4 ms·

His example of how Android is worse than iPhone is quite inaccurate. Activities in Android do not correspond to UIViews in iPhone - they're supposed to be self-

His example of how Android is worse than iPhone is quite inaccurate. Activities in Android do not correspond to UIViews in iPhone - they're supposed to be self-contained and somewhat independent units of execution (UI units in this case). The fact that Intents are so limited demands pretty loose coupling and makes developing larger applications easier (and your code more modular). If I wanted to do what he wants to do in his example, I would do exactly that - create the views I want/need, throw them in a list, then rotate/display them in whatever order I needed. Personally, I cannot get excited about iPhone development. While the UI Builder truly is top notch, the whole thing seems geared towards building great UIs to so people can consume content in a mobile-friendly way. Android OTOH, while limited in UI, gives you the freedom to make whatever you want. Sadly, the author hasn't discovered that and makes absolutely no mention of things like Services, BroadcastReceivers or the other ways you can hook into the system. People may say that doesn't matter, but that's because they can't miss something they've never had. My Android app is one of the top ones in it's category and has no equivalent on the iPhone because it can't be written for non-jailbroken ones. The one I am currently working also cannot be written for the iPhone (whether it will be popular remains to be seen. Mostly, I just want to finish it and use it myself)

pkulak 17y ago
What's the app of yours that can't be built on the iPhone? It would just be nice to know for an example of what you're talking about.
- nuclear_eclipse 17y ago
  Looking at his profile: http://phonalyzr.com/ http://phonalyzr.com/ For a few other examples of things you can't do on iPhone: http://www.twofortyfouram.com/product.html http://www.twofortyfouram.com/product.html allows a background service to change phone settings dependent on conditions like your current location, time of day, or battery level. http://slidescreenhome.com http://slidescreenhome.com replaces the standard home screen with a completely different, and information-centric view. http://pandora.com http://pandora.com is the most obvious example, or any media player application far that matter, for when you want to listen to something other than your mp3 library while using your phone.
joezydeco 17y ago
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I find UIBuilder to be awful. Unintuitive and almost impossible to grok without some prior experience or handholding. For my first "hello world" apps I wound up coding the views entirely by hand and skipping the .xib
- glhaynes 17y ago
  This is commonly said by people new to Interface Builder. I don't recall hearing of a long-time Apple / NeXT dev or major app that didn't use it, though.
  - joezydeco 17y ago
    So why hasn't IB gotten the same amount of improvements and attention as the rest of the toolchain? XCode has come a long way, as have the compilers and instruments.
    - glhaynes 17y ago
      Oh I don't disagree with you that IB can be annoying, and to a part-time Mac programmer like myself, not as intuitive as I wish. I only meant that the full-timers generally seem to like IB (warts and all), or, even if they don't like it, they still nearly universally use it instead of doing all their layout in code. The same scenario has repeated itself for many years: a newbie gets annoyed at IB and says "I'm just gonna do it all in code!" and all the graybeards say "ur doin it rong."
      - joezydeco 17y ago
        I certainly wouldn't embark on a long-term OSX/iPhone project without mastering IB. It's obvious that your UI is easier to modify and update using IB than hacking it in and out of the view controller code. Back to the original thread, I do give a little credit to Android to having the option of UI editing done inside of Eclipse. It's not perfect, it's a little hacky, but the concept of slapping down a UI element like a button, naming it, and then having it automatically compile and show up in the editor autocomplete is a powerful thing. The first time it happened it honestly was a nice surprise.

pkulak 17y ago

What's the app of yours that can't be built on the iPhone? It would just be nice to know for an example of what you're talking about.

nuclear_eclipse 17y ago
Looking at his profile: http://phonalyzr.com/ http://phonalyzr.com/ For a few other examples of things you can't do on iPhone: http://www.twofortyfouram.com/product.html http://www.twofortyfouram.com/product.html allows a background service to change phone settings dependent on conditions like your current location, time of day, or battery level. http://slidescreenhome.com http://slidescreenhome.com replaces the standard home screen with a completely different, and information-centric view. http://pandora.com http://pandora.com is the most obvious example, or any media player application far that matter, for when you want to listen to something other than your mp3 library while using your phone.

joezydeco 17y ago

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I find UIBuilder to be awful. Unintuitive and almost impossible to grok without some prior experience or handholding. For my first "hello world" apps I wound up coding the views entirely by hand and skipping the .xib

glhaynes 17y ago
This is commonly said by people new to Interface Builder. I don't recall hearing of a long-time Apple / NeXT dev or major app that didn't use it, though.
- joezydeco 17y ago
  So why hasn't IB gotten the same amount of improvements and attention as the rest of the toolchain? XCode has come a long way, as have the compilers and instruments.
  - glhaynes 17y ago
    Oh I don't disagree with you that IB can be annoying, and to a part-time Mac programmer like myself, not as intuitive as I wish. I only meant that the full-timers generally seem to like IB (warts and all), or, even if they don't like it, they still nearly universally use it instead of doing all their layout in code. The same scenario has repeated itself for many years: a newbie gets annoyed at IB and says "I'm just gonna do it all in code!" and all the graybeards say "ur doin it rong."
    - joezydeco 17y ago
      I certainly wouldn't embark on a long-term OSX/iPhone project without mastering IB. It's obvious that your UI is easier to modify and update using IB than hacking it in and out of the view controller code. Back to the original thread, I do give a little credit to Android to having the option of UI editing done inside of Eclipse. It's not perfect, it's a little hacky, but the concept of slapping down a UI element like a button, naming it, and then having it automatically compile and show up in the editor autocomplete is a powerful thing. The first time it happened it honestly was a nice surprise.