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I'm having the opposite reaction. I find myself fighting against iOS most of the time. The browser zooms to odd proportion on most pages, and I really miss the

I'm having the opposite reaction. I find myself fighting against iOS most of the time. The browser zooms to odd proportion on most pages, and I really miss the double-tap to zoom for one-handed browsing. Reading a notification, and having no direct path back to where you came from (answering a txt message, for instance) feels really clunky. The lack of widgets feels outdated and dogmatic, rather than useful. Being able to put a contact on my home screen, click once to open ways to communicate and a second time to email/txt/call/facebook is amazingly useful to me, because I generally contact only a few people on a regular basis. And if you expand to include the ecosystem, it's not even close. The iCloud web apps are pathetic compared to Google's offerings. I could go on. And this isn't just bashing, I'm growing to like a lot about iOS, but I think these Android vs iOS stories are mostly link bait. They're a lot more similar than most people will admit, and both have plusses and minuses. EDIT: Ok click to zoom is kinda there, but I like the way it works on Android better. That's just a preference, so I'll strike that from my list of objections.

siglesias 15y ago
Double-tap to zoom has been there since day one.
myspy 15y ago
Double-tap for zoom is there all the time but maybe the sites you visit don't zoom correctly because the container goes all the way from left to right (I think this site has such a zooming problem). And the iCloud web apps are awesome. Don't know where the problem is. They behave like real OS apps. I like that.
- ubercore 15y ago
  Really? Performance is awful for me.
click170 15y ago
Re double-tap to zoom, nobody mentioned that I'd lose features when I upgraded, I honestly was starting to think I'd imagined that feature. It certainly doesn't behave like I remember it doing. I'm having the opposite reaction as well, likely for similar reasons as the author: I use an iPhone 3GS running iOS5 and am comparing with a newer Android phone. Nearly every gripe he mentions having about Android, I have with my iPhone. Don't even get me started on web browsing, maybe iOS5 is just using a ridiculous amount of memory or something because I never had this problem before upgrading, but now visiting certain webpages (eg Canada Post) crashes Safari. Nevermind smooth scrolling. I'm not about to write some link-bait blog post about it though, the reasons why are obvious, I'm using an older phone with a newer OS, and am comparing to a recent Android phone. Doesn't mean I'm happy that iOS5 is reducing the usability of my phone, but at least I can apply critical thinking to the situation at hand.
rimantas 15y ago
Sounds like you are not actually and iOS user.
- ubercore 15y ago
  This is my first iOS device, but I can assure you I'm using it!
mikeryan 15y ago
Reading a notification, and having no direct path back to where you came from (answering a txt message, for instance) feels really clunky. This is actually fully addressed in iOS 5 with the notification center. You can swipe down the notification center over any app, then swipe it back up out of the way right back to where you were.
- ubercore 15y ago
  No, it's not. I can see the notification just fine, but if I click on it to answer, I have no one-click way to get back to the app I was in before responding to the notification.
  - X-Istence 15y ago
    Two clicks and a tap. Double click the home button, tap the app you want.
  - mikeryan 15y ago
    You said reading a notification. That's addressed with the notification center which doesn't even take you out of the app. If you do switch apps quick switching back to apps has been there since iOS 4 with the double tap of home. How much easier do you need it?
    - ubercore 15y ago
      One click, like Android does.
falling 15y ago
> EDIT: Ok click to zoom is kinda there, but I like the way it works on Android better. That's just a preference, so I'll strike that from my list of objections. What's the difference?
- ubercore 15y ago
  I haven't studied it too carefully so I'm working off impressions here, but I don't think Android zoomed-to-content the way iOS does. For instance, when loading Hacker News, the initial view would be very zoomed out, so I could just barely read headlines. If I double-tapped, it would zoom in enough for me to read normally. Another double-tap brought me back out to the page overview. It also, as I recall, would not retain zoom levels if I entered a new URL manually. This seems more usable to me than retaining zoom level, and only zooming to show content.
  - falling 15y ago
    iOS definitely doesn't retain zoom levels between pages and never has. On zooming in to content (actually it zooms in on page blocks) I disagree, but I'll leave it at personal preference. Android zooms in at a fixed zoom level and reflows the text, IIRC. (don't test any mobile web browser on this very website as the HTML is awful and makes its job much harder)

siglesias 15y ago

Double-tap to zoom has been there since day one.

myspy 15y ago

Double-tap for zoom is there all the time but maybe the sites you visit don't zoom correctly because the container goes all the way from left to right (I think this site has such a zooming problem). And the iCloud web apps are awesome. Don't know where the problem is. They behave like real OS apps. I like that.

ubercore 15y ago
Really? Performance is awful for me.

click170 15y ago

Re double-tap to zoom, nobody mentioned that I'd lose features when I upgraded, I honestly was starting to think I'd imagined that feature. It certainly doesn't behave like I remember it doing. I'm having the opposite reaction as well, likely for similar reasons as the author: I use an iPhone 3GS running iOS5 and am comparing with a newer Android phone. Nearly every gripe he mentions having about Android, I have with my iPhone. Don't even get me started on web browsing, maybe iOS5 is just using a ridiculous amount of memory or something because I never had this problem before upgrading, but now visiting certain webpages (eg Canada Post) crashes Safari. Nevermind smooth scrolling. I'm not about to write some link-bait blog post about it though, the reasons why are obvious, I'm using an older phone with a newer OS, and am comparing to a recent Android phone. Doesn't mean I'm happy that iOS5 is reducing the usability of my phone, but at least I can apply critical thinking to the situation at hand.

rimantas 15y ago

Sounds like you are not actually and iOS user.

ubercore 15y ago
This is my first iOS device, but I can assure you I'm using it!

mikeryan 15y ago

Reading a notification, and having no direct path back to where you came from (answering a txt message, for instance) feels really clunky. This is actually fully addressed in iOS 5 with the notification center. You can swipe down the notification center over any app, then swipe it back up out of the way right back to where you were.

ubercore 15y ago
No, it's not. I can see the notification just fine, but if I click on it to answer, I have no one-click way to get back to the app I was in before responding to the notification.
- X-Istence 15y ago
  Two clicks and a tap. Double click the home button, tap the app you want.
- mikeryan 15y ago
  You said reading a notification. That's addressed with the notification center which doesn't even take you out of the app. If you do switch apps quick switching back to apps has been there since iOS 4 with the double tap of home. How much easier do you need it?
  - ubercore 15y ago
    One click, like Android does.

falling 15y ago

> EDIT: Ok click to zoom is kinda there, but I like the way it works on Android better. That's just a preference, so I'll strike that from my list of objections. What's the difference?

ubercore 15y ago
I haven't studied it too carefully so I'm working off impressions here, but I don't think Android zoomed-to-content the way iOS does. For instance, when loading Hacker News, the initial view would be very zoomed out, so I could just barely read headlines. If I double-tapped, it would zoom in enough for me to read normally. Another double-tap brought me back out to the page overview. It also, as I recall, would not retain zoom levels if I entered a new URL manually. This seems more usable to me than retaining zoom level, and only zooming to show content.
- falling 15y ago
  iOS definitely doesn't retain zoom levels between pages and never has. On zooming in to content (actually it zooms in on page blocks) I disagree, but I'll leave it at personal preference. Android zooms in at a fixed zoom level and reflows the text, IIRC. (don't test any mobile web browser on this very website as the HTML is awful and makes its job much harder)