On Jan 26, 10:05 pm, Casper Bang <[email protected]> wrote: > It certainly looks like one major overhaul, more polish and hardware > acceleration.
It really does seem that Apple designs products differently than everybody else out there - start with a small core that Apple gets right and then add to it in later iterations, relatively polished all along the way (http://www.macworld.com/article/151235/2010/05/ apple_rolls.html). Examples: no SDK until 2.0, no copy&paste until 3.0, no multitasking until 4.0, but a very solid foundation that didn't have to be overhauled along the way. Yes, Apple fails too - Apple TV comes to mind, but nobody has succeed in the "another set top box for your TV category", yet. The Mac has a lot of cruft, too, but at least the Mac is 27 years now and is on it's third CPU platform. In iOS, Apple failed in implementation (4.0 was very buggy and unusable on iPhone 3G, alarm clock bug), but I can only recall one area where they failed conceptually in iOS, so to speak - notifications (they plain suck on iOS, but they hired the WebOS notification guy last year, so I assume it'll be fixed in 5.0). Over the years, iOS will get cruft, too, but so far its holding up nicely. Android, on the other side, had a lot of features since the beginning but shipped in what Andy Rubin said "felt more like a 0.8" (http:// www.intomobile.com/2010/06/01/android-update-cycle-to-change-one-android-os-update-per-year/). Some things are still not right in Gingerbread even though they were specifically addressed - copying text (five different Google apps, five different ways, if you include Google Reader where you can't select text at all - http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/10/nexus-s-review/) comes to mind, some things were finally fixed (keyboard). From Nexus One to Nexus S, Google got rid of the "Blackberry leftovers" joystick and notification light, and Honeycomb is supposed to de-emphasize the evil menu button (allows developers to hide functionality that they couldn't fit on the screen) with toolbars and do away with the need for hardware buttions. If you listen to the Duarte interview at Engadget (he did WebOS for Palm, now heads up Android user experience - http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/07/exclusive-interview-googles-matias-duarte-talks-honeycomb-tab/), he metaphorically talks about buildings that you need to tear down because they were bad and buildings that you need to leave standing, either because they are fine or because you can't change them anymore now. So it seems to me that Android started out with a wider, but weaker foundation - compared against iOS - and therefore needed more "refactorings" already, though being a year younger than iOS. Obviously, I like the Apple design way better. But I've worked in product development for a couple of years now, and I know how easy it is to start out with a less than perfect base and then to pile on feature after feature because marketing wants it or a customers likes or a sale depends on it. And then you have a product with a lot warts and odd ends, and at some point you wish for a big make-over. Very few companies have the discipline and means to resist this - but then again, but I don't think there are many places that have "simplicity" as a company goal (http://www.asymco.com/2011/01/17/the-cook- doctrine/). But I think it's great to have an example that you can develop products in another way than with "feature piling" and let that influence your work and thinking. Overall, I'm glad that Honeycomb looks like a great release and that finally Google hands out betas to developers ahead of time (is the Gingerbread SDK even available yet?) - Apple needs some competition in the tablet space so that they don't get lazy. Look what Android did to the iPhone - all the iOS releases last year, and at least three mayor releases this year! :-) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
