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Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

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Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#551

Post by tedunangst »

radiorental wrote: post #422
jstapels wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's owned by Lenovo... a Chinese company.

Chinese - put something on the phone Americans - tap the network backbone. What's the difference?

End to end encryption works over insecure networks, but not with insecure endpoints.

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#552

Post by uptown »

gnarbarian wrote: post #519
supercoder wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Material design is like bootstrap for mobile. Good to give devs something they can't mess up too badly, but is pretty soulless.

>but is pretty soulless What does that mean?

It's kinda like reference hardware. It's the baseline, with nothing special or unique. It takes a talented designer to take the toolkit and design language, and extend those to inject their own style and character into the finished product so that it both solves the specific needs of the product being designed by clarifying the interface to the user - and hopefully delights the user in some way to make the experience of using the app not just tolerable but delightful.

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#553

Post by megablast »

mhomde wrote: post #478
erikpukinskis wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, in terms of staff UI design cred Android is in better place than iOS right now. With the Sidekick, PalmOS, and then Material Design, Matías Duarte has been consistently at the forefront of mobile UI design. Jony Ive is probably the most brilliant consumer electronics hardware designer in the world, but I have yet to see any indication that he has any idea how to lead a platform UI design project. I had issu…

iOS is in a tough position, the road of incremental changes is coming to an end. The icon-based home screen is showing it's age and will need a revolution rather than an evolution. You can kinda see Apple dipping it toes into the widget arena with the notifications area, yet they're probably hesitant to remake the whole home screen and risk alienating their current users. Tech savvy people won't mind a new home scree…

> The icon-based home screen is showing it's age and will need a revolution rather than an evolution.

Why? It is easy, intuitive, and used by millions of people.

Change for changes sake?

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#554

Post by mhomde »

weisser wrote: post #487
mhomde wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS is in a tough position, the road of incremental changes is coming to an end. The icon-based home screen is showing it's age and will need a revolution rather than an evolution. You can kinda see Apple dipping it toes into the widget arena with the notifications area, yet they're probably hesitant to remake the whole home screen and risk alienating their current users. Tech savvy people won't mind a new home scree…

> The icon-based home screen is showing it's age and will need a revolution rather than an evolution. Right. Anything can be accessed so quickly a home screen should be more contextual than static app icons.

Well, they're half way there with the "force"-push shortcut actions on icons. It's a good idea even if discovery is a little bad. That was easier to add however since it really doesn't interfere with existing users. Changing how the home screen looks for everyone might be perceived as risky.

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#556

Post by DasIch »

exergy wrote: post #463
zepto wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides 'using windows apps that weren't designed for a tablet' what exactly is the Surface's use case?

It runs full windows. Allow me to repeat. It runs full windows. I'm a grad student. I have a workstation in my office. But at home, it's perfect for reading research papers thanks to the high resolution display, the fact that I can disconnect the keyboard, and the included pen which I can use to annotate. Yes, the iPad can do all that, but I can reconnect the keyboard, and continue using Matlab, or log in remotely to…

You've seen the iPad Pro?

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#557

Post by Keyframe »

_cbsz wrote: post #383
maxsilver wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially since there's not much effort from Apple needed to keep the Mac lineup modernized. Intel does much of the work for them. Apple could just drop new Intel chips into their existing MacBooks as they get released, and easily be getting improved speed + efficiency each year. The new Kaby Lake chips even do hardware 4K video and VP9. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/08/intel-unveils-kaby-la... sigh

Really? do they all use the same CPU socket? no updates required to motherboard? EFI? Apple's custom SMC firmware? power management? kernel work? etc.

If only Apple had resources to do that. They must be struggling.

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#558

Post by fencepost »

x0x0 wrote: post #414
tdkl wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Aquamail & Davdroid (paid on Play,free on F-droid) for that combo (before my hosting got ActiveSync, for which I another excellent client app called Nine), was working without issues you write about.

The problem with ActiveSync -- which you may be aware of? -- is it gives the server the rights to remote wipe your phone! Great if you control the server and are really (really really really) sure it will never be hacked... Thanks for the Davdroid recommendation!

Nine allows you to specify a variety of security-related options including local passcodes, internal app data encryption, and whether the security policy (remote wipe capability) is applied at the application level or at the device level.

I believe many of the other third-party Exchange-connecting apps have the same type of options.

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#559

Post by kefka_p »

givinguflac wrote: post #477
kefka_p wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly a lot of people don't get the hype about having to install custom ROMs to make their phones behave in a tolerable way. People are always going to find computing on devices they don't normally use to be more difficult than computing on devices they normally use, yet to you this is proof Android is better?

THANK YOU! We are mostly techy folks here, and I don't understand how anyone could say to the average user "just install a ROM and it's a big improvement on the software that ships with it." As correct as that is in my experience, you seriously expect grandma or even just your average non-techie user to even give a shit? My wife can't be bothered to turn wifi on when she gets home because she doesn't even think about…

I'm a technophile myself albeit one that has spent the better part of a lifetime interacting with non-technical users. Such experience has left me with impression that expecting end-users to do anything I would consider bothersome, or requiring even a modicum of effort, is a no sale proposition. This is true when it comes to actually improving one's experience, to say nothing of achieving a reasonable baseline. If people have to jump through hoops to achieve usability, it seems a fair bet that they won't be a repeat customer.
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