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iOS7 is not about flat

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Re: iOS7 is not about flat

#101

Post by Someone »

r00fus wrote: post #92
microtonal wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS will actually disable these features if the battery is getting low. Like Battery Saver? http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/how-to/wp8/basics/battery-...

Great - another option. I prefer my phone deciding when to do this automatically (and maybe an option to disable it so I can run it into the ground if absolutely necessary).

I prefer magic, too, if it works. I doubt it does in this case, though, and I get the impression Apple knows it hasn't nailed it yet, either. At least, elsewhere in this thread people note Apple's stuff can be overridden on a per-app basis.

I also get the impression that Apple's idea about the perfect balance between flexibility and "it just works" neighs more towards the latter than Google's ideas about it, as witnessed by some remarks that Google's Sync adapters that app developers _can_ use are exactly the same as Apple's solution that app developers _must_ use.

Re: iOS7 is not about flat

#102

Post by DannyBee »

glhaynes wrote: post #89
DannyBee wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you know all the technical implementation details of both? Or are you comparing random API doc material and actual technical details? Apple says a lot of things, not all of them turn out to be technically accurate. For example, do you know it actually will not allow poorly behaved apps to drain battery, or is this just an assumption based on what apple says will happen? What always happens in these discussions is…

The discussion was around architecture. Of course it may not behave as intended when actually implemented because of bugs. Or because of Apple outright lying in their communications. Sure, those are possibilities, but they're irrelevant to architectural criticism.

But you have no real architecture details, only a small number of bullet points on how it's supposed to behave and a simple but not horribly descriptive API. That isn't an architecture, that's just marketing materials. They are completely irrelevant to anything.

Given only that, you cannot possibly make informed commentary on how it will behave in practice, you are just parroting a story.

In particular, you said "it let poorly-behaved apps drain significant amounts of battery in the background and it's not true that Apple has now added that possibility."

You cannot possibly assert this with any real details to back it up, because you do not know how this architecture operates past "apple says they won't be woken up enough or run long enough to drain battery". If you have the actual details necessary to back this statement up, please add them.

Unless you are talking at such an abstract level where everything that matters is an implementation detail, in which case it's very easy to design perfect architectures that have no problems!

We don't believe people when they make crazy claims about crypto, without seeing the actual details and implementations. We should not trust Apple or Google's marketing points about their architectures when trying to make "architectural criticism".

In the end, if you really believe "architectural criticism" is possible without actual detailed design info, carry on.

But to me, that's a worthless discussion based on what are essentially talking points.

In any case, all that matters in the end is performance in the field, so this entire discussion is mostly technical masturbation until real users have phones in hands.

Re: iOS7 is not about flat

#103

Post by jrochkind1 »

leokun wrote: post #41

It's funny how all these things that have been in Android forever and were criticized for their battery draining powers are suddenly the latest and greatest reason why Apple phones are the best. It's just the way it goes, remember 7 inch tablets? Worst thing ever and everyone lists reasons why. Until Apple made one. Marketshare means everything! Until Android stole that, now market share is a false signal. King of pr…

Feature X is neither the worst thing in the world it's ridiculous that Android did it! Nor is it an unallowed good, it's completely ridiculous that iOS didn't immediately o it! (as whatever the opposite of apple fanboys would have said; hateboys?)

Rather, it's a feature with some negative repurcussions as well as benefits, some possible tradeoffs.

Apple, for better or for worse, these days, esp on iOS, generally chooses not to jump into such features right away. They wait until they can expend the developer time on them to consider all the trade-offs and all the choices and different decisions that could be made in implementing that feature. And then they spend that time, and try to implement the feature in a way that minimizes downsides, maximizes upsides, and minimizes technical debt too.

Doesn't mean they always get it right. And this strategy itself, even when gotten right, has it's own pro's and con's -- there are certainly reasons, especially for hackers, to prefer Android's wild west over Apple's walled garden.

But there are evaluations that are neither "Android was stupid to implement it 5 years ago" nor "Apple was stupid NOT to implement it 5 years ago."

Re: iOS7 is not about flat

#104

Post by jrochkind1 »

untog wrote: post #24
joshdance wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing. It will be in the background. You won't even notice.

But we've been told for years that Android is fundamentally broken because it allows this. I guess everyone changed their mind?

Nice passive voice, 'been told'. Who told you that? Do you have an example of an actual person telling you that 'for years', and that same person is now telling you different? If so, then, clearly, they changed their mind, sure. I doubt that 'everyone' did though.

Re: iOS7 is not about flat

#105

Post by mitchty »

draugadrotten wrote: post #4
techtalsky wrote: post #2

Sounds like another way for apps to drain my precious battery life.

...and prefetch will drain the data plan by downloading information that may never be needed.

The app autoupdate will do that on its own if you're not careful about disabling using 3g for downloads.

That said I also played a ton of the radio last month too but I wish I could turn 3g for the radio stuff and not the rest instead of toggling it all the time.

Re: iOS7 is not about flat

#106

Post by moogleii »

freehunter wrote: post #80
xutopia wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to call you out on this one. You're dismissing perfectly viable criticism as "fanboyism". The mechanisms are wildly different: On Android the app developer chooses if he is a good citizen or not and can if he puts the effort to use the SyncAdapter (Bobz mentions this in the thread). The SyncAdapter afaik provide the same benefits as the iOS method. On iOS the app developer can only provide the hooks for the…

I didn't call anyone a fanboy, I was quoting epo during the only time I mentioned that word. What I brought up was the reality distortion field. What you're describing is Apple doing the same thing as Android but with the only difference being developers have to use the equivalent of SyncAdapter. That's not wildly different, that's literally been baked into Android since long before Apple decided to adopt that model…

Well, saying people are under a reality distortion field is de facto calling someone a fanboy, in my opinion. Personally, I agree with some of what you're saying, but it kind of sounds like you've taken a straw man and run with it.

"Apple's audience pretending these features never existed before or that they were bad ideas then but great ideas now." First off, that's a wild generalization. Who is saying that? Sounds like you saw some random comments on the internet and now that represents a whole group of people that you disagree with.

"That's exactly what I'm seeing you and others in this thread doing."

Really? Xutopia's comments seem pretty reasonable to me. He pointed out a minor, but key difference. It's true, it's not "wildly different", but it is a significant, non-negligible difference. I don't see how him pointing that out turns him into your current bogie man.

I'd also venture that that key difference is where your "Apple audience" had an issue, not your claim that background updates as a whole was somehow seen as the devil. It could be abused by developers, and it was.

Arron61's comment more reasonably addresses how that was handled, and so yes, at times, you would have to do manual power management with certain unscrupulous apps. I think that aspect of it is/was annoying, but I've never thought the general idea of background tasks/multitasking as a whole was bad; that's just silly. And that's significantly different than the attribution you are making.

Re: iOS7 is not about flat

#107

Post by HNLogInShit »

Uninformative and inappropriate title. The entire article is about "background fetching", and the title should reflect that.

Also, Apple has always advised against "splash screens", and instead recommended that you make a fake-screen bitmap so it looks like your app has already launched. This is stupid for two major and related reasons:

1. When the user starts tapping on controls on your fake screen and they don't work, it looks like your app is defective and locked up.

2. The screen will show outdated and inaccurate information until the app is actually running and replaces the fake screen with the real one.

iOS 7 is rife with examples of this screen-shot problem. iOS has always (as far as I know) taken a snapshot of the app's screen before it goes into the background, which it then displays when the app returns. This often shows wrong information or even the wrong orientation, long enough to perplex the user.

Re: iOS7 is not about flat

#108

Post by HNLogInShit »

eddieroger wrote: post #37
jliptzin wrote: post #12

IMO iOS 7 is a textbook case of fixing something that's not broken.

Have you used it? Are you familiar with what it's doing or how it's doing it? Or just immediately dismissing it for no reason? For me, as a developer, it's fixing tons of things that were broken and allowing me to do lots of amazing new things with my apps that I haven't yet - while still letting the user dictate behavior and usage.

Like what? Background fetching is great. What else?

For the end user, iOS 7 is a UI fiasco and a massive regression. Spindly, illegible text. A ridiculously degraded calendar, which no longer shows a concise list of a day's appointments but instead forces you to scroll through every hour of the day, hunting for whatever it is you have scheduled.

"Transparency", a stupid UI idea that came and went a decade ago because it SUCKED. Why do I want to see the crap BEHIND the UI I'm trying to use? Oh, but I don't really see it; I see a mottled mess of a background, because it's "blurred." This of course renders text illegible in many cases, because the background may be any combination of colors.

There are the tiny, undefined control areas. The invisible controls. The unresponsive controls.

The camera icon on the lock screen is a great example of Apple's UI stupidity (which predates iOS 7). People are still trying to tap this thing, because Apple inexplicably doesn't put an ARROW above it to show you WTF you're supposed to do. Why? There's no excuse for it.

Re: iOS7 is not about flat

#109

Post by kamjam »

Angostura wrote: post #98
joshdance wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing. It will be in the background. You won't even notice.

My concern is the ability of apps to eat all the data in my data plan without me knowing.

This would be my biggest concern too. Due to the huge cost + tax of data plans here in Canada, I'm only on a 1GB per month plan :(

I would need the ability to completely turn this off - which according to another comment here it will be.

Re: iOS7 is not about flat

#110

Post by leokun »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #103
leokun wrote: post #41

It's funny how all these things that have been in Android forever and were criticized for their battery draining powers are suddenly the latest and greatest reason why Apple phones are the best. It's just the way it goes, remember 7 inch tablets? Worst thing ever and everyone lists reasons why. Until Apple made one. Marketshare means everything! Until Android stole that, now market share is a false signal. King of pr…

Feature X is neither the worst thing in the world it's ridiculous that Android did it! Nor is it an unallowed good, it's completely ridiculous that iOS didn't immediately o it! (as whatever the opposite of apple fanboys would have said; hateboys?) Rather, it's a feature with some negative repurcussions as well as benefits, some possible tradeoffs. Apple, for better or for worse, these days, esp on iOS, generally choo…

My comments are not actually about Apple, but of the pro-Apple blogger commenter types and their side commentary.
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