Do iOS have better app support than Android?

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

It's basically just a mobile web page.

The point is so is Twitter, Google+, and all those social networking sites, and a bunch of apps like CNN, etc etc. So is Flipboard, Pulse, Google Currents, etc.

All those content consumption apps are.

But WHO CARES if it's a mobile web page? If it were a TRUE mobile web page, you would use your browser alone. But clearly these apps spice up the site and make it more usable.

 

[VashHT]

Having used both I don't really have a preference either way. iOS apps have a more consistent interface but personally I thought most android apps look and work perfectly fine.

 

[psych2]

I think with the new Android Design Guidelines a whole new crop of Holo-themed apps are popping up that give ICS a really nice consistent feel. If you want a nice blog that reviews them as they come up while also giving design critiques you should check out http://www.holoeverywhere.com/

Who said Android apps were ugly anymore

Also as to app support, I think the Play Store has an advantage where updates from devs are immediately pushed to users, therefore devs can give incremental updates rather than saving them up for a big push to get past the apple review team. Couple that with the new option for devs to respond directly to app reviewers means you have more transparency between you and the dev.

 

[QueBert]

I think with the new Android Design Guidelines a whole new crop of Holo-themed apps are popping up that give ICS a really nice consistent feel. If you want a nice blog that reviews them as they come up while also giving design critiques you should check out http://www.holoeverywhere.com/

Who said Android apps were ugly anymore

Also as to app support, I think the Play Store has an advantage where updates from devs are immediately pushed to users, therefore devs can give incremental updates rather than saving them up for a big push to get past the apple review team. Couple that with the new option for devs to respond directly to app reviewers means you have more transparency between you and the dev.

Holo apps? I have a Samsung phone with ICS on it and there's nothing Holo inspired, the system apps are as ugly as sin. You honestly couldn't even know my phone was ICS just by looking at it. As for 3rd party apps, there are some popping up. But imho I don't understand the hoopla about how holo looks. I think it's very plain and borderline ugly. Just because it looks better than GB doesn't mean it looks good *shrug*

 

[zerocool84]

Holo apps? I have a Samsung phone with ICS on it and there's nothing Holo inspired, the system apps are as ugly as sin. You honestly couldn't even know my phone was ICS just by looking at it. As for 3rd party apps, there are some popping up. But imho I don't understand the hoopla about how holo looks. I think it's very plain and borderline ugly. Just because it looks better than GB doesn't mean it looks good *shrug*

That's your fault for buying a Touchwiz phone. It's easy to tell ICS from Gingerbread.

 

[psych2]

Holo apps? I have a Samsung phone with ICS on it and there's nothing Holo inspired, the system apps are as ugly as sin. You honestly couldn't even know my phone was ICS just by looking at it. As for 3rd party apps, there are some popping up. But imho I don't understand the hoopla about how holo looks. I think it's very plain and borderline ugly. Just because it looks better than GB doesn't mean it looks good *shrug*

Lol weren't you the guy that dumped his windows phone for a one x? Regardless if you really do have a Galaxy S II you would know that CM9 is already on nightlies. I'm running the latest one now on my Epic 4G Touch and I couldn't be happier :whiste:

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

That's your fault for buying a Touchwiz phone. It's easy to tell ICS from Gingerbread.

too bad the SGS2 is the most popular phone and most other Android phones havent gained enough traction

or perhaps he shouldv'e bought a motorola phone which is still waiting on ICS...

 

[WelshBloke]

too bad the SGS2 is the most popular phone and most other Android phones havent gained enough traction

or perhaps he shouldv'e bought a motorola phone which is still waiting on ICS...

I think the point is that if you really want a holo themed phone then you should buy one, rather than one with a different theme.

 

[psych2]

Of course in a perfect world the Holo theme would be standard and manufacturer skins would be an option along side it using an officially sanctioned theme engine. Would love to see that happen in Jellybean

 

[QueBert]

That's your fault for buying a Touchwiz phone. It's easy to tell ICS from Gingerbread.

My point was the majority of phones with ICS on them right now aren't running stock ICS. So the end user won't get even close to this consistent Holo feel people keep yammering on about. The dialer, calendar and contacts which are the core of a phone have zero Holo elements. There's no 3 dot menu buttons anywhere to be found. I'm not sure how Moto's ICS looks, but I can only imagine they'll be like Samsung and won't follow the Holo app guidelines what-so-ever. And it's only easy to tell GB & ICS apart in stock form. But next to no phones have stock versions of either. So all the hype about the "ICS holo experience" is just that a bunch of hype.

Please tell me which phone I can get on AT&T that will give me this stock ICS you speak about.

 

[psych2]

My point was the majority of phones with ICS on them right now aren't running stock ICS. So the end user won't get even close to this consistent Holo feel people keep yammering on about. The dialer, calendar and contacts which are the core of a phone have zero Holo elements. There's no 3 dot menu buttons anywhere to be found. I'm not sure how Moto's ICS looks, but I can only imagine they'll be like Samsung and won't follow the Holo app guidelines what-so-ever. And it's only easy to tell GB & ICS apart in stock form. But next to no phones have stock versions of either. So all the hype about the "ICS holo experience" is just that a bunch of hype.

Please tell me which phone I can get on AT&T that will give me this stock ICS you speak about.

Why, you can get an unlocked Galaxy Nexus for $399 straight from the Play store of course, and you don't even have to sign another ATT contract for it . Lets not forget that ICS was a massive improvement under the hood such as better garbage collection and the ability to force GPU hardware acceleration not to mention the increased the API level.

https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Galaxy_Nexus_HSPA?id=galaxy_nexus_hspa&hl=en

 

[Puddle Jumper]

The new Android design guidelines were a good move on Google part and app's that actually follow them really stand out and IMO are far better looking than iOS apps.

 

[Aikouka]

I don't know if I got the wrong version of the app, but Facebook is terrible on my Transformer. They must not have a specific tablet app, because it just looks like everything is blown up... including the preview images, which look terrible.

 

[mosco]

not to mention the increased the API level.

That no will develop for because everyone is still developing for level 8.

- signed a iOS and Android developer

 

[psych2]

That no will develop for because everyone is still developing for level 8.

- signed a iOS and Android developer

I would like you to link your apps to judge the veracity of your anecdotal statment

 

[mosco]

I would like you to link your apps to judge the veracity of your anecdotal statment

I don't feel like sharing that with you, but I sent you a PM to explain where I am coming from with my opinion.

And to be clear, this isn't only an issue on Android. In my current role, we are counting down the days until the iPhone 5 comes out which will hopefully push iOS 5 usage over 90%. Some of the stuff we do involves webviews, and it would be nice to guarantee that we could use certain HTML5/CSS3 additions and javascript speed increases. Unfortunately Apple doesn't expose the JIT javascript interpreter to UIWebviews, but they have still have made improvements to performance in iOS 5 and 6.

But the issue is definitely much bigger on android.

 

[runawayprisoner]

I don't feel like sharing that with you, but I sent you a PM to explain where I am coming from with my opinion.

And to be clear, this isn't only an issue on Android. In my current role, we are counting down the days until the iPhone 5 comes out which will hopefully push iOS 5 usage over 90%. Some of the stuff we do involves webviews, and it would be nice to guarantee that we could use certain HTML5/CSS3 additions and javascript speed increases. Unfortunately Apple doesn't expose the JIT javascript interpreter to UIWebviews, but they have still have made improvements to performance in iOS 5 and 6.

But the issue is definitely much bigger on android.

I think, personally, that if animations are involved, then either GLKit (for custom 3D effects) or UIView animations are much better than using Webview to handle HTML5/CSS3 animations. Even for an app that requires constant internet connection.

That's why Apple didn't include JIT for UIWebView IMO. More developers NEED to get out of the mindset that HTML5/CSS3 does everything as fast as UIView animations and GLKit. That's not the case at all.

But I agree that it's worse on Android if you can't move beyond HTML5/CSS3.

 

[mosco]

That's why Apple didn't include JIT for UIWebView IMO. More developers NEED to get out of the mindset that HTML5/CSS3 does everything as fast as UIView animations and GLKit. That's not the case at all.

But I agree that it's worse on Android if you can't move beyond HTML5/CSS3.

I think its more a security thing, which is what we were told last week at Apple's developer conference. I think they would be happy to provide it on UIWebViews if they thought it was secure.

But that was just an example, there are many issues on Android completely unrelated to web views. We had an issue last week with shake sensitivity on android where basically every device has a different sensitivity. There are a lot of issues like this.

 

[runawayprisoner]

I think its more a security thing, which is what we were told last week at Apple's developer conference. I think they would be happy to provide it on UIWebViews if they thought it was secure.

But that was just an example, there are many issues on Android completely unrelated to web views. We had an issue last week with shake sensitivity on android where basically every device has a different sensitivity. There are a lot of issues like this.

It's actually kind of weird that it's a security issue since Apple can easily sandbox UIWebView as much as they want. Of course that will alter the API in a not so preferable way, but I don't think it's that hard to do.

The real reason might be that they are reluctant to admit that even with JIT, HTML5/CSS3/Javascript just can't match native apps built with GLKit or UIView animations in performance. Since Apple kept touting how revolutionary and innovative HTML5 is, they most likely don't want to backtrack on that statement. Instead, they'll just keep "dodging" it until the engineering department figures out a way to make HTML5/CSS3/Javascript performance truly on par with native apps, or until hardware has caught up and the performance difference is no longer there.

A prime example of a similar case is the famous checkerboard patterns that appeared while zooming and scrolling in Mobile Safari and UIWebView. For a long time, Apple has maintained that it was either an "expected behavior" or an "unlikely but inevitable bug". Then came iOS 5, and they completely eliminated the checkerboard pattern. But iOS 5 is, of course, only available on OGLES 2.0 devices.