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My Very Own Protocol Droid

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Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#101

Post by mikeash »

M4v3R wrote: post #48
parfe wrote: post #7

> Twenty years of using Macs conditioned me to think, “well, that’s the Apple way.” It’s such a small price to pay for such a user-friendly device. Another Stockholm-syndrome patient cured! I recently took over a prototype project targeting the Mac. XCode is garbage. OS X itself actively works against improving your workflow. It's Apple's way or, well Apple's way. iOS is built to keep the user in a padded cell (aka W…

> XCode is garbage Once in a while I see an argument like this and I wonder - does this guy really do mobile development? For the better part of last year I was into Android development, in Eclipse. If XCode is garbage, I don't know what Eclipse is. Resource-hogging, buggy monster with seven heads with shit on them, probably. I could list annoyances of Eclipse that got me for hours. On the other hand, in last month I…

I do a lot of iOS development in Xcode, and a lot of Android development in IntelliJ. The IDE experience is vastly better in IntelliJ. Xcode is garbage. Maybe Eclipse is worse, I don't know, it's been a long time since I used it, but that's irrelevant. That something is even more garbage doesn't somehow make Xcode better.

The only thing I really miss about iOS development when doing Android work is not having blocks in Java, and it's still generally Good Enough if I squint and pretend that anonymous inner classes are equivalent. (IntelliJ helps to reinforce this illusion with automatic folding, too.) The iOS simulator is a bit better, but I don't generally find myself really missing it, especially since developing on a real device is much better in Android land.

Xcode is way behind the times in terms of automated assistance while coding. Every time I have to stop in the middle of writing some code to go up and add an #import that the IDE could easily add itself, I hate Xcode a little more. And that's really the tip of the iceberg.

I'm really hoping that AppCode 2.0 can give me the IntelliJ experience for iOS coding, because Xcode 4 has been a disaster from day one and is not getting better fast enough.

Your opinion may differ, but please don't act like disagreement can only be due to ignorance.

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#102

Post by mtgx »

xauronx wrote: post #51
Irregardless wrote: post #28

There's no doubt Apple is playing catch-up with Android these days. Siri was their only real innovation in the last 3 iPhones, and Google leapfrogged it within months. Meanwhile, Apple is still trying to implement a decent notification system, their auto-correct is garbage, there's no file manager, you can't set a default browser (or default anything, for that matter), there are no widgets, no app shortcuts, no custo…

> "their auto-correct is garbage" The last three people who switched from iPhone to Android asked me what was wrong with Androids auto-correct and why it didn't "work". They ended up having to install a third party keyboard to get anything they could stand to interact with.

Google should just buy Swiftkey. It's pretty great, and I love its Flow (Swype-like) feature, too.

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#103

Post by Irregardless »

xauronx wrote: post #51
Irregardless wrote: post #28

There's no doubt Apple is playing catch-up with Android these days. Siri was their only real innovation in the last 3 iPhones, and Google leapfrogged it within months. Meanwhile, Apple is still trying to implement a decent notification system, their auto-correct is garbage, there's no file manager, you can't set a default browser (or default anything, for that matter), there are no widgets, no app shortcuts, no custo…

> "their auto-correct is garbage" The last three people who switched from iPhone to Android asked me what was wrong with Androids auto-correct and why it didn't "work". They ended up having to install a third party keyboard to get anything they could stand to interact with.

Autocorrect is one of the most common complaints I see about the iPhone. Whether it's professional reviewers or normal users, there seems to be a consensus that the stock Android keyboard and autocorrect have now surpassed their iOS counterparts.

I'm not sure what your friends were doing or which phones they had, but as others have said, Android at least offers you the ability to switch keyboards if the stock keyboard doesn't fit your personal typing style. If the stock iOS keyboard doesn't work for you, tough luck. No keyboard will work for 100% of the population, so the ability to customize it is a clear winner in this situation.

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#104

Post by calinet6 »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #76
warrenmiller wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, but they could install a 3rd party keyboard.

Which is nice, but it's a bit like someone saying "this road is an accident black spot" and you replying "yes, but it's near the hospital".

No, it's a bit like saying "yes, but you can go around it using this free four-lane highway that works great."

It's still a shame that your Google GPS told you to take the dirt road though.

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#105

Post by RyanMcGreal »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #15
parfe wrote: post #7

> Twenty years of using Macs conditioned me to think, “well, that’s the Apple way.” It’s such a small price to pay for such a user-friendly device. Another Stockholm-syndrome patient cured! I recently took over a prototype project targeting the Mac. XCode is garbage. OS X itself actively works against improving your workflow. It's Apple's way or, well Apple's way. iOS is built to keep the user in a padded cell (aka W…

Can you give examples of good stuff you've seen from Google Now that have been a real help to you? Stuff that's genuinely useful rather than just "look at that" cool. EDIT: So far I'm seeing a lot of reasons why Apple wanted to get into maps. A lot of the value add here seems to be navigation related.

Google Now notified me that it had determined where I live, where I work and where I make regular visits, and asked me to confirm that it had the locations correctly (it did). Now it tells me when I need to leave to get to an appointment, depending on how I'm getting there and what the traffic is like. I didn't have to set up or configure any of it - it just worked.

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#106

Post by nosecreek »

I found it surprising that he thought his android was better at audio-on-the-go, as this is the very thing that has been keeping me on iOS. Maybe its because my car doesn't have built in bluetooth, but the ability to buy an FM transmitter, iPod dock, etc. and just know that my iPhone will work with it is a huge plus. In talking with my Android using friends, I've also never run across anyone who thought that they could find a better music player for Android than the built in iOS music player. Has the music experience on Android been significantly updated in the most recent OS versions?

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#107

Post by notlisted »

nicholassmith wrote: post #62
Irregardless wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Default will depend on which phone you get, but there's no shortage of great free ones in the market (Astro and ES File Explorer, for example). Also, Android phones work just like a USB drive if you want to drag and drop files then access them from another computer later. You can store anything you want and create your own folders, unlike the iPhone where you can only sync certain media types through iTunes. That's w…

Which everyone wants of course. Except me. Or my girlfriend. Or my parents. Or my sister. Or in fact, everyone I know with one. A feature that you think is critical is a feature that is critical for you . The refrain that iOS suffers from a lack of file exploration or drag and drop of any kind of content is based around the assumption that everyone wants that. Most people don't.

Well let's broaden this, there is no concept of files on the iPhone, and yes, you DO need them.

Example: try attaching an excel sheet you received from a friend to another email.

Example: the powerful Android "share" mechanism --the sole reason I have several iPads but switched to Android for real work (ie on my phone). Share is not limited to a bunch of "friend-aware" apps, but every app can register themselves as a "handler" for particular data objects (files), e.g. "picture" "pdf document" etc, and when you hit "share" all of these are shown in a list. No more circuitous nonsense where you have to open a file in goodreader or save it to dropbox first, so you can access it with another app, which speeds up things tremendously.

I think it's pretty safe to say that moving data from one app to the next is something everyone needs.

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#108

Post by zmanian »

Irregardless wrote: post #28

There's no doubt Apple is playing catch-up with Android these days. Siri was their only real innovation in the last 3 iPhones, and Google leapfrogged it within months. Meanwhile, Apple is still trying to implement a decent notification system, their auto-correct is garbage, there's no file manager, you can't set a default browser (or default anything, for that matter), there are no widgets, no app shortcuts, no custo…

Key Pieces of history in the Siri vs Google Voice Search

- Siri is a commercial spinoff of a DARPA AI project called CALO which was primarily designed to help the military handle information in the form of MS Office documents/Outlook email. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/siri-do-engine-appl...

- CALO was an almost 10 year project run out of SRI but executed primarily at Stanford,Berekley and the University of Washington. Many PhD's and post docs on the west coast in Machine Learning cut their teeth on some element of CALO. It's influence is pervasive throughout the Valley.

- Apple does not have in-house voice recognition technology and instead licences technology from Nuance.

- Nuance is essentially a holding company for all the commercial voice recognition technology from the 90's and 00's except what MSFT picked up from the TellMe acquisition and what Google developed under Mike Cohen.

- Mike Cohen is a Nuance co-founder who nurtured voice recognition tech at Google for many years before leaving in 2011 but Google's current voice recognition technology is largely the result of research products he ran.(http://9to5google.com/2012/05/23/manager-of-speech-technolog...)

To Summarize. Siri and Google Voice search share a common lineage. Google is better position to improve the technology because they are not relying an existing vendor and acquisitions for key pieces of technology but instead they have been gestating internal groups specializing in both semantics and voice to text internally for many years.

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#109

Post by roc »

lukeschlather wrote: post #49
Irregardless wrote: post #28

There's no doubt Apple is playing catch-up with Android these days. Siri was their only real innovation in the last 3 iPhones, and Google leapfrogged it within months. Meanwhile, Apple is still trying to implement a decent notification system, their auto-correct is garbage, there's no file manager, you can't set a default browser (or default anything, for that matter), there are no widgets, no app shortcuts, no custo…

Calling Siri innovation is revisionist history. Google had voice search nearly a year when Apple launched Siri. Also, Apple bought Siri, they didn't invent it. Based on the interactions I've had with Siri/Google search (I have an Android) there haven't really been any innovations in the space since Google introduced voice search. It's useful, but imperfect.

Siri isn't about voice search. It's about voice-initiated tasks. Sometimes that's search, but sometimes it's a reminder, or a calendar appointment, etc. The innovation is in that distinction and in the context awareness. [1] And that truly is innovation. Regardless of where it came from. If/As Siri is expanded, it's going to become a Big Deal.

And Google's going to deliver something similar. Something beyond literal transcription and voice search, because what Siri presents really is an innovative improvement.

And as to the question of Apple buying Siri vs developing it -- where does that argument end? How could we possibly apply it fairly and objectively? Shall we wave off all of Android as Google's innovation, simply because Google bought it? How many improvements and integrations would it take to (dis)qualify an innovation as being fairly creditable to the current owner? How could we even know what the new owner 'created' vs what these acquired firms had in development at the time of purchase? Does Apple's SoC line count or not count, given they bought PA Semi, but we have no idea what they did pre- or post-acquisition? How in the world is anyone outside capable of knowing? It's essentially impossible for an outside party to fairly apply in a comparison between two companies.

The selective application of that qualifying logic winds up looking like nothing more than making excuses for whatever doesn't fit our preconceived positions.

[1] Being able to refine/adjust a command without restating the entire thing: e.g. the whole example of "make an appointment for 1 tomorrow" "here's your appointment, shall I create it" "wait, make that 2". To say nothing of the detection of things like scheduling conflicts in the first place, where the conversational context-awareness truly shines. i.e. It's not just simple input, it's an 'intelligent' exchange in the pursuit of the task.

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#110

Post by agscala »

whichdan wrote: post #21

"With Android (and T-Mobile) I killed my contract. Now I pay just $30/month. For $30/month I have unlimited texts, unlimited data, free tethering, and 100 minutes of talk" Anyone else have experience doing this? My monthly bill for an iPhone with AT&T is $76.40 which includes 300MB of data, 1000 messages, and a whopping 450 minutes (I do have ~2700 rollover minutes though). I don't feel strongly about Android vs iPho…

The Verizon plan is actually listed incorrectly. If you have a smartphone you have to pay an extra $40 for "line access", which brings Verizon to a whopping $100/mo.
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