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Go tell your mom about the new features that Froyo has. Watch her eyes glaze over as you talk about "cloud-to-phone messaging APIs" and "APIs to make app data s

Go tell your mom about the new features that Froyo has. Watch her eyes glaze over as you talk about "cloud-to-phone messaging APIs" and "APIs to make app data searchable". Now show her the iphone 4 retina display.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
chrischen 16y ago
Those features obviously don't appeal to the general user: they appeal to the developers. The developers are ultimately responsible for creating apps which speak to the general user. The iPhone without apps would at most be 50% of what it is now. Cool features to developers attract developers, and they in turn purify those raw features in to cool easily understandable applications. Cloud to phone Apis is not meant to be a marketing point for your mother.
fgf 16y ago
Smartphones have enormous potential to supplement and even substitute PCs for everyday uses of non geeks. (Plumbers, store owners, salesmen, lawyers, accountants, doctors etc. etc.) Searchable app data will be important to make this happen. There is nothing frivolous about a feature that allows users to, for example, quickly access one of dozens of customer profiles.
- Groxx 16y ago
  Many of those uses already have specialized apps, which do search within their context-relevant data, in context-relevant ways. iPads in medical environments are a perfect example. Why, if you're searching for symptom X, would you want to find emails with X, text messages with X, and that image which just happens to contain X in its filename? Essentially every laptop / tablet / whatever-PC in use in the medical field works similarly - they use one application which handles all relevant data, and it doesn't search outside that. And this is on a PC, which is essentially wide open to application interoperability (if not as easy to do). Developers and users have already apparently decided that it's not as important / desirable as many would like to believe. Granted, there are cases where this is useful, but it's a fundamental iOS / Android(/Unix) design choice. Android favors interoperation through APIs, iOS favors using one application for the job at hand.
  - zaphar 16y ago
    Why, if you're searching for symptom X, would you want to find emails with X, text messages with X, and that image which just happens to contain X in its filename? You could very well want any of those things searchable for symptom X if the email, text message, or Image has relevant details for symptom X. Perhaps the image is an X-ray, the email is a diagnosis from a colleague, or the text message is relevant data about the diagnosis. The very fact that you think they should have to load 3+ different apps to find all the data relevant for symptom X or purchase a high priced propietary app that somehow bundles email, imaging, documents and sms all into one interface shows a lack of vision. Just because every medical device in the field works that way doesn't mean it should.
    - Groxx 16y ago
      But without it being in database X, it's (very) hard to know the context of those sources. Without context, you're more likely to get irrelevant data which just happens to contain X. Unless your machine has no irrelevant-to-your-current-query data in it (unlikely). And in that case, the whole device is effectively a one-trick-pony, significantly less useful than simply being bound to a single application. Know of a search API which properly handles (every possible use of) context? Without that, people distrust searching because of irrelevant results. Google does well because of PageRank; as far as I'm aware, nobody has arbitrary-context searching which is effective, because it's such a ridiculously complex and/or processing-intensive problem. Such a filter would probably be integral to passing the Turing test, so we'd probably have heard of it if it existed.
      - zaphar 16y ago
        I think your inflating how useful having it in a database is. The context comes from reading/viewing the content. A database isn't automatically going to fix that. If you need information about "Lupus" (yeah I know it's never lupus) and it's about Tom your new patient. And you know you getting either an email or SMS from Greg the specialist on the way to the office and all you have to do is hit the search button and type in Lupus, Tom and Greg to get that information then your phone has just made your life easier. The context space is much smaller on a device like a phone and it's quite possible to craft a query that finds what you need faster than finding the app, opening it finding the search option then typing it in. On my Android phone I love the search feature. It's a lot like having quicksilver on my phone. A single button that gets me access to everything.
etal 16y ago
Does iOS provide some special support for high-resolution screens that Android doesn't? If not, then that's a hardware feature that any rival could easily pick up. Remember how Motorola Droid first upped the ante on screen resolution at the end of last year.
- philwelch 16y ago
  Retina Display is shipping. You can't argue against that with a hypothetical.
  - pyre 16y ago
    To say that incremental hardware improvements are hypothetical, I think that you have to argue against history on this one.
    - philwelch 16y ago
      It's hypothetical that future Android hardware will outpace the display quality of future iPhone hardware for sure. And even if it's likely, the question isn't whether Android will overtake iPhone in the future, but whether Android is ahead of iPhone now.
  - etal 16y ago
    The point is that it's not an iOS feature, it's an iPhone feature. The original question is about the operating system, not the hardware. This distinction doesn't matter much for the iPhone, but it certainly does for Android devices.
    - philwelch 16y ago
      Ultimately, what matters is that the Android set of actual phones you can buy competes in the marketplace with the iPhone line. There's no competition between operating systems per se--this isn't Windows vs. Linux.
  - enjo 16y ago
Sephr 16y ago
Then show her the AMOLED screen of Nexus One that has a similar (though slightly lower) resolution.
- nc 16y ago
  There is absolutely no comparison. The nexus one can't even render all colours properly.
  - SandB0x 16y ago
    No screen can render all colours properly, and from what I've read the AMOLED screen on the Nexus One has a far larger colour gamut.
- alanh 16y ago
  Seriously? To my eye, verticals look ragged on that screen, thanks to the not-nearly-as-high-res, hexagonal pixels. Edit: I see discussion of gamut. To quote http://www.displaymate.com/Nexus_One_ShootOut.htm http://www.displaymate.com/Nexus_One_ShootOut.htm: The Color Gamut of the Nexus One is much larger than the industry standard … which is actually bad because it makes all colors appear too strong and over-saturated. … all they do it distort the colors in the images and photos on-screen What good is it to have a larger gamut if the software doesn't support it? All graphics online & in apps use standard sRGB color space information. There’s simply nothing to display outside of that gamut in 99.9%+ of cases.
  - wmeredith 16y ago
    This situation perfectly demonstrates what has been what is, and will continue to be, Apple's unique advantage: true hardware and software integration. iOS may be behind o features, but the software is only part of the story.
beloch 16y ago
After you show her the retina display, show her the HTC Evo display. "OOooo... I can actually read some of the text on that one!" she'll say. Pixel density is nice and all, but a lot of people would rather have a bigger screen. This illustrates Android's biggest advantage and biggest weakness versus iOS. Choice. The trick for Google is to introduce some standards that will make different Android phones more consistent. Hell, they could do the same thing for the hardware. Crank out a cellphone chipset that manufacturers can customize instead of rolling their own and then being 8 months behind the latest Android release, if even that! Then the variety of Android phones out there will be a true strength and not a weakness.
- megablast 16y ago
  No, most people would not. Most people want a phone that is easy to carry around, and then the biggest screen you can get on that device. I find android phones offering bigger and bigger screens a distraction. Sure, it suits some people, but most people are just going to find that phone too big.
  - dagw 16y ago
    most people are just going to find that phone too big. Which is why you can get smaller android phones as well. With iPhones they come in one size, and if it isn't the perfect size for you, the you either have to learn to live with it or not get an iPhone. With Android you can chose smaller than iPhone, same size as iPhone or larger than iPhone depending on personal preference.
orangecat 16y ago
Now show her the iphone 4 retina display. The Droid has been shipping for 8 months with a 265 ppi display; funny how that was a meaningless spec that only geeks care about until recently.
- pedalpete 16y ago
  But that is part of the very intelligent marketing of Apple. Your mom doesn't understand what 265 ppi is. Retina Display is the clearest display your eye can see. That she understands.
- patrickk 16y ago
  Apple's marketing is superior to Google's (or pretty much anyone else's). I work at Apple (recent hire, admittedly), and there's a big focus on communication (part of the 'Apple Way') rather than on geeky stuff. I suspect that this isn't the case at Google. ps. I'm not saying this to act like a fanboy towards my employer (really, I'm not). Experiment: ask someone to name 3 or 4 android phone models. Watch their eyes glaze over. They may ask: "what's Android?" The point I'm making is that there's the iPhone, which most people have heard of, and then there's the mass of confusion from other manufacturers. This is the case in other product lines too, such as MacBooks vs pc laptops.
aditya42 16y ago
There is a right way to explain a feature to a person, and a wrong way.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

chrischen 16y ago

Those features obviously don't appeal to the general user: they appeal to the developers. The developers are ultimately responsible for creating apps which speak to the general user. The iPhone without apps would at most be 50% of what it is now. Cool features to developers attract developers, and they in turn purify those raw features in to cool easily understandable applications. Cloud to phone Apis is not meant to be a marketing point for your mother.

fgf 16y ago

Smartphones have enormous potential to supplement and even substitute PCs for everyday uses of non geeks. (Plumbers, store owners, salesmen, lawyers, accountants, doctors etc. etc.) Searchable app data will be important to make this happen. There is nothing frivolous about a feature that allows users to, for example, quickly access one of dozens of customer profiles.

Groxx 16y ago
Many of those uses already have specialized apps, which do search within their context-relevant data, in context-relevant ways. iPads in medical environments are a perfect example. Why, if you're searching for symptom X, would you want to find emails with X, text messages with X, and that image which just happens to contain X in its filename? Essentially every laptop / tablet / whatever-PC in use in the medical field works similarly - they use one application which handles all relevant data, and it doesn't search outside that. And this is on a PC, which is essentially wide open to application interoperability (if not as easy to do). Developers and users have already apparently decided that it's not as important / desirable as many would like to believe. Granted, there are cases where this is useful, but it's a fundamental iOS / Android(/Unix) design choice. Android favors interoperation through APIs, iOS favors using one application for the job at hand.
- zaphar 16y ago
  Why, if you're searching for symptom X, would you want to find emails with X, text messages with X, and that image which just happens to contain X in its filename? You could very well want any of those things searchable for symptom X if the email, text message, or Image has relevant details for symptom X. Perhaps the image is an X-ray, the email is a diagnosis from a colleague, or the text message is relevant data about the diagnosis. The very fact that you think they should have to load 3+ different apps to find all the data relevant for symptom X or purchase a high priced propietary app that somehow bundles email, imaging, documents and sms all into one interface shows a lack of vision. Just because every medical device in the field works that way doesn't mean it should.
  - Groxx 16y ago
    But without it being in database X, it's (very) hard to know the context of those sources. Without context, you're more likely to get irrelevant data which just happens to contain X. Unless your machine has no irrelevant-to-your-current-query data in it (unlikely). And in that case, the whole device is effectively a one-trick-pony, significantly less useful than simply being bound to a single application. Know of a search API which properly handles (every possible use of) context? Without that, people distrust searching because of irrelevant results. Google does well because of PageRank; as far as I'm aware, nobody has arbitrary-context searching which is effective, because it's such a ridiculously complex and/or processing-intensive problem. Such a filter would probably be integral to passing the Turing test, so we'd probably have heard of it if it existed.
    - zaphar 16y ago
      I think your inflating how useful having it in a database is. The context comes from reading/viewing the content. A database isn't automatically going to fix that. If you need information about "Lupus" (yeah I know it's never lupus) and it's about Tom your new patient. And you know you getting either an email or SMS from Greg the specialist on the way to the office and all you have to do is hit the search button and type in Lupus, Tom and Greg to get that information then your phone has just made your life easier. The context space is much smaller on a device like a phone and it's quite possible to craft a query that finds what you need faster than finding the app, opening it finding the search option then typing it in. On my Android phone I love the search feature. It's a lot like having quicksilver on my phone. A single button that gets me access to everything.

etal 16y ago

Does iOS provide some special support for high-resolution screens that Android doesn't? If not, then that's a hardware feature that any rival could easily pick up. Remember how Motorola Droid first upped the ante on screen resolution at the end of last year.

philwelch 16y ago
Retina Display is shipping. You can't argue against that with a hypothetical.
- pyre 16y ago
  To say that incremental hardware improvements are hypothetical, I think that you have to argue against history on this one.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    It's hypothetical that future Android hardware will outpace the display quality of future iPhone hardware for sure. And even if it's likely, the question isn't whether Android will overtake iPhone in the future, but whether Android is ahead of iPhone now.
- etal 16y ago
  The point is that it's not an iOS feature, it's an iPhone feature. The original question is about the operating system, not the hardware. This distinction doesn't matter much for the iPhone, but it certainly does for Android devices.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    Ultimately, what matters is that the Android set of actual phones you can buy competes in the marketplace with the iPhone line. There's no competition between operating systems per se--this isn't Windows vs. Linux.
- enjo 16y ago

Sephr 16y ago

Then show her the AMOLED screen of Nexus One that has a similar (though slightly lower) resolution.

nc 16y ago
There is absolutely no comparison. The nexus one can't even render all colours properly.
- SandB0x 16y ago
  No screen can render all colours properly, and from what I've read the AMOLED screen on the Nexus One has a far larger colour gamut.
alanh 16y ago
Seriously? To my eye, verticals look ragged on that screen, thanks to the not-nearly-as-high-res, hexagonal pixels. Edit: I see discussion of gamut. To quote http://www.displaymate.com/Nexus_One_ShootOut.htm http://www.displaymate.com/Nexus_One_ShootOut.htm: The Color Gamut of the Nexus One is much larger than the industry standard … which is actually bad because it makes all colors appear too strong and over-saturated. … all they do it distort the colors in the images and photos on-screen What good is it to have a larger gamut if the software doesn't support it? All graphics online & in apps use standard sRGB color space information. There’s simply nothing to display outside of that gamut in 99.9%+ of cases.
- wmeredith 16y ago
  This situation perfectly demonstrates what has been what is, and will continue to be, Apple's unique advantage: true hardware and software integration. iOS may be behind o features, but the software is only part of the story.

beloch 16y ago

After you show her the retina display, show her the HTC Evo display. "OOooo... I can actually read some of the text on that one!" she'll say. Pixel density is nice and all, but a lot of people would rather have a bigger screen. This illustrates Android's biggest advantage and biggest weakness versus iOS. Choice. The trick for Google is to introduce some standards that will make different Android phones more consistent. Hell, they could do the same thing for the hardware. Crank out a cellphone chipset that manufacturers can customize instead of rolling their own and then being 8 months behind the latest Android release, if even that! Then the variety of Android phones out there will be a true strength and not a weakness.

megablast 16y ago
No, most people would not. Most people want a phone that is easy to carry around, and then the biggest screen you can get on that device. I find android phones offering bigger and bigger screens a distraction. Sure, it suits some people, but most people are just going to find that phone too big.
- dagw 16y ago
  most people are just going to find that phone too big. Which is why you can get smaller android phones as well. With iPhones they come in one size, and if it isn't the perfect size for you, the you either have to learn to live with it or not get an iPhone. With Android you can chose smaller than iPhone, same size as iPhone or larger than iPhone depending on personal preference.

orangecat 16y ago

Now show her the iphone 4 retina display. The Droid has been shipping for 8 months with a 265 ppi display; funny how that was a meaningless spec that only geeks care about until recently.

pedalpete 16y ago
But that is part of the very intelligent marketing of Apple. Your mom doesn't understand what 265 ppi is. Retina Display is the clearest display your eye can see. That she understands.
patrickk 16y ago
Apple's marketing is superior to Google's (or pretty much anyone else's). I work at Apple (recent hire, admittedly), and there's a big focus on communication (part of the 'Apple Way') rather than on geeky stuff. I suspect that this isn't the case at Google. ps. I'm not saying this to act like a fanboy towards my employer (really, I'm not). Experiment: ask someone to name 3 or 4 android phone models. Watch their eyes glaze over. They may ask: "what's Android?" The point I'm making is that there's the iPhone, which most people have heard of, and then there's the mass of confusion from other manufacturers. This is the case in other product lines too, such as MacBooks vs pc laptops.

aditya42 16y ago

There is a right way to explain a feature to a person, and a wrong way.