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Apple iOS6 Preview

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Re: Apple iOS6 Preview

#131

Post by philwelch »

wavephorm wrote: post #31
ryannielsen wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really getting sick of this "throw-away hardware" culture that Apple is enforcing. Just because iPad 1 can't run iOS 6 doesn't mean it's suddenly "trash". Also, the first iPad is woefully underpowered – thanks to the display, it's quite memory and graphics constrained. It's entirely possible Apple wasn't willing get new iOS features working well on that hardware, especially considering iPad 1's install base is a…

I don't care about new iOS features, or any of their iCloud nonsense, I know it won't support Siri (ipad1 lacked a microphone). What I do care about is the web browser on my iPad not receiving any software updates... ever. That's a serious problem. Without any software upgrades ever, the iPad will become the future IE. In fact, this is worse because of Apple's closed system they also won't allow 3rd parties to upgrad…

The installed base for iPad 1 won't be anywhere near as large as that for IE6. It's a ridiculous concern.

Re: Apple iOS6 Preview

#132

Post by philwelch »

hammersend wrote: post #97
ryannielsen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without any software upgrades ever, the iPad will become the future IE. In fact, this is worse because of Apple's closed system they also won't allow 3rd parties to upgrade the software either. Huh? Citation needed. Apple didn't suddenly cut off App Store updates to iPad 1. Developers are free to support (or not support) iOS 5, just as they were with other iOS updates. Furthermore, are you remotely surprised by this?…

"Do you have the same issues with Android? There's a platform that's destined to be the "future IE". How many Android users are stuck on 2.2 or 2.3, with a horribly crippled browser?" You do realize that there are third party browsers on Android that have their own rendering engines that you can install right? You don't have to ever use the built in Android browser if you don't want to. I've found Firefox works quite…

You could always install Firefox on Windows 2000, too. Didn't mean IE6 wasn't a major problem.

Re: Apple iOS6 Preview

#133

Post by cageface »

jsz0 wrote: post #110
cageface wrote: post #104

iOS was a revelation in 2007 but it seems to have stalled since then. The static grid of information-free tiles and clunky task management are starting to feel downright archaic even compared to Android and their decent into cheap skeuomorphism continues unabated. Apple is lucky Google is having so much trouble getting ICS out there.

On the flip side both the iPhone and iPad have amazing customer satisfaction numbers so we can probably conclude that most iOS users like things the way they are. Why would Apple want to change it up too much? If live tiles or better task management were important we'd all be using WP7 or WebOS.

Sure, it shows how far ahead of the game Apple was in 2007.

But they've left the door open for competitors, in my opinion. If Google had the distribution issues plaguing ICS sorted out they would be in trouble, IMO, particularly because the iOS UI conventions are more awkward on tablets and that's currently Apple's stronghold.

Re: Apple iOS6 Preview

#134

Post by philwelch »

timdorr wrote: post #20

Interesting that the new Maps makes no mention of public transit support. Is that gone completely now? It looks like your app can register as a "router" to support different types of navigation routing, but it would suck if that is no longer built in.

Supposedly it integrates with third-party apps. If done well, this would be great--in Seattle, I have to integrate directions from Maps with information from OneBusAway by eyeball.

Re: Apple iOS6 Preview

#135

Post by dirtyaura »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #57
astral303 wrote: post #37

Maps with turn-by-turn navigation (long overdue) and transit APIs sound very promising. Having portable maps is one of the key strengths of a smartphone and this kind of lower-level integration now kicks it up a notch. He mentioned "biking and hiking" for the transit apps: that's exciting! Also, turn-by-turn navigation has this "overview" mode--tap it and you exit the forced-point-of-view navigation and get to pan ar…

Sort of FYI, Google's original effort at providing their own database for map information was that Navtec would not license them the right to use map data for turn-by-turn navigation. It was really quite amazing to see all of the constraints that were put on map data (it was so much easier for Trimble, the original company, to exploit their map database than to try to compete in the gadget space). I don't doubt that…

Sort of FYI, Google's original effort at providing their own database for map information was that Navtec would not license them the right to use map data for turn-by-turn navigation.

Of course Navteq would allow them to use map data for turn-by-turn navigation, but Google didn't want to pay the price they were asking for license fees.

Earlier Navteq and Tele Atlas had a duopoli in worldwide map data - no-one else had as good coverage as they had. And they used tiered licensing structure. On lower tiers, you were allowed to display maps, but you couldn't use them for turn-by-turn navigation or for example dynamically show locations of your friends.

Re: Apple iOS6 Preview

#136

Post by RKearney »

RowanH wrote: post #3

Did I just read this right "iOS 6 brings even better web browsing to your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch." .... "And when you’re posting a photo or video to eBay, Craigslist, or another site, you can take photos and video — or choose from your Camera Roll — without leaving Safari." mobile web just took a huge step forward if so.....

I really wouldn't call it a huge step forward for mobile web as much as it's a huge step forward for Apple.

For what it's worth, my BlackBerry Curve from 6+ years ago supported form uploads. Apple was just years behind on this.

Re: Apple iOS6 Preview

#137

Post by dirtyaura »

fpgeek wrote: post #118
fluidcruft wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Easy reply messages / reminders accessible when you have an incoming call? Reply via text has been a popular feature in custom Android ROMs for a while. Setting a reminder is new to me, though.

Ironically, those "copyists" Samsung and HTC had "reject call with text" in their Gingerbread editions of TouchWiz and Sense (I'm not sure about earlier skins since I haven't used them), even before Google added it to ICS. I'm sure both are kicking themselves that they didn't try to patent it (though I suppose patents move slowly, so maybe they have).

It's likely not patentable, similar feature has been in old Nokia phones years ago.

Many current mobile usage ideas, like e.g. location based reminders, Nokia had in design board or development internally already in early 2000s. Many ideas are common sense. At the end of the day, ideas don't matter that much, it's the execution that matters.

Re: Apple iOS6 Preview

#138

Post by _frog »

JoeCortopassi wrote: post #51
astral303 wrote: post #37

Maps with turn-by-turn navigation (long overdue) and transit APIs sound very promising. Having portable maps is one of the key strengths of a smartphone and this kind of lower-level integration now kicks it up a notch. He mentioned "biking and hiking" for the transit apps: that's exciting! Also, turn-by-turn navigation has this "overview" mode--tap it and you exit the forced-point-of-view navigation and get to pan ar…

Maps in iOS6 look great, but will moving away from Google break legacy apps for <5.1? I'm sure main stuff will integrate pretty seamlessly, but what about the little stuff? (e.g. in a UIWebView, if I make a link to google maps, when the user clicks it, they are taken to the Map app). In the long run, it's the right decision, I'm just eager to test some of our MapKit apps on iOS6, to see what breaks

I'll chime in here as I'm currently working on an app that uses MapKit extensively. MKMapViews work in pretty much the same way as they did in iOS 5, no breaking changes.

The one thing that did break in my case was the feature of my app that opened up a walking route in the old Maps app. On iOS 5 this is done by redirecting any maps.google.com URL requests to the Maps app but of course this doesn't work with the new method. Thankfully they've replaced this with a generic API that allows you to programmatically create a routing request (no more string concatenation!) and pass it to any app which implements the required protocol for handling it, right now that's just the Maps app but I'm sure that selection will expand once iOS 6 is out.

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