4 ms·

I can give an anecdote. I love most things about iOS design more than Android, and I've used both, but have stuck with Android over the last 7-8ish years. Main

I can give an anecdote. I love most things about iOS design more than Android, and I've used both, but have stuck with Android over the last 7-8ish years. Mainly because of the amount that I could customize things, freely make little app projects, install custom ROMs, etc. Over the last few years, it's gotten inconvenient to tinker, and I just don't find myself bothering with it anymore. I've run into issues where certain apps stop working because of root. But also both OS's have gotten much better and need fewer (if any) tweaks anyways to be used effectively. Especially with the upcoming change to allow iOS to use a different default browser (finally). If the main reason I've been drawn to Android is vanishing more every year, I'd rather use the more elegant OS (Apple), regardless of how closed it is. I have a Pixel 2 that's getting near EOL (only 2 years after buying it), and I'll be getting an iPhone SE as soon as I can justify spending the money. I guess something that helps too is I've been on a de-googling kick these last few months where I've been switching off all their services because of privacy, another benefit of iOS to me

homarp 6y ago
iOS 14 does not let you use a different default browser engine. It's just the skin that change. It's still Webkit under the hood
- slipheen 6y ago
  As much as you and I may care about that, for many (most?) people the browser chrome is the most important part. Syncing bookmarks, UI, tab handling etc tend to be bigger pain points for individuals, as opposed to the more dev-focused aspects such as supporting a certain API in Javascript.
  - izacus 6y ago
    > As much as you and I may care about that, for many (most?) people the browser chrome is the most important part. Except that for many/most people it's equally important to have a market choice which drives product improvements by competition. Not being able to choose a fully opensource browser engine (not even Firefox!) on iOS is a severe blow to opensource as a whole and browser engine competition in general. It's way worse than it ever was in times of IE6 - you never needed Microsoft's private signing keys to switch to Firefox or Chrome.
  - bad_user 6y ago
    If you're technologically illiterate, this might be true. Witness however Firefox for Android (vs iOS), the most important differences for me being: - Extensions support, so uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, the best ad-blocking combination that far surpasses Safari's content blockers, which are pretty shitty; and extensions are useful for more than ad-blocking — e.g. I have another one on my tablet that turns all web pages to dark mode, whether they support it or not - Web push notifications - (Up until very recently) webp format support On Android I wouldn't even install many apps, like Facebook, or Twitter, or Fastmail, I'd simply use them as PWAs (web apps), in Firefox with ads blocking on, because I could. I still use Firefox on iOS for the history / bookmarks syncing, but it's a shadow of actual Firefox.
- californical 6y ago
  Yeah it's not ideal, but it lets me sync with Firefox at least. I really only ever use my phone browser for a few things, anyways. Neither situation is perfect, but the browser's rendering engine is surpassed by other priorities when choosing a phone. I do look forward to the day I can use something like Pine as a daily phone though
- bad_user 6y ago
  This is true and regrettable, but that skin is still important. I get to use Firefox, it comes with nice tracker blocking out of the box, it keeps my history in sync with my other devices and I find the UI to be a little nicer (personal taste). Of course I'd like the Firefox that's available on Android, with extensions capabilities and web push support. But having the ability to open links from Mail in iOS Firefox would still be nice and I can't wait for it.
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
> Especially with the upcoming change to allow iOS to use a different default (finally). Did you leave a word out here? I assume you were going to write default keyboard?
- smichel17 6y ago
  It was edited I think, the word is browser.
copp 6y ago
What makes iOS elegant over Android in your opinion ? You seem to state it as a fact but I believe it is your opinion .
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Not the OP, but I also share the same opinion. - OS Frameworks are not designed for the next year's IO, rebooting last years best practices, rather have long term roadmaps. - The build system has stayed mostly the same, instead of having had multiple reboots - C and C++ are integrated with the rest of tooling instead of feeling like an burden that has to be supported to keep game devs happy - Everything that matters on iOS development is available in XCode, instead of being a mix of Studio templates, stuff dropped in Github that we are supposed to build ourselves and apparently official APIs (e.g. Oboe, Vulkan) - Back to frameworks, while iOS offers high level frameworks for common workflows, Android offers Lego blocks that everyone fits in different ways with lengthy discussions on what is good Android code, MVP and whatever is the fad of the month on /r/androiddev - When Apple does game development sessions, they actually talk about game development tech and do provide related tooling, Google talks about Play Store console and advertising for gamers. Notice that main GDC 2020 theme for the Google talks was to try to show that they are listing and trying to change, pity it came 10 years later. - Most APIs in iOS seem to have had some though placed into them, in Android you have stuff like Animations that have had multiple instantiations, or others that have deprecated stuff even before reaching a proper release. - When Google decided to drop Eclipse they had nothing to offer for NDK devs, almost two years later JetBrains decided to create CLion and then they had a solution. Otherwise most likely there still wouldn't exist an alternative to this day.
  - copp 6y ago
    Thanks for your perspective from a game dev. w.r.t developing apps it has been long argued that iOS is better.

homarp 6y ago

iOS 14 does not let you use a different default browser engine. It's just the skin that change. It's still Webkit under the hood

slipheen 6y ago
As much as you and I may care about that, for many (most?) people the browser chrome is the most important part. Syncing bookmarks, UI, tab handling etc tend to be bigger pain points for individuals, as opposed to the more dev-focused aspects such as supporting a certain API in Javascript.
- izacus 6y ago
  > As much as you and I may care about that, for many (most?) people the browser chrome is the most important part. Except that for many/most people it's equally important to have a market choice which drives product improvements by competition. Not being able to choose a fully opensource browser engine (not even Firefox!) on iOS is a severe blow to opensource as a whole and browser engine competition in general. It's way worse than it ever was in times of IE6 - you never needed Microsoft's private signing keys to switch to Firefox or Chrome.
- bad_user 6y ago
  If you're technologically illiterate, this might be true. Witness however Firefox for Android (vs iOS), the most important differences for me being: - Extensions support, so uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, the best ad-blocking combination that far surpasses Safari's content blockers, which are pretty shitty; and extensions are useful for more than ad-blocking — e.g. I have another one on my tablet that turns all web pages to dark mode, whether they support it or not - Web push notifications - (Up until very recently) webp format support On Android I wouldn't even install many apps, like Facebook, or Twitter, or Fastmail, I'd simply use them as PWAs (web apps), in Firefox with ads blocking on, because I could. I still use Firefox on iOS for the history / bookmarks syncing, but it's a shadow of actual Firefox.
californical 6y ago
Yeah it's not ideal, but it lets me sync with Firefox at least. I really only ever use my phone browser for a few things, anyways. Neither situation is perfect, but the browser's rendering engine is surpassed by other priorities when choosing a phone. I do look forward to the day I can use something like Pine as a daily phone though
bad_user 6y ago
This is true and regrettable, but that skin is still important. I get to use Firefox, it comes with nice tracker blocking out of the box, it keeps my history in sync with my other devices and I find the UI to be a little nicer (personal taste). Of course I'd like the Firefox that's available on Android, with extensions capabilities and web push support. But having the ability to open links from Mail in iOS Firefox would still be nice and I can't wait for it.

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago

> Especially with the upcoming change to allow iOS to use a different default (finally). Did you leave a word out here? I assume you were going to write default keyboard?

smichel17 6y ago
It was edited I think, the word is browser.

copp 6y ago

What makes iOS elegant over Android in your opinion ? You seem to state it as a fact but I believe it is your opinion .

pjmlp 6y ago
Not the OP, but I also share the same opinion. - OS Frameworks are not designed for the next year's IO, rebooting last years best practices, rather have long term roadmaps. - The build system has stayed mostly the same, instead of having had multiple reboots - C and C++ are integrated with the rest of tooling instead of feeling like an burden that has to be supported to keep game devs happy - Everything that matters on iOS development is available in XCode, instead of being a mix of Studio templates, stuff dropped in Github that we are supposed to build ourselves and apparently official APIs (e.g. Oboe, Vulkan) - Back to frameworks, while iOS offers high level frameworks for common workflows, Android offers Lego blocks that everyone fits in different ways with lengthy discussions on what is good Android code, MVP and whatever is the fad of the month on /r/androiddev - When Apple does game development sessions, they actually talk about game development tech and do provide related tooling, Google talks about Play Store console and advertising for gamers. Notice that main GDC 2020 theme for the Google talks was to try to show that they are listing and trying to change, pity it came 10 years later. - Most APIs in iOS seem to have had some though placed into them, in Android you have stuff like Animations that have had multiple instantiations, or others that have deprecated stuff even before reaching a proper release. - When Google decided to drop Eclipse they had nothing to offer for NDK devs, almost two years later JetBrains decided to create CLion and then they had a solution. Otherwise most likely there still wouldn't exist an alternative to this day.
- copp 6y ago
  Thanks for your perspective from a game dev. w.r.t developing apps it has been long argued that iOS is better.