

Frosted Glass Effects — Why I switched to Android after all these years - chmars
http://blog.agoeldi.com/2013/08/02/frosted-glass-effects-why-i-switched-to-android-after-all-these-years/

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durzagott
I get the author's point, but he has decided that frosted effects have gone
out of fashion and uses this as a litmus test for whether or not a platform is
in decline.

The crux of this argument is that "pointless" features are a result of stalled
innovation. I'm sure if the author was to look more closely at his Android
phone he would see a great number of pointless features; especially in OEM
skins like Touchwiz.

If the author was trying to convince me that Android is a superior platform
when it comes to innovation (which it may well be) then he has failed to
provided any evidence other than "because frosted effects".

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kleiba
But he does give more evidence than that when he reports that he was using
mostly non-Apple replacements for lots of his standard apps. I'm not sure
whether the apps he lists are more "innovative" on Android, but apparently he
found them more comfortable to use than the iOS built-ins.

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beloch
Vista isn't given enough credit. It was a huge overhaul from XP. A lot of the
improvements were of the under-the-hood variety, but there were some notable
improvements in UI, such as search integration. Win7 was basically Vista with
intelligent defaults (and funky backgrounds) while Win8 is Vista with Aero
ripped out and Metro added in.

Aero wasn't meaningless eye-candy added to Vista to distract from a lack of
innovation. It was MS taking skeuomorphic design so seriously that they were
willing to sacrifice a lot of performance to implement it. Aero was doomed
once MS started gravitating towards flat, colorful UI's that eschew
skeuomorphism, and finally decided to try to run a desktop kernel on tablet
hardware.

One thing I find strange about iOS 7 is that it doesn't seem to be well suited
for older hardware or budget hardware like the iPad mini or the rumored budget
iPhone. Does iOS 7 perform better than this added eye candy would lead one to
expect, or will it simply run in a compromised mode on weaker hardware?

~~~
xymostech
I've been running the iOS 7 betas on my iPhone 4 (the oldest generation that
iOS 7 will support). It definitely disables some of the features: a lot of the
transparency is gone, the parallax is gone, and it's missing a lot of features
like Siri and stuff. In beta 1, the performance was terrible, but it's gotten
much better recently.

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agoeldi
Author here :-) I'm not mad about anything in iOS 7 (yes, betas have bugs, and
that's totally fine). I can live with gimmicky visual effects and useless
features (Android has plenty of those). Obviously I don't literally care about
frosted glass, it was just a metaphor.

The problem is not what turns me off in a platform but what turns me on. I
just think that on balance iOS until recently had a stronger combination of
user experience and innovative features. But that has changed, and iOS 7
doesn't show that Apple has the fundamental capabilities (particularly in
online services) to keep the platform interesting going forward.

Overall, Android is right now simply the more _useful_ platform. There's
almost nothing that iOS does better than Android, but plenty of areas where
Android is stronger.

I'm also not trying to convince anybody. I was just stating why I switched.
And I will keep my iOS devices, not least because my extended family is locked
into iOS and expects me to call them on Facetime...

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taspeotis
> A few minutes after installing the IOS 7 beta I just knew I needed to switch
> to Android ... [iOS 7] feels a lot like Window Vista.

Yeah, iOS Beta 1 and Beta 2 were ugly and buggy pieces of shit. Beta 3 and 4
are a lot nicer.

In my opinion, the UI still needs work but I'm willing to forgive the guys in
Cupertino since it's ... you know ... a beta.

TL;DR Guy switches to Android after using pre-release operating system on his
iPhone.

~~~
TsiCClawOfLight
I think he isn't mad about bugs, but about the gimmicky nature of the
"innovation" in IOS 7... but maybe I misread him.

~~~
taspeotis
I couldn't tell what he was mad about, his premise seems to be an iPhone is
not able to hold enough Goog-kool Aid for long trips in the car or something.

> I have found myself using more and more Google apps on my iPhone over the
> past 18 months or so. Google Maps ... Gmail ... Chrome ... voice search
> through Google’s search app ... Google's services are not only much more
> powerful but also very neatly integrated. The amazing Google Now is the best
> example for that.

> ... real progress can only be made in Internet-based services that integrate
> seamlessly with a smartphone OS. Google’s superiority in information
> services and Android’s general openness are perfect for that.

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interpol_p
With every new iOS release consumers _don 't_ get to see the most important,
innovative updates to the OS.

It's all in the developer frameworks. Just look at stuff like TypeKit this
time around. Every release of iOS has great new and improved frameworks that
will lead to a better generation of apps.

Once the API diffs for each new major release stop being interesting is when
I'll worry for innovation on the platform.

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ddoolin
I honestly think, and I think you should think so, too, that the point made in
this article is a terrible point because...well...it just it. iOS 7 added a
frosted effect, and Windows Vista had a frosted effect...so because Windows
Vista was somehow a signal of a product in decline, iOS 7 must be, too? That's
the case in point? Eh, it's really far-fetched and kind of a silly association
to make.

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pedalpete
I'm curious what the author thinks about Windows8 now that Windows no longer
has the frosted glass effect?

~~~
TsiCClawOfLight
Windows 8 is still gimmicky, though...

~~~
WayneDB
But despite it's gimmicks - Windows 8 is still a massive improvement.

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bparsons
Haven't tried 7, but picking up a iPhone 5 after using my Nexus 4 feels like a
big leap backwards. It is what my Blackberry bold felt like after using an
iPhone for the first time.

