I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS • Hacker News Board

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#121

Post by e40 » Wed, Mar 23, 2016, 6:41 PM UTC

jseliger wrote: post #111

itp wrote: post #7

Wow. I'm a long time Android user and probably pay more attention than most, and I had no idea web apps had gotten quite this nice. Currently the only web app / web shortcut I have installed is the HackerWeb app[0], which is nice but clearly not taking advantage of all of the functionality it could. I "installed" Flipkart Lite and the Voice Memos demo app to see the state of the world. Clearly it's possible to build…

Actually, let me piggyback on your comment and ask a usability question: Has anyone written an OS X app to make OS X play nicely with Android phones by syncing contacts, emails, calendars, and audio? I ask because Apple did something supremely annoying with an iTunes, OS X, or iOS update a while ago: Contacts and calendars no longer sync directly from OS X to iPhones and vice versa. This is monumentally annoying. iPh…

You can connect your gmail account on a Mac and it sync's contacts. I do this so my VoIP apps have access to my gmail contacts, which are shared with my Android phone.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#122

Post by vanviegen » Wed, Mar 23, 2016, 6:41 PM UTC

ryao wrote: post #86

untog wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But unlike in iOS, the browser is a Play Store app which is updatable outside of major OS releases. So a two year old phone can run the latest version of Chrome. Why Apple still doesn't do this mystifies me.

You can install new browsers through the play store, but I do not recall the stock web browser being updatable back when I used Android. Can it be updated on Android 2.3/4.x and how much effort does that require? As for browsers installed through the play store, how many users can reasonably be expected to install them and of them, how many would update them?

Not only does the Chrome app auto-update, on Android 4.3+ so does the WebView component. This makes Android pretty hospitable for hybrid apps nowadays.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#123

Post by takno » Wed, Mar 23, 2016, 6:42 PM UTC

ryao wrote: post #64

untog wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are just some things that a web browser should not do. Exposing things that previously required escape from sandbox attacks is one of them. Why is it any different from an app doing it, though? There will be the same permission prompts etc.

A malicious app must be installed before it can run and is likely vetted by the maintainers of a package manager or App Store. A webpage running JavaScript simply runs with no inspection from anyone. Also, a malicious party usually cannot inject code into an installed app. Injecting it into a webpage you visit is far easier. Ad/tracking networks have been used for that. There is the possibility of a MITM attack if al…

The Javascript has to request permission for each type of device access on first use, which is a lot better than the ask-for-everything-on-install model that older versions of Android use. Service Workers also only load over HTTPs. Generally xss attacks are prevented by the permission being granted to the domain of the script which is trying to use the service.

If you are uncomfortable that any given site will be properly secured you can always deny them the permissions just as you would decline to install their app, except that the website can offer you a degraded experience, where the uninstalled app will offer you nothing.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#124

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 23, 2016, 6:43 PM UTC

jarjoura wrote: post #12

I think apps are in a lull right now because most were abandoned and left users feeling jittery about pouring their lives into them. Also few apps spent the effort to take advantage of working offline. If I'm in the subway, I'm basically unable to use anything except games. Although the last couple of games I couldn't play because they were trying to connect to an Ad server that would fail and so the game wouldn't pr…

[deleted]

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#125

Post by nissimk » Wed, Mar 23, 2016, 6:46 PM UTC

kalleboo wrote: post #63

My main exposure to Chrome web apps is Hangouts on Chrome for Mac and half the time I shut it down and choose to use the native app on my phone instead due to the poor, non-native UI and the battery life impact of Chrome. edit: the other shiny Google Web App example, Google Docs, doesn't work either. In Safari it likes to drops keys, and the last time I used it in Chrome (last autumn), it would either crash the whole…

Facebook's mobile web app is very good. In fact it is quite a lot better than their native app on Android. I believe most of the examples of bad mobile web apps (eg: twitter, linkedIn) are because the organization focuses their resources on the native side instead of the mobile web app.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#126

Post by nostrademons » Wed, Mar 23, 2016, 6:46 PM UTC

jorgecastillo wrote: post #112

nostrademons wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

KitKat was the first version to ship with Chrome as the default browser, but IIRC it didn't replace the system webview or become auto-updating until Lollipop. Wikipedia shows 70% of Android users on KitKat+, and about 35% on Lollipop+. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history#/media... I dunno what Samsung ships with, when I was still doing a bunch of mobile web work (early 2014) they used a forked versi…

I think this is more accurate: http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

Probably yes, although they seem to show basically the same numbers. I think the Wikipedia graph comes from someone scraping the official dashboard periodically; the text of the Wikipedia article indicates that the data source is Google Play Store and excludes non-Google forks.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#127

Post by vecinu » Wed, Mar 23, 2016, 6:46 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #102

stcredzero wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're saying is that you left the freedom of your device to jail yourself into simple interface...? Actually, this is a pattern that many products follow, as they evolve from a newly tinkered thing pioneered by enthusiasts to a mature consumer device. There is much more "freedom" in 80's and 90's audio equipment. (And markedly higher build quality. Bargain stuff I bought as a teenager is now lauded on ebay as t…

> Cars also followed this pattern, come to think of it. I remember my dad complaining all through my youth about how the more modern that cars get, the less serviceable you are. That in new cars you need special computers just to tell them that yes, you did fix the problem and the car can stop complaining now. 10 years later ... man, if I have to even think about opening the bonnet and poking at something, I assume t…

> Maintainability is the feature of unreliable equipment.

Not quite. The whole purpose of maintenance is to increase the longevity of a product by making small, cheap, tweaks to complex parts that can fail due to wear and tear.

Everything lasts longer if you maintain it. A good knife, a high performance vehicle, a good pair of shoes, a couch, etc ...

I don't know of any product that is "as good as new" after years of use. Watches, even spoons, aren't as shiny as they were when you bought them for the first time.

Maintenance is the work of the caring.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#128

Post by butThenThis134 » Wed, Mar 23, 2016, 6:46 PM UTC

taesu wrote: post #78

_kp6z wrote: post #70

I did the opposite and can't believe how much better my life had gotten because my iPhone is just a simple tool that I use for communications and don't think about it as a project. With Android, I always wanted to tweak silly things and run Cyanogenmod because the handset firmware was always so bad and vulnerable. On several occasions I'd bricked my phone requiring hours of recovery, or had transient failures of cell…

These things that you mentioned, you didn't really have to do. Buy a nexus, and it's as clean as it gets. What you're saying is that you left the freedom of your device to jail yourself into simple interface...? I do agree though, that those samsung/lg/etc phone have lots crapwares + carrier crapwares.

> Buy a nexus, and it's as clean as it gets.

Until it gets infected with malware that requires a firmware reflash to close:

http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/03/rooting-bug-in-andro...

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#129

Post by kps » Wed, Mar 23, 2016, 6:48 PM UTC

TomBombadildoze wrote: post #16

untog wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you aren't worried about provided a first class experience to your iOS customers, then build for Chrome + Android. Although, that sounds a little like "build for IE6 + Windows" 15 years ago. Except that Android is the open one that is implementing agreed upon standards, and Apple is the laggard left behind.

> Apple is the laggard left behind citation needed

http://caniuse.com/

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#130

Post by dhd415 » Wed, Mar 23, 2016, 6:50 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #102

stcredzero wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're saying is that you left the freedom of your device to jail yourself into simple interface...? Actually, this is a pattern that many products follow, as they evolve from a newly tinkered thing pioneered by enthusiasts to a mature consumer device. There is much more "freedom" in 80's and 90's audio equipment. (And markedly higher build quality. Bargain stuff I bought as a teenager is now lauded on ebay as t…

> Cars also followed this pattern, come to think of it. I remember my dad complaining all through my youth about how the more modern that cars get, the less serviceable you are. That in new cars you need special computers just to tell them that yes, you did fix the problem and the car can stop complaining now. 10 years later ... man, if I have to even think about opening the bonnet and poking at something, I assume t…

This is absolutely not true of equipment with moving parts. It must either be maintained or treated as disposable. One of the hallmarks of commercial-grade equipment is its ease of maintenance and repair. You might not find it fun, but professionals who rely on that equipment for their livelihood understand the long-term TCO for well-maintained commercial-grade equipment vs. disposable consumer-grade equipment.

Whether that applies to mobile phones with their general lack of moving parts is an entirely different question.