas. It feels almost God-like.
Why would HTC sell 2000 engineers to Google if they plan to still make smartphones? This move suggests HTC management felt they would be unable to produce $1.1B value with those engineers (which should be a warning to investors).
For sure, the only reason I’ve been on Apple devices these past few years is because Ubuntu is such an abomination. Windows is plainly unthinkable. And if you have my laptop, the mobile devices fall like dominos. I don’t love iPhones, but even at premium prices it’s worth it to integrate with OS X.
Android really makes me sick though. Touted as free and open, but you still have to root your phone with shady exploits, payloaded over some sketchy USB shell. And then when you do, the custom roms are trash. And I wouldn’t even be rooting these devices if I could just efface some of the stock brand and bloatware, but no, every mobile provider wants me to sign into their analytics package, and billboard their logos all over the place. It’s a wasteland in all directions.
That's the mobile provider fault, not Android's... And no custom ROMs are necessary for root usually.
Also, what makes you prefer macOS UX than Windows or Ubuntu? They surely have their downsides, but I don't think they're THAT bad to the point of not even touching one.
Not OP, but for me it's the apps. While a good number of apps I use professionally can be used on both Windows and Linux, I prefer using OSX simply because Omnifocus, Fantastical and Spark exist on it. I'm sure there are other people who can use the Todoist/web/web trio or make do with Outlook (if you're in an all-Exchange shop with no CalDAV stuff), I'm just not one of them.
An alternative view is that Linux lacks good GUI apps and Windows blows at the command line (despite Bash on Windows). Windows apps also don't have great UX chops in the areas I'd like them to. 1password on Windows sucked the last time I used it, there's no native equivalent to Omnifocus or Things, there's no great calendar app like Fantastical, there's no great indie devs like Readdle[1] or Nucleobytes[2].
This comes from someone who's used all these OSes as well as FreeBSD and OpenBSD for both work and home.
There's nothing sketchy about it if you buy a phone that is unlocked or unlockable. If you get a Samsung from Verizon, then yeah you're gonna have a hard time.
Exactly, we're going to need a replacement for Google's vanilla Android soon. You can't even take off the Google Now bar - which takes up significant space on all workspaces!
Another me-too from Google. It doesn't matter how much money they put on it, it won't work until they do something innovative. Apple had to do it to get where they are.
Apple aquired a lot of companies to get their "innovative" features. Siri was aquired (I know, its not great, but it was novel when it came out), PA-Semi was aquired (boosted their in house SoC development), and the original Kinect team for the iPhone X face recognition sensor suite come to mind.
It's impossible to say how much input/influence each of these mergers had on the products of these companies. Some of these started products, some of these enhanced them, some of these even replaced them.
Though Apple is lagging behind in innovative features in recent times, I think they are at a higher level because of the excellent hardware that complements their software and vice versa. I think Google feels let down by the other mobile manufacturer's hardware and hence wants to bet big on improving its in house hardware expertise.
I am interested what innovative features are offered on other flagship phones that are not available for iPhone users?
My impression is that smartphones matured enough not to have any major breakthroughs in recent years.
That said Face ID is magic.
Gotta say as an iPhone user throughout (I own a nexus5 v1 ), I'm pretty impressed with HTCs design. However it's not clear that google will integrate them well.
I see this as more of a sign that Google doesn't care about scaring the hardware manufacturers anymore.
Fuchsia looks like it is at least 2 years from release (probably more.
No wonder O was presented as `the technical foundation of the next 10 years of Android` (from the last IO): it is possible that Google plans Fuchsia as an Android replacement (maybe only at the technical level, as long as they add ART, it can be the next version of Android) but it is not going to happen overnight.
Google has always been tone-deaf when it comes to how they treat their users. Apples treats their users as something special. Apple delights - google, well it's fast, but it sometimes creeps you out.
throwing more bodies at the problem isn't going to fix it - this is a top-down issue.
For sure, the only reason I’ve been on Apple devices these past few years is because Ubuntu is such an abomination. Windows is plainly unthinkable. And if you have my laptop, the mobile devices fall like dominos. I don’t love iPhones, but even at premium prices it’s worth it to integrate with OS X.
Android really makes me sick though. Touted as free and open, but you still have to root your phone with shady exploits, payloaded over some sketchy USB shell. And then when you do, the custom roms are trash. And I wouldn’t even be rooting these devices if I could just efface some of the stock brand and bloatware, but no, every mobile provider wants me to sign into their analytics package, and billboard their logos all over the place. It’s a wasteland in all directions.
