Nowhere is iOS's staleness more evident in everyday use than in its virtual keyboard. At the time iOS came out and dominated, typing on iOS seemed like the natural way to do it, so it's not a terrible implementation by any means.
But its autocorrect feature is absolutely abysmal. I tend to use the possessive "its" a lot. However, iOS will by default assume that I mean "it's" no matter the context of the sentence...which means that every time I want to use "its", I have to stop typing, look up at the text box, take my hands off the keyboard, and look for that stupid bubble and the tiny 'x' to prevent the autocorrection.
Android, by comparison, is practically magic. Perhaps it's because of the physical screen size that makes this possible, but how Android puts the autocorrect choices (three of them, not just one) right next to the keyboard is just pure logical genius. And I don't know what machine learning/natural language algorithm is used to guess the proper autocorrect choices but when typing at full blast, I have to deliberately make a typo for a typo to actually occur. iOS, by comparison, will inexplicably create nonsensical sentences with words I've never seen or used if I don't watch the textbox while typing. Maybe typing is old-fashioned and Apple wants to put more focus on swiping (Android's swipe keyboard is also pretty amazing, FWIW), but Jesus they've really let the keyboard go.
And of course, it's hard to imagine them ever catching up to Google in voice-input.
It's because Android keyboards are apps. It's part of being an open ecosystem; UI and utilities are not controlled by a central agency making decisions for everyone. There's so much typing innovation happening on Android that it's really amazing; Swype, SwiftKey, 8pen, that new one-line keyboard, and probably 50 projects I've never even heard of.
But then you get all of the baggage that comes along with an open system. Android is not stable in the slightest, which is odd as it does use the Linux kernel, but it still is; even on 4.2. I still get hangs, freezes, and crashes. The system-wide lag is gone, but there are many instances I can name where the system will arbitrarily crash an application:
- Trying to open Google Now
- Typing an address into Firefox's URL bar
- Trying to Swype
- Trying to open a new tab in the Android browser
And there's many more. Granted, it's CM10 running on a Nexus 7, but there's still so many kinks to be worked out.
When I switch back to an iPad, it's such a relief. Full stability. I have NEVER had an application crash on an iPad.
Interesting you blame Android that all your apps crash, when it is most likely CyanogenMod. I'm still running stock on my Nexus 7 and I don't get any crashes.
This is a good point and I'm not arguing for-or-against an open ecosystem. I'm just saying, if Apple wants to stick with the closed keyboard system, then they really need to put some resources into making the default -- and only -- choice as good as it can be.
I'm currently just using iOS (on the iPad), thanks to losing my Android phone to a robber. I haven't bought a new smartphone yet but whenever I think of making the decision -- and I've been using iOS exclusively for years until my recent Android purchase -- the flawed typing in iOS makes the decision easy.
But I'll also concede that's because I'm not a technophonbe...the default keyboard selection on Android seems to be good, but configuring and installing new ones is probably not straightforward for many casual users.
> The default keyboard selection on Android seems to be good, but configuring and installing new ones is probably not straightforward for many casual users.
I think you're missing the point. What features does the default Android 4.2 have that make it so awesome? It has the excellent three-word prediction which is a direct copy from SwiftKey. It has the one finger swipe typing which is a direct copy from Swype. The only reason the Android's default keyboard is so good is because they opened the ecosystem and let hundreds of developers experiment and play with keyboard apps until they got really, really amazing.
Edit: And "configuring and installing new ones is probably not straightforward for many casual users"?! Do you think "Apps" are a difficult concept? Keyboards are apps; they're found in Google Play for download just like Angry Birds is. Anyone who can install Angry Birds can install a keyboard.
I don't disagree with you...I do prefer an open ecosystem. However, for the scope of the argument, I'm just leaving it as: "Android keyboards are far, far superior to iOS's seemingly left-behind keyboard". Whether iOS's keyboard problem stems from a closed ecosystem or not is somewhat orthogonal, because iOS has some pretty amazing features despite the closed ecosystem.
As for the difficulty in configuring the keyboards...well, part of it is that you need to configure them all. As an experienced systems user, it didn't take me long to figure out where the config menu is and what the implications were...but that's not going to be the case for a lot of users. As for the difficulty in installing apps: well, again, it may not seem hard. But I'll point to the awkward history of the Google Play/App store as an example of how yes, even app purchasing/updating is hard, which is why Apple and Google spend a significant amount of time on the workflow of buying and installing apps.
I would think these issues are more to do with CM. For additional anecdotal evidence, I have had my Nexus 4 since it came out and I have not had the issues you described and I have never had to reset it.
I agree that Swype on a Nexus 7 is disaster, it certainly was on mine. However, at my most frustrated, I started poking around the Swype Beta forums and learned that the Swype I was using (and all of the betas available at the time) targeted ICS and weren't expected to work on Jelly Bean. So I sadly gave up Swype, but ended much happier with my Nexus 7. And now I'm thrilled that there are good alternatives like the 4.2 keyboard and SwiftKey Flow.
I can count on one hand the number of crashes I've experienced with CM (both 10 and 10.1) over the past few months on my Galaxy S 3. Have you tried updating? I did have a few issues with a stable version that were fixed in newer nightlies. Plus, fact is, it's an understaffed volunteer project; you can't expect it to be perfect or base your opinion of all of Android on it.
Absolutely on point. I use my iPad in the mornings for HN. I've had cases of such nonsensical text auto-contortions when posting that I've been asked if I was a native English speaker. It's embarrassing.
For business communications I have to be super careful not to look like a total idiot. This, to the point that my signature on iOS devices says something like: "My apologies for spelling and other errors. This was typed on an iPhone, which is not an accurate typing device".
My other pet peeve is the lack of cursor keys. I absolutely detest having to touch the text for editing. It's horribly clumsy and, as far as I am concerned, a huge step backwards. Everything doesn't have to be touch.
I see us migrating to Windows 8 tablets. They are far more usable and practical, keyboards are welcome (and normal) and a huge variety of them will be available. Want a 17 inch tablet (yes!) no problem. And, of course, you can use standard Windows programs and write them without asking for permission.
The more I look at what MS has done the more I see the genius of it all. I was quite negative about W8 when I tried the preview but have warmed-up to the ecosystem now.
> I absolutely detest having to touch the text for editing.
Their existing system is embarrassingly clumsy. I think a touch-based cursor selection could be implemented a lot better, particularly with regard to loupe placement and auto-scrolling the viewport. Moreover, they could have implemented "virtual arrow keys" using swipe gestures while in loupe mode.
It'd be one thing to damn them for poor iterations for these features. But they've made very few changes at all to these core components since iOS 2, and there's no evidence that they're even trying.
I'm an iOS user, and I don't much exposure to Android, but I wonder -- is iOS really stale?
Apple's added a lot in the past few years while keeping the core design consistent. I'm sure they could have done more in this time period, but my personal feeling is that they don't want to confuse users with some of the more advanced things that can be done on other devices.
They want their devices to be useable by everyone, and even now, some things are confusing to novice users (folders, notification center). They are being conservative in their design, but it seems deliberate, and I wonder how that translates to the masses -- usable or out-of-date?
They are still selling every phone they can make, so I would guess no. The hardware, mostly the screen, needs some refreshing to be current with hardware on other platforms, but no, I wouldn't call it stale.
More like the media looking for something to talk about while waiting for the new, next iPhone to come out.
If you look at the fact sheet[1] you will see the iPhone 5 has a 4inch display with 326 PPI (pixels per inch) whereas the HTC One (IMO the best Android phone right now) has a 4.7inch display with 468 PPI. The HTC One display is LARGER and has a much higher pixel density!
They are still selling every phone they can make, so I would guess no
A few years back people were calling out the Blackberry for being stale, but supporters would point to its leadership of the market and RIM's strong profits to ignore the point.
Being stale is a leading indicator. The impact is not immediate.
More like the media looking for something to talk about
This is a pretty commonly stated argument to shout down something we don't want to hear, and it's nonsense. A story only has traction if there is a widespread belief that it could be true, and in the case of iOS the belief that they are essentially handcuffed by their own userbase into avoiding significant change is something that is quite widely being believed.
Never, ever would I count Apple out (they have been an amazing company), but they are in a tough position where they're being outflanked but any maneuver they make might offend their current userbase (see also: Microsoft).
As someone who uses both (one personal, one work), but still finds myself gravitating towards iOS pretty much every time I have a choice, my view is that there are definitely a few places it could do with a bit of sprucing up.
The most obvious is clearly the lack of any form of live tiles/desktop/widgets. There's a few apps that I would love to get more information straight on the desktop than just a badge with a count of "actions" on it. The calendar, for example - at leas it actually shows today's date - but being able to show the next meeting at a glance would be great. Or being able to show a live stock ticker etc.
The other biggie for me is default apps. It's great that we now have Chrome on there, but I'd love to be able to get any browser link to launch that rather than Safari.
The skeurmorphic v flat thing is really just window-dressing though. Sure, there's a bit of reskinning that could be done in some of the apps, but if that's one of the biggest problems that people have with a UI that's 6 year old, then it's doing something right.
As for live tiles, again I think it's Apple optimizing for understanding. If they allow apps to have widgets, they risk users unknowingly eating up bandwidth and battery. I could see them starting with their apps and then opening up some sort of new API for these types of apps.
In the sense "they haven't surprised us with something totally new in a while, and we're lazy enough to pretend that me-too offerings by competitors are more current", yes.
I'm not suggesting that it's not worth debating whether iOS has become stale, but we can come up with more impartial arbiters of staleness than some of Apple's chief competitors, right? They make vague mention of, but never support with quotations, that this argument is taking place among non-competitors too. That's pretty lazy journalism.
From the article:
"BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins claimed that the look and feel of Apple’s mobile OS is outdated. “The rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don’t innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly,” he argued. Chris Weber, executive vice president of Nokia’s sales and marketing, claimed that iOS’s focus on the app was “outdated.”
The iPhone is stale in the same way that the 911 is. This years 911 is better than last years, and this years iPhone is better than the last one. But this isn't about the iPhone, it's about iOS. A lot of the discussion has focussed around the devices themselves but that's not the point of the matter.
iOS in some respects is stale. The 'look' has been the same since the first iPhone came out of box. Is that a bad thing? Sure, to some people it is, they want new and fresh and different. That's not how Apple works though, they settle on a design paradigm and iterate repeatedly until they think it's time to move on.
At some point Apple is going to need to redesign iOS to better integrate features they've accumulated since 2007. I don't think we're anywhere near that point yet.
FWIW, Apple has made tweaks to the look and feel. The "dock" at the bottom of springboard has the 3D shelf instead of the grated metal. Apps like Music (formerly iPod), iTunes, Maps have had thorough design updates.
I'm with you. Apple has a history of making UI that's pretty much only useful in commercials and store demos. A lot of the Mac OS X dock is under that umbrella.
I don't mind that as much as the ipod app on the iphone. Landscape mode is coverflow, even though half my music doesn't have album covers, and there's no way of disabling the 'feature'.
I agree, though, coverflow is pretty good for pictures in the finder—not for most documents, where the content can't be easily rendered distinctively to a rectangular image.
1. Many iOS users are now, for the first time, trying out Android as a result of affordable yet high quality devices being available (Nexus 4 and 7, especially).
2. Other platforms, especially Android, are introducing new features that iOS does not have and Apple may not wish to copy. For example: Android recently introduced lockscreen widgets, something I personally find to be completely over the top. Meanwhile, Samsung are trying out all kinds of wacky ideas (as seen with the S4 release). Compared to these, iOS does seem a little plain and boring - though personally I'm glad.
Up until 3-4 months ago, I was an Android user and had been for many years. I switched to an iPhone 5 and suddenly iOS feels fresh whilst Android feels stale. It's just what you're used to, I suspect.
Why do so many people take sides in the phone wars, when we the consumers benefit the most if these companies are competing fiercely with each other? Especially mystifying with reports like this one that are so thoroughly weak and lazy.
It would be bad if one company were to "win", which perhaps explains a lot of the zealous anti Apple commentary lately, because they've dominated for a while, but in the mean time don't forget that we are arguing over the features of commodity appliances. Arguing which phone is better is like arguing over which dishwasher is better.
It's insanely awesome how fast, how small, and how cheap computers are becoming. Throw in growing connectivity and sensing capability, and you realize this is an amazing time. I don't want Google to lose, or Apple to lose. I want them all to win and keep pressuring each other so they all keep making computers smaller, cheaper and more accessible to me.
Not only is it looking stale, but it feels stale. The silo workflow for iOS is so bad for accomplishing simple tasks that require cross application integration.
As a user who has moved from iPhone to Windows Phone 8... yes, their UI is stale.
I'm never going to be able to convince Mac users that Windows Phone is better as an overall phone (though I believe it is), but the UI is responsive, informative, and pleasantly minimal. Most folks agree with that when they get the chance to play with it (despite their repeated assurances to me that they would never switch to Windows).
I also have a Windows Phone 8 (Lumia 820) and indeed, in comparison the iOS UI is very stale. What I do miss is polish of applications (both Microsoft's and third-party), e.g. Facebook in the people hub does not work well (blocked feeds show up again, I cannot like comments, etc). 1Password is only a ghost of its polished iOS version.
Also, the battery life is sh*t. My iPhone 4 usually lasted four a five full days, while the Lumia is often gone in 12 hours during a work day. It's very inconvenient when you have a long commute.
Currently Apple still makes up the lack of innovation with polish. But time is ticking away...
As someone who just returned my Surface RT for an iPad Mini (lack of LTE was a dealbreaker), I'll say this: Metro is pretty, but it's not all that functional. It has really low content density. The gestures are very well done, much better than iOS, but as a whole I think it's at least one revision away from being competitive functionally.
The iPhone has remained virtually unchanged over the last 5 years. Each model is slightly faster and slightly brighter. Sure you fanboys can make the argument about every feature added, but look at the specs differences. And the look and feel of the phone has barely changed[1].
If you look at the progress not just in design, but software, hardware and everything. Samsung, HTC, Nokia, all the major manfs have come miles further than Apple in the last 5 years when it comes to hardware design.
When it comes to software Android has also come miles in the last few years. People that aren't Android users don't realize this and go with the same standby arguments against Android (fragmented, ugly ui, non-integrated UI). When Android first came on the market (HTC G1) it could not even compare to an iPhone. But Android has solved many of these problems over the years, due partially to the fact that it's open source and has lots of people / companies contributing to it. It has now come to a point where it is miles beyond iOS and iOS has even gone as far as starting to steal features from Android (notifications drawer anyone?).
I've said it before I will say it again. Apple should spend less money worrying about and suing it's competitors and spend more time and money on improving their mediocre products.
The time for something new from Apple is definitely soon or they risk starting to lose market share. Although, most of their users are to drunk on koolaid to even know what other products are in the market.
And thanks to companies like Samsung, we can finally wave our hands in front of our phones to swipe pages and awkwardly hover over the screen with our fingers to interact with our phone in new and completely useless ways. Seriously, there's not a whole lot of useful innovation happening on either side of the fence. Smartphones have peaked and are now commodities. Arguing about who's more innovative in this space is like trying to make the case for Ford being more innovative than Chevy because they added a motion sensor to their trunks so people can open them by waving their foot underneath the bumper.
Can we just move on, and for the love of god, stop using the term "Fanboy"?
Maybe HTC, Samsung, Nokia et al have come so far in the last five years because they had no choice. If you look at Android phones from 5 years ago, they were mostly shit. The original iPhone was a huge departure from where mobile phones sat 5 years ago.
Does Apple need to change up the look of iOS, yeah probably. But they won't make a radical departure from where they are right now. They are still selling the phone that they built 3 generations ago, and they're selling it well. I'd say that the vacuum chamber says iOS is stale, but the consumer does not.
You said what had also occurred to me. I have an original iPhone sitting on my desk. I love the look and feel of the thing and would happily use that form factor again. I'm not sure I could say the same about the other manufacturer's original devices.
> If you look at the progress not just in design, but software, hardware and everything. Samsung, HTC, Nokia, all the major manfs have come miles further than Apple in the last 5 years when it comes to hardware design.
Are you serious? The iPhone 5 came out six months ago, and still holds its own hardware-wise. It's the thinnest and lightest of the flagship phones. Dual Core A6 is entirely competitive with the Snapdragon S4 in the new Nokia on a CPU basis, and while the quad core Snapdragon in the U.S. version of the Galaxy S4 will have more cores, it's not clear phone software can effectively use the extra cores. It had the fastest GPU of any phone at release. The Adreno 320 in the new HTC One and the 544MP3 in the international Galaxy S4 simply bring Samsung and HTC to parity with Apple's 6 month old phone (and the Adreno 225 in the Nokia 920 is comparable to the GPU in the iPhone 4s).
There are certain design decisions Apple makes versus its competitors. It has so far chosen to spend its transistor budget and TDP on more GPU cores than CPU cores. It has also chosen to favor weight and size over screen size. Given the popularity of the iPhone 5, it's hard to say that these are the wrong trade-offs to make.
>> "Sure you fanboys can make the argument about every feature added, but look at the specs differences."
>> "Although, most of their users are to drunk on koolaid to even know what other products are in the market."
You know, statements like this make you come off as if you're just the flip-side of a fan-boy, with equally irrational emotions coloring your logic. It really dilutes the point you are attempting to make.
Given the tone in the initial paragraph, I'm not sure if you're receptive to these arguments, but here goes.
Using the very wiki page you linked, over 5 years the changes were:
* 4x in default storage
* 8x in default RAM
* over 4x in number of pixels (doubling PPI, and increasing height)
* 4x increase in camera pixels
* Addition of full HD video
* Addition of GPS, Compass
* 20x (at least) increase in processor performance
* 2x increase in battery life
* 35% decrease in thickness
* 16% in weight
* Same cost
If all of these are "slight" changes, I'm not sure what to say. Would you say a stock portfolio changed "slightly" if it quadrupled in 5 years?
The form factor and design is branding. You might as well say "Porsche has barely changed their form factor in 40 years". The point is to be recognizable, not to arbitrarily change a design. And for a human-interacting product, our hands didn't change much in 5 years, so the "ideal" handheld device shape probably wouldn't change much either (if it does, it likely means we didn't look hard enough the first time around).
I've said it before I will say it again. Apple should spend less money worrying about and suing it's competitors and spend more time and money on improving their mediocre products.
Do you honestly think that Apple are incapable of developing products and suing people simultaneously?
" If you look at the progress not just in design, but software, hardware and everything. Samsung, HTC, Nokia, all the major manfs have come miles further than Apple in the last 5 years when it comes to hardware design. "
Hardware design is just one (of many) important characteristics in smartphone design. Of much greater importance is the balance across the different characteristics.
" Was I the only one that missed the part where the article explains why "It's Still the Platform to Beat"? "
I don't think you missed it; I think you dismissed or disagreed with it.
It's here: iOS has undeniably great, intuitive touch-based gestures and a straightforward layout.
And here: “It’s that simplicity, combined with a deep developer and app ecosystem, that really has given iOS its power with users.”
And here: One of the biggest benefits of the current iOS platform, from a developer standpoint, is that no matter what type of app you’re creating, you can find a few hundred existing examples of what works. And that isn’t always true on other platforms
For example, WNM Live CEO Brian Hamachek said when his company decided to create a Windows Phone app, there was “not much we could use as a basis for how it should be laid out, we had to come out with own path — which can be a little risky.” As for Android, Hamachek said it’s “like the wild west” and that there really isn’t much of a standard user interface to go off of, which isn’t good for devs or users.
Apple’s human interface guidelines make it easy create an app that looks and feels like an iOS app.
But its autocorrect feature is absolutely abysmal. I tend to use the possessive "its" a lot. However, iOS will by default assume that I mean "it's" no matter the context of the sentence...which means that every time I want to use "its", I have to stop typing, look up at the text box, take my hands off the keyboard, and look for that stupid bubble and the tiny 'x' to prevent the autocorrection.
Android, by comparison, is practically magic. Perhaps it's because of the physical screen size that makes this possible, but how Android puts the autocorrect choices (three of them, not just one) right next to the keyboard is just pure logical genius. And I don't know what machine learning/natural language algorithm is used to guess the proper autocorrect choices but when typing at full blast, I have to deliberately make a typo for a typo to actually occur. iOS, by comparison, will inexplicably create nonsensical sentences with words I've never seen or used if I don't watch the textbox while typing. Maybe typing is old-fashioned and Apple wants to put more focus on swiping (Android's swipe keyboard is also pretty amazing, FWIW), but Jesus they've really let the keyboard go.
And of course, it's hard to imagine them ever catching up to Google in voice-input.