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Android 5.0 'Lollipop' vs. iOS 8: More Similar Than Ever
Nerval's Lobster writes With the debut of Android 5.0 (also known as Lollipop, in keeping with Google's habit of naming each major OS upgrade after a dessert), it's worth taking a moment to break down how the latest version of Google's mobile operating system matches up against Apple's iOS 8. After years of battle, the two are remarkably similar. So while nobody would ever confuse Android and iOS, both Google and Apple seem determined to go "flatter" (and more brightly colored) than ever. Whether or not you agree with their choices, they're the cutting edge of mobile UX design. The perpetual tit-for-tat over features has reached a climax of sorts with Lollipop and iOS 8: both offer their own version of an NFC-powered e-wallet (Apple Pay vs. Google Wallet), a health app (Apple's Health app vs. Google Fit), car-dashboard control (Android Auto vs. CarPlay), and home automation. That's not to say that the operating systems are mirror images of one another, but in terms of aesthetics and functionality, they'll be at near-parity for most users, albeit not for those users who enjoy customizing Android and hate Apple's "walled garden." (Related: Lots of reviews are popping up for Google's new Nexus 6, one of the first phones to come with the newest Android; TechCrunch's is typical, in that reviewer Greg Kumparak has high praise for the Lollipop UI, but found himself nearly dropping the device because of its size and texture.)
When will I be able to get and install the OTA update for my Nexus 5?
No, I'm not interested in downloading and installing the new image manually. I just want to do a quick update through the normal update mechanism.
And people that already had gmail accounts, and people that wanted larger phones, and people that wanted keyboards.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Who has a Kit-Kat or Lollipop for dessert, seriously?
Agreed. Personally, I'm waiting for Android Napoleon to come out.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
That's not to say that the operating systems are mirror images of one another, but in terms of aesthetics and functionality, they'll be at near-parity for most users, albeit not for those users who enjoy customizing Android and hate Apple's "walled garden."
What's with the pointless troll of Apple users? If they want to compare that's fine but why be a dick about it? If you like Android then use it. If you like IOS use that. Picking one or the other doesn't make one a better person but flinging monkey poo at someone who made a different technology choice doesn't speak highly of one's character. (yeah go ahead - insert "you must be new here" comment here)
Want to talk parity? Android is a walled garden too - just with different types of walls. There are countless Android devices that are locked by the manufacturer to older versions of Android, loaded with crapware which cannot be removed and otherwise effectively turned into a walled garden. Google does little to prevent this from happening and in fact largely facilitates this abuse of users via indifference. There are some great Android devices but there is a huge amount of complete shit too. Say whatever negative you like about Apple but the IOS devices they sell are almost always pretty good or better. (they should be given the price) Can't say the same about a lot of Android devices particularly many of the cheaper ones.
I didn't hate Apple until they started their douchebaggery meritless lawsuits.
Before then I was indifferent as I found their products egregiously overpriced for what they were since they removed options to strip, e.g. mac pros to min. spec(which I would order then save 1000s adding my own RAM hdds GPUs etc.), removed easily user replaceable batts in notebooks, started soldering RAM on more and more products, etc. Just making them not only ridiculously overpriced but reinforcing that idiocy by forcing overpaying even more to get even semi-useful machines for the most part. The only redeeming machine that they had at one time was the mac-mini but even that is gone with only i5 in the current models, and let's not even talk about turning a macbook air into an imac by adding a bigger screen and oh *gasp* be still my beating heart a mobile GPU option *woot*. Nah, I'm down with Sager and the like, and keeping on building my own desktops for 1/4 the cost.
BTW Android phones have had NFC and Google Wallet for years now.
My problem with the Nexus 6 is the price. I just am NOT seeing $250+ value over my current n5, OTOH I'd already decided that unless they coughed up a 64b SoC I was taking a pass this year. (Hell IMNHO even the n5 was pushing the price/value boundary as it's not nearly as well built as the n4, but it bumped specs enough to overlook that HAD it been n4 priced...)
How long did it take Apple to allow custom keyboards?
Widgets, does Apple (finally) support them?
What about widgets on the lock screen?
Did Apple stop using rectangular icons with rounded corners?
And well, it sure goes both ways:
When will Android ask me about an App trying to access my contact list?
Did Google start always asking for a password when buying/installing things like Apple does?
I have an iPhone, but I also have an Asus Android tablet. I find advantages and flaws in both, and I use each device to its own strengths.
I also need to say that I was recently in an Apple store and found the iPad mini's screen to be very nice, much sharper than my Asus, but then again, the Asus was very cheap.
For casual browsing and making snide comments on facebook, it's perfectly fine. With a blutooth keyboard, it's even a nice SSH terminal. I don't do high-end computing on my tablet, and my phone is pretty much relegated to text messages, phone calls, photos, and the occasional need to access an app in an emergency. I'm not glued to my screen like most other people I know.
Android and iOS are both 'ok' -- neither is perfect, but frankly, the religious wars about operating system on your phone reminds me of the chatter between Atari users and Commodore users on Bulletin Board systems (showing my age here!).
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
People who have Gmail can use the Gmail app on the App Store. People who want a keyboard can buy a clip-on Bluetooth keyboard. And now people who want a larger phone can buy an iPhone 6+. That leaves people who run into Apple's intentional limits.
Google wallet is useless here in Canada. They don't seem interested in making it available outside the US. In fact, Google doesn't seem interested in Wallet at all and I expected them to abandon it by now.
Correct. The only people who don't buy Apple products now are haters. Or maybe they don't want to pay a 50% markup for the Apple logo.
Apart from all the privacy features, you are absolutely right!
For those people, the experience on lower-end Windows Phone devices is usually better than the experience on lower-end Android devices......I suspect that's where MS will garner their greatest bump in marketshare.
An unlocked Lumia device for under $100 US ---- unsubsidized!!! And it's actually a decent phone for the money and doesn't suffer as much UI stutter as a knock-off Android device.
Those limits work both ways. The sandboxing is great for security, but at the expense of flexibility.
On Android I can't have the Facebook app and refuse it access to my SMS messages. On iOS I don't have the option to give it access.
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
network crapware? True you can't uninstall some of it, but you're still free to install whatever you want
Which means non-Nexus devices will have fewer GB of available internal storage than advertised. Some carriers have been caught shipping a multi-hundred-megabyte game in the unmodifiable partition.
If you want a tattoo (synonyms "tat" or "ink"), use the Google. I can't guarantee that a tat will help you see tits though.
Today its more about the ecosystem then what OS is better. I have used everything from Android, Windows mobile, IOS and even some RIM devices. All of which work well but of course some lack apps or services that people need. When I bought my iPhone I had already chosen not to succumb to being locked into another ecosystem. I came from Android and yet much of my applications, backup, and services were very much separate from the OS. They were also platforms neutral and when I switched to the iPhone they all worked just as they did on the Android phone. I learned long ago to not buy into a walled garden and Android is not as bad as Apple is with regards to being locked in. But you still can't transfer apps or games from one to another. This is why I don't like app stores much. You buy something and you cannot transfer it even though its the same app on IOS as it is on Android.
Install AppOps on Android and you can refuse any app any permission.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
And people who want something like OTG USB, NTFS support, general NFC support, wider device choice, lower price, wireless charging....
There are a lot of user groups that like android. Tinkerers tend to be one-- theres a lot of freedom with android that just isnt there with IOS. Everything Apple is doing in IOS8 was generally being done in android first. Some of us like the cutting edge.
Can you get NFC tags working in IOS? Is there an app to cut the pricetag from "absurd" to reasonable, given that I can do far more with a Nexus 5 than an iPhone5, at roughly 1/2 the price?
That's a feature that appeared officially in 4.3 and disappeared again in 4.4. Yes, it can be done now, but it means rooting your device. I was comparing default functionality between Android and iOS. Obviously if you root/jailbreak then almost anything is possible.
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
Little room for innovation in phones? Given the speed of improvement what would lots of innovation look like to you? Me thinks your expectations need to be reset a tad.
I assume something better than the 520 has come out at that price point then, because I've got one of those for work and it's dire.
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
True you can't uninstall some of it, but you're still free to install whatever you want, and from non-Google stores with absolutely no effort what-so-ever...
If you don't have root access available to you straight out of the box and supported by the manufacturer then it is a walled garden pretty much by definition. The only question is how high the walls are. Saying the walls are lower than the one's Apple has is pretty much the definition of damning with faint praise.
True you can't uninstall some of it, but you're still free to install whatever you want, and from non-Google stores with absolutely no effort what-so-ever...
Those devices invariably come with some phone vendor version of a walled garden that is even less attractive than Google's version. See Amazon Fire for a great example.
And complaining that people have a choice in what level phone they want?
Who complained about that? I've no objection to having the option to buy a cheaper phone. That is objectively a good thing. I do object to said cheaper phone being a hot smelly barely functional mess. Cheap does not have to equate to bad quality. Fewer bells and whistles sure but there is not excuse for a cheap phone being a shitty phone.
Android and iOS are both 'ok' -- neither is perfect, but frankly, the religious wars about operating system on your phone reminds me of the chatter between Atari users and Commodore users on Bulletin Board systems (showing my age here!).
But did Atari or Commodore actively attempt to prevent people from creating and running programs on their computers? If I recall correctly, both Commodore and Atari shipped with BASIC interpreters that could CALL native code. Apple's code signing policy resembles that used by Atari for its 7800, Lynx, and Jaguar consoles, not that used for its 400, 800, and ST computers. Just as unsigned carts for the 7800 ran in 2600 mode, unsigned apps for iOS run in Safari.
Android devices have walled gardens, and it is up to the customer to choose how high the walls are, and if they get a key to the gate.
Really? I'm not aware of a single Android device that gives you root access straight from the manufacturer. If you don't have root then you don't have complete choice regarding the height of the walls. If a jailbreak of the phone is ever required to do something then that is pretty much de-facto evidence that a walled garden exists.
One has to do a little bit of research buying a device. GPE (Google Play Experience) devices tend to be unlockable, and run with minimal crapware.
Minimal barriers != No barriers. You might have some extra choices available to you but let's not pretend Android is FOSS.
> Whether or not you agree with their choices, they're the cutting edge of mobile UX design.
As an UX expert, this "flat design" is NOT cutting edge. It is retro gaudy.
i.e.
Windows 1.0 vs Windows 8
It is like these idiot UI/UX designers tossed _everything_ we have learnt about WIMP for the past 20 years right out the window.
There is _nothing_ wrong with skeuomorphism when it is used in balance.
This flat design so that users no longer have visual clues as what is a (dynamic) button and (static) text is idiotic and retarded. The primary job of a UI is NOT to help, not hinder.
The gaudy colors are just the icing on the rotten cake.
But can I use vi on it?
THAT is the question.
I use Vim Touch on my Android phone.
If it doesn't have VI, I am not interested.
Does iOS have Google Now? that's actually my killer app right now. I LOVE that it scrubs my email to track packages and fight information. It gives me driving times to work, to where Hotels are booked, to friends' houses I frequent, all at approprite times.
Tells me about concerts I want to go to correlating my searches and location, weather where I am and where I want to be.
Essentially it's using all of the information it collects on me for me, and I am happy with the trade.
My recommendation to people until 4.x was get iPhone unless you are into the Google ecosytem on your desktop, now I honestly think it's a wash with pros for both. The last real killer feature of the iPhone for me was size, they eliminated that. When the first retina displays hit, I think they were definitively the best phone until things caught up. Even now, a lot of Android phones seem to have good screens on paper, but when you look at them, they're just a little off, but I think there's actually vibrant competition, and it's not just on price.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I think Lollipop was influenced much, much more by WebOS than it was by iOS. Makes it glaringly obvious why they made that patent agreement with LG a few weeks ago.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
I want to preface this with: I'm an Android user/developer of 5 years, and have no interest in Apple devices. I don't mean to offend anyone, and I apologize for the long-winded post.
Sadly, I find Android is heading in a very bad direction.
Google has captured most of the top of the market, leaving little opportunity for growth, so it appears they've started "simplifying" the UI to capture those with little/no interest in mobile computers, those with less mental acuity or those unable/unwilling to spend a few hours learning the fundamental operating principles of a machine, young children, etc. Same direction Gnome headed in a few years back.
Can't blame them; they are a publicly held corporation, and they must grow. But, unfortunately, simplifying a user interface almost invariably makes it less useful to those who are willing to put in the time to synchronize with the machine.
Just a few more egregious examples of this in the latest Android versions:
Menu button removed
Contextual menus are a extremely powerful. On most modern OSes, right-clicking a control brings up a menu of actions related to that control. Since touchscreens lack a practical way to right-click, the menu button used to implement the equivalent functionality. Some UI designers claim it's inconsistent because you never know if the menu button is going to do anything, and that is a valid complaint. However, removing contextual menus entirely is silly. Many apps run full-screen where an overflow button is inappropriate, and when appropriate, overflow buttons needlessly take up room on the screen and enforce a display layout that isn't always appropriate for every app.
Bafflingly unusable new task switcher
If you haven't seen the new task switcher layout for 5.0, check it out. No longer can you see screen captures of your most recent 5-6 apps, but rather a confusing, battery wasting, user-interaction-required morphing list.
Google Maps feature regressions
Although not directly related to Android, it is symptomatic of Google's general new approach to mobile development. Gone are incredibly useful features like distance measure, zoom controls, sortable place search, place search compass arrows, and many other features that made the old Android maps app so great.
Where are chrome extensions? Native multiwindow support? GNU tools (instead of their godawful "toolbox")? Correctly functioning alt-tab? DNS overrides? Native image backups? Out-of-the-box viper4android? How about forcing manufacturers to add a "delete crapware" button if they want membership to the play store? Where are the extended privacy controls?
The thing is, they already have the "power users" market. So there's no reason to improve the Android core. We've all got CM, AOSP, AOKP, etc., anyway, right?
But it's frustrating, and I do hope some competition pops up to re-address the concerns of those who really use their devices.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
... and I'll be looking forward to "Nanaimo" after that.
Hopefully they'll still be making bar phones at that time, and put off the transition to some wearable-in-your-face thing until "Pie"
I've had my S3 for a quite a while now too. Just put in a new battery a few weeks ago. What an improvement. Thankfully Samsung gave us the ability to order a 3rd party battery online and just pop it in. One of the many reasons I won't go with Apple and their unmaintainable design.
Nanaimo bars are great, except for the feeling you get after eating one that you're going to be sick.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
albeit not for those users who enjoy Apple's security and hate Android's extensive malware
Fans of iOS like to trot this out, but they've never really explained where this "extensive malware" is coming from. Is it on Google Play, Amazon Appstore, F-Droid, and other major app stores in countries that use the Latin alphabet? Or is it largely confined to pirate or Chinese stores that someone in North America or Western Europe isn't likely to encounter?
On a GNU phone, you can use GNU vi, or you can install any other free implementation of vi.
Those devices invariably come with some phone vendor version of a walled garden that is even less attractive than Google's version. See Amazon Fire for a great example.
The last time I tried a Kindle Fire tablet, it had the same "Allow installation of applications from unknown sources" checkbox that virtually all* Android phones and tablets have. All an app's publisher has to do is make the app available as an APK. Is Fire Phone more restrictive?
* Except for the first few months of AT&T-branded Android phones. And even these tend to have an OTA update to restore the checkbox, a CyanogenMod port, or both.
I had forgotten how featureless the stock launcher is. Gads. I feel crippled. I also really liked CyanogenMod's Privacy Guard feature.
I will not miss the bugs of CyanogenMod, though, that's for sure.
I'll be searching for a replacement launcher ASAP. Any recommendations? I used to use ADW back in my Gingerbread/Froyo days...I'll have to see if it's been updated for Lollipop/ART.
Or maybe they hate the interface, and how dumb it feels. The bone-headed things they've decided are not optional. The super-gnomification of every interface we touch. There's a million reasons. It's brainfucked ridiculous to try to speculate why someone likes an Android phone better than an apple device, and the height of human stupidity to try to chalk it up to stupidity or income.
This is so stupid. I'm a senior network engineer working in Seattle, and while I can't argue that Android has the low-end phone market pinned, nearly every person up here with money to blow has 1 or more android devices, and in my circles the weight in phone OS is very heavily tilted in favor of Android. I have an android phone and an iphone (work-provided), an ipad, a nexus, a couple nooks.. In fact, the only people-with-money segment I'd say gravitate toward iphones is the soccer mom's and half-functionally-retarded executives who haven't pitched blackberries yet. How insecure are you in your success that you attribute your tastes to a superior income compared to other people? You're a world-class fuckwit, friend.
First Microsoft with Windows 8 - flattened UI elements, soft unshaded coloring, squared corners, etc. I dub it the "crayon look" - both because of the dumbed down simple look, and because of MS seemed intent to treat us like kids using crayons, instead of intelligent users who prefer a more polished look. It took years to finally get the sculpted, more-pleasing look of Windows 95 (remember Windows 3.1?..it was 'flat'). Now we're being regressed backwards.
After Windows 8, many apps and websites began updating their own visual schemes to "the crayon look".
Then Apple follows suit (essentially) with a similar style in OS X Yosemite - and iOS8.
Now we're going to have the same thing in Android.
It's like they've all become lemmings, rushing to trample off the edge of the usability cliff!
I kept hoping this was a temporary trend and I could wait out these releases until sanity returned...but it's starting to feel like they've all drunk the same kool-aid and this isn't going away for a while. How long before most major Linux distros start adopting the 'flat' (crayon) look, too?
I don't know, my Nexus 7 2013 feels pretty goddamn solid compared to my iPad Mini- though definitely not as ridiculously solid and heavy as my iPad 4. There are certainly cheap Android devices out there, and not really cheap Apple devices... But I have to say, overall, I like my higher-end Android devices better in terms of build.
Who has a Kit-Kat or Lollipop for dessert, seriously?
I would have preferred a Klondike Bar to a Kit Kat.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Not just phones, but there's plenty of room for innovation in almost any commodity. RAM has been a commodity for a long time now, but there's still a ton of innovation going on - the new DDR4 standard bringing on faster speeds, LP and LV RAM lowering power requirements, manufacturing process improvements leading to lower prices, etc. Apparently those kind of extremely complex feats of creative engineering are just too boring to notice.
Grey? What's wrong with your eyes? It's unarguably colourful.
Holy crap, doesn't any one realize that the high resolution displays don't need shading and dithering to make objects look nicer. That was a necessary evil for low resolution displays to make things look nice and pretty. Tiles and objects on UI's are still the same size, but the resolution has double/tripled/quadrupled in some cases. So we don't need rounded, shaded objects any more. Flat designs look like crap on low resolution displays because we see the jagged edges, so shading was used to soften edges.
The manufacturer of my microwave actively prevents people from creating and running programs on it--that doesn't stop me from eating popcorn.
There are reasonable reasons to want a walled garden device (do a Google image search for a pie chart of the percent of mobile malware out there by platform, iOS doesn't even show up) and there are reasonable reasons to want something you can tinker with. Guess what? the market provides both choices and you get to pick one. Isn't this supposed to be about choice?
From reading the article...
I hate the Playstation buttons. Triangle, Circle, Square do not clearly translate to back, home, open windows/app list. If I were a rabbit a circle might be a decent representation of "home".
I like guest mode, I like fast and smooth, but I don't like "flat". A button should "look" like a button. I don't mean skeuomorphics, but a button UI element should not look like a label or a plain embedded image - it should look like something I can interact with, and that's what shading did.
At 6 inches you're in the phablet space. My phone is 4.7 inches, which was big when it came out, and I think that's just right for a phone.
As far as slipper, I have my phone is a gel sleeve (grabs the back and sides) that makes it grippy. Of course that adds $35 to the price tag, but you do get color options. If I did happen to drop it the sleeve would probably protect it, at least from the scuffs 2 other devices got from even touching the pavement.
On topic: As far as Andorid vs iOS many other posts here have already touched on It's a personal preference, and I'm happy to have the option. I personally prefer Android. My wife was fine with Android but has an iPhone right now. There are lots of things to like, and there are nuisances in both camps.
I refuse to sign
I'd happily move to an Apple phone if they made a product that does what I want. I want a phone that I can develop for on an arbitrary brand of computer without paying anything for the opportunity. I want a phone that I can sideload unapproved apps on, use multiple app stores on, has a choice of browsers with different back-ends, and that uses a standard mini or micro USB power input. I want to be able to keep around old app backups and install back-level versions of software that changes in a way that I don't like. I want one that'll run my emulators, an ssh server, an FTP client, and Busybox.
I had an iPod Touch before I had any kind of smartphone. It was awesome for what it could do, but what it *couldn't* do influenced two choices for me. First, that I would get a smartphone. Second, that it wouldn't be an Apple, because it would be too much work getting it to do everything that I would want it to do. Nothing of consequence has changed in the balance there since I bought my first smartphone. In the meantime, I'm happy with what I've got, and I'm not going to begrudge the people that have different desires than I do, who are happy with what *they* have. Apple makes some great products. It's just my opinion that they aren't great for *my* uses.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Living close to Nanaimo, I have had real Nanaimo bars. yes they are sweet, but no more so than any other dessert bar, and they have never made me sick....
Kit-Kats or Lollipops on the other hand, especially shortly after Halloween....
Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
A button is no longer a button because it was never a button in the first place.
UI design was mouse-focused for about 25 years, and the UI design of smartphones just used it as a starting point. I'm glad to see it move on.
When I poke at a word I am poking a word on a screen with my finger, not a button. Why should it be dressed up in the clown makeup of a button? Position, context, color, precedent, and the name of the thing itself are all strong indicators, and when I am, I aim for the center of it, and the size of my finger intuitively defines the range of error around the target.
Even your meme-ready screenshot is actually proof of how much things have changed: Everything on the Windows 8 screenshot is a button - and we understand it intuitively as such because we're using a touchscreen - and so, there are no button borders. And, we understand everything is draggable, from any anchor point, so there is no need for title bars along the "windows" to provide that anchor point.
Back in the day, some jerk invented that UI by messing around in a workshop with a mouse and going with what felt right. Why in the world would we cling to it, now that mice are dying out?
Android is cheaper hardware and app wise... Android can do 100s of things that ios can't. If gives you more freedom, options, carriers and companies. I had apple for years and I don't miss it at all. Can I afford apple? Yes I just choose not to overpay.... I understend why people like apple cut its trendy with the tech impaired. Just like living with the Kardashians....
albeit not for those users who enjoy Apple's security and hate Android's extensive malware
Fans of iOS like to trot this out, but they've never really explained where this "extensive malware" is coming from. Is it on Google Play, Amazon Appstore, F-Droid, and other major app stores in countries that use the Latin alphabet? Or is it largely confined to pirate or Chinese stores that someone in North America or Western Europe isn't likely to encounter?
Further more, it's never actually been demonstrated that this "extensive malware" is widespread in any way, shape or form. In fact the worst thing they've been able to show is a fake app that might steal some of your personal data or show you ads. We're yet to get something really bad like a mass mailing worm, DDOS or cryptolocker.
Yep, I said "yet to", as long as there's money to be made and dumb users to install it, eventually it will happen. However with things like Masque on IOS, there's no guarantee it's going to happen on Android first any more.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Cross can also mean "Wrong" or "No" in the west.
Hence the option of being a smartphone refuznik. Third option : don't get any. Spyware reading SMS is ridiculous. On a PC or any web browsing device there are grave privacy problems (get tracked all to easily) but a minesweeper game doesn't read my e-mails at least.
Android might be just as bad I don't know don't own one but I'd add: Apple just being able to decide to remove an app that you used to have from the store because their latest shiny doesn't work well with it (even though all the older models do) or they decided to create hype for the next version of iOS by adding a feature that that app already does.
I think all the 5"+ craze is people that were late to the tablet game deciding that they want one device that can suit two purposes, to me you end up with an awkward phone (and I'm 6'3" so I can't imagine a little 5'2" person) and a tiny tablet for watching shows on. Neither great but better to some than dropping another $2-500 on a second device.
I found funny this comparison between Android and iOS about the flattening of the user interface, when Windows Phone did it before. Maybe Microsoft is finally going into the right direction in the mobile field.
One thing keeps me on android. Access to the filesystem. Take last night for example... I downloaded a video torrent in bed then streamed it to my Xbox one on the TV. Or say I'm bored at work. I can torrent an audio book.
A button should "look" like a button. I don't mean skeuomorphics, but a button UI element should not look like a label or a plain embedded image - it should look like something I can interact with, and that's what shading did.
Those quote marks would be better in another place... A "button" should look like a button. ... because that thing on the screen isn's a button. It's an area you can interact with by touching. But then most things on the screen are. A graphic, a line in a list box, a scroller, a hyperlink, a field, a title, a telephone number... If you draw a box/gradient/shadow around everything you can interact with, then almost everything ends up in a box/gradient/shadow.
On the web, we no longer need explicit "buttons". Even on the classic Slashdot page, which is about as old a design as you see, most clickable/touchable do not have boxes around them; they are not dressed up as buttons.
Buttons have mostly gone the way of purple underlined hyperlinks. We're used to the web now, we don't need the training wheels.
Native app design has simply lagged. It's playing catch up to the web. (At least in terms of UI appearance. Native apps of course are ahead in capability and performance, and always will be.)
Or maybe they don't want to pay a 50% markup for the Apple logo.
You know what a logo is? Same as a brand - it's a promise of quality. For good or bad. If a product can demand a 50% mark up because of a given logo, it's because the logo has built up a significant level of trust in the high quality of the product, either directly or by word of mouth.
Most logos can't demand any markup whatsoever, because they have not built up a good reputation.
which have a "well buried switch"--basically 0% of all malware is on iOS. It looks like the iOS strategy works pretty well and it looks like, thus far, you have been proven to be completely wrong that "one platform can provide both".
It's almost as if the company that's worth $600B understands what their customers want better than you do. Weird.
You know what a logo is? Same as a brand - it's a promise of quality. For good or bad. If a product can demand a 50% mark up because of a given logo, it's because the logo has built up a significant level of trust in the high quality of the product, either directly or by word of mouth.
Not exactly. While there is some truth to that analysis, it completely ignores the much larger effects of marketing and fashion. A Rolex doesn't cost 3 orders of magnitude more than a Chinese knockoff because it delivers 3 orders of magniute as much "quality"; the price is a reflection of fashion rather than functionality. Similarly, a basic Starbucks coffee costs 2-3 times as much as a coffee at the local diner, but certainly doesn't deliver 2-3 times the "quality". And don't get me started on the absurd amounts of money people are willing to pay to scam artists and frauds (eg. Sylvia Brown, "psychic", ~$700 per hour) who deliver absolutely nothing other than vague promises.
tl;dr: people will buy expensive shit for reasons that have nothing to do with quality.
A Rolex doesn't cost 3 orders of magnitude more than a Chinese knockoff because it delivers 3 orders of magniute as much "quality";
I didn't say price was proportional to quality. I said that a brand (logo) can only demand a significantly higher price if the have a reputation for quality. And Rolex is absolutely an example of that.
What you can't do is design a nice logo, then expect to be able to change a significantly higher price than your competitors. It doesn't work.
tl;dr: people will buy expensive shit for reasons that have nothing to do with quality.
You are forgetting the "reputation" part. That's where you're going wrong.