
IOS After Android (what's been copied by Apple from Android) - apress
http://techthirst.com/?p=414
======
oohmeplums
First time poster, long time reader.

Not a great article.

"since Android was built for multitasking, inactive applications remain in a
saved state for a particular amount of time." -- uhh, this is exactly how it
works on iOS.

"This doesn’t need to be strictly implemented by the developer, it’s a core
part of the OS" and "is also means that multitasking will only work for an app
if the developer specifically implements it" -- completely wrong. Compile the
app with the iOS 4 SDK and you get it all for free. Background services like
audio and VoIP require developer work though.

"iOS still missed the mark. On the iPad, the notification bar is super awkward
and doesn’t scale well." -- citation needed. I actually prefer the iOS 5
notifications, as when they come in they are more conspicuous than the Android
system.

"And the backwards compatible version of iOS4 for iPhone 3G slowed down the
phone so much that users wanted to throw their phones out" -- 4.0 was a bit
pants, but that was fixed pretty quickly, and worked reasonably well. And at
least Apple actually provide updates to their older phones, unlike most
Android OEM's.

"Even things like voice-chat were available on Android devices before the
iPhone 4 was even announced" -- pretty sure the iPhone 1 could make voice
calls.

------
tjogin
Some bullshit in here unfortunately.

"since iOS was not built from top-to-bottom for multi-tasking functionality,
you have to address what continues to happen in the background as the user
leaves app and you’re app has to scurry and get everything ready in within a
short period of time, or iOS will completely shut it out"

This is just patently false. Multitasking was not an afterthought in this UNIX
based OS, the absurdity of that claim reveals the thickness of the author's
bias. This compromise was made to save battery life as well as to make sure
users are aware of what their device is doing at any given moment.

There's a lot of other obviously stupid claims in there too, I'll leave those
as an exercise for the reader.

~~~
josteink
Agreed on the multitasking. iOS was never _incapable_ of general multitasking,
easily shown by its Unix-basis and easily demonstrated by jailbreaking.

It was however intentionally crippled to not allow arbitrary application-level
multitasking because Apple decided it didn't serve them well. So as far as a
normal user was concerned the OS was incapable of multitasking.

So while inaccurate, that statement is not entirely off. You could not create
an application and reliably have it do stuff in the background on iOS.

Apart from that I have to disagree with your statement: I find the rest
entirely reasonable and valid criticism. And I have no doubt about the
conclusion: The future of iOS will be more blatant stealing from Android.

And that is _OK_. Really it is. Just stop that nonsense about Apple being the
innovator.

~~~
tjogin
The rest was reasonable? How about backgrounds? Is it reasonable that Apple
_copied_ backgrounds from Android? Is it reasonable to assume that Apple
hadn't thought of the intricate and exotic feature of _backgrounds_ if not for
Android? Of course not, it's fucking preposterous!

The _only_ reasonable thing in that article is the part about notifications,
because Apple clearly followed Android on those. The rest is concentrated
Android fanboyism.

~~~
gnoupi
Although notifications are most likely copied from their own jailbreaking
community, if I remember well, not particularly from Android.

But then again, a notification bar instead of a popup is not the most ground-
breaking idea. It's a pity (and a bit silly) that they didn't implement that
earlier, for sure.

------
jeiting
Re iOS: "This also means that multitasking will only work for an app if the
developer specifically implements it. Nice."

As opposed to the Android model where all apps get free reign to drain the
users battery life unless the user explicitly kills the app. Task killers are
quite a popular application on Android for this reason.

As to the notion that Apple stole the notion of multitasking on a mobile
device from Android, I'm pretty sure that Apple engineers knew about
multitasking before Android implemented it. Apple made the very difficult (but
correct) decision to sacrifice functionality to protect the overall user
experience.

~~~
beloch
You may be confusing apps placed in the background with services.

Also, Apple has a long history of not being very good at mufti-tasking. OSX
was the first Apple OS that had modern pre-emptive multitasking, a good 5
years after Windows and decades after Unix. Pre-emptive multi-tasking just
means that the OS divies up CPU time between applications without the
applications being aware of it, so many programs can run at the same time
without being specifically written to allow this. Apple was handed
multitasking for free in the form of the BSD code OSX is built on.

OS9, interestingly enough, had non-preemptive multitasking. The OS would never
take control away from a program, but rather, meekly wait for programs to hand
it back. This meant that multi-tasking could work only so long as all programs
you were using were specifically written for it. In reality, few were, and
just one program not written for multi-tasking would seize control and lock
out all other programs. Imagine working on an OS this backwards 5 years after
Windows 95 came out! OS9 was indeed a product of the dark age of Apple.

Multi-tasking in iOS is strangely similar to that of OS9 in that it isn't
handled by the OS invisibly regardless of how applications are written.
Applications must be written to allow multitasking. It's not quite as bad as
OS9 in that one poorly written application won't bring your iOS device to a
screeching halt, but it's still an extremely backwards approach and ample
evidence that Apple still doesn't understand multi-tasking.

The argument that Apple has deliberately done this because it's good for
battery-performance is idiotic. You don't build the foundations of an OS that
could be around for decades around limitations of current generation hardware.
Battery consumption is already a much less important issue than it was two
years ago and it will continue to become less and less important since the
power efficiency of mobile devices is actually growing faster than Moore's
law. In five years Apples poor implementation of multi-tasking, and all the
code written to make use of it, will still be a big mess to clean up. Even if
current generation Android hardware were experiencing poorer battery
performance (and they generally don't) because of Android sane implementation
of multi-tasking, it would be a small price to pay compared to what Apple has
ahead.

The real reason Apple has designed iOS this way is, as with OS9, because they
just don't know any better.

~~~
5hoom
C'mon, really? You're saying that Apple was technologically incapable of
building a multitasking OS.

I don't know where to begin constructing an argument to refute this.

How about, um, I don't know, the existence of OSX?

~~~
prodigal_erik
They tried, failed, and gave up. Apple's shiny next-gen multitasking OS was
codenamed Pink (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taligent#Pink_and_Blue>). It was
spun off as Taligent, pivoted into a UI toolkit, and sank mostly forgotten. So
they acquired NeXTStep along with Jobs, _rebranded that_ as MacOS X, and
started extending it. At least they had the foresight to maintain the port to
commodity x86 hardware that NeXT, another Microsoft/OEM victim, never really
managed to sell.

------
zalthor
I feel that the jailbreak dev community offers more "direction" to the changes
that are brought about in iOS, compared to Android. The multi-tasking feature
for one, was available on iOS 3 if jailbroken, the same goes with wifi sync
(which is going to be on iOS 5). One could probably argue that the jailbreak
apps get their inspiration from certain Android features, which could be
possible, but I don't know the release dates for each feature to retort to
that. Though I think this article is right about one thing, competition does
bring about innovation, be it from Android or from Cydia.

~~~
billpatrianakos
I would bet Apple had all these features up their sleeve for years but kept
them out of iOS on purpose. I don't even believe it was "just to charge more
for the next upgrade" like I've heard people say either. Its as simple as
slowly introducing people to new concepts. If I gave my grandma an iPhone 1
then upgraded her every year, she'd be a pro on the next version of iOS. If,
however, I gave her an Android phone that was already shipping with the
features iOS left out in the early days she'd chuck it out the window. And
that's how Apple keeps their converts. Maybe us technically inclined users
appreciate not being babied but the masses quite frankly need their hand held
when it comes to technology.

------
chriseidhof
It is possible to interact between apps on iOS, using URLs. You can encode
data in base64. It's not even close to Android's intents, but it works.

------
mershad
Ew. How is it that articles with crummy colloquial grammar ("This one is
too…obvious. And that’s an understatement."), yucky misspellings ("the user
leaves app and you’re app has to scurry...") -AND questionable content even
climb up into front page view?

Boo.

------
josteink
With posts like these censored from HN, no wonder pro-Apple bias stays the way
it is here. The Apple proponents on this site probably have no idea what's
going on outside their Apple-coloured windows and the first time they hear
about anything is when Apple announces it on a keynote.

Because painting Apple as the one doing copying will get you flagged the hell
out of forums like this one.

So yeah. _This_ gets flagged, but Gruber's trollbait and Apple-praise goes?
Facts are bad, but reinforced, artificially rosed up Apple-gardens are good?
WTH.

Can we please have an "unflag"-button to save articles from the censorship of
Apple fanatics? Pretty please? iPlease?

~~~
koffiezet
I wonder if you ever even touched an iPhone or iOS device? You certainly never
used one. I have a long history of using "smartphones", I owned a Nokia
communicator, a Compaq windows mobile PDA, a Sony-Ericsson P910, and then
decided nothing was really worth it.

So then came along the iPhone. It did exactly what I needed, I bought a 3G the
moment it was available here in Europe. Then came Android. As a long-time
embedded developer, suddenly, mobile applications became important. I now
develop for both iOS and Android, and know both platforms pretty well. Android
in my opinion is a geek's toy, and just like the Linux desktop "good enough",
but not quite there yet. Simply put, iOS is way more polished. On some levels
it does less, but what it does, it most likely does a lot better (viewed from
a user pov). There are off course exceptions, Apple is not flawless - it's
unbelievable that only now in the 5th major release their notifications-system
is improved, and the lockscreen would finally be used to actually display
usefull information. Another problem is the calendar app, which looks nice on
the surface, but it's pretty useless for day-to-day use (luckily there is Week
Cal). And don't even mention folders. I hate them, they're useless, and put
apps in a dungeon to be forgotten forever. Anyway, these complaints are minor
compared to my gripes with Android. I won't even start going down that path.
Yes I tried the Nexus One and Nexus S we have here at the office extensively,
I still take them with me when I have to travel for work-related work so I
don't end up with massive personal phone bills.

And then came along tablets. I skipped the first generation iPad, I always
wait for 2nd generation for most new stuff. Along came the "competitor"
tablets. Ever played with a Xoom? No? Good advice: keep it that way. Playbook?
Avoid like hell. Samsung galaxy tab? The 10" is ok-ish. Not great, but usable
- but spend my own money on it? No tx... Weird thing is, my biggest problem
isn't necessarily Android (which isn't exactly "nice" on a tablet), but the
16:10 display, it's simply horrible for a tablet... Why do people think an
aspect ratio for watching a movie (which is about ehm 5% of the things I do on
my iPad2) should dictate the form factor? So as I said, I bought an iPad 2,
and I'm very happy with it. From time to time, a test-sample of some unknown
tablet is dropped on my desk to look at. The only-one I haven't seen is the
Touchpad, which I would love to have.

Anyway, I am still daily confronted with Android phones, blackberries, windows
mobile - I have to develop for it. I do know these platforms very well, it's
my job. And I think Android is absolutely necessary to push competition, not
only Apple, but also Windows Mobile 7, which is actually pretty impressive
imho. Too bad WebOS probably doesn't have a future, this had a shared 2nd
place with winmo7 on my mobile OS list. Android is 3rd, followed by Meego and
then Blackberry OS, which I absolutely detest.

So please don't pretend other people never used anything else while you try to
bash iOS and Apple... Nothing is black & white. Both Apple, Google, Microsoft,
HP, Intel, Nokia, ... are companies trying to act in their own interest. Don't
fool yourself, no mobile OS is perfect, but it's very hard to point out things
iOS does worse than any competing OS.

~~~
josteink
I'll honour your long, proper reply with what I hope is an equally proper one.
I'll just quote your first question, but hopefully that touches within enough
of the subjects you mentioned.

 _I wonder if you ever even touched an iPhone or iOS device? You certainly
never used one._

I was stuck with one for over two years. An iPhone 3G.

It was my replacement phone for my old Windows Mobile phone (some HTC S730 or
something) and the level of polish on that iPhone was _amazing_. It blew me
away.

For a while it made me accept its locked down nature, all the things my old
phone could do, but this one could not. I even accepted fucking _iTunes_. The
polish made it all OK.

But as I used it more and more, added more apps, I saw how none of them played
together. I noticed every single time that how no matter what you wanted to
do, the only way to do that was go back to the homescreen, locate another app,
then re-locate your data, _then_ continue working on what you wanted to do.

Want to shoot a picture, modify the colours and then upload that modified
picture to facebook? Well start the camera app. Close. Go back to home, and
find and open your picture editor app. Then navigate and relocate your
picture. Edit. Save. Then go back to the homescreen, open the facebook app and
the click post and then try to relocate your now modified image and I'm sure
you get my idea.

This OS has absolutely no _flow_. There is polish, but there is no true
elegance to anything on that platform.

Every minor little thing involves hastles, indirection. Because the OS was
designed to do simple things and simple things only. The OS itself smears its
own inelegance onto everything it runs.

My example was only for a picture. For other file-types iOS doesn't even allow
inter-app interaction because as we all know, "iOS devices has no files".

In Android? Shoot, send to editor, edit, send to Facebook. Done. How simple is
that? And I've never even touched a file. But I _can_ if I want to. And this
is very important.

Eventually iOS drove me crazy. It was artificailly limited, crippled, had a
too simple design and everything it did was flawed somehow, just to
accommodate that sense of polish.

I see Apple are doing desperate catching up these days to try to get on level
with Android in terms of sophistication, but iOS is simply at its core too
simple to allow that. The additions to bring it up Androids levels feels
tacked on, not designed and as a _part_ of the experience.

So trust me: I've certainly used an iOS device, for long periods of time. For
a while I even thought I liked it. But I am very certain that I will never,
ever set my foot in iOS country again. It just feels wrong, locked down and
artificial. And every tiny action you do creates squeaky noises. Squeaky
noises saying "you need to go back to the homescreen and start all over again.
Again".

Thanks but no thanks.

It is my humble opinion that iOS has been a stale OS for a very long time now,
and the only innovation happening on iOS is as a result of direct copying from
Android. As this (now censored) article so very clearly highlights. But try to
start a discussion about such a topic on HN, and you will get labeled troll
and censored or driven off site.

You get _censored_ because you say Apple is not an innovator. Why? I don't
know. I could guess weird conspiracy theories. Or I could just assume that
there are enough Apple fanatics on this site which instantly doesn't like what
they see and clicks "flag".

I honestly don't know, but anything critical against Apple gets shot down dead
on this site like no other place on the internet. And if I know that level of
censoring is happening on one subject which I pay attention to, what about
those other topics?

Are they being censored as well? What _are_ being censored here on HN?
Currently I find the uncertainty about that somewhat startling and I have
considered stopping going here for that reason.

------
kennywinker
Troll troll troll troll

------
teilo
A lot of people here are arguing about whether Apple copied _a particular
implementation_ of a given feature. That is beside the point.

It goes more like this: Apple sees that Android has vastly superior
notifications. Apple concludes, "We need better notifications". Apple
implement a better notification system that shares certain features with
Android's system, but in other ways is unique.

Yes, they respond to market pressure. Yes, they borrow ideas. They also
innovate. I do not see any difference between Apple and Google in this regard.

------
rwaliany
It's not a service to humanity to copy the features from a Desktop computer,
call it a mobile phone, and claim that this phone is better than a product
that was designed to be a phone.

------
glenra
> And iOS still doesn’t have turn-by-turn navigation

iOS has had turn-by-turn navigation available at least as long as Android - it
just has it in the form of third-party applications such as TomTom. For, say,
$39 you can install ~1GB of map data on the iPhone. You then not only have
turn-by-turn but you can also _navigate in areas where there's no cellphone
signal_.

~~~
iloveyouocean
You can opt to have Google Maps/Navigation store map data on-device if you
like.

------
JohnTHaller
What's even more interesting is how much Apple copied from Palm and others.
Like the whole device with a big screen and a grid of icons copied from the
Palm Tungsten TX (debuted in October 2004) which was something Apple was suing
Samsung about. Or did they copy that from Windows 3.1?

~~~
pazimzadeh
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_(platform)>

~~~
JohnTHaller
Look up GRiDPad. That's where Apple took the idea for the Newton from (it
launched a full two years before the Newton).

------
klinquist
"People often say that Android is a copy of iOS."

Who are those "people"?

Sounds like the author is debating a position that few people actually hold.

~~~
armandososa
I actually think that it is obvious.

[http://random.andrewwarner.com/what-googles-android-
looked-l...](http://random.andrewwarner.com/what-googles-android-looked-like-
before-and-after-the-launch-of-iphone/)

~~~
seqastian
so what you are saying they copied from RIM then realized its better to copy
from Apple? ;)

