4 ms·

I find Google's stance here ingenuous. They're attempting to portray themselves as the persecuted innovator, but their behaviour in the market in question doesn

I find Google's stance here ingenuous. They're attempting to portray themselves as the persecuted innovator, but their behaviour in the market in question doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. While the patents Apple are using to attack Android with seem dubious, the motivation for this tactic is obvious. Google extremely blatantly cloned the look and feel of the iPhone and have pursued a strategy of dumping Android in an attempt to reduce smartphones to a commodity. Of course Apple will try every trick in the book to prevent them doing this. As a strategy for Google this makes perfect sense, but playing the wounded party as they do in this post is ridiculous, whichever horse you have in the smartphone OS race.

FxChiP 15y ago
"Google extremely blatantly cloned the look and feel of the iPhone and have pursued a strategy of dumping Android in an attempt to reduce smartphones to a commodity." There are actually quite a few differences between Android and iOS in terms of interface, and there always have been -- in fact, many features found in later versions of iOS were found first in earlier versions of Android, such as copy & paste, wallpapers, and the upcoming notification area. In addition, applications are presented differently (you have to slide up a panel, generally, or tap a button somewhere to get to them), wallpapers can be dynamic (Live Wallpapers), and Android is, in general, much more reliant on menu structures than iOS, which seems to take a more simple and transparent route to most functions. Sure, there are similarities -- like the fact that it's a touch interface and applications are represented first as icons -- but I'm inclined to think they're less prevalent than seems to be thought, and the ones that are there are (more or less) common sense. (I could be wrong, of course :))
- FxChiP 15y ago
  (I forgot to mention also that manufacturers and carriers also seem to have a lot to do with the overall interface -- Samsung's stock Android for the Captivate, for example, does mirror iOS quite a bit, while HTC Sense probably couldn't be much more different if they tried!)
  - recoiledsnake 15y ago
    You can edit posts on here to add updates. I would say that both iOS and Android are touch enabled versions of this from more than 20 years ago: http://images.yourdictionary.com/images/computer/_PROGMAN.GIF http://images.yourdictionary.com/images/computer/_PROGMAN.GI... For a truly innovative mobile UI, look at WP7 and Metro.
    - Pooter 15y ago
      > For a truly innovative mobile UI, look at WP7 and Metro. To each his own, I guess; I think metro is ugly and has lousy usability.

FxChiP 15y ago

"Google extremely blatantly cloned the look and feel of the iPhone and have pursued a strategy of dumping Android in an attempt to reduce smartphones to a commodity." There are actually quite a few differences between Android and iOS in terms of interface, and there always have been -- in fact, many features found in later versions of iOS were found first in earlier versions of Android, such as copy & paste, wallpapers, and the upcoming notification area. In addition, applications are presented differently (you have to slide up a panel, generally, or tap a button somewhere to get to them), wallpapers can be dynamic (Live Wallpapers), and Android is, in general, much more reliant on menu structures than iOS, which seems to take a more simple and transparent route to most functions. Sure, there are similarities -- like the fact that it's a touch interface and applications are represented first as icons -- but I'm inclined to think they're less prevalent than seems to be thought, and the ones that are there are (more or less) common sense. (I could be wrong, of course :))

FxChiP 15y ago
(I forgot to mention also that manufacturers and carriers also seem to have a lot to do with the overall interface -- Samsung's stock Android for the Captivate, for example, does mirror iOS quite a bit, while HTC Sense probably couldn't be much more different if they tried!)
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  You can edit posts on here to add updates. I would say that both iOS and Android are touch enabled versions of this from more than 20 years ago: http://images.yourdictionary.com/images/computer/_PROGMAN.GIF http://images.yourdictionary.com/images/computer/_PROGMAN.GI... For a truly innovative mobile UI, look at WP7 and Metro.
  - Pooter 15y ago
    > For a truly innovative mobile UI, look at WP7 and Metro. To each his own, I guess; I think metro is ugly and has lousy usability.