"since Android was built for multitasking, inactive applications remain in a saved state for a particular amount of time." -- uhh, this is exactly how it works on iOS.
"This doesn’t need to be strictly implemented by the developer, it’s a core part of the OS" and "is also means that multitasking will only work for an app if the developer specifically implements it" -- completely wrong. Compile the app with the iOS 4 SDK and you get it all for free. Background services like audio and VoIP require developer work though.
"iOS still missed the mark. On the iPad, the notification bar is super awkward and doesn’t scale well." -- citation needed. I actually prefer the iOS 5 notifications, as when they come in they are more conspicuous than the Android system.
"And the backwards compatible version of iOS4 for iPhone 3G slowed down the phone so much that users wanted to throw their phones out" -- 4.0 was a bit pants, but that was fixed pretty quickly, and worked reasonably well. And at least Apple actually provide updates to their older phones, unlike most Android OEM's.
"Even things like voice-chat were available on Android devices before the iPhone 4 was even announced" -- pretty sure the iPhone 1 could make voice calls.
"since iOS was not built from top-to-bottom for multi-tasking functionality, you have to address what continues to happen in the background as the user leaves app and you’re app has to scurry and get everything ready in within a short period of time, or iOS will completely shut it out"
This is just patently false. Multitasking was not an afterthought in this UNIX based OS, the absurdity of that claim reveals the thickness of the author's bias. This compromise was made to save battery life as well as to make sure users are aware of what their device is doing at any given moment.
There's a lot of other obviously stupid claims in there too, I'll leave those as an exercise for the reader.
Agreed on the multitasking. iOS was never incapable of general multitasking, easily shown by its Unix-basis and easily demonstrated by jailbreaking.
It was however intentionally crippled to not allow arbitrary application-level multitasking because Apple decided it didn't serve them well. So as far as a normal user was concerned the OS was incapable of multitasking.
So while inaccurate, that statement is not entirely off. You could not create an application and reliably have it do stuff in the background on iOS.
Apart from that I have to disagree with your statement: I find the rest entirely reasonable and valid criticism. And I have no doubt about the conclusion: The future of iOS will be more blatant stealing from Android.
And that is OK. Really it is. Just stop that nonsense about Apple being the innovator.
When you say "Multitasking was not an afterthought in this UNIX based OS" you implicate that iOS multitasking has something to do with the multitasking done on UNIX, which as far as i can tell is really not the case.
So, in this regard, iOS was released without multitasking which was baked in some versions later. it's not like they only needed to switch the underlying OS features on.
Also: I don't see how this saves battery life if done properly, years before iOS and Android other mobile OS' did multitasking with a similar battery life then the iPhone.
The only point that stands is that Apple (may be) didn't want to confuse users with multiple running apps, but then again.. why did they implement it in the end anyway?
My opinion: It was obvious that the iphone will have multitasking (and copy&paste and wallpapers, and what not) at _some_ point in the future. Imagine Steve's presentations in the coming years (while announcing a new iPhone/iOS version) without those "big improvements". You keep those things hidden to have some new features to throw at your customers.
Android just happened to be first on some of those..
You argue that multitasking was always in mind because of the underlying POSIX threads. Of course an operating system has threads. You say it was because of CPU/power usage and also a UX simplification. Do you have any sources for these claims? We could speculate back and forwards but to me it just appears you're making assumptions here.
> There's a lot of other obviously stupid claims in there too, I'll leave those as an exercise for the reader
Re iOS: "This also means that multitasking will only work for an app if the developer specifically implements it. Nice."
As opposed to the Android model where all apps get free reign to drain the users battery life unless the user explicitly kills the app. Task killers are quite a popular application on Android for this reason.
As to the notion that Apple stole the notion of multitasking on a mobile device from Android, I'm pretty sure that Apple engineers knew about multitasking before Android implemented it. Apple made the very difficult (but correct) decision to sacrifice functionality to protect the overall user experience.
You may be confusing apps placed in the background with services.
Also, Apple has a long history of not being very good at mufti-tasking. OSX was the first Apple OS that had modern pre-emptive multitasking, a good 5 years after Windows and decades after Unix. Pre-emptive multi-tasking just means that the OS divies up CPU time between applications without the applications being aware of it, so many programs can run at the same time without being specifically written to allow this. Apple was handed multitasking for free in the form of the BSD code OSX is built on.
OS9, interestingly enough, had non-preemptive multitasking. The OS would never take control away from a program, but rather, meekly wait for programs to hand it back. This meant that multi-tasking could work only so long as all programs you were using were specifically written for it. In reality, few were, and just one program not written for multi-tasking would seize control and lock out all other programs. Imagine working on an OS this backwards 5 years after Windows 95 came out! OS9 was indeed a product of the dark age of Apple.
Multi-tasking in iOS is strangely similar to that of OS9 in that it isn't handled by the OS invisibly regardless of how applications are written. Applications must be written to allow multitasking. It's not quite as bad as OS9 in that one poorly written application won't bring your iOS device to a screeching halt, but it's still an extremely backwards approach and ample evidence that Apple still doesn't understand multi-tasking.
The argument that Apple has deliberately done this because it's good for battery-performance is idiotic. You don't build the foundations of an OS that could be around for decades around limitations of current generation hardware. Battery consumption is already a much less important issue than it was two years ago and it will continue to become less and less important since the power efficiency of mobile devices is actually growing faster than Moore's law. In five years Apples poor implementation of multi-tasking, and all the code written to make use of it, will still be a big mess to clean up. Even if current generation Android hardware were experiencing poorer battery performance (and they generally don't) because of Android sane implementation of multi-tasking, it would be a small price to pay compared to what Apple has ahead.
The real reason Apple has designed iOS this way is, as with OS9, because they just don't know any better.
Task killers haven't been popular or recommended since the release of Eclair and really Froyo (ironically most simply destroy performance these days, but people aren't bothered to learn about Acitivity hibernation in Android so they don't release they're shooting themselves in the foot needlessly flushing ram and then reloading the app from a closed state when Android seemlessly suspends them). 90% of the time that apps are draining the battery, it's because of a user-initiated wakelock. There are very few if any apps that just "drain the battery" these days.
As for multitasking, it's been around for a long time sure, but there are various implementation details that are in common among Android and iOS (but not Mango or webOS necessarily). I have no desire to point fingers of "theft" or "copying" but inspiration doesn't seem unthinkable.
I feel that the jailbreak dev community offers more "direction" to the changes that are brought about in iOS, compared to Android. The multi-tasking feature for one, was available on iOS 3 if jailbroken, the same goes with wifi sync (which is going to be on iOS 5). One could probably argue that the jailbreak apps get their inspiration from certain Android features, which could be possible, but I don't know the release dates for each feature to retort to that.
Though I think this article is right about one thing, competition does bring about innovation, be it from Android or from Cydia.
I would bet Apple had all these features up their sleeve for years but kept them out of iOS on purpose. I don't even believe it was "just to charge more for the next upgrade" like I've heard people say either. Its as simple as slowly introducing people to new concepts. If I gave my grandma an iPhone 1 then upgraded her every year, she'd be a pro on the next version of iOS. If, however, I gave her an Android phone that was already shipping with the features iOS left out in the early days she'd chuck it out the window. And that's how Apple keeps their converts. Maybe us technically inclined users appreciate not being babied but the masses quite frankly need their hand held when it comes to technology.
Ew. How is it that articles with crummy colloquial grammar ("This one is too…obvious. And that’s an understatement."), yucky misspellings ("the user leaves app and you’re app has to scurry...") -AND questionable content even climb up into front page view?
With posts like these censored from HN, no wonder pro-Apple bias stays the way it is here. The Apple proponents on this site probably have no idea what's going on outside their Apple-coloured windows and the first time they hear about anything is when Apple announces it on a keynote.
Because painting Apple as the one doing copying will get you flagged the hell out of forums like this one.
So yeah. This gets flagged, but Gruber's trollbait and Apple-praise goes? Facts are bad, but reinforced, artificially rosed up Apple-gardens are good? WTH.
Can we please have an "unflag"-button to save articles from the censorship of Apple fanatics? Pretty please? iPlease?
I wonder if you ever even touched an iPhone or iOS device? You certainly never used one. I have a long history of using "smartphones", I owned a Nokia communicator, a Compaq windows mobile PDA, a Sony-Ericsson P910, and then decided nothing was really worth it.
So then came along the iPhone. It did exactly what I needed, I bought a 3G the moment it was available here in Europe. Then came Android. As a long-time embedded developer, suddenly, mobile applications became important. I now develop for both iOS and Android, and know both platforms pretty well. Android in my opinion is a geek's toy, and just like the Linux desktop "good enough", but not quite there yet. Simply put, iOS is way more polished. On some levels it does less, but what it does, it most likely does a lot better (viewed from a user pov). There are off course exceptions, Apple is not flawless - it's unbelievable that only now in the 5th major release their notifications-system is improved, and the lockscreen would finally be used to actually display usefull information. Another problem is the calendar app, which looks nice on the surface, but it's pretty useless for day-to-day use (luckily there is Week Cal). And don't even mention folders. I hate them, they're useless, and put apps in a dungeon to be forgotten forever. Anyway, these complaints are minor compared to my gripes with Android. I won't even start going down that path. Yes I tried the Nexus One and Nexus S we have here at the office extensively, I still take them with me when I have to travel for work-related work so I don't end up with massive personal phone bills.
And then came along tablets. I skipped the first generation iPad, I always wait for 2nd generation for most new stuff. Along came the "competitor" tablets. Ever played with a Xoom? No? Good advice: keep it that way. Playbook? Avoid like hell. Samsung galaxy tab? The 10" is ok-ish. Not great, but usable - but spend my own money on it? No tx... Weird thing is, my biggest problem isn't necessarily Android (which isn't exactly "nice" on a tablet), but the 16:10 display, it's simply horrible for a tablet... Why do people think an aspect ratio for watching a movie (which is about ehm 5% of the things I do on my iPad2) should dictate the form factor? So as I said, I bought an iPad 2, and I'm very happy with it. From time to time, a test-sample of some unknown tablet is dropped on my desk to look at. The only-one I haven't seen is the Touchpad, which I would love to have.
Anyway, I am still daily confronted with Android phones, blackberries, windows mobile - I have to develop for it. I do know these platforms very well, it's my job. And I think Android is absolutely necessary to push competition, not only Apple, but also Windows Mobile 7, which is actually pretty impressive imho. Too bad WebOS probably doesn't have a future, this had a shared 2nd place with winmo7 on my mobile OS list. Android is 3rd, followed by Meego and then Blackberry OS, which I absolutely detest.
So please don't pretend other people never used anything else while you try to bash iOS and Apple... Nothing is black & white. Both Apple, Google, Microsoft, HP, Intel, Nokia, ... are companies trying to act in their own interest. Don't fool yourself, no mobile OS is perfect, but it's very hard to point out things iOS does worse than any competing OS.
A lot of people here are arguing about whether Apple copied a particular implementation of a given feature. That is beside the point.
It goes more like this: Apple sees that Android has vastly superior notifications. Apple concludes, "We need better notifications". Apple implement a better notification system that shares certain features with Android's system, but in other ways is unique.
Yes, they respond to market pressure. Yes, they borrow ideas. They also innovate. I do not see any difference between Apple and Google in this regard.
It's not a service to humanity to copy the features from a Desktop computer, call it a mobile phone, and claim that this phone is better than a product that was designed to be a phone.
> And iOS still doesn’t have turn-by-turn navigation
iOS has had turn-by-turn navigation available at least as long as Android - it just has it in the form of third-party applications such as TomTom. For, say, $39 you can install ~1GB of map data on the iPhone. You then not only have turn-by-turn but you can also navigate in areas where there's no cellphone signal.
What's even more interesting is how much Apple copied from Palm and others. Like the whole device with a big screen and a grid of icons copied from the Palm Tungsten TX (debuted in October 2004) which was something Apple was suing Samsung about. Or did they copy that from Windows 3.1?
Silly example aside, as a Treo user migrating to an iPhone in 2007, I was absolutely thrilled that Apple "copied" so many good ideas from Palm... the concept of the device profile (backups were effectively a system image of the device).
About the only thing I missed from my Treo was a) Bookworm app which showed up later in 18 months, and the customizable "home area code" (unfortunately still not here).
Most people on HN. Or at least so it seems when reading this site. Heck, even this article was flagged and removed, while Gruber's trollbait about Apple innovation is always gold here. Go figure.
And San Fransisco bloggers writing in a coffee-shop on leached wifi on their Macbook Airs. These people have never heard about anything at all until Apple announces it at a keynote.
The people who didn't consider "Folders. Reinvented" a joke, they say so.
[+] [-] oohmeplums|14 years ago|reply
Not a great article.
"since Android was built for multitasking, inactive applications remain in a saved state for a particular amount of time." -- uhh, this is exactly how it works on iOS.
"This doesn’t need to be strictly implemented by the developer, it’s a core part of the OS" and "is also means that multitasking will only work for an app if the developer specifically implements it" -- completely wrong. Compile the app with the iOS 4 SDK and you get it all for free. Background services like audio and VoIP require developer work though.
"iOS still missed the mark. On the iPad, the notification bar is super awkward and doesn’t scale well." -- citation needed. I actually prefer the iOS 5 notifications, as when they come in they are more conspicuous than the Android system.
"And the backwards compatible version of iOS4 for iPhone 3G slowed down the phone so much that users wanted to throw their phones out" -- 4.0 was a bit pants, but that was fixed pretty quickly, and worked reasonably well. And at least Apple actually provide updates to their older phones, unlike most Android OEM's.
"Even things like voice-chat were available on Android devices before the iPhone 4 was even announced" -- pretty sure the iPhone 1 could make voice calls.
[+] [-] tjogin|14 years ago|reply
"since iOS was not built from top-to-bottom for multi-tasking functionality, you have to address what continues to happen in the background as the user leaves app and you’re app has to scurry and get everything ready in within a short period of time, or iOS will completely shut it out"
This is just patently false. Multitasking was not an afterthought in this UNIX based OS, the absurdity of that claim reveals the thickness of the author's bias. This compromise was made to save battery life as well as to make sure users are aware of what their device is doing at any given moment.
There's a lot of other obviously stupid claims in there too, I'll leave those as an exercise for the reader.
[+] [-] josteink|14 years ago|reply
It was however intentionally crippled to not allow arbitrary application-level multitasking because Apple decided it didn't serve them well. So as far as a normal user was concerned the OS was incapable of multitasking.
So while inaccurate, that statement is not entirely off. You could not create an application and reliably have it do stuff in the background on iOS.
Apart from that I have to disagree with your statement: I find the rest entirely reasonable and valid criticism. And I have no doubt about the conclusion: The future of iOS will be more blatant stealing from Android.
And that is OK. Really it is. Just stop that nonsense about Apple being the innovator.
[+] [-] buster|14 years ago|reply
So, in this regard, iOS was released without multitasking which was baked in some versions later. it's not like they only needed to switch the underlying OS features on.
Also: I don't see how this saves battery life if done properly, years before iOS and Android other mobile OS' did multitasking with a similar battery life then the iPhone.
The only point that stands is that Apple (may be) didn't want to confuse users with multiple running apps, but then again.. why did they implement it in the end anyway?
My opinion: It was obvious that the iphone will have multitasking (and copy&paste and wallpapers, and what not) at _some_ point in the future. Imagine Steve's presentations in the coming years (while announcing a new iPhone/iOS version) without those "big improvements". You keep those things hidden to have some new features to throw at your customers. Android just happened to be first on some of those..
[+] [-] skeletonjelly|14 years ago|reply
> There's a lot of other obviously stupid claims in there too, I'll leave those as an exercise for the reader
That's not how arguing against a point works.
[+] [-] leon_|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeiting|14 years ago|reply
As opposed to the Android model where all apps get free reign to drain the users battery life unless the user explicitly kills the app. Task killers are quite a popular application on Android for this reason.
As to the notion that Apple stole the notion of multitasking on a mobile device from Android, I'm pretty sure that Apple engineers knew about multitasking before Android implemented it. Apple made the very difficult (but correct) decision to sacrifice functionality to protect the overall user experience.
[+] [-] beloch|14 years ago|reply
Also, Apple has a long history of not being very good at mufti-tasking. OSX was the first Apple OS that had modern pre-emptive multitasking, a good 5 years after Windows and decades after Unix. Pre-emptive multi-tasking just means that the OS divies up CPU time between applications without the applications being aware of it, so many programs can run at the same time without being specifically written to allow this. Apple was handed multitasking for free in the form of the BSD code OSX is built on.
OS9, interestingly enough, had non-preemptive multitasking. The OS would never take control away from a program, but rather, meekly wait for programs to hand it back. This meant that multi-tasking could work only so long as all programs you were using were specifically written for it. In reality, few were, and just one program not written for multi-tasking would seize control and lock out all other programs. Imagine working on an OS this backwards 5 years after Windows 95 came out! OS9 was indeed a product of the dark age of Apple.
Multi-tasking in iOS is strangely similar to that of OS9 in that it isn't handled by the OS invisibly regardless of how applications are written. Applications must be written to allow multitasking. It's not quite as bad as OS9 in that one poorly written application won't bring your iOS device to a screeching halt, but it's still an extremely backwards approach and ample evidence that Apple still doesn't understand multi-tasking.
The argument that Apple has deliberately done this because it's good for battery-performance is idiotic. You don't build the foundations of an OS that could be around for decades around limitations of current generation hardware. Battery consumption is already a much less important issue than it was two years ago and it will continue to become less and less important since the power efficiency of mobile devices is actually growing faster than Moore's law. In five years Apples poor implementation of multi-tasking, and all the code written to make use of it, will still be a big mess to clean up. Even if current generation Android hardware were experiencing poorer battery performance (and they generally don't) because of Android sane implementation of multi-tasking, it would be a small price to pay compared to what Apple has ahead.
The real reason Apple has designed iOS this way is, as with OS9, because they just don't know any better.
[+] [-] drivebyacct2|14 years ago|reply
As for multitasking, it's been around for a long time sure, but there are various implementation details that are in common among Android and iOS (but not Mango or webOS necessarily). I have no desire to point fingers of "theft" or "copying" but inspiration doesn't seem unthinkable.
[+] [-] zalthor|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] billpatrianakos|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chriseidhof|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mershad|14 years ago|reply
Boo.
[+] [-] josteink|14 years ago|reply
Because painting Apple as the one doing copying will get you flagged the hell out of forums like this one.
So yeah. This gets flagged, but Gruber's trollbait and Apple-praise goes? Facts are bad, but reinforced, artificially rosed up Apple-gardens are good? WTH.
Can we please have an "unflag"-button to save articles from the censorship of Apple fanatics? Pretty please? iPlease?
[+] [-] koffiezet|14 years ago|reply
So then came along the iPhone. It did exactly what I needed, I bought a 3G the moment it was available here in Europe. Then came Android. As a long-time embedded developer, suddenly, mobile applications became important. I now develop for both iOS and Android, and know both platforms pretty well. Android in my opinion is a geek's toy, and just like the Linux desktop "good enough", but not quite there yet. Simply put, iOS is way more polished. On some levels it does less, but what it does, it most likely does a lot better (viewed from a user pov). There are off course exceptions, Apple is not flawless - it's unbelievable that only now in the 5th major release their notifications-system is improved, and the lockscreen would finally be used to actually display usefull information. Another problem is the calendar app, which looks nice on the surface, but it's pretty useless for day-to-day use (luckily there is Week Cal). And don't even mention folders. I hate them, they're useless, and put apps in a dungeon to be forgotten forever. Anyway, these complaints are minor compared to my gripes with Android. I won't even start going down that path. Yes I tried the Nexus One and Nexus S we have here at the office extensively, I still take them with me when I have to travel for work-related work so I don't end up with massive personal phone bills.
And then came along tablets. I skipped the first generation iPad, I always wait for 2nd generation for most new stuff. Along came the "competitor" tablets. Ever played with a Xoom? No? Good advice: keep it that way. Playbook? Avoid like hell. Samsung galaxy tab? The 10" is ok-ish. Not great, but usable - but spend my own money on it? No tx... Weird thing is, my biggest problem isn't necessarily Android (which isn't exactly "nice" on a tablet), but the 16:10 display, it's simply horrible for a tablet... Why do people think an aspect ratio for watching a movie (which is about ehm 5% of the things I do on my iPad2) should dictate the form factor? So as I said, I bought an iPad 2, and I'm very happy with it. From time to time, a test-sample of some unknown tablet is dropped on my desk to look at. The only-one I haven't seen is the Touchpad, which I would love to have.
Anyway, I am still daily confronted with Android phones, blackberries, windows mobile - I have to develop for it. I do know these platforms very well, it's my job. And I think Android is absolutely necessary to push competition, not only Apple, but also Windows Mobile 7, which is actually pretty impressive imho. Too bad WebOS probably doesn't have a future, this had a shared 2nd place with winmo7 on my mobile OS list. Android is 3rd, followed by Meego and then Blackberry OS, which I absolutely detest.
So please don't pretend other people never used anything else while you try to bash iOS and Apple... Nothing is black & white. Both Apple, Google, Microsoft, HP, Intel, Nokia, ... are companies trying to act in their own interest. Don't fool yourself, no mobile OS is perfect, but it's very hard to point out things iOS does worse than any competing OS.
[+] [-] kennywinker|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teilo|14 years ago|reply
It goes more like this: Apple sees that Android has vastly superior notifications. Apple concludes, "We need better notifications". Apple implement a better notification system that shares certain features with Android's system, but in other ways is unique.
Yes, they respond to market pressure. Yes, they borrow ideas. They also innovate. I do not see any difference between Apple and Google in this regard.
[+] [-] rwaliany|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glenra|14 years ago|reply
iOS has had turn-by-turn navigation available at least as long as Android - it just has it in the form of third-party applications such as TomTom. For, say, $39 you can install ~1GB of map data on the iPhone. You then not only have turn-by-turn but you can also navigate in areas where there's no cellphone signal.
[+] [-] iloveyouocean|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnTHaller|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pazimzadeh|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r00fus|14 years ago|reply
About the only thing I missed from my Treo was a) Bookworm app which showed up later in 18 months, and the customizable "home area code" (unfortunately still not here).
[+] [-] leon_|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] klinquist|14 years ago|reply
Who are those "people"?
Sounds like the author is debating a position that few people actually hold.
[+] [-] armandososa|14 years ago|reply
http://random.andrewwarner.com/what-googles-android-looked-l...
[+] [-] josteink|14 years ago|reply
And San Fransisco bloggers writing in a coffee-shop on leached wifi on their Macbook Airs. These people have never heard about anything at all until Apple announces it at a keynote.
The people who didn't consider "Folders. Reinvented" a joke, they say so.
You know... These kind of people. The say that.
[+] [-] evmar|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Hyena|14 years ago|reply