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Where Android Beats the iPhone

Posted by timothy on from the but-that's-not-how-jobs-wants-it dept.

snydeq writes "Peter Wayner provides a developer's comparison of Android and the iPhone and finds Android not only competitive but in fact a better choice than the iPhone for many developers, largely due to its Java foundation. 'While iPhone developers have found that one path to success is playing to our baser instincts (until Apple shuts them down), a number of Android applications are offering practical solutions that unlock the power of a phone that's really a Unix machine you can slip into your pocket,' Wayner writes, pointing out GScript and Remote DB as two powerful tools for developers to make rough but workable custom tools for Android. But the real gem is Java: 'The pure Java foundation of Android will be one of the biggest attractions for many businesses with Java programmers on the staff. Any Java developer familiar with Eclipse should be able to use Google's Android documentation to turn out a very basic application in just a few hours. Not only that, but all of the code from other Java programs will run on your Android phone — although it won't look pretty or run as fast as it does on multicore servers.'"

61 of 365 comments (clear)

  1. It's biggest strength by XPeter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not DRM-laden patent trolling Apple.

    --
    "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
    1. Re:It's biggest strength by Xebikr · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Why was this modded down? Is it wrong? Apple has gone from evil yet innovative to just evil. Their recent lawsuits all but scream "We are out of ideas! Release the lawyers!"

    2. Re:It's biggest strength by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Why was this modded down? Is it wrong? Apple has gone from evil yet innovative to just evil. Their recent lawsuits all but scream "We are out of ideas! Release the lawyers!"

      It was modded down because the iphone owners on slashdot got to it before the android owners did.

    3. Re:It's biggest strength by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Apple was never "evil yet innovative". The most "innovative" thing they ever did was introduce graphical computing to the masses...by buying the GUI PARC invented and basically using it as is. They've been especially uninnovative since the return of Jobs though, as their main business strategy has been entering rapidly growing markets and doing the same as everyone else, but more expensive and with less features. But they put it in shiny white plastic and market the hell out of it and everyone buys one because they want to be cool and Think Different, just like everyone else. Apple isn't a tech company, they're a fashion accessory company whose products happen to also function as gadgets.

    4. Re:It's biggest strength by zullnero · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Apple was only occasionally innovative. They generally stole a lot of their ideas just like everyone else. But I agree, they are evil, though they've only really been evil since they got their first big taste of success with the iPod and have slid into crazy evil. Once upon a time, they actually served a useful purpose as a company delivering a product that helped to motivate the whole market towards user-oriented innovation. Mainly by stealing good ideas that other companies had, nabbing ideas from here and there, and making them work within their closed loop and proving to the market that those ideas were good.

    5. Re:It's biggest strength by Thinboy00 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Think of the 1984 ad... a la role reversal (someone should do a parody replacing "big brother" with Jobs and the jogger with... Tux?)

      --
      $ make available
    6. Re:It's biggest strength by pydev · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's actually even worse than that. PARC's GUI was a lot more advanced than the crap Apple actually shipped as MacOS; Apple merely imitated its looks but cut corners on the implementation. That's why MacOS was on a death spiral within ten years: it didn't have a solid architecture or foundation.

      OS X actually copied a bit more of PARC's technology, but even Objective-C and Cocoa are lousy compared to PARC's original technologies.

    7. Re:It's biggest strength by moosesocks · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So a handful of patent lawsuits and a weirdly restrictive app store make a company "crazy evil?"

      Pardon me if I can't quite hear Steve Jobs cackling in the background, but technology companies have been suing each other for patent violations as long as they have existed -- even our darlings at Novell are no strangers to being on the plaintiff's stand at patent hearings.

      When they got successful with the iPod, they brought legal (and eventually drm-free) downloads to the masses -- great for artists and consumers alike. I'm not a fan of the proprietary format, so I shop at Amazon these days, although Apple certainly deserves credit where it's due for (finally) managing to get the industry on board for a sales model that wasn't entirely draconian. Without iTunes, there'd be no Amazon mp3 store.

      The iPhone is also the most open platform to have ever reached a considerable portion of casual cell phone users, and spurred considerable innovation in the industry. Without the iPhone, there almost certainly would be no Android. Again, I don't own one because of the stupid app store policies, but it's not hard to acknowledge the effect it had on the marketplace. It really was the first smartphone that didn't completely suck.

      Although Apple's ideas might not all be completely original, their talent scouts seem to have a knack for snatching up promising technologies, and incorporating them into successful products, largely influenced by their user-centric design and extensive usability testing. At the end of the day, this is really all that matters to the company -- it doesn't matter if the technology was invented in-house, purchased outright, or "inspired" by something else. After all, Jobs loves quoting Picasso: "Good artists copy. Great artists steal."

      --
      -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
    8. Re:It's biggest strength by Lundse · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "...but in calling Apple evil, you're espousing a communist standpoint."

      No. The communist standpoint would be all corporations, and indeed any mode of production where the tools for production is owned and people then sell their labour-hours to the owners, is inherently and necessarily evil. (Socialism, btw, is thinking you can keep that system and mitigate its evils).

      The things Apple are doing; suing, lying, pushing a model where people have no control over 'their own' devices and generally selling a platform to the so-called content owners instead of servicing the public - is evil. Their motivation does not matter, the things they do have bad consequences for everyone but their shareholders, they know it and this is about as close to 'evil' as you get without waxing theological.

      Doing whatever makes money is not a get-out-of-having-a-conscience-card just because 'that's what the public wants'. How is that paper on the invisible hand (which allegedly guarantees this weird thesis) coming, Mr. Smith?

      --
      IAIFARSIJDPOOTV - I Am In Fact A Reality Star; I Just Don't Play One On TV
    9. Re:It's biggest strength by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They've been especially uninnovative since the return of Jobs though, as their main business strategy has been entering rapidly growing markets and doing the same as everyone else, but more expensive and with less features..

      Typical geek. "How can this iPod/iPhone be better ? It has less features !" Would the average person have been able to get work done on the PARC machine ? Probably not, but they could on the mac. Some people actually care that it's nicely designed, that the feature that are included work in thoroughly logical and planned out manner, that it's easier to use and yes it even looks nice. THAT is Apple's strength.

      --
      If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
    10. Re:It's biggest strength by mcvos · · Score: 3, Insightful

      that it's easier to use

      This especially. Say what you like, but the iPod's UI was way better than that of any other music player at the time. Same with the iPhone that did way with navigating through crappy menus just to do something basic.

      There's tons of stuff wrong with Apple, and I'm glad I switched from iPhone to Android, but Apple does know better than anyone else how to make accessible and usable interfaces.

  2. Use "em" not "px" when defining the UI by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 2, Interesting

    To those about to complain that screen resolution differences makes developing for android harder, then try using a UI measurement that does not rely on pixels, like em

    1. Re:Use "em" not "px" when defining the UI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      To those about to complain that screen resolution differences makes developing for android harder, then try using a UI measurement that does not rely on pixels, like em

      Incidentally bitmaps that use em have not been invented yet. Vectors are not good for everything, and may take more power to render on the fly.

      Also, em solves exactly nothing about how much content can you fit on a display before it becomes unreadable, a problem you may get if you treat DPI as a free variable. Oh and it also doesn't factor in display ratio, unless you think squashing things is the way to go.

    2. Re:Use "em" not "px" when defining the UI by MemoryDragon · · Score: 2, Funny

      You always can use layout managers...
      Only Windows UI Programmers complain about screen sizes...

    3. Re:Use "em" not "px" when defining the UI by ducomputergeek · · Score: 4, Interesting

      With our last website design for our shopping cart, we elected to go with a fluid layout and use em. Great right? Nope. We heard so many complaints from customers it was rather eye-opening. The fact that things were "a little different" from screen to screen (say a desktop vs laptop) annoyed and confused people even if a box was just had more space in between. Frankly we couldn't see it. If the screen was wider, there was a bit more separation in places. So we ended up going back and defining everything being centered and by pixels so it looked the exact same no matter if the user had a 12.1" screen or 30" LCD TV. If they had a bigger screen/higher resolution, they just got to see more of the background gradient. The complaints stopped and we didn't alter the design. So go figure....

      We also have clients who are insanely anal about their branding and virtually demand things to be "pixel" perfect. With the iPhone/iPod Touch this hasn't been a problem. Android it has. Not to mention the other hardware inconsistencies.

      But in our shop, Android is really starting to cost us a lot of money in QA testing. And we guarantee that our software works on all known models as of a certain date. It's in the contract and the clients do pay us well for it. Our testing hardware for the iPhone/iPod Touch has been $1600 over the past two years. (iPhone 3G, iPhone 3Gs, iPod Touch). We've spent over $2500 acquiring Android hardware just in the last six months of last year and have already spent another $1400 this year.

      As a result, the cost of us building an Android app is now double that of an iPhone app. And at the rate the new Android phones are coming out, that is likely to increase if customers want a full compatibility guarantee.

      Now we're about to launch our first application built using the PhoneGap framework. It's basically a web app wrapped using PhoneGap's "container" (for lack of better description) and should allow us to support iPhone, Blackberry, and Android by only having to support 1 framework and using web programming. But we'll see how well that works.

      --
      "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
    4. Re:Use "em" not "px" when defining the UI by bjartur · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Then use a mix of em and CSS3 px (which are _NOT_ screen pixels), possibly with display ratio @rules. Convert to pixels at install-time if doing so on run-time is to slow. Problem solved. Or just use a Java layout manager...

    5. Re:Use "em" not "px" when defining the UI by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2, Informative

      Only Windows UI Programmers complain about screen sizes...

      We don't - we've had WPF, with flexible layouts by default, since 2006.

      And those who are .NET-allergic and prefer C++ can always just use Qt.

    6. Re:Use "em" not "px" when defining the UI by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Informative

      I program Windows btw, but it's always been a pet hate that for so long, Windows enforced developers into a pixel-fixed unresizable GUI design.

      Well, it's not entirely true - while it wasn't properly resizable, it wasn't really pixel-fixed, either. For example, if you ever programmed directly in Win32 API or in MFC, you might remember that dialogs are laid out not in pixels, but in dialog units, which are actually a bit like em in that they are tied to the pixel size of the default UI font. If user changes the DPI setting in configuration, font size changes correspondingly, and dialogs should scale accordingly.

      The problem is that this is only used by default for dialog templates fed to CreateDialogIndirect. If you ever create a window yourself using CreateWindow, and manipulate that, all sizes do indeed come in pixels, and you need to use something like MapDialogRect to convert them yourself. And, of course, most people didn't bother...

      The other problem is that many high-level frameworks didn't bother, either. Delphi didn't do so for a long time, forcing to deal with pixels directly, for example. VB6 of all things did it right by introducing "twips", which are DPI-dependent (1440 twips/inch; that's 20 twips/pixel at 72dpi, and 15 twips/pixel at 96dpi), and using them for all UI measurements. Even then, creative code monkeys broke the model by observing the twip/pixel ratio for their specific DPI, and then using that as a general-purpose conversion formula...

      Now, as noted earlier, this still doesn't lead to truly reflowable UI. And it's not just a matter of user convenience, either - proper localization with statically sized UI is a pain, especially if you start with English, because strings in most other languages are longer, and can easily overflow UI elements sized for English. In sentences, word count can differ widely, too - sometimes so much so that the label now needs to be two-line to fit. On Windows, this was historically "solved" by letting localizers also tweak dialog layouts as needed, but this is obviously an ugly hack. The only proper solution is reflowable UI.

      Oh, and it was there before 2006 in stock offerings; WinForms got layouts in .NET 2.0, in 2005. It's just that it was not very convenient to use, and not well supported by visual form designer. With WPF and its XML-based markup, it's much more natural.

      And, of course, third-party frameworks had dynamic layouts on Win32 for ages. Qt had it since the first version, I believe; at least it was definitely in 2.x, which was the first one I've seen.

    7. Re:Use "em" not "px" when defining the UI by MobyDisk · · Score: 3, Insightful

      We heard so many complaints from customers it was rather eye-opening.

      Then your layout sucked. Nothing is more annoying than a static 1280x1024 layout on an iPhone, that requires me to zoom in and out constantly. For a good flow layout, take a look at Wikipedia or Amazon's mobile sites. Just because you couldn't do it right doesn't mean all flow layouts are wrong.

      As a result, the cost of us building an Android app is now double that of an iPhone app.

      You are supporting more hardware devices, so you have to test on more hardware devices, which costs more. Would you rather that each of those pieces of hardware have a different operating system? You should be thanking Google for Android, because the only reason you are even capable of supporting all these devices is because it is so much cheaper because of Android. Before Android, you had to write for even more operating systems.

    8. Re:Use "em" not "px" when defining the UI by Sancho · · Score: 5, Informative

      His point is from a flawed premise. The Android emulator lets you target any version of Android with any version of the software. They could have spent 0 in purchase costs in order to effectively test on every conceivable hardware platform. They set unreasonable testing criteria, paid too much to fulfill it, and now they're complaining about it.

    9. Re:Use "em" not "px" when defining the UI by hunangarden · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You don't have to buy all models of android phones to "prove" it will work. Android Emulator works just fine and you can test different OS versions, screen sizes and resolutions on it. I do own a Motorola droid and do test on it, but I don't lose sleep worrying about how my app will run on different phones, because the emulator testing works well.

      People let you know pretty fast if there is an issue with their phone model and you can release an update any time you choose (its actually instant, you post the update to the Android Market and users can immediately download the new version or update their old one).

      We've (LLC) sold about 1200 copies of our app for Android, so far it seems to work fine on all models that it was designed for.

    10. Re:Use "em" not "px" when defining the UI by pydev · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Android it has. Not to mention the other hardware inconsistencies.

      "Inconsistencies?" Has it occurred to you that there is actually a demand for these varieties of devices? The iPhone resolution and keyboard simply don't work for me (I tried). They don't work for many other people either. We want high resolution devices with a keyboard. I'm sorry that inconveniences you as a developer, but you'll just have deal with it (unless Apple succeeds into turning us into the United Socialist Apple Republic, where everybody is forced to use a single standard device by Apple Corporate).

      As a result, the cost of us building an Android app is now double that of an iPhone app. And at the rate the new Android phones are coming out, that is likely to increase if customers want a full compatibility guarantee.

      And the market share is likely going to be double that of the iPhone soon as well. Again, go deal with it. Or if you don't want to deal with it, fine, that's your choice; I'm sure other developers will be happy to take your market share.

      We've spent over $2500 acquiring Android hardware just in the last six months of last year and have already spent another $1400 this year.

      I hardly call $5000 in hardware per year a significant expense for a development shop. But you don't have to do it anyway since you can test on emulators.

    11. Re:Use "em" not "px" when defining the UI by GlassHeart · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Professionals who tell their clients that "the software sill work on all shipping Android phones" better have tested on actual hardware. Emulators could not replicate for you chipset quirks, subtle timing problems, and many other issues that only occur on hardware. If you've shipped commercial software tested only against an emulator, I would strongly urge you to not admit it, and maybe get a lawyer.

    12. Re:Use "em" not "px" when defining the UI by centuren · · Score: 4, Informative

      Professionals who tell their clients that "the software sill work on all shipping Android phones" better have tested on actual hardware. Emulators could not replicate for you chipset quirks, subtle timing problems, and many other issues that only occur on hardware. If you've shipped commercial software tested only against an emulator, I would strongly urge you to not admit it, and maybe get a lawyer.

      This happens all the time in other areas, without need of lawyers. Support of all versions of IE (6+) on all versions of Windows (2000+) comes directly to mind. Web shops don't have a hardware setup for every Windows/IE combination, we use virtual machines (i.e. emulators). We make sure clients sign off on the final product, and professional obligations are honourable fulfilled.

    13. Re:Use "em" not "px" when defining the UI by Sancho · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "All shipping Android phones" is a somewhat silly claim to make. Do you tell your clients that your desktop software will run "on all shipping Windows laptops?" Your testing costs must be through the roof. It's amazing that anyone makes any money in this field.

  3. That's peachy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unfortunately right now it appears that for users it's the other way around.

    1. Re:That's peachy by mdwh2 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's not what the buyers are saying with their money since they are still buying more iPhones than Android phones.

      And there are far more buyers buying Nokia, along with Motorola, Samsung, LG, and even RIM, high above Apple or Google.

      You need to expand your sampling of "users" to beyond the slashdot neckbeards.

      Yes, exactly. I wish people would do that, instead of pretending it's just Apple versus Google.

    2. Re:That's peachy by BitZtream · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's not true. ONE reason for the iPhone's dominance is that there was no competition with a similar hardware class for quite some time.

      Sounds to me like you didn't know smart phones existed before you saw the iPhone.

      I assure you, I owned more powerful phones before hand, the only thing the iPhone has that its predecessor didn't is accelerometers and iPhone OS, my original iPhone was actually less powerful than the WinMo phone I owned before it.

      Hardware wasn't the problem. The problem is that smartphones in general suck, the iPhone happens to suck a whole lot less.

      No, don't tell me about what smart phone you have and how it doesn't suck. It does, you just don't realize it, they have a long way to go before the start getting to the non-suck state. We're about at the C64 stage right now. Which many look back on fondly and talk about how great they are ... from their modern, billion times faster PCs.

      The problem is that people like you still have no clue why the iPhone is popular. Its not the hardware. Its not the OS. Its not the app store. Its not iTunes. Its the whole package. From start to finish its all fluid. If you say that about Android, the only response I can give you is to come back and talk to me after you've actually owned one.

      People don't give a flying fuck about the processor it user, how much ram it has or who makes it. Really, they don't. They care about having a device thats enjoyable to use, across the board. As long as you keep trying to compare a product based only on specifications of the hardware or OS, you'll continue to be unable to understand why your predictions are invariably wrong. Regardless of where you want to believe it or not, style and user experience are actually what the people care about ... well, normal people anyway. It either does or doesn't meet their requirements, thats all they care about tech specs. A 400mhz proc is no different than a 200mhz proc if 200mhz plays their latest downloads of survivor.

      The iPhone isn't going to put up a fight because the contenders still haven't figured out that we're boxing, not playing checkers. To put it bluntly, as far as the general public is concerned, the iPhones contenders simply aren't.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    3. Re:That's peachy by MemoryDragon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually my HTC Hero is pretty good at non sucking, every aspect except the 3d games performance is way superior to the iPhone...

  4. amazing! by vrmlguy · · Score: 4, Funny

    After reading the article, I was able to port my entire Java repository to Android in just a few minutes. Of course, that consists of three versions of "Hello, world!"

    --
    Nothing for 6-digit uids?
    1. Re:amazing! by Bluesman · · Score: 4, Funny

      You joke, but in Java that represents a substantial amount of work.

      --
      If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
  5. meh by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 4, Informative

    iphone and android aren't really inclusive.
    open source is meant to be about choice and freedom.

    the nokia n900 + maemo allows multiple languages and frameworks (x11 gtk qt sdl gles and whatever else you can throw at it) to peacefully coexist together :)

    don't take my word for it though, i'm biased

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
    1. Re:meh by gbjbaanb · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You mean Windows? you can't possibly mean Nokia - which, although Maemoblin is very very new, should do well given Nokia's business-friendly sales and general market dominance.

    2. Re: Meh by Ecuador · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I am a proud owner of a N900 for a week now. It is the first time a phone truly amazes me, and that is of course all thanks to the OS. I am a mobile developer, so I have so far developed for and owned BREW, Symbian and iPhone OS devices. I liked developing for the iphone, hated the other two, but from a user standpoint I did not enjoy any device, since even browsing was painful (no, I don't consider the iphone's ultra low res usable), and they wouldn't let me do much more than that.
      Enter the N900. Android is not a unix machine in your pocket, it is a jvm running java apps on top of a unix kernel, when Maemo is a full debian based distro. Things like opening several browser windows, running apt-get install in the background and switching (kind of expose-style) between them is easy on the device. With an 800x480 res and a full browser (Mozilla based with flash and everything) it is the first time I can browse from a phone (as I am doing right now). As a developer I really appreciated that I could do "apt-get install subversion", sync with my svn server and edit my code with vim.
      Don,t get me wrong, I also like android and usually recommend something like a nexus one to nom-power users, but I am sure the average slashdotter would really get excited with Maemo, not android.

      --
      Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
  6. No it will not by LWATCDR · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Not only that, but all of the code from other Java programs will run on your Android phone — although it won't look pretty or run as fast as it does on multicore servers.'""
    No because if it has any type of UI odds are that uses swing or awt. Not only that but I doubt that the Android JVM has all the standard libraries that are available on Sun Java.
    Yes they will know the syntax of the language but the libraries will be totally different.
    Not to mention that is probably very little code running on servers that you will want to run on a phone.

    And yes I write in java and I have an Android phone and I have looked at the Android SDK.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    1. Re:No it will not by loconet · · Score: 3, Informative

      But it's got a JVM and JVMs take byte code...

      Actually, Android uses Dalvik VM which uses .dex files instead. So no, you can't just take any traditional bytecode file and run on Android straight.

      --
      [alk]
    2. Re:No it will not by SoftwareArtist · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes they will know the syntax of the language but the libraries will be totally different.

      Actually, they're mostly the same. They took the standard libraries from Apache Harmony. It's missing a few packages that aren't appropriate (like Swing), but most of what a Java programmer expects to be there, is there.

      Here is the index to the API docs: http://developer.android.com/reference/packages.html. As you can see, a large fraction of the java.* and javax.* packages are there.

      --
      "I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
    3. Re:No it will not by binarylarry · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is true, although Google wrote an eclipse builder that can take a class file and convert it to dex format.

      So you can use class files directly, Eclipse and the Android SDK will take care of converting them for you (transparently).

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
  7. Re:Shitty programmers writing shitty code. by MemoryDragon · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually as far as I can judge the indian guys, they do whatever rolls in money, using another language is not a barrier...
    Wrong conclusion, and I also worked with people from India who really could write code, ok they are the minority but they exist.
    But given how many people in the west write shitty code I assume the percentage is pretty equal!

  8. Developers Developers Developers by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Android not only competitive but in fact a better choice than the iPhone for many developers, largely due to its Java foundation.

    Now I don't want an Android phone. I thought it would be good or better for me as a USER, not as a developer. Silly me.

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  9. Re:Thanks for Playing by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ugly multitasking on an Android is not better than slick single-app execution on an iPhone. It's only a different experience.

  10. Windows Mobile by Dan+East · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Then according to his logic, Windows Mobile is better than Android and iPhone combined, because not only can it run Java apps, but you can author software for it in practically any mainstream programming language.

    What about Blackberry? It is a pure Java based platform, even more so than Android.

    I just think it's silly to say "This device is LISP based, so it is better than device X because some corporation might have LISP developers sitting around that can write apps for it in a language they're used to!"

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Windows Mobile by Dan+East · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My game engine, which has been used in a Top-100 iPhone game, is 99% C++, and only has the minimum amount of Objective-C code required to handle various system events (around 200 lines of code). Of course applications intimately integrating with the iPhone's GUI API would require much more Objective-C. So Objective C is not the only officially supported language for the iPhone for generating native binaries.

      --
      Better known as 318230.
  11. Re:Thanks for Playing by Nerdfest · · Score: 4, Informative

    ... on a multi-core server. Personally, I think you'd be an idiot to expect it to be either. It obviously won't run as fast, and if you haven't created the display to scale to a small screen properly, I wouldn't think it would look good either.

  12. wake me up when it catches up by thanasakis · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You can buy and play FIFA10 or even Grand Theft Auto on the iPhone. The games are a pretty good indicator IMHO. When complex and expensive productions from big studios start coming out for a platform, you know that the platform is popular.

    And if you think Java makes any kind of difference, think again. The guys that are developing these applications do not seem to care. It's not about happy programmers, it's about happy users. And right now the iPhone still has the edge.

    1. Re:wake me up when it catches up by binarylarry · · Score: 2, Funny

      It works for these guys: http://www.google.com/

      Maybe they'll hit it big someday and create a competitor to Android.

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    2. Re:wake me up when it catches up by yogibeaty · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Really? Productivity defined as?

      Would an excel spreadsheet render properly on a Droid? Do you code in C# on the Nokia? Pray tell, what forms of productivity do you increase, Almighty one?

    3. Re:wake me up when it catches up by dangitman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Some of us carry smartphones to increase productivity, not play video games on a 4 inch screen.

      And some people use smartphones to socialize and play games on a 4 inch screen.

      If you want to play games, buy one of those portable game widget things that Nintendo or Sony sells.

      So, someone who already has a smartphone should spend potentially hundreds of dollars, and carry a separate device, rather than spending a few bucks for a game on a device they already own? Why, just because you don't approve of games on a phone out of some misguided ideological notions of purity and productivity?

      Also, have you seen the relative difference in price for Nintendo DS and Sony PSP games versus the ones for the phones?

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
    4. Re:wake me up when it catches up by mdwh2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Internet access. Mapping software. Communication. Taking/showing photos and video. Playing music. Running useful utilities (there's more to life than spreadsheets). And *gasp* phone calls.

      If all you want to use it for is playing hand held video games, then there are better - and more popular, incidentally - devices for that.

      And come on - every time someone points out one of the many basic features that the Iphone lacks or lacked, we get no end of "Why would I want to do that?" So here we are, saying "Why would we want to run video games on a phone?" You only cling to this as being an important, because it's something that the Iphone can do. Next, you'll be telling me how fundamentally important you think multitouch is.

  13. Re:Not as fast? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's no longer 2000. Outside of heavy mathematical computation (the kind where your entire dataset fits in your L1 cache and the entire thing streams through arithmetic, bitwise ops, and pointer magic), Java is acknowledged to be as fast or faster than C++, for competently-coded values of Java and C++.

  14. Java as an "advantage?" by Zigurd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That Java is something that makes Android superior to iPhone is a dubious claim.

    Objective-C has advantages, such as that it is compiled. While Android has lots of libraries implemented in C and C++ that speed execution of Android applications, and developers can choose to implement intensive computations in C using the NDK, Objective-C requires no JNIs or other complications of splitting an implementation between Java and C/C++.

    X-Code is a purpose-built, clean-sheet IDE that may lack a few power features found in Eclipse, and Eclipse has numerous plug-ins, but Eclipse also has a pretty diabolical UI, especially compared to software from Apple.

    Java, Eclipse, and the other Android SDK tools are more than good enough, but they are not a big advantage, or, depending on your tastes, any advantage. There is a rough equivalence here that will probably extend to Android doing for client Java what iPhone did for Objective-C - making it popular. That is, Android apps will probably be the most common form of interactive client Java apps, if they have not already eclipsed AWT, Swing, SWT, and other Java UI libraries. This is going to have a big influence on Java, considering the fact that iPhone programming books crowd the top of the list or programming books at Amazon.

    Android's advantage is in openness. Android developers are not just app developers. They can be system customizers and extenders. They can be technology vendors to a large number of OEMs using Android. They can have all kinds of products, customer, and business models, throughout the mobile economy, not just retail customers of the app store.

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    I wrote parts of this stuff
    1. Re:Java as an "advantage?" by BitZtream · · Score: 3, Funny

      Which year are you living in, Xcode doesn't seem to have a problem doing it for me.

      Of course, I've had refactoring in notepad for years. Search and replace is hard.

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      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
  15. Are you kidding me??? by thetartanavenger · · Score: 5, Informative

    The pure Java foundation of Android

    Android is not java. Yes it has java aspects but it is not java! It's bits of java with a customized Android API.It doesn't even run a normal JVM, it runs the Dalvik VM.

    Not only that, but all of the code from other Java programs will run on your Android phone

    Seriously, no. Just... no. Try compiling a program that uses Swing, AWT or javax stuff.

    Don't get me wrong, I really like Android and hate iPhones. I have a G1 (lacking on RAM as much as it is). I've programmed for android although for fun, not the marketplace. I've even made my own ROM, again for fun. But claiming Android is Java and that everything that Java can do Android can also do natively is just naive

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    Who need's speling and grammar?
  16. Re:Shitty programmers writing shitty code. by owlstead · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Java does not just allow bad programmers to write sloppy code, it also allows good programmers to write better code (than in C/C++ and direct derivatives). Shitty programs are available in all languages. I managed to write a shit application in Lua in a minute flat. How difficult is it to grasp this concept? Do you really want a programming language that makes it harder to write manageable code, on purpose?

    I'm getting sick of this argument. Most of my esteemed C++ colleagues like Java once they've actually tried it out for real. Unfortunately we don't always get Java libs for the hardware we are using.

  17. 3 Subjects That Make People Irrational by aplusjimages · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Politics
    Religion
    Mac Products

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    Can I bum a sig?
  18. When will we learn... by BearRanger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That a phone that caters to developers is NOT a phone that the rest of the world has much interest in using. I love the flexibility promised by Android, but if smartphones are going to take over the world I would not want my grandmother to have to deal with fragmentation and software complexity. Android phones and the iPhone occupy two different market niches. This is a good thing for both developers and consumers.

  19. Re:Flamebait by mswhippingboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Developers making $$ on iPhone apps are few and far between. The odds are pretty slim that you can recoup your investment.

    http://www.fiercemobileit.com/story/most-iphone-developers-dont-make-money/2009-06-17-0

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    Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
  20. Re:It's like comparing bad to worse. by BitZtream · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There are better options out there,

    Lets start with a Citation needed and follow up with 'Define better'.

    As a professional developer, I define better as better by the one that produces the highest net profit for me. Net, not gross. After taking all income and costs into account, including my frustration level or joy in doing it.

    No matter how you look at it, the iPhone and its app store is the clear winner to just about anyone on the planet that wants to make money rather than campaign for their favorite OS.

    I guess you and I have different definitions of better.

    Yours seems to revolve around being an emo/goth and struggling so hard to 'be different' that you end up being like every other angsty teenager out there and by doing so make yourself in fact just a tool of the very thing that bothers you. You try so hard to be different that you end up following all the other 'different' developers.

    Meanwhile, the rest of us well balanced individuals are laughing at you all the way to the bank.

    For a sheep, i seem to have a lot of spare time to do what I want and plenty of money to do whatever I personally feel like doing, while you seem to spend your time telling us how you're different. I've heard it before, you aren't different, you're just like every other tool who thinks he's different. I got news for you, Mommy lied, you really aren't special.

    Compared to more comprehensive and seriously powerful applications we used to write for older mobile OS's

    And once again ... Citation needed, but lets just skip straight to the point. You are a liar. 'We used to write more on less' ... yea, really, then why did you not write the same thing on these current phones? Because you didn't write better on less, you just thought you were bad ass for the crap you turned out before hand.

    God, what are you, a developer at RIM or something, thats the only place I've seen mobile developers make such retarded statements in a long time. They too seem to think their shitty phones are actually 'good' rather than 'sucking marginally less than the other crap on the market at the time'. I'm wondering when someone is going to clue them in.

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    Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
  21. webOS is, perhaps, even better by El+Royo · · Score: 2, Informative

    Developing for webOS is perhaps even better for developers. Personally, I hate Java. I think I'd rather go through the pain of learning Objective C. I wasn't a big fan of JavaScript, either, until I started working with it for webOS apps. Now, with the PDK (plugin development kit) coming out, developers can write in C/C++ and access SDL for applications that need that extra oompf. The underlying Linux OS is readily accessible, moreso than it is on Android, I've been given to understand. There's a tremendous homebrew community out there creating patches, themes and more. Check out http://webos-internals.org/ if interested in seeing that side. And, with Palm-blessed sideloading of apps, developers can make their own way.

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    Author of Enyo: Up and Running from O'Reilly Media
  22. Re:Not as fast? by scotch · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Java is getting closer, but not "as fast or faster" than C++ or C. At least the last time I looked at any half-way competently executed benchmarks. Maybe you have some new benchmarks for me to look at?

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    XML causes global warming.
  23. !Java by Skythe · · Score: 3, Interesting

    While Android is written in Java, the recommended way to program the GUI is using XML. That can be quite the stretch for someone that's never written a layout in XML (read: myself).