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Android Is a Dead End

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Re: Android Is a Dead End

#51

Post by millstone »

hota_mazi wrote: post #44
millstone wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, okay, although given its deployment on 2B devices it's probably the best argument for Linux. One could have said more or less the same about Symbian not that long ago. > Nobody defines Android in this way, by a single component, and in a way the author even acknowledges this. That's right, it's not defined by any particular software component. Any particular component can be replaced until the whole thing is…

> Development of mainline Android happens behind Google's closed doors, and is thrown over the wall to OEMs You don't know much about Android, do you? Here's Android: https://github.com/android Developed behind closed door? I don't think so. Maybe you meant iOS, though? Because that OS is certainly being developed behind closed doors.

I am sorry to inform you that Google engineers are not doing their daily pushes to github.com/android.

Yes, Android is developed behind closed doors. Primary development occurs with a Google-private repository, and only made public at or near the point of a release.

This is different from the way Chrome, ChromeOS, Linux, Swift, etc. are developed, where primary development occurs in the open.

Re: Android Is a Dead End

#52

Post by remir »

hota_mazi wrote: post #41
remir wrote: post #35

I would say apps are at a dead end. The way we are using our mobile devices with rows and rows of single purpose apps seems so... primitive now. I mean, you need "Pizza Place" app to order pizza, "TicketMaster" app to order concert tickets, "HotelWhatever" app for hotel reservation, "Parking Meter" app, "Fitness" app, "News" app, etc... Like I said; rows and rows of information silos taking place on your phone, unabl…

> you could just type "order pizza" "Type"? What year is this, 2005? That's a surprisingly narrow view of what the future looks like. Today, you can already ask your phone "order pizza" and it will do just that. Whether it's done by an app or an intent or a web site is irrelevant: it just works. Which is why the OP article "Android is a dead end" is so preposterous. There is no analysis, no reasoning, no evidence. Ju…

Sure, I said "type" because that's what I would do, but you can speak to the phone or Assistant and achieve the same result.

Re: Android Is a Dead End

#53

Post by shams93 »

remir wrote: post #35

I would say apps are at a dead end. The way we are using our mobile devices with rows and rows of single purpose apps seems so... primitive now. I mean, you need "Pizza Place" app to order pizza, "TicketMaster" app to order concert tickets, "HotelWhatever" app for hotel reservation, "Parking Meter" app, "Fitness" app, "News" app, etc... Like I said; rows and rows of information silos taking place on your phone, unabl…

They kind of got a second lease on life with chromeos support for Android. However with Web assembly and progressive web apps the chromeos support for Android is a transitional move, eventually webassembly will eat the desktop market and the mobile app stores.

Re: Android Is a Dead End

#54

Post by hota_mazi »

millstone wrote: post #51
hota_mazi wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Development of mainline Android happens behind Google's closed doors, and is thrown over the wall to OEMs You don't know much about Android, do you? Here's Android: https://github.com/android Developed behind closed door? I don't think so. Maybe you meant iOS, though? Because that OS is certainly being developed behind closed doors.

I am sorry to inform you that Google engineers are not doing their daily pushes to github.com/android. Yes, Android is developed behind closed doors. Primary development occurs with a Google-private repository, and only made public at or near the point of a release. This is different from the way Chrome, ChromeOS, Linux, Swift, etc. are developed, where primary development occurs in the open.

Ok.

So how do iOS and Windows Mobile fare in your opinion?

Re: Android Is a Dead End

#55

Post by wyclif »

remir wrote: post #35

I would say apps are at a dead end. The way we are using our mobile devices with rows and rows of single purpose apps seems so... primitive now. I mean, you need "Pizza Place" app to order pizza, "TicketMaster" app to order concert tickets, "HotelWhatever" app for hotel reservation, "Parking Meter" app, "Fitness" app, "News" app, etc... Like I said; rows and rows of information silos taking place on your phone, unabl…

Isn't this what Google Wallet and Apple Pay were supposed to solve?

Re: Android Is a Dead End

#56

Post by lern_too_spel »

hoodoof wrote: post #2

Seems to me the long standing "Java is slow" versus "that's an old wives tale, Java software can be as fast native" all converges right down to the evidence of Android - compared to iOS, it's slow. If Java was just as fast then this would never come up.

There are videos showing the Nexus 5, a midtier phone of its generation, outperforming the iPhone of the subsequent generation in launching apps and getting to first interaction. https://youtu.be/hPhkPXVxISY

My own experience is that iOS feels more sluggish than Android for vanilla variants of Android.

Re: Android Is a Dead End

#57

Post by pasbesoin »

Apple's iPhone is central to the product/value they deliver. And it's treated as such by Apple.

Google's Android is not. They deliver ads, and now some services that don't depend on ads. They needed to keep the channel open for these, in the face of a mobile transition that could otherwise be dominated by Apple and maybe Microsoft. Thus, Android.

Of course, this was also back when Google was still willing to really take a flyer on something.

Re: Android Is a Dead End

#60

Post by chickenbane »

0xbear wrote: post #30

Don't know if it's a dead end or not, but both the apis and the developer tools are a massive clusterf#%k compared to Apple and Microsoft. Just one head scratcher after another, especially if you dare to support older versions. In comparison, Apple has a relatively pain free API, and lets you access it with one of the most elegant languages I've ever programmed in (Swift). After delving into Android just for a bit, i…

Interesting POV, but I'd much rather develop for Android than any other platform. You are correct that currently developing for Android is not for the faint of heart. Happily, it also turns out understanding Java and Gradle and IntelliJ is generally useful for a software engineer and let me develop for many more targets and vendors than one. And since all the components are all open source, the community can provide excellent updates, bugfixes, support, libraries, frameworks, etc.

Not to bash on Swift, but even with the incoming Swift 4 they still don't even have an ABI compatibility story (leading to bigger apps since they to bundle the runtime, and framework/library devs can't offer binaries), and they even had to break source compatibility (though the compiler will have a flag to compile Swift 3). And since most Android app development actually depends on the Android Support Libraries, you can provide great compatibility to current devices. Whereas - and this is according to iOS devs - supporting the latest version of iOS usually means abandoning supporting previous versions. Also, I heard the newest xcode 9 just got refactoring support - cute!

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