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Apple vs. Microsoft: a Tale of Two Mobile Updates
snydeq writes "The latest mobile updates from Apple and Microsoft provide a stark contrast, one emblematic of the differences between the two companies, InfoWorld's Ted Samson writes. Militantly on time, Apple's iOS 4.3 update offers significant new functionality, total disregard for what Apple considers outdated systems, and mandated silencing of user complaints. Microsoft, meanwhile, has finally managed to push out an alleged February update to a subset of users, along with a lamentation about having to deal with handset and carrier fragmentation."
On the one hand, you have Apple, which quietly rolled out iOS 4.3 with the precision of a Swiss watch. The update came a day earlier than expected, in fact. ;)
For a watch, that's pretty crappy precision
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Whenever people refer to it as WP7, I momentarily get excited and wonder if Word Perfect has finally returned.
The UI model is literally completely different from that of the iPhone. Whereas the iPhone is function-centric (you have to run an app to see data relating to that app), Windows Phone 7 is data-centric (apps pool data under categories which the user can access. For instance, Contacts would have twitter, facebook, and standard contact info along with info plugged into it by other applications.
It's a completely different approach to user interfaces, so calling Windows Phone 7 a copy of the iPhone is quite literally false in every possible sense.
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They didn't discontinue the iPhone 3G until June 7, 2010. Inventories don't often magically evaporate either so who knows when the iPhone 3G was no longer for sale by Apple's partners. They should do the right thing and do a point release of whatever iOS will run on the 3G containing just the security fixes.
You mean more like the Newton interface ;-)
Which phones out there get vendor supplied updates after 3 years?
Does it matter? Do we judge fairness by the lowest common denominator? The fact is that Apple was still happily signing people up for two year contacts with AT&T on brand freaking new iPhone 3Gs until last June. Now, it's ok that people who are contractually obligated to pay for service for the next 14+ months be left vulnerable to attack? This, just because Apple first started selling the device in '08 and other manufacturers have track records of treating their customers like crap? It may be a three year old phone to the guys currently playing with iPhone 5 or 6 prototypes under black curtains, but to some, it's well under a year old. Maybe these people shouldn't expect multitasking, (no way on that hardware) wallpapers, or the other various cool new iOS 4 features, but they sure as hell ought to be able to surf the web without their devices being compromised.