I'm sorry, I'm browsing from /all. You don't actually mean they only started allowing notification sound customization 17 versions into their OS, right? You're making a joke?
Because holy hell, what basic functionality that should have been included over a decade ago.
Every modern release of iOS is more like Android, and every modern release of Android is more like iOS. Welcome to convergent evolution.
By 2030, the only major difference between Android and iOS will be that, when you hit the bottom of a scrolling page, one will be a little bouncy and the other will be a little stretchy.
People will still fight over which OS is the best.
Bullshit, by 2030 everything will be doomscrollable thanks to generative text AI. Our marketing department has done some research and concluded that our customers will stop using their device if they hit the bottom.
Yeah, I assume the Android stretch is because Apple might throw a legal hissy fit if they directly cloned iOS’s “rubber banding.” It was one of the early R&D interaction models that was key to Jobs green lighting the iPhone.
this is an unpopular opinion but i know the aesthetic reason for apple not implementing this for so long, and like eveything, it’s to make money.
android design is pretty good, but user created android phones home screens can often look pretty hateful, often with 4-6 screens of more empty space than icons, tons of widgets with an inconsistent design scheme, random half empty folders and a notification bar overcrowded with overshrunk icons. android phones often look like old Windows XP desktops—even on flagship distributions.
in contrast to google, apple cares what your phone looks like because they have a highly visual brand.
apple, by not allowing placement anywhere intentionally enforced a consistent top-left to bottom-right aesthetic which is now ubiquitous to the brand. among other design decisions, the result is that when you blur your eyes and look at a phone home screen you can tell whether it is apple or not.
but the functionality is worse, yes i know.
but it actually does look worse too, to you maybe, but not to apple. my belief is they did this for the same reason they put the magic mouse’s lighting port on the bottom (to keep users from always using it plugged in. which looks “ugly”).
the power of a strong and unmistakable brand is incomparable. in many cases, the value of a brand can even outperform raw product utility when it comes to customer satisfaction, a theory which i believe apple has been leveraging in this case very much intentionally despite the seeming paradox of utility.
edit: already getting downvoted to heck i should have known better than to be aware of basic marketing principles lol. i promise you im not defending apple im just explaining why they did this to make more money.
Your comment isn't even that pro-Apple, and it's much more generous towards Android's design than you'd find on any other space titled apple_enthusiast.
And generally speaking isn't that the exact reason they gave for not adding widgets right away? I thought this was more well known fact than an opinion.
I’d be shocked if they just cloned Android’s default functionality and called it a day. Like the App Library, they’re probably going to try to have a unique spin on it, and will try to address some of the user experience quirks that a lot of iOS users don’t like.
I’ll bet money that it’s going to be pre structured layouts that look nice, like the Apple Watch, with one layout being “go nuts.” A CMS template system for the Home Screen.
I actually overall like the App Library, I just hate that the categories shift around seemingly at random. But I slowly keep removing more apps from the Home Screen; at some point my goal is to get down to one Home Screen with my most used apps and everything else is in the App Library.
I have to disagree on one point – that iOS home screens somehow look more orderly because they're full of icons arranged in a strict top-left-to-bottom-right fashion. It doesn't look any less cluttered than an overly full Windows desktop.
I found desktops that limit themselves to core functionality and maybe a nice wallpaper to be better looking and more usable since the days of Windows 95 and that hasn't changed since.
That "strict grid of icons" look certainly is uniform across iDevices and that's what appeals to Apple but I never found it to be particularly attractive.
Wow… I never thought of the Magic Mouse thing, yet you’re entirely correct. Everyone would use it like that, and honestly it does look better without being plugged in (although everything else about it sucks, I hate that damn mouse)
thanks haha this is the first time ive brought up the mindset behind it without being called a shill or something 😭
i personally do like the magic mouse i like the lil touchpad on top but i can definitely see how it would suck weeeeeener for gaming or perhaps design applications, probably a lot more than those examples too
It’s also about cable wear and tear. With a molded, fixed cable you can do proper boot and strain relief. A pluggable charge cable would be ribbons in like three months.
I totally agree, and would argue that this enshittification for their own benefit began around the iPhone 4 and iOS 7. Things were beautiful to see in promotional videos but they wrecked years of visual conventions and features for aesthetics. The actively choose profits and aesthetics over their users.
Eh, it’s the same on the Android side of the fence. There are big and small features that Google has been comically slow to crib from iOS.
I’ve definitely said “fucking finally” to things like overflow scrolling animations, and the “wild” idea that users should get 5+ of major OS releases.
Eh, it’s the same on the Android side of the fence. There are big and small features that Google has been comically slow to crib from iOS.
I’ve definitely said “fucking finally” to things like overflow scrolling animations,
Those things like overflow scrolling, keyboard peak, etc... were only held back because Apple would patent it prevent it from being put into Android and would file frivolous lawsuits against other phone manufacturers to try and get them not to use them, even when some android variants already had it built in before apple patented it in the first place. (I still facepalm at apple trying to sue others over a rounded rectangle shaped phone)
And those patents lawsuits only stopped because other phone companies called bullshit and started threatening apple with their own patents.
and the “wild” idea that users should get 5+ of major OS releases.
TL;DR on this point: not much of an issue anymore.
This isn't an android/iOS thing, it's a manufacturer thing. If a chip isn't supported by it's manufacturer, then no software on it can be supported. Different manufacturers had different support windows, but Qualcomm became notorious for making chips, then only supporting them for 2 years so they could sell a new "supported" one (and watch the money roll in). Once they saw other the larger players getting pissed off and poking around with the idea of making their own chips, Qualcomm quickly decided that they could support their chips for longer. Now they have to since both Google and Samsung have made public promises for 5-7 year support cycles. Of course, that hasn't stopped other phones from already reaching 7 years of official support before. (A notable example being Fairphone 2 who used a Qualcomm chip while they were still in their shitty behaviour phase and managed to support it for 7 years, 2 years Qualcomm support then 5 years of their own support despite Qualcomm.)
Also, when Google was pissed at Qualcomm they decided to start modularising their OS and pulling chunks out of it out of needing direct hardware support. This means that even if chip support were to stop, it would only affect the background / lowest-level-invisible-to-the-user parts of the OS, and all the user visible parts of the OS could be updated independently (starting with Project Treble, and going all out with Project Mainline). This basically means that entire chunks of the OS can be updated the same way an app can be, early 2010 Qualcomm companies be damned.
This also has the weird thing of android not really being a "version" per se, one phone might have different components of Android 10/11/12/13/14/etc... running at the same time. The components themselves have their own versions.
Android still doesn't have shake-to-undo. I use iOS and Android and switch between them regularly for work, and every time I typo something or accidentally delete a bunch of text on Android, it's incredibly jarring to not have the undo capability.
Who actually uses those features on a phone? Just buy an actual camera, even with those features, a smartphone camera probably won't film at an expected quality. I acknowledge fanboyism is not a good thing, but this is not an Android fanboy thing. These are very basic features that should have already been implemented on a device with a marketshare this large.
Listen, Android isn't any better than iOS overall, but to pretend that this is something that matters to anything but edge cases on rare occasions is just lying.
Wow, I'm glad Apple engineers finally figured out how to invent this feature. I can't wait to be told at a keynote how bold, innovative, and courageous this is.
yea, i get a lot of these changes and lock downs suck, but i can also see why they are needed from a security stand point. Proper sand boxing, requiring permission to access to camera and microphone, ect all seem like good changes.
This should be fun to play with for a little bit, but I put a lot of thought into my current layout and I’m not sure how much I really want to mess with it at this point.
And so did android manufacturers. The last small-ish Android phone, the Asus Zenfone is now also ginormous in its latest revision…
Like, below 6“ there’s the ZenFone 10, the iPhone 13 mini (both not current gen but still up to date), the Sony Xperia 10 IV (the V is above 6“), and a bunch of rugged phones (that aren’t exactly small either) and a few cheap af phones that are exactly 6"
The big ones, true. But at least with Android there's some sort of a possibility that somebody tries. Like the Unihertz Titan and Jelly models. Unfortunately stuck at Android 13 officially.
I can't imagine the thundering applause the mindless morons will erupt into when Tim Cook announces on stage that you'll be able to customize your home screen.
It’s not the applause of awe, it’s the applause of “fucking finally.”
Same thing happens after Google events. The last big feature that made everyone lose their shit was Google deciding to actually update their phones for more than a couple years. Shitty update support has been something iOS users have mocked Android about for a many many years.
There are other examples, but the point is that both ecosystems have reached the point where they’re just cloning each other 90% of the time.
Not really, android typically has software features 5+ years in advance of iphone. Most of the "cloning" was done in the first couple years smartphones existed.
I know people have been horny for this for the longest time - just like the app drawer, but honestly if I wanted this, I would’ve bought an Android phone. I need a way to disable the shitty app drawer and this upcoming “feature” cuz I never asked for it.
I use it semi regularly because I’ve limited myself to just two pages of Home Screen, and spatially, it is faster to launch a couple of apps that I use semi regularly, but didn’t make it to the Home Screen. It is faster than Spotlight search for me because it is super fast to short swipe twice and tap the icon, instead of longer pulling down spotlight, orient the keyboard and wait for search results to populate. I understand this is not for everyone as most people I know have more than two screens of icons, and would take more time to get to the drawer, but at least it works for me.
I think another thing that might make it faster is if Focus based Home Screen is used, the amount of pages could be drastically reduced in various customized focus modes… but I’ve never gotten into that and frankly I’m inclined to think that’s a super power user mode very few outside of Apple dives into.
Edit: also spotlight search is slower when you’d need to change keyboard languages to search for a non-default language app, especially if the other language is slower/less familiar to input (Chinese and Japanese comes to mind for me).
EXACTLY! It’s so annoying and I remember you could disable it until you couldn’t for whatever stupid reason. Now I just leave the apps that I don’t use more than once every two weeks in there and search for them. Imagine actually wading through those folders looking for an app and not calling yourself a lunatic when Spotlight is so much faster.
Off topic but I never see articles posted here about what the new features in Android are going to be, but Apple haters will undoubtedly let me know what I can expect to see in iOS.
This is not revolutionary as Android had had this for I want to say a decade, but this is a huge deal in usability because the way Apple handles app ordering is ludicrous.