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Going through those screenshots show just how stark the UI (not to mention UX) between iOS and Android was (is?). While I wouldn't relish going back to early iO

Going through those screenshots show just how stark the UI (not to mention UX) between iOS and Android was (is?). While I wouldn't relish going back to early iOS it still looks clean and polished vs the Android UI in the picture which is all sharp corners and UI that has no consistency or through-line.

afavour 2y ago
Early Android UI was such a clusterfuck. Not surprising really given that it started as a BlackBerry-like UI then pivoted hard when the iPhone was launched. They also weren’t really in the position to finely curate their app collection so just about any shoddy UI got approved for the store. And then Google dedicated an entire version (3) to tablets only, leaving phones with a rapidly aging v2 UI for far longer than they should have. There are a bunch of alternate histories from that era, if MS had their shit together and launched the Windows Phone a little earlier I think it could have taken the place Android occupies today. Android really wasn’t impressive in the early days (and I say this as someone who bought a Nexus One day one)
- jeffbee 2y ago
  Early Android was so bad it was impossible to believe that anyone had tried to use it before release. The first bug I filed against the Nexus S was that the camera app recorded video frames out of order. If literally anyone had tried the video function even once it would have been obvious. Total failure of dogfood testing.
- duskwuff 2y ago
  > Early Android UI was such a clusterfuck. Not surprising really given that it started as a BlackBerry-like UI then pivoted hard when the iPhone was launched. Don't forget all the early Android phones that launched with physical controls to navigate around the screen, like the trackball on the HTC Dream or the directional pad on the Motorola Droid. It's as if they weren't quite sure touchscreen interfaces were going to take off, so they wanted to hedge their bets.
vel0city 2y ago
To be fair to early Android UI, this isn't regular Android UI. This is TouchWiz. Especially these early versions of TouchWiz, it was a huge mess of a UI. Almost all of the apps shown here weren't the stock Android apps, they were Samsung's versions. While early Android wasn't particularly great or well-polished, TouchWiz was even more of a mess.
- flanbiscuit 2y ago
  To compare, look at page 7 "Basic Function _ Call" And then also look at how the "Call" app/feature looked like in stock Android 1.0: https://youtu.be/av73uZIsgx8?si=PXL01b-tfGUPoimD&t=34 https://youtu.be/av73uZIsgx8?si=PXL01b-tfGUPoimD&t=34 Very different from the TouchWiz version, and personally I like it more than the iOS version. Here's a side by side comparison between iOS 2 and Android 1.0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkC2GQCFv94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkC2GQCFv94 But I believe the Samsung S1 launched with Android 2.1 (Eclair)[1] and it got an official upgrade to Android 2.3 Gingerbread. I found this comparison video between stock android 2.3 and TouchWiz: https://youtu.be/iNaECPgyDss?si=xp_TaDXgsGPk36I1&t=72 https://youtu.be/iNaECPgyDss?si=xp_TaDXgsGPk36I1&t=72 It's not exact because you can already see the TouchWiz UI is a bit upgraded from what's in the PDF but it's close and you can see the evolution of android stock UI as well from the 1.0 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_(2010_smartphone) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_(2010_smartph...

afavour 2y ago

Early Android UI was such a clusterfuck. Not surprising really given that it started as a BlackBerry-like UI then pivoted hard when the iPhone was launched. They also weren’t really in the position to finely curate their app collection so just about any shoddy UI got approved for the store. And then Google dedicated an entire version (3) to tablets only, leaving phones with a rapidly aging v2 UI for far longer than they should have. There are a bunch of alternate histories from that era, if MS had their shit together and launched the Windows Phone a little earlier I think it could have taken the place Android occupies today. Android really wasn’t impressive in the early days (and I say this as someone who bought a Nexus One day one)

jeffbee 2y ago
Early Android was so bad it was impossible to believe that anyone had tried to use it before release. The first bug I filed against the Nexus S was that the camera app recorded video frames out of order. If literally anyone had tried the video function even once it would have been obvious. Total failure of dogfood testing.
duskwuff 2y ago
> Early Android UI was such a clusterfuck. Not surprising really given that it started as a BlackBerry-like UI then pivoted hard when the iPhone was launched. Don't forget all the early Android phones that launched with physical controls to navigate around the screen, like the trackball on the HTC Dream or the directional pad on the Motorola Droid. It's as if they weren't quite sure touchscreen interfaces were going to take off, so they wanted to hedge their bets.

vel0city 2y ago

To be fair to early Android UI, this isn't regular Android UI. This is TouchWiz. Especially these early versions of TouchWiz, it was a huge mess of a UI. Almost all of the apps shown here weren't the stock Android apps, they were Samsung's versions. While early Android wasn't particularly great or well-polished, TouchWiz was even more of a mess.

flanbiscuit 2y ago
To compare, look at page 7 "Basic Function _ Call" And then also look at how the "Call" app/feature looked like in stock Android 1.0: https://youtu.be/av73uZIsgx8?si=PXL01b-tfGUPoimD&t=34 https://youtu.be/av73uZIsgx8?si=PXL01b-tfGUPoimD&t=34 Very different from the TouchWiz version, and personally I like it more than the iOS version. Here's a side by side comparison between iOS 2 and Android 1.0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkC2GQCFv94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkC2GQCFv94 But I believe the Samsung S1 launched with Android 2.1 (Eclair)[1] and it got an official upgrade to Android 2.3 Gingerbread. I found this comparison video between stock android 2.3 and TouchWiz: https://youtu.be/iNaECPgyDss?si=xp_TaDXgsGPk36I1&t=72 https://youtu.be/iNaECPgyDss?si=xp_TaDXgsGPk36I1&t=72 It's not exact because you can already see the TouchWiz UI is a bit upgraded from what's in the PDF but it's close and you can see the evolution of android stock UI as well from the 1.0 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_(2010_smartphone) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_(2010_smartph...