Pat, I don't wish to get into a religious debate here, but for the purposes of constructive, concrete criticism/suggestion, I'd like to mention something here. I have / use / develop on both the iPhone and Google Android. It is very interesting to set both devices side by side, and attempt to do the same exact thing, whether it is make a phone call, run an app, change settings, etc. Even if the performance were exactly the same, the ease of use and user experience is significantly different, tilted heavily in favor of the iPhone.
Android suffers from a lack of consistency in the user experience. Sometimes typing is required on the hardware keyboard, sometimes on the phone. Sometime navigation is by the hardware menu and back buttons, sometimes there are navigation buttons on the touch screen. Sometimes menus can be dragged from the title bar or the bottom of the screen, sometimes the hardware buttons are required. And the fact that typing which requires the hardware keyboard also requires sliding the keyboard out and a change of screen orientation isn't user friendly either. Apple has taken a lot of criticism from those who do not appreciate App Store submissions being rejected because of misuse of user interface standards. I personally appreciate it, because the protection of user interface metaphors are what give consistency to the iPhone across apps, and make apps on the iPhone which use standard interface metaphors intuitive by default. If I see a navigation bar or a tab bar or a disclosure button on a table, I know exactly what those will do in *any* application. IMHO, Google would really benefit from a critical analysis of Android from a user standpoint, and a real focus on establishment of widely adopted user interface standards on apps. At this point, Android really has the feel of an environment that has been oriented primarily towards developers, not towards users. Don't get me wrong, Android has done some great things -- things I really appreciate as a developer. But at the end of the day, it is all about the users. Just my 2 cents... Brad On Mar 18, 2009, at 7:45 AM, patg wrote: > > Google needs to realize that smart phones are the next wave > of personal computers and start treating Android phones as a computer > with a phone attached rather than a phone with fairly impressive > compute power. > > The outcome of this line of thought is understanding that google > does not know what the next killer app will be and what resources > it will need to accomplish its task. Probabily users will need more > control over the phone to install potentially root privleged programs > and device driver, developers will need access to all the hardware > perpherials (USB, Bluetooth...) Think of it a a Linux computer with > a phone attached. > > Additionally the Dalvik VM is very slow which is jeopardizing > the platforms viability for anything more than simple image > manapilation via GL. Java did not take off for Sun until sun > got JIT working well. The same will need to happen for Dalvik. > > > > On Mar 17, 6:31 pm, Schiffres <[email protected]> wrote: >> This is a message to all other Android Developers, bloggers, or >> interest groups. Unfortunately, it is rather evident that, for a >> myriad of reasons, Android as an OS simply isn't on the same level as >> the iPhone in what it offers, what it can do, how it runs, etc. etc. >> As a full supporter of most everything Google endeavors to take on, I >> am gleeful to see Android, an open source competitor challenging the >> iPhone. Google has brilliant engineers, a plethora of resources, and >> the flexibility to test and experiment wacky ideas that become the >> technological standard of tomorrow. So why isn't Android >> commensurate >> to the iPhone? My opinion is that it's because Google doesn't make >> any, even a small stream, of revenue from Android, which is a major >> disincentive and makes it economically infeasible and to pour >> resources into it to make it the best and most competitive possible >> OS >> it can be. While I hope Google addresses this issue in the future, >> we >> need to make it easy for the current Google engineers to create a >> competitive project, and that means, in the true spirit of open >> source, we must contribute. So developers, educated Android savvy >> technological wizards, come together, and below post everything you >> would want to see in an Android update to both put Android on par >> with >> the iPhone, and push it beyond. Put ideas that well up on the brink >> of your imagination below, think up the next big idea, the brilliant >> feature that'll make Android the unparalleled smart phone champion. >> Once Android is more popular, better phones will be made for it, >> it'll >> have more developers, and Google will invest more money in it, but we >> need to give it that first push. Below, use our collective wisdom >> and >> create a single thread that will document all the features, all the >> tools, the code libraries, etc. etc. that we want to see in Android, >> and when our thread gets large enough, Google won't be able to help >> but notice, and address our needs, our desires, and our demands! >> >> "You must be the change you wish to see in the world" - Mahatma >> Gandhi > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. 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