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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.)
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
The OTA started yesterday. They do a staged roll out for all these updates. So you should get it within a few days.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
Does "flashing the image manually" preserve data stored on a device, or does it perform the equivalent of a factory reset?
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.
Depends on the software. Typically, you have an OS, cache, and data partition. Manual updates of Cyanogenmod through Clockwork have wiped the OS partition, leaving the others in tact. A desktop update using the boot loader shell and instructions might instruct the phone to wipe data and cache, thus performing a factory reset.
It comes down to your phone's boot loader, mostly. The OS image itself is just a file that gets unpacked and dumped onto the OS partition; but if your upgrade software unpacks the OS image, wipes the internal ROM, repartitions, and installs the new OS image, it'll wipe your data. If your upgrade software wipes the OS partition and unpacks, you get an upgrade without a factory reset.
I've had OTA upgrades (Motorola Cliq) wipe the data partition. The only way to know is to find someone else who's done it.
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That's a strange definition of "walled garden" - network crapware? 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... Hell, some of those devices don't even come with Google Play installed by default, so if it is a walled garden, those devices aren't even in it.
And complaining that people have a choice in what level phone they want? Jesus.
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.
Originally tit for tat was a stylised way (ie slang) for saying "this for that". (Interestingly "titfer" became rhyming slang for a hat).
The word 'tat' is also used colloquially in the UK to describe something of poor quality (I believe it came from something falling to tatters). Something described as 'cheap tat' is usually near to wothless / meretricious rubbish.
How well this applies to mobile operating systems is left to the reader to decide :-)
OTA updates for my Archos 43 PDA and Nexus 7 (2012) tablet have always replaced the OS partition, leaving data intact. It's just that the rooting procedure for a Nexus 7 involves performing a factory reset.
Aside from Amazon devices (which use a forked version of Android), pretty much all Android devices are not a walled garden. Yes many are locked to a carrier, or have preinstalled apps you can't delete. But on the vast majority of them you can simply go to the settings, check the option to "allow installation from unknown sources," and you are outside the walls.
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.
On one hand, you have the flagship Samsung phones which for even just root, it took a bounty and a heavyweight iOS jailbreaker to just punch a hole past Knox... and that's not even a bootloader unlock. On the other hand, you have the Nexus line of devices which allow full access with just a "fastboot oem unlock" command, and HTC devices which unlock with a key obtained from their website.
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.
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.
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.
Depends on the tat ... I've got a nude pinup tat ... I'm 100% guaranteed to see tits. ;-)
In general, however, it may not get you any closer to actually touching any real ones.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
> My wife's Nexus 5 phone? The only texting app is Google's hangouts .. which means I assume all text messages are handed off to Google
Ignoring for a moment all the hundreds of text messaging apps in the Play store, your assumption is wrong.
In fact, pretty much everything you said comes down to "I have no idea, but I assume...", followed by an incorrect assumption.
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.
> 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.
He's a flaming Commodore fanboy. He should get on a real machine like a TI-99.
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?
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?