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I'm going to call you out on this one. You're dismissing perfectly viable criticism as "fanboyism". The mechanisms are wildly different: On Android the app d

by xutopia 13y ago

I'm going to call you out on this one. You're dismissing perfectly viable criticism as "fanboyism". The mechanisms are wildly different: On Android the app developer chooses if he is a good citizen or not and can if he puts the effort to use the SyncAdapter (Bobz mentions this in the thread). The SyncAdapter afaik provide the same benefits as the iOS method. On iOS the app developer can only provide the hooks for the OS to call and the OS decides when to call them. This is similar to how SyncAdapter works from what I can tell. So Android provides developers with the capability to shoot the proverbial foot. We can argue that it's a good or a bad thing based on that but calling people fanboys isn't conducive to a good discussion.

freehunter 13y ago
I didn't call anyone a fanboy, I was quoting epo during the only time I mentioned that word. What I brought up was the reality distortion field. What you're describing is Apple doing the same thing as Android but with the only difference being developers have to use the equivalent of SyncAdapter. That's not wildly different, that's literally been baked into Android since long before Apple decided to adopt that model as well. Apple's contribution is subtle refinement to make it fit Apple's model better. Apple has a great method of taking existing ideas, refining them until they shine, and putting them into a beautiful product. I have nothing against that, it's helped the industry immensely. I hope Apple keeps making improvements year over year and pushing the market along. What I take offense with is Apple's audience pretending these features never existed before, or that they were bad ideas then but great ideas now. That's exactly what I'm seeing you and others in this thread doing.
- moogleii 13y ago
  Well, saying people are under a reality distortion field is de facto calling someone a fanboy, in my opinion. Personally, I agree with some of what you're saying, but it kind of sounds like you've taken a straw man and run with it. "Apple's audience pretending these features never existed before or that they were bad ideas then but great ideas now." First off, that's a wild generalization. Who is saying that? Sounds like you saw some random comments on the internet and now that represents a whole group of people that you disagree with. "That's exactly what I'm seeing you and others in this thread doing." Really? Xutopia's comments seem pretty reasonable to me. He pointed out a minor, but key difference. It's true, it's not "wildly different", but it is a significant, non-negligible difference. I don't see how him pointing that out turns him into your current bogie man. I'd also venture that that key difference is where your "Apple audience" had an issue, not your claim that background updates as a whole was somehow seen as the devil. It could be abused by developers, and it was. Arron61's comment more reasonably addresses how that was handled, and so yes, at times, you would have to do manual power management with certain unscrupulous apps. I think that aspect of it is/was annoying, but I've never thought the general idea of background tasks/multitasking as a whole was bad; that's just silly. And that's significantly different than the attribution you are making.
  - freehunter 13y ago
    I should have known better than to get drawn into this discussion. You're right that no one in this thread specifically stated that these are brand new ideas, but you can't argue that people are stating that it was bad in Android but good in iOS. It all comes back to the user choice vs walled garden argument. There's the Android way of doing it, and the Apple way of doing it. You say it's a significant difference; the difference is simply in Apple not letting people do something they could do in Android. The parts that overlap are almost exactly the same. Think of how many people believe that the iPod was the first MP3 player, the iPhone was the first smartphone, and the iPad was the first tablet. Do you think that's by mistake, or because Apple really wants people to think that? How often on HN do I hear people making the claim that Apple beat Microsoft to the tablet and smartphone game? [1] "On Android can't the app just run forever and decide on its own how often to poll the servers? This is a different thing. The OS decides when to schedule things if the app supports it. What may have been true years ago isn't necessarily an issue anymore." vs "When a competitor does it and Apple says they won't, it's the worst thing in the world. Once the competitor proves its worth and Apple does it, it's now the best thing ever" Sure I'm using hyperbole, but I think I adequately summed up the argument. xutopia implied that Android's battery life suffered from having background jobs running, and that this was a bad thing. Since Apple is only letting the jobs run at predefined intervals and all at the same time to save battery life, this is a good thing. That is exactly "it was bad when Android was doing it, and it's good when iOS is doing it". I accept that perhaps he didn't know how Android's background scheduler works, but that still says to me "background tasks are a bad thing except when Apple does it." You're also conveniently ignoring that I called out just about everyone who had responded at that point, not just xutopia. xutopia's comment was the least offensive of all of them, and I certainly understand his argument. Apple is doing it in one of the many correct ways. It's not, however, significantly different from how Android recommends developers accomplish the same task. The only difference is, on Android this is discretionary and on iOS this is enforced. Neither of these are bad things. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6264617 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6264617 This is a discussion I participated in not that long ago where people were legitimately stating that Windows Mobile and Windows tablets don't count because the iPhone and Android phones look different and have faster processors. I just gave up.

by xutopia 13y ago

freehunter 13y ago

I didn't call anyone a fanboy, I was quoting epo during the only time I mentioned that word. What I brought up was the reality distortion field. What you're describing is Apple doing the same thing as Android but with the only difference being developers have to use the equivalent of SyncAdapter. That's not wildly different, that's literally been baked into Android since long before Apple decided to adopt that model as well. Apple's contribution is subtle refinement to make it fit Apple's model better. Apple has a great method of taking existing ideas, refining them until they shine, and putting them into a beautiful product. I have nothing against that, it's helped the industry immensely. I hope Apple keeps making improvements year over year and pushing the market along. What I take offense with is Apple's audience pretending these features never existed before, or that they were bad ideas then but great ideas now. That's exactly what I'm seeing you and others in this thread doing.

moogleii 13y ago
Well, saying people are under a reality distortion field is de facto calling someone a fanboy, in my opinion. Personally, I agree with some of what you're saying, but it kind of sounds like you've taken a straw man and run with it. "Apple's audience pretending these features never existed before or that they were bad ideas then but great ideas now." First off, that's a wild generalization. Who is saying that? Sounds like you saw some random comments on the internet and now that represents a whole group of people that you disagree with. "That's exactly what I'm seeing you and others in this thread doing." Really? Xutopia's comments seem pretty reasonable to me. He pointed out a minor, but key difference. It's true, it's not "wildly different", but it is a significant, non-negligible difference. I don't see how him pointing that out turns him into your current bogie man. I'd also venture that that key difference is where your "Apple audience" had an issue, not your claim that background updates as a whole was somehow seen as the devil. It could be abused by developers, and it was. Arron61's comment more reasonably addresses how that was handled, and so yes, at times, you would have to do manual power management with certain unscrupulous apps. I think that aspect of it is/was annoying, but I've never thought the general idea of background tasks/multitasking as a whole was bad; that's just silly. And that's significantly different than the attribution you are making.
- freehunter 13y ago
  I should have known better than to get drawn into this discussion. You're right that no one in this thread specifically stated that these are brand new ideas, but you can't argue that people are stating that it was bad in Android but good in iOS. It all comes back to the user choice vs walled garden argument. There's the Android way of doing it, and the Apple way of doing it. You say it's a significant difference; the difference is simply in Apple not letting people do something they could do in Android. The parts that overlap are almost exactly the same. Think of how many people believe that the iPod was the first MP3 player, the iPhone was the first smartphone, and the iPad was the first tablet. Do you think that's by mistake, or because Apple really wants people to think that? How often on HN do I hear people making the claim that Apple beat Microsoft to the tablet and smartphone game? [1] "On Android can't the app just run forever and decide on its own how often to poll the servers? This is a different thing. The OS decides when to schedule things if the app supports it. What may have been true years ago isn't necessarily an issue anymore." vs "When a competitor does it and Apple says they won't, it's the worst thing in the world. Once the competitor proves its worth and Apple does it, it's now the best thing ever" Sure I'm using hyperbole, but I think I adequately summed up the argument. xutopia implied that Android's battery life suffered from having background jobs running, and that this was a bad thing. Since Apple is only letting the jobs run at predefined intervals and all at the same time to save battery life, this is a good thing. That is exactly "it was bad when Android was doing it, and it's good when iOS is doing it". I accept that perhaps he didn't know how Android's background scheduler works, but that still says to me "background tasks are a bad thing except when Apple does it." You're also conveniently ignoring that I called out just about everyone who had responded at that point, not just xutopia. xutopia's comment was the least offensive of all of them, and I certainly understand his argument. Apple is doing it in one of the many correct ways. It's not, however, significantly different from how Android recommends developers accomplish the same task. The only difference is, on Android this is discretionary and on iOS this is enforced. Neither of these are bad things. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6264617 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6264617 This is a discussion I participated in not that long ago where people were legitimately stating that Windows Mobile and Windows tablets don't count because the iPhone and Android phones look different and have faster processors. I just gave up.