Tag Archives: apple

Hi,

today i wanted to write a opinion about this 2 mobile operating system, basically why appeared the new iphone 4 and i was excited to compared with what comes apple to compete with froyo.

Disclaimer: i never have an iphone or an android device even close, my opinions are based on technical spects, and videos, i mainly focus my opinion of this type of product from the point of view of the developer and the end user.

The people who know me, know that i’m always to the side of the open source and liberty, but when it comes to this i try to see the thing in a objective form.

The key of the new era: usability and features

this 2 news OS versions are bringing new really nice features in the mobility devices, as multitasking, video edition (in the case of iphone), photos, music and games. also, to integrate all this features in a small devices as a phone, is needed a new way the user should interact, why there is no a psychical keyboard or mouse. the multitouch technology have helped a lot in this matter but also the engineering to create easy to use commands to use anything (a program, a mobile device, a website etc..) is not something easy (i talk with experience in this matter)

iOS4 is winning over the general user and developer market

the demonstration that apple give i think have been a great defeat for android, and i’m not talking even for the available app’s, the new hardware or even the new especial features, i’m talking that apple is delivering a perfect product for all the markets, the simple user , the hardcore user, and a complete pack for the dev to deploy applications and get revenue from it.

as many developers i hate the apple policy, but need to be honest that the policy is make it possible to deliver a robust product, open a new market for developers and new features for users to enjoy.

android, same history as J2ME

i’m seeing that android is having the same future as j2ME. J2ME is a java api that was promoted to develop mobile application to all devices just building once. the problem with J2ME is that the manufacturers implemented the API as they want, so the portability was impossible and only big companies (as gameloft) could develop games or app’s and port it to the almost all the existent devices. happened the same with android, devices with 8 different types of versions on the market and depending from the manufacturer to upgrade to a new version.

android started ok, as an open source project, delivering features that the competitor wasn’t able to do etc.. (we already know that) and the good of this is as open source, at least i expected a explosion of android powered devices but it started too late, from the day android was announced, take like 1-2 years to start to see android devices in the market, most of them on the high end market.

also, android is not open as apple to the devs (ironic to say this right?). yes, apple don’t approve the app’s that they want. and don’t give any explanation, but at least anyone who pay’s the 100$ can publish and develop commercial app’s. for android, is only limited to countries that have google checkout supported (USA and UK).

The future is in non-fragmentation

of course that new features will give to the users new attraction but from my point of view, the way that android could be a stable and all-users platform is avoiding the fragmentation by the manufacturers. a good solution to make this will be the same as linux make, a repository. so, basically all the android devices can be upgraded to the most newest version and having available the features depending of the hardware where is installed. also a more open policy for developer will be a good thing to have more apps on the store.

anyway, i going to still buy a android device when i can, but of course, is a developer decision more than a normal user

surely it will not help you but is just my opinion

Regards,

Shadow.