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Gruber seems to make the assertion that a platform only has worth based on its exclusive "killer apps". He goes wrong there and never really recovers. Android's

• callahad 16y ago
  But you have to admit, there's a cultural divide between Android and iOS. Android is extremely well suited for working, passing data seamlessly between applications, etc. It makes it easy to get things done in the same way you might interact with a desktop computer. iOS, however, takes a different tack, focusing on self-contained, bite-sized apps. You hop into something, use it, then leave. And when you're in that app, it completely owns the experience. In that world, things like intents, task killers, and filesystem browsers just don't make sense. Which almost by definition precludes things like Chrome-to-Phone or Swype. In that way, I see Android and iOS relating very similarly to Windows and OS X. "Beautiful" simply isn't part of the Windows application lexicon, and yet, it's used frequently in reviews of OS X software, along with terms like "polished," "lovely," "stunning," and "gorgeous." What allows OS X to have beautiful apps? What's preventing Windows from having beautiful applications? And are those same factors at work in Android and iOS?
  • cheald 16y ago
    Absolutely, I'll admit that straight away. It's very much a different expectation of how you use it, and I think that's at the core of Gruber's complaint. He is very used to the iPhone paradigm, where you engage with those bite-sized pieces and then you stop and go do something else. His complaint seems to be that Android doesn't really have bite-sized pieces like that which flatly trump their iOS couterparts, but I think it misses the point because Android isn't just an ugly iPhone, it's a completely different approach to mobile computing. He's effectively asking "Why isn't the Nexus One a better iPhone than my iPhone?" which...just completely misses the point. The iPhone does the iPhone experience extremely well, and I don't think you'll find many people who will seriously argue that the iPhone UX isn't amazingly polished, but the assumption that it's the only way to use a mobile phone is naturally going to lead you into some completely wrong conclusions. If your whole world is the iPhone, the concept of Android intents and what they mean for how you use your phone is going to be completely lost on you. I think that "beautiful" apps start with the platform. Most people would agree that OS X has better aesthetic sense than Windows, and most would agree that iOS has better aesthetic sense than Android. Each platform establishes a baseline for what apps should look like, and apps tend to conform to that baseline for the sake of uniformity. On Windows, the worst-looking apps are the ones that diverge from the OS baseline (I'm looking at you, iTunes and anything that uses GTK+). Android's baseline is pretty low - it's highly utilitarian and very typical of Google, which is famous for doing all of its UI design based on how things test out, and while there are some apps that diverge and look good (Twitter, Tweetdeck), there are others that are just terribly bad (Fring, for example). My hope is that Gingerbread raises that baseline, and sets a new visual target for developers to hit with their apps. We'll see.
  • dejb 16y ago
    > I see Android and iOS relating very similarly to Windows and OS X. Actually I think the comparison Gruber makes of 'PC vs Console' is more accurate.
  • 5teev 16y ago
    I don't understand how Android allows you to pass data between applications while iOS does not. I'm under the impression that I can use copy/paste and custom protocols to pass information between applications on my iPhone. Am I missing something? If there's any cultural divide Gruber alludes to, it's that iPhone users tend not to know a whole lot about how the phone works deep inside, and whether by necessity or curiosity, Android users do.
• tomkarlo 16y ago
  If you read the article, he's not making that assertion about the relative worth of Android. (And opening up with that as the basis of your argument is a disingenuous tactic, if done intentionally.) He's arguing that the third-party software library is weak, especially away from "enhancement/tweak" type software. Flexibility is useful only insofar as it translates into capabilities of high value to end users. It's not a feature, especially if you're an end user and not a programmer/hacker. In most product domains, users have clearly shown that as the category matures, they are more than willing to sacrifice flexibility, the ability to modify and even the ability to repair at home in favor of a more integrated, reliable and cheaper product. (See: cars, home electronics, home appliances, clothing, food.) Consumers evaluate product purchases based on what the device can do for them out of the box, not after hours of tweaking and configuration. Frankly, I don't think _either_ platform truly has "killer apps" - I don't think people are going out and buying iPhones so they can play Star Wars Arcade: Falcon Gunner or something. A "killer app" is an exclusive app that drives customers to buy that platform just so they can run it. Arguably at present no such app exists on either mobile platform.
  • SoftwareMaven 16y ago
    The point you make about the killer app is very true. Halo on the XBox came to mind. I think Google hoped turn-by-turn navigation would be it initially for Android, but I agree that (for the average user) there aren't any killer apps. If you get into domain niches (such as medical), that might be different.
    • RickHull 16y ago
      Google Nav is pretty friggin awesome. I had a TomTom for the first year I lived in NYC and the last year I owned a car, and Google Nav was comparable on all fronts, as demoed in rental cars up and down the Eastern Seaboard since then. Notable downsides include battery life and built-in mounting options. Notable upsides include no upfront purchase, free updates, constant updates, better information density (pixels per meatspace volume, roughly), ease of ad-hoc "mounting" (e.g. next to the speedometer, behind the steering wheel), and automatic "straight-to-pocket-on-exit" theft protection. It's free, it works well, and it integrates nicely with other Android apps (notably Google Maps).
• irons 16y ago
  Gruber seems to make the assertion that a platform only has worth based on its exclusive "killer apps". This is a straw man. Android's lack of much in the way of exclusive native software is novel among the few mainstream software platforms over the last few decades. Maybe this state of affairs is interesting, and maybe it isn't — we're dealing with a small sample of comparisons, the web is an extraordinary leveler, and to the extent Android has a shared lineage with Linux and its developer community, exclusivity is an alien concept anyway. But pointing out this historical anomaly isn't tantamount to claiming Android has no worth, as Gruber takes pains to mention. There's no need to assume a defensive crouch.
• jmreid 16y ago
  Thing is, the "Cupertino Grand Unified Vision" usually syncs up better with the needs and desires or the general population. Some people don't want to have to configure anything to start using it or to start being productive with it. Apple's desire to focus on these types of people is obvious when not only analyze the type of features they add, but how they're implemented.
  • sqrt17 16y ago
    > the "Cupertino Grand Unified Vision" usually syncs up better with the needs and desires or the general population Well, hackers are hardly "the general population". I think a meaningful comparison would be to the situation of home computers (C64, CPC, later Amiga and Atari) and consoles (NES, later SNES). If you wanted to play games, consoles offered a much better experience. In contrast, home computers could be programmed using BASIC and Assembler (and, somewhat later, C), which made them much more appealing for people who wanted to explore the possibilities for themselves. If the general population is able to feel in control of their equipment without opening a shell on it and exploring what's in there, or being able to scratch little itches they have, that's totally fine with me.
• YooLi 16y ago
  "Android's strength is not its suite apps, it's its flexibility. It runs on an enormous range of hardware, and doesn't require that you buy into a single vendor's toolchain to use it." Gruber's point is that the average user doesn't care about this. They don't care that the OS that runs on their phone can be used on a robot or a microwave. They just care that there is some awesome app that will motivate them to buy a certain phone, and he's saying Android doesn't have that awesome app. But, like you, if I wanted to use a phone as the brains for an autonomous drone, I would use an Android phone. But this is an edge-case.
• gcb 16y ago
  excuse-me. last time i checked i couldn't even use the ssh client that is installed by default in my phone. pretty much all the good things you mention are for rooted phones. The stock one is just as dumb as an iphone. Android could be the PC-revolution all over the mobile industry. but it choose to start with baby steps :(
  • cheald 16y ago
    The only thing I mentioned that requires root was the FM Radio. I intentionally didn't mention root-only apps, given that your average user won't be running a rooted phone, but if we want to get into that territory, SetCPU, JuiceDefender, and Titanium Backup are all incredible apps that have no peer in the iOS ecosystem.
  • StavrosK 16y ago
    Hmm, which things are for rooted phones? Mine's unrooted and I have everything he mentioned except FM listener (I don't know what it is).
    • cheald 16y ago
      It's a part of the Cyanogen 6.1 ROM which enables me to listen to FM radio via the dormant-on-stock FM transceiver in my Nexus One. I specifically denoted that it was available via Cyanogen because it is the exception.
      • StavrosK 16y ago
        Ah, my Desire has a Radio app, so I don't need to root it for that either... Do you know if there is a compelling reason to root an Android phone? I haven't found anything I can't do yet, and the phone is close to supplanting my computer (especially with Swype/Swiftkey, K9 email and Skype/Meebo).
        • gcb 16y ago
          Complex SSH tunnels. Better 2g fallback. Touch screen fix, for nexus. Hosts file editing.
• nochiel 16y ago
  "Gruber seems to make the assertion that a platform only has worth based on its exclusive 'killer apps'. He goes wrong there and never really recovers. Android's strength is not its suite apps, it's its flexibility." It is baffling how you managed to read the article and still evade his point even though he addresses your rejoinder directly. Gruber says, "At this point, I’m guessing, Android fans are ready to exclaim that the fact that Android supports things like home screen replacements (or other system-level tools, such as touchscreen keyboard replacements) — and that iOS does not — is precisely why they prefer Android, and/or consider iOS to be an unacceptable toy, or what have you. But, again, that’s not the argument I’m making. I’m talking about third-party developer exclusives — and the only ones Android has are ones that Apple doesn’t want." Your opening salvo is baffling, because Gruber says, "I’m not saying Android is in trouble. The opposite, in fact: I think it’s going to continue growing — in terms of handset sales — despite this. And maybe as Android handset sales grow, this situation will change, and developers will start creating exclusive killer apps for the platform, drawn by the size of the market." His main point is that Android is currently weak as a software platform. People don't choose Android because of its superior applications but because of its perceived flexibility/hackability. Developers don't see the Android app market as particularly profitable. The opposite holds true for iOS. He describes this as being a new phenomenon, the "app console market" which is a market that Android currently doesn't feature in. We can extrapolate that if the situation with Android doesn't change, then Android could become the new Symbian, dominating a quasi-category of feature-smart-phones but with iOS and WP7 taking the more profitable segment of the market.
  • lukeschlather 16y ago
    >People don't choose Android because of its superior applications but because of its perceived flexibility/hackability. Developers don't see the Android app market as particularly profitable. I think you've hit the crux of the flaw with Gruber's argument: developer profitability does not have much bearing on UX as those in the proprietary app developer community might like it to.
    • nochiel 16y ago
      It's not developer profitability per se but the appearance of developer profitability (among other things) that I think he was trying to get at. He says, "Developers complain, not without merit, that the iTunes App Store is rigged toward low-priced apps. But the Android Market seems rigged toward no-price apps." He posits that there is a significant qualitative difference between the most popular, exclusive, third-party applications in the iOS market and those in the Android market with the former providing a superior experience. Are you saying that this isn't true? If we admit it is true, then how do you account for it? "Turn the table and we could be here all day running down the list of high-quality, interesting apps which are exclusive to iOS."
• erikpukinskis 16y ago
  How about things like Launcher Pro, Swype, SwiftKey, and AppBrain? None of those apps actually do anything. None of those are apps that help me cook, or tell me where the bike shop is, or let me send a photo of my dog to my parents, or give me something fun to do for 15 minutes on the bus. I think that's Gruber's point. Android is full of apps that either... A) are for people who think fucking around with their computer/phone is a worthwhile activity B) are essentially ports from iPhone or C) suck