iOS 7 SPANKS Samsung's Android in user-experience rating On the heels of the release of Apple's iOS 7, the researchers at Pfeiffer Consulting – a firm whose tagline is "Quantifying the Intangible" – sought to answer one simple question: "How good is it really?" To Pfeiffer, competition in the smartphone market is about software, not hardware. "Take any recent top-of-the-line …
Is there any particular reason why they show several pages of the app screen when they only show a single page of the iOS home screen - which is the functional equivalent? Methinks they're padding just a fraction.
EDIT: Actually strike that, they do show a second page. BUT. They don't show the iOS settings app, yet do show the android settings. Kind of cheeky.
And before that, we had a platform that couldn't even do basic UI tasks like copy/paste - yet I remember the fans telling us how not only was this not a problem, but it was better for it!
The whole thing is nonsense anyway - like, if I want to know what my user experience is, rather than going by my experience as a user, I should instead consult some "analyst"? I know what I like, and so do a billion other Android users.
I love the insinuation that the billion (FFS) Android users are using it through informed choice! What percentage have an Android phone by default, because it was free or BOGOF? What percentage don't even know that they have Android? You see Mark, it's a far more nuanced market than you like to pretend. You, being such a rabid fandroid, only every see you choice in a positive light because you are incapable of being rational, and damn anyone that dares criticise your choice, either directly or indirectly. Look at your posting history! One day, when you've grown up, you'll see the error of your ways and we'll be able to have a rational conversation about this.
Oh, I have a personal pet troll, someone criticising other people's history when they themselves post anonymous.
If I'm fanatical about something, it's facts and evidence. Which this study seems to lack. I'd criticise a survey that put Android on top too, if it used this kind of logic. I'd never use such a study in favour of a platform (except in response to another study perhaps, to show how meaningless they are). If the things I criticise often tend to be when people are arguing for Apple, it's not my fault the arguments are more likely to be flawed, or we simply hear more astroturfing for Apple. I'm not the one resorting to insults.
And yes, how absurd that people had choice in their phones, we were clearly all forced into using Android against our will.
I don't think many get Android free (maybe "free" on contract, but that will be even more common on iphones). Not sure what you mean by default - many see iphones as the "default" due to the far greater free advertising it gets. How many people know they have "IOS"? And yes, it is a nuanced market, which is why any attempt to claim that one must be the best is flawed - I'm not claiming any platform is objectively better, just fed up of the astroturfers telling me what I'm supposed to like better.
@Mark. Seeing this little exchange has made me laugh, I remember you've have been given the facts and evidence before that prove the market is nuanced in the way AC implies, but it seems you are now pretending otherwise. Here, to refresh your memory, are the pertinent details and threads:
Despite global market-share figures, Flurry analytics reports are showing an estimated 510 million active app-using iOS devices worldwide versus 564 million active app-using Android devices. The only reasonable interpretation is that the very many lower cost Android devices are not being used as much as devices from the high end of the market.
Here's the comment where you were given data to this effect where I commented on your misinterpretation of the data.:
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2013/08/19/report_apple_sucking_triple_the_number_of_phone_switchers_as_samsung/#c_1930579
You replied, but then another commenter answered the bad logic in your own reply with this (not directly to you, but he was commenting on the thread):
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2013/08/19/report_apple_sucking_triple_the_number_of_phone_switchers_as_samsung/#c_1931525
Due to a greater number of Android users wishing to switch to iOS as the other way round, now markets have matured, Apple are taking market share off Android in the US (at the time of the comment above) and now too (as predicted by yours truly) in the UK. Other developed nation markets will be following suit. You saw this data in this comment, because you contributed to the thread and referred to it:
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2013/08/14/peak_apple_samsung_has_double_market_share_of_iphone/#c_1925461
Additionally, your various reply on the number of iOS and Android users expressing a desire to switch to iOS being greater than those wishing to switch to Android also failed explain how in mature saturated markets, iOS is now taking market share off Android.
Oh and when I did a search on my old posts, I noticed back in 2012 you were given this data:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/21/real-time-research-ios-dominates-over-android-when-it-comes-to-usage-says-chitika/
http://www.androidauthority.com/iphone-owners-use-more-data-129207/
In this comment:
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/2/2012/11/13/nexus_4_sells_out_in_30_minutes/#c_1620856
So you have a very long history of ignoring the data and changing the argument to suit your prejudices. Here's some more data for you - opening weekend sales of the various incarnations of iPhone at launch versus Samsung Galaxy handsets. Bet you'll never refer to this one again either:
http://www.asymco.com/2013/09/23/iphones-5c-and-5s-launch-performance-illustrated/
Sticking with copy/paste is not a good design.
I was hoping for Apple to find a new smother way that never needed to use copy or paste.
Something with every object being able to do any task with. E.g. marking a text, and then just get it into the mail you wanted to copy it to, without having to press copy and then paste.
But designing a system like that is a huge task. Apple was not able to solve it.
Cognitive disabilities is the leading (number one) disability that society faces. As such, when designing an interface it needs to be an absolute requirement for consideration in the decision matrix. A simplified and concise interface is almost always the best approach to handle this.
I really think that the comparison by number of screens and apps available is dumb...
why? because most 9 the screens shown for samsung are AVAILABLE widgets to add to the home screen...
So this is basically a large choice for users to choose from, choice outside of the Apple world is considered a good thing...
although I can agree they should remove the Story Album, Samsung Hub & FlipBoard from the home screens, they are pointless really i think....
So remove the unused widgets, ignore the 'Available' apps/widgets pages and you have yourself a very simple interface...
But what I love is that Apple stole the idea for the 'quick' pull up settings from Samsungs pull down ones(or is it an android feature?) but with Samsung, you can customise your list! I really hope Android/Samsung patented that UI feature, just so they can stick Apple with a dumb lawsuit for a change... (I really don't think its a patentable Idea but with what Apple has patented, I am sure the USPTO would allow it)
Both Android & iOS are easy to do the basics with, but with iOS you end up finding you can't do things, with Android usually there is a way to do it if you need to. That is the reason I use Android, because iOS is too simple.
Er, just because something is simpler doesn't mean it's not as good for technical people. That's a pretty glaring logical fallacy. Witness OS X. Preferred simultaneously by the least and most technical people I know. And I don't think I'm alone. Google developers overwhelmingly use OS X, as do almost all the elderly, non-technical people I know.
In any case, which phone OS is better for you depends on what you want from your phone. If you want to stream files to VLC as you're downloading them with bittorrent while typing in their names with a custom 3rd party keyboard app, then Android is your OS.
If you're paranoid about security (as many technical people are) and don't want dozens of apps on your phone which have access to all of each other's files and don't want your custom 3rd party keyboard to potentially act as a keylogger for cyber-criminals, then get an iPhone. iPhones are also nice because they get prompt OS updates.
Well I consider myself pretty technical and OS X is way too ..something for me. Been using Linux as my primary desktop since 1997.
I tried using OS X a bit a few years ago but it seems to use it right I would of had to have significantly changed the way I do things (key things for me involve virtual desktops, virtual desktop edge flipping, mouse over activation), that OS X did not support (at the time I believe OS X terminal did support mouse over activation but strangely enough at the time it apparently was the only app that obeyed that).
I even tried full screen Ubuntu in vmware and it did not work well enough for me. I considered wiping OS X and just going Ubuntu on the bare hardware but the missing keys like page up/page down, home, etc etc bugged me too. Also I hate trackpads (even the fancy multi touch apple one), I prefer the "nipple"(I suppose mainly because it allows my fingers to stay on/near the 'home keys' on the keyboard.
I'm sure if I forced myself to use it for 6 months I probably could of adapted, but for me the path of least resistance was going and buying a new Toshiba laptop (which I still use every day including now). My laptop has both track pad and nipple. After 3 weeks of casual OS X use I was nowhere closer to being comfortable in it, so I let it go.
Even with windows I can get virtual desktops and mouse over activation. My last serious usage of windows I used blackbox as an explorer shell replacement, it worked alright. Was never(at the time) able to find usable edge flipping though. I still use windows fairly regularly in a very casual way, I stick to the stock look and feel, since I don't use it enough to care how it works (though I'm old school enough to miss the way XP had things laid out since I was more in tune to that vs windows 7).
I do agree that a lot of technical people seem to prefer OS X though, I work with about 60 such folks(that develop PHP/java web apps that run on Linux). I don't understand it myself, but whatever.
I am utterly alone in my world of friends who use Linux as their desktop. Most use Mac, a few use Windows.
OS X has had virtual desktops since v10.5, i.e. 2007. It's therefore very unlikely — though definitely not impossible — that you tried an Intel Mac that didn't come with them; likely they were just disabled. As of 10.7 they've also added a built-in widget that makes apps go full screen by creating their own distinct virtual desktop.
Mouse-over activation isn't supported. Probably you installed the X11 server (which runs on the desktop, not separately) and were using xterm. The normal terminal works exactly like every other app.
> OS X has had virtual desktops since v10.5, i.e. 2007.
Kind of sort of... after a fashion, using a user interface that's more cumbersome than something that a Linux user might have been using in 1994.
MacOS has virtual desktops in much the same way that Windows does. Crude and kludgey and not necessarily what a Unix user would expect.
It's like saying that a burned out hulk of a Ferrari without an engine is good to go. It's true that it's a Ferrari and you can kind of push it around to where you want to go but it's not usually what people have in mind when they think of having a Ferrari.
>though I'm old school enough to miss the way XP had things laid out
Sellout! oolor is writing this from an XP machine that refuses to die. Good ole 'entertainment' and El Reg surfing 'laptop' that doubles as a very hefty blunt object. Think that I too will be going Linux when it croaks. Or maybe an abacus.
haha,
OS X is Unix bases, this makes it good in many ways but preferred? no... Linux is the preference for a techie.
For mobility most people I've worked with would choose a Macbook Air, not because its a Mac, not because its got OS X but because its small & lightweight yet powerful enough to run VM's, although with the advent of smaller lighter UltraBooks, they have shifted towards buying them and installing a flavour of Linux.
Although the fact OSX has SSH & SCP is a selling point, with windows you need third party clients..
I remember those. I wanted one but at the time I was having a career break and being a poor student. Two years later, when travelling a lot, I bought a Samsung ultraportable. It wasn't as pretty or as durable as an Air, but my paid for work was done on it for three years. As another Old Testament prophet remarked, there is nothing new under the Sun - perhaps the Romans had thin and light wax tablets with extended stylus life.
IOS is crippled as an OS, put it on Wifi behind a proxy and some if not most of the apps will not work. We had a deaf girl that wanted to use facetime on the wifi to call her kids. If we disabled all security and allowed the phone to route straight to the internet it worked, otherwise it did not. We traced the packets and it could not see the proxy. I assume that this is the story for all IOS apps that are not bundled with the OS.
"If you're paranoid about security (as many technical people are) and don't want dozens of apps on your phone which have access to all of each other's files and don't want your custom 3rd party keyboard to potentially act as a keylogger for cyber-criminals, then get an iPhone. iPhones are also nice because they get prompt OS updates."
Try:
If you're paranoid about security (as many technical people are) and don't want dozens of apps on your phone which have access to all of each other's files and don't want your custom 3rd party keyboard to potentially act as a keylogger for cyber-criminals, then get a Blackberry. Blackberrys are also nice because they get prompt OS updates.
Yeah, yeah, I know nobody cares any more. But if one's use-case is centred around paranoia, it's still the only choice.
> Er, just because something is simpler doesn't mean it's not as good for technical people.
How does Apple manage to be "simpler"?
They do that by reducing what the user sees, giving them fewer options. A labyrinth of networking options become a single dialog box. On the one hand it's easy. On the other hand, you're SOL if the option you need isn't presented.
> That's a pretty glaring logical fallacy. Witness OS X. Preferred simultaneously by the least and most technical people I know.
Were you trying to be ironic? You certainly did a great job of it.
The real techy once can handle a lost dialog box.
You know the claim, Linux are for techies, but I say; Linux is just for techies that aren't techy enough for FreeBSD and OSX.
Now ask a Linux guy how to change the ssh port on a osx. And how it comes that you can ssh into a mac, though the sshd isn't running.
Ah, you'll get there too when you leave init and start using systemd. Which is basically a clone of lauchd.
Eh? Only android offers proper application sandboxing to stop apps reading other apps data. Its a pretty much weekly occurrence where ios apps are caught uploading other apps data..
http://9to5mac.com/2012/02/15/apples-ios-problem-contacts-uploading-is-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-apps-can-upload-all-your-photos-calendars-or-record-conversations/
One really has to wonder if the authors ever use the phones as intended or stay in the lab applying preconceived ideas.
Let's see if fanbois like the forced cutie animations, parallax & transparencies and resulting loss of time & battery as much in a few weeks of use.
Also surely less than 80% of phone users are technically savvy? And they still survive with Android & do just fine.
Finally as a 3rd example WP8 is probably the OS that would put the most applications on the start screen with small tiles.
Not that this would be recommended. In fact very seldom hear users complain about this or supposedly limited customizations, they complain about lack of whatever fav app still isn't ported to the platform.
A real study with massive polls of what users actually like/dislike about their platforms would be of much higher value.
Yes, here: H.O.R.S.E.S.H.I.T.
To my knowledge there's nothing in Android that is even remotely as idiotic as the user interface in iOS7 (see examples here: http://sloppyui.tumblr.com).
None of them morons in Cupertino seemed to have done a simple test, pull a few people off the street, ideally older than 12, and show them iOS 6 and iOS7 side by side and ask them what they thought and see how quickly they can find their way around Mail, Messages, Calendar etc. Simple crap that took a single glance now requires a good squint and effort to figure out content text vs links vs fields vs "frame-less buttons" etc. There's hardly any emphasis, guided focus or any of that throughout iOS 7. Freakin' red cursors with #0000FF-ish blue text, faint gray borders around #00FF00-ish toggle backgrounds, WTF!?
Again, there's nothing like that in (stock) Android, and despite some complexity that may overwhelm non-techies and oldtimers, at least it's usable.
I'm back to iOS 6 for now, anybody here care to buy an iPhone 5 in a month or two?
</rant>
I have to admit that I updated my iPhone 4 and iPad mini to iOS7 and instantly regretted it. My eyesight isn't what it used to be and I struggled to find thing with the super fine text. This looked extra bad on the iPad mini which doesn't have a retina screen because the standard fonts are so fine they are poorly rendered when the screen has so few pixels to play with. Turns out though, somewhere in the beta testing Apple noticed and if you go into the preferences->general->accessibility options and turn on bold text, then reboot, your device comes back with much more legible fonts for these old eyes. Much happier now with iOS7 and it even runs decently well on an old iPhone 4 so I can keep the old girl around for another year or two before rocking up and buying the latest smartphone. Who knows, by then it will be clear Android is the way for me to go but at the time I got the iPhone there were too many 'droid phones around running Gingerbread which was horrible.
Studies with massive polls always put Apple on top too — it's about the Mac but see last week's http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/17/apple_tops_all_windows_pc_in_customer_satisfaction/
Scroll down to the 21:29 AC to see how those usually go down around here.
I particularly like the called out quote on this count:
"Take any recent top-of-the-line smartphone, and you are likely to get a well-designed, fast, pleasant to use bit of hardware: fluid operation, responsive interaction, fast graphics,"
For work I've configured a number of Blackberrys and a number of iPhones. For personal use I once bought an HTC from Sprint. On both the Blackberry and iPhones that supported touchscreens, I had a bitch of a time typing. The HTC 3000 was perfectly fine. I suspect that has a bit more to do with hardware than software, probably sensor density on the touchscreen. I no longer have the HTC because I just didn't use the phone enough to justify the exorbitant cost. But if I were looking for a smartphone, I'd be looking for something like the HTC.
This post has been deleted by its author
This post has been deleted by its author
@AlexS
To be fair, the authors did state:-
"Why Samsung's Android? Simple: "We have chosen Samsung's implementation of Android," they write, "since, given the overwhelming market share of Samsung in the smartphone market, it is clearly the most widely used version of Android currently distributed."
Just got a Note 2, and I have to say I find its UX to be quite a bit clunkier than vanilla Android (on my Nexus 7) or my old HTC Sensation (sense).
Personally, from a UX point of view, the customisation features of Android trump all other concerns. I just wish Samsung did a better job (or left it alone)
But it still doesn't explain why 2 IOS versions are picked.
It also makes it somewhat pointless - if the point of the survey is to say "Hey actually, we think this other platform is more usable", then actually pointing out the other Android UIs/manufacturers would be more useful. A comparison of different Android UIs would have a better chance of being impartial and objective. They'd also be informing people on things they might not be aware of.
And on comparing platforms, it misses one of the greatest strengths of Android, for people to pick what they prefer. It doesn't matter if the authors think Samsung's UI sucks, if another Android UI does better. It makes no sense to ignore simply because they aren't as popular - IOS and WP aren't as popular either.
It is also interesting that they missed some features from even Samsung flavored android and hence marked it down because iOS 7 had them (camera from lock screen, adjustable font sizes). Though it is perhaps an indication that Android is a bit harder to use and get the best out of - I guess that's the price we pay for openness and flexibility.
You can't claim fairness when you were the one who committed the foul.
There were two iPhones. Samsung probably makes sense for the customized Android. A Nexus should have been the other phone. Why? Because none of the phone suppliers mess with the Apple design. So no matter what you buy, you get their design. A fair comparison therefore requires you look at Google's intended design as well.
Besides, it's easy to rationalize just about anything after you've picked the best target for your slanted study.
They restricted Android testing to only the interface that has really succeeded in the market in order to test only the feature arrangement people actually seem to like enough to buy. They tested only one major version of Android because there's been only one major version of Android on the market for the last year or so.
They tested two major versions of iOS because the one segued into the other only last week.
So the circumstances are different. This particular feature of the study does not suggest bias. Though based on the comments other people have made re: sponsorship, if true, it feels moot.
These idiots have no idea how people work. Their idea of "good", is to take a highly complex, extensive and flexible piece of equipment and let one-brain-celled-rednecks drive it with a single lousy button. It can't be done.
"less IS more." is complete horseshit. It's all about layout, human psychology, and depending on the interface, human physiology.
I'm not trying to be pro-Samsung here, I sometimes site the ease-of-use when it comes to remote controls. I have a Topfield TRF-7160 PVR, which is reputed to have the worst laid out remote control ever devised on this planet. And yes, as a new user, I fumbled a lot. But once I got used to it, it worked really well for me along with the pleothra of features - as well as the other three users I asked (I know that's not a huge sample size, but I don't interface with humans much - so there). On the other hand I have a Samsung "smart" TV, as do some other family members, and while *they* don't rate too bad, holy fuck they're the most convouluted pieces of shit I've ever come across. Not to mention on some, the button layouts are smooth, which only works if you can *see* the markings - if you drive it in the dark, you're screwed (though I fixed that issue with some epoxy to act as a bump).
My point is quite simple. The more simple you make it, the less usable you make it. Number of buttons is only part of the story - A million buttons tend to freak new users out, a single button works well for new users. A million buttons are highly flexible, a single button is only really useful for making calls and you can get stuffed if you want to make it work like you want to.
Dammit.
I'll say what I always say when I see stuff like this posted on the Internet. YOU are not an average person. No one reading the Reg is. Though even if this had been posted as a letter to the editor in the National Enquirer I could deduce this about you, given the line "I don't interface with humans much" :)
The average person couldn't even figure out how to set the time on their VCRs, so they always flashed 12:00. Those people might have a little more trouble with the remote to your PVR. They've got smart TVs now, but don't really understand why they're called smart, and don't have them plugged into the Internet - they don't have cat5 run to their living room, and don't remember the wifi password their techie friend set for them when he was horrified one day to find their SSID was "linksys".
That 'average person' may well not know how to use the larger number of apps and UI elements on Samsung Android but that doesn't make it a problem thats stops them buying Samsung.
If they don't even know about features or apps its a reasonable assumption they don't miss them enough to care (or even notice).
The problem with this research is it assumes the metric they report is a measure of the trait they claim. I'm not convinced. Sometimes less if more, sometimes it's just less.
I am somebody who reads the Reg. And yes, I am a geek.
Its not that "the average person couldn't even figure out how to set the time on their VCRs" it was just that it was often not worth the effort. I have a microwave that loses the clock time after a power outage (it is on a circuit that trips relatively often). Takes about 5 obvious button presses so if I am walking past and notice is is not right, takes about 2 seconds to correct. Compare that with the clock in my car stereo (not the car clock) - I had to read the manual to find the arcane sequence of mystery buttons to set. So generally I don't bother.
Coming back to Mobile OS UI, I feel that I am qualified to comment as an owner of a iOS (Touch/iPad 3), Android (Nexus 7) and WP8 device (Nokia 520). All have some nice features and some drawbacks. None are perfect. I haven't used iOS7 yet, but agree with the order: iOS6, Android second and WP8 the distant third. ICS on the Nexus is in many if not most respects the better OS for me, and but the share amount of variation among devices and customisation make Android much more painful to support.
Working in IT, I get to deal with support for family and friends. With Android devices (so many of which are still running 2.3), when people ask questions it is always a more painful. iOS is obviously more consistent and simple to support, explain how to do things. No family and friends own a WP8 device, so I am spared support on that.
If you ever wanted to use your VCR to record stuff you had to keep its clock set. It isn't like a microwave where hardly anyone would use any sort of time delay features on it. The people who left it flashing 12:00 never recorded on it, and probably didn't realize they could have saved money by buying one that was only capable of playing tapes.
I'm not arguing "techies buy Android, non-techies buy iPhone". I'm a techie, and I bought an iPhone, but run Linux on my PC. I feel like my PC is a tool, and I want to have maximum flexibility with it. My phone, on the other hand, is an appliance. I want it to just work, and don't care about being able to tweak and configure it to death.
The iPhone may be less complex than Android due to having less configurability, but it is still far too complex for most non-techies. They learn how to do certain things with it, but they don't come any closer to exploiting its full capabilities than do owners of Android phones. They learn what their friends show them, mostly, or if they're mildly capable are able to google around and eventually find out how to do something (bet there were a lot of "how do I close apps in ios 7" queries late last week :))
"If you ever wanted to use your VCR to record stuff using the timer you had to keep its clock set. [...] The people who left it flashing 12:00 never recorded on it using the timer,"
There. Fixed that for you.
"and probably didn't realize they could have saved money by buying one that was only capable of playing tapes."
Except that they may have recorded on it by simply setting the channel, and pressing record. It's what we frequently did in my family home. Though the timer did get some use as well, by the only person who could be bothered to do so - me.
But he still has a point that it's easy to make mistaken assumptions about what the "average" person wants (who in practice may have very different preferences, as well as very different skill levels). The average person isn't the author of this study. The average person isn't an iphone user either, with more buying Android - and most less-techie people preferring to stick with a phone that has a physical numeric keypad, because they find touchscreens and icons confusing.
Ah remotes. The worst I've ever had is that of my current panasonic TV. About half of the buttons are to control a panasonic PVR I don't own, then there are the ones for the picture view SD card I don't use. But that's not as bad as the settings reset button. That's right. You know all the settings you painstakingly set up so the colours were good but not garish and the sound was reasonably bassy but not distorting? Well my TV has a single button that resets all that. Does it ask you if you meant to press it? No. Is it recessed to prevent accidental operation? No. Is it right next to the AV button used to frequently change input device? Yes. One day I'll just gouge/glue that bastard right out of the interface, but I've trained myself not to press it now.
/rant
OTOH I have a roku with an excellent remote. Hardly any buttons and a well designed ui.
Just worth noting that a lot of basic programmable stuff comes with 3 buttons (like early digital watches, timer boards, programmable led scrollers, arcane bizarre stuff from DX/AliExpress). Having fewer buttons does not make those easier to use. Just my 2p on why simpler interfaces aren't necessarily simpler/better.
There is a painting yourself into a corner thing with interfaces - in trying to make something complicated 'simple' the complicated bit merely gets more complicated when you get to it. Eventually you get to the point where the user is so dumbed down that they think they are an expert because they've explored all the possibilities of their Rubik cube when all they have done is roll a dice.
One of the most popular criticisms of Symbian was the convoluted settings, but I always found them quite easy. Yes, the menus were convoluted, but that was because they were detailed and every setting was at the end of a logical chain. So, if you wanted to change all the settings at once, they weren't all on one convenient screen -- but who ever does that? If you wanted to find a particular setting, it was pretty easy to find. In later editions of Symbian, they even abandoned the overrated principle that everything should have only one place and placed the same settings screens in different places, so that it didn't matter whether you went 'Settings > Phone > Security' or 'Phone > Security > Settings'. This made the menus as a whole far more complex but each individual endpoint much easier to find.
Whereas I waste minutes trying to find settings in iOS.
It's like supermarkets. You spend ages fruitlessly trying to find those delicious biscuits you had a few weeks ago, until you eventually give up. Why? Because you've forgotten the biscuits are Polish and therefore in the Polish section instead of the biscuit section. Putting them in both places would make the supermarket a bit more complicated but would make it easier to use for everyone.
Don't get me started on Tesco's insane placement of chocolate milkshake powder.
Exactly! Last time I traveled. I had no internet access, no manual and it took me ages of fiddling to figure out how to change the timezone on my watch! that had the standard 2 buttons and a 2 step pull winder...
Things you don't do often are very likely to be hidden away, easy to do but hidden...
Should do some background checks and see WHO PAID FOR THE REPORT. Hint: Cross reference the published reports with the client list.
It used to be Microsoft that always got into trouble for "sponsoring" independent reports. The Reg has always called them out previously. Looks like you got caught hook, line and sinker on this one.
I develop apps for both Android and iOS. The results here for "Typical End Users" seems about right. My wife had an iPhone and hated it, begged for a Samsung. That lasted 4 weeks and now she's back to her old iPhone 4.
Also, said another way, Android is almost 6/10 and Apple is 7/10 or so. Not a great deal of difference. Both could use real improvement.
As a developer though, I must say that its far easier to build apps for iOS, but only due to the incredible forking and screen sizes and hardware variances of Android devices. Holy crap what a pain.
My Mrs hates her Samsung Galaxy III, overly complex and fiddly and full of crap is how she describes it.
But what she hates more is 'Comic Book Guy' in her office who when not weilding his Galaxy Tablet with a huge external battery stuck on the back constantly tells her how great her hated Android phone is, how she can get apps from more than one place, how Google don't have a controlling authorisation process, how she could program it if she wanted to, or customise it to the n-th degree, etc that she could not care about at all.
She just wishes he would shut up and get back to doing his job, fixing the computers.
full of crap is a perfectly good reason not to like Android. It's not Androids fault of course, just like it isn't with Windows. But the OEMs do like to fill these things up with the an insurmountable pile of steaming manure. If you could just delete it all with out the thing balking it would be fine, but alas, this is the Achilles Heel of Android.
Out of interest, what does she hate about it? I love my S3 and find it to be very simple. I have a main home screen with my most common apps on it and a calendar widget, a couple of screens to the right with my games on them and a couple to the left with business/work/serious apps.
Swipe down and I can easily turn phone features on and off and get to notifications. And from here (or the menu button on the home screen) I can quickly get at "Settings" which is quite tidily laid out as well. I hardly ever have to go into the full "apps" screen as a result.
All it takes is 3 minutes to delete the unused bumpf from the home screens and then a bit of care in future when I add apps/games to ensure the icons are in the correct place - something you also have to do with iOS if you install lots as well incidentally.
Your wife isn't one of those people with 200 un-sorted icons on her PC desktop is she by any chance?
I find the "full of crap" line to be pure bullsh*t. An S3 no more crappified than an iPhone is. It's not at all anything like a PC full of shovelware.
On the other hand, even a technical rube can do things with an S3 that make it completely unrecognizable. They can do this without any help or prodding from the "technical elites". The sight of a phone in that condition is a little humbling actually.
This post has been deleted by its author
Stock Android 4.3 has the same simplicity as iOS, but with plenty of ***HIDDEN*** power.
You get all the benefits of ios7, but you also get Widgets, custom keyboards, custom launchers, and settings aplenty, IF YOU WANT TO USE THEM.
The last bit is really important, and seemingly something much of the Apple loving press seem to fail to comprehend. None of that fluff gets in the way, nobody forces you to use those features, You can do without them just fine.
What this means is that an Android phone will grow with you, an Apple phone many will grow out of. "I've just discovered my friend doing X on his Android, why can't my iPhone do this" syndrome.
I note that Apple has pride of place on their home page in the "some of our clients" list, and Samsung is nowhere to be seen.
Given recent experiences with Samsung's Android and former experience with iPhone software, I would perhaps be willing to be convinced that Apple IOS is a "better user experience" than Android by Samsung. For certain target users at least, since "user experience" is so personal, and very much task dependent.
I'm not willing to be duped by clever marketing masquerading as "research". This piece of work handily fails most smell tests I've come up with, starting with absolutely no information about "who paid for this study". This group doesn't work for free, yet I see a startling lack of details about who really paid for this "research". That would just be the beginning.
A quick biased unverified search finds:
1 The head of Pfeiffer was head of Apple France for ten years.
2 They have a history of reports favourable to Apple.
'Providing employees with 30-in. computer monitors can boost worker productivity at companies where 17-in. or 19-in. monitors are typically used, according to a French consultant hired for a study sponsored by Apple. '
Guess who that French consultant was.
another
' a benchmark report conducted for Apple by Pfeiffer Consulting '
etc etc
3 They appear to be French.
Are so religious in their fervour they will ignore the many problems. The iphone 4S i have is the worst mobile phone I have ever owned. Poor battery Life, mysterious intermittent loss of entries in contacts file, personal hotspot that disappears erratically.
It seems the source of the report are basically paid Aplle shills. What a shock.
Out of the various ecosystems tested none are intuitive when the battery's flat.
When fully charged I was unable to dial out on any of them due to not having a small enough pin to open the sim tray and place a sim in.
I couldn't work out how to track 3d printed rockets on any of them.
When typing spilling chucker none corrected.
I was unable to download one particular os due to sheer volume of downloads.
I was unable to download one particular os due to it being fragmented and not available.
Another was unavailable due to the company not supporting it's hardware anymore.
I spent a whole year finding apps on one due to the sheer size.
Ditto.
I spent 6 minutes on another due to no apps available.
Call quality was rubbish on all due to me living in a lead lined cave.
My research paper isn't available as I have no Internet.
Typed on my psion organiser II. Please can I have a qwerty keyboard for Xmas?
Have just been given an iPhone5 by my new employers. Asked for a Droid but was offered a Q10 or the iPhone. After several days I have to say it is a very simple interface to use and mostly pretty intuitive (iOS6). However, I would still prefer almost any flavour of Android due to iOS being much too locked down. I can't run a WiFi Analyser, I can't download files from Dropbox to the phone storage and it wants me to use something called iTunes which i don't want, will never want and refuse to use. I read my books in ePub, listen to music in MP3 and refuse to sign up to anything that uses any form of DRM. I can see that some people would prefer iOS but not for me. For my personal phone I think I may try one of the more recent flavours of Linux next, but more likely I'll end up with Android again.
Dropbox downloads to its own personal file space on iOS, the only thing you can't do is chose where it is going to put it (and why should you care?)
You need not go anywhere near iTunes, and that has been the case since iOS 6 was released.
iBooks handles ePub format books just fine. Use Dropbox or email to get the files on to your device and then open them in iBooks, easy.
The native format for music is MP4 AAC, which isn't DRM'd, is an industry standard and is better quality than MP3 at the same bit rate. If you still insist on MP3 then it will happily play them, and there are many music apps in the store so you aren't limited to Apple software.
There are limits on what you can do, but for the average user these limits are meaningless (you honestly think Joe Public wants to run a WiFi analyser?)
So sounds like your employer has locked down their phone to their specifications.
All of what you've asked for is possible on the iphone. But not if it's locked down by your employer.
Having tried both as an employee and as a personal phone, I like the bigger screen you can choose with an android phone, and Ingress, but that's about the only 2 key advantages over iOs.
Seriously no WiFi Analyser? damn! that is one of my most handy apps, when I am looking for a wifi hotspot if I am out and about it lets me track it down so I can get a better signal.
It is the lack of a real file manager/storage and the limited media playback capabilities that really keep me away from iOS.. I don't get why with any android device I own, I can easily share media to the TV or other handsets with DLNA, but with my iPad I can't even play media from my NAS and I have to convert everything to a special format to play on the iPad... very annoying, all my Android devices play pretty much anything,..
DLNA is far from simple to get working as the standard has so many options and alternatives. Your TV set may support one variant, your phone another and never the twain shall meet. Apple created their own alternative in AirPlay and the DLNA crowd have been playing catch-up. If there's an AirPlay compatible device on the local network then an icon appears in your media app. Tap that and you're connected and playing on the remote device, simples.
Special format? Well if you count MP4 as a special format ... And you don't even need to do that with apps like VLC. Likewise you can run Plex servers and play media back from that on your device, or iTunes and run that push or pull (ie. sending media from iTunes to a device, or the device requesting the media it's self).
As for WiFi signal strength, it gives you that on the top of the screen when you connect. The only point at which a signal analyser is useful is when you're setting up a network and you want to know what band number has least interference. Even that is dealt with by modern base stations that look at activity themselves.
AirPlay is just a proprietary mirroring format.
Comparing it to DLNA is like comparing an Apple to a Banana.
DLNA by itself tries to do all of the heavy lifting that is not addressed by AirPlay at all. The functionality of DLNA is addressed by various "apps". That includes playing more than just one subset of one particular video or audio format.
You're also crowing about needing such a thing to get past the fact that device you are streaming to is unecessarily crippled. Otherwise AirPlay would be a moot point. You could just run Plex directly.
It's "apps" that are superior to DLNA.
However you look at it DLNA is a bad standard. Even the manufacturers themselves worked this out and came up with Miracast which is quite close to AirPlay in its scope and ambition. Doing heavy lifting on a low power mobile device is stupid, and that's mostly where the feeds are coming from.
IOS has kept a lot of apparent simplicity by hiding its complexity further down. A huge amount of stuff has been bundled together in the dreaded General settings which is a real mish mash of unrelated stuff which makes it harder to remember where things can be found.
Having said that, IOS settings are a joy compared to trying to do basic things like change time and date on my mum's Galaxy Europa.
What so you are telling us that you are confused by the word Apps?
Below is how to change date and time for Samsung GS3 and iOS
iOS = Settings >General >Date and time
Samsung GS3 (i am assuming its the same as Europa) = Apps > Settings > Date and Time
You could even put the settings shortcut on your main screen if you needed to change the date and time that often. So the process could be shortened to: Settings > Date and Time
Why don't all android manufacturers just use the stock android experience? Updates would be pushed out to phones faster, people moving from Samsung to LG wouldn't be left figuring out a new experience.
I sold my Galaxy S3 in favor of a Google Nexus 4 because i was fed up of the ugly Samsung interface and much preferred the stock android. Also i can get updates a few days after Google releases a new version of android not having to wait months if not indefinitely.
moving from Samsung to LG wouldn't be left figuring out a new experience
Because they want to make it easier for you to buy another phone from them than buy one of someone else?
Updates would be pushed out to phones faster
Because they want you to buy a new phone. If your old phone did everything you wanted it to you would buy a new one, would you?
The two at the bottom do seem to suggest that BlackBerry have been unfortunate. If, at OS 10.1, they are significantly better than WP8 and only a tiny bit behind Android, which has years of customer feedback, it looks like BB 10 could have easily overtaken Android and caught up with iOS. But, sadly, not going to happen.
Please, Apple, do a phone with a proper keyboard, removable battery and SD card. Just for once, and even if it is expensive, try giving a certain niche of customers what they want and not what you think they should have. Thanks.
Rather than trying to fake objectivity, why not recruit people who haven't used various OSes and give them all the same tasks? See how quickly iPhone users can figure out a Samsung and vice versa, and how either of them fare with WP8; find people with old Series 40 phones, give them their first smartphone, and see how they do. That would be a more interesting result, I think.
....a load of utter bollocks. They might as well have just said "oooo, look, this one is SHINY!"
Cognitive Load Comparison? The only load I'm thinking of here is brown and steaming.
*Disclaimer : I'm only commenting on the "research" not the respective OSes - we all know the MS offering needs introducing to a captive bolt device. ;-)
Why is iOS 6 & 7 listed? 7 is just a theme pack with some extra's thrown in...
In addition, its lack of customization contributed to WinPho's poor showing in user-experience friction, as well.
As opposed to ios' inability to change anything you might not like? (locked in browser, user selected colour combinations, missing widgets, not allowed VLC, no fullscreen Safari for ipad, no onscreen customisation aside from folders etc etc etc).
Also, I think Fandroids like to bitch more than iTards.
DISCLAIMER: I own an iPad3 (with iOS7 - which I like) and Cyanogen rooted HTC Sensation (running Jelly Bean 4.2 so sweet).
The new inconsistent Operating System (iOS) looks like it's been designed in a meeting where loads of ideas have been put forward and just implemented without a UI designer being consulted. If you want to develop for Apple equipment you have to buy Apple, when will people see that this is a monopoly even greater than that of Micro$oft? I'd be more than happy to use OS X if I was able to use a machine of my choice to run it on, but then OS X would require device drivers etc. wonder how well it would fair against Windows then. At least M$ only had control of the OS.
Two options:
1) Have your provider think for you, tell you "what to wear", where to go, a one size fits all approach.
2) Think for yourself and have the ability to express your individuality. Take time to understand what you're doing/using and weight up the benefits.
Sheeple choose option one with the mistaken belief that they have a superiority.
A handset set is a bit if hardware. It can run practically any OS which can be made to look any way you want it. The skill is not in designing one fits all approach. The skill is offering a tailored fit by giving a wider range of options. It can only be described as sad if you are either too stupid or don't have the time to learn how to use your device and the options available to you. I can not respect someone who does not take the time to learn.
Stop listening to the hype, stop being a sheeple. Chose choice, chose style, chose individuality. Don't chose to be a clone. You will receive a higher level of respect. Far higher than being seen with a fisher price toy.
**In addition, its lack of customization contributed to WinPho's poor showing in user-experience friction, as well. "The user interface in general is not conceived to deal efficiently with the dozens and dozens of apps smartphone users want," Pfeiffer writes**
This is true, and in my mind the fix is simple - multiple start screens, ideally with the ability to colour code each one individually. I think that would be a huge improvement to Windows Phone yet Microsoft refuse to look at it.
I have owned all three mobile platforms (but WP7.5, not 8) and am not surprised by the winner, but I am surprised by WP coming in last place, I thought it was mostly a great phone OS. The problems are in app support and Microsoft's stupidly slow rate of improvement to it.
How do you find one app among the many you have installed on your iOS device?
Search, or flick backwards and forwards through the screens and folders as you have organised them
How do you find one app among the many you have installed on your Windows phone?
Search, go up and down a long screen ordered as you like, or an alphabetical list - on which you can jump to the initial letter.
I think while Windows phone 8 loses out on the folder aspect, that alphabet listing is a good thing.
Folders would be nice in WinPho, yes, but you have to wonder about "researchers" who look at an OS that allows users to put exactly what they want where they want and what size they want on their start screen and describe it as "a lack of customisation". Tried removing an icon you don't want from iOS? Good luck with that.
This is true plus pinning whatever you want to home screen.....wp does suck for customization simply because they are missing some features that are badly needed i.e. Fully customizable tones and alerts, ability to manipulate multiple tile colors instead of just one theme color, volume controls for media, alerts, tones etc. Other than these missing features though i would not consider wp8 to be less regimented than ios.
I see a lot of complaints about the Winphone volume control. I have mixed feelings about it myself. Probably the only thing I really hated about my old Nokias was setting the phone to silent because I was in a meeting or in the cinema or whatever and then having it beep loudly at me because I'd only set calls and emails and texts to silent, not the bloody calendar. Having one overall volume control is inflexible in some ways, but it is an improvement over that.
in light of the wall of jargon in the fellow traveller "research" company's paper, one could mischievously suggest that removing the ability for customization is designed to reduce the cognitive overload - for the benefit of the user.
to give a bit of colour variation on my phone I mix in the coloured tiles - music, games, third party programmes so they alternate with the theme coloured ones - gets a bit Mondrian if you also vary the tile sizes.
Personally, I've always felt that apple users are just more accepting of faults, flaws, problems, being raped by fat corporations, etc. Etc.
Everyone I know who uses android criticizes it in some way. I don't think i've ever heard an apple owner complain about ios. I don't think this is because ios JUST WERKS or because android is shit. I think its because android users don't like settling for sub par apps, usability, hardware, etc.
Not to mention the fact that the average apple user doesnt even know what the fuck torrenting is, never mind understanding the possibilities of using a unix system. iPhone owners tend to use their machines for facebook, instagram and twitter. Android users do, too, but there are more people who want to do other things as well.
One specific version of Android and TWO of iOS?
Here - try this. iOS7 looks like crap compared to 6. Neither can multitask correctly, which is jarring when you are used to Android apps being capable of doing stuff in the background. The iOS onscreen keyboard is quite nice on an iPad Mini, but the inability to reflect upper and lower case is startling, and I'm surprised there is no swipey-typey. The other day I "lost" a 1Gb file. I used Open In but made the mistake of assuming I could do something else while iOS copied the file. The software didn't look in Inbox so I needed iTunes to sort it out. ITunes is a huge bloated turd in a cesspool of like. It would be much better to be able to plug the thing in as an MTP device. There is Bluetooth but it only talks to Apple. Otherwise I have to email photos to myself. It is 2013, this is ridiculous.
If I had to pick, my favourite would be iOS6, but I think that is note due to how I use the iPad than the OS itself. Certainly, itisn't perfect.
I wonder if they got the same user to delete an email in iOS6&iOS7?
then I wonder if they asked someone to do the unheard of task that is deleting a single email, then deleting a single text message?
iOS6 - delete sms or email - swipe to the right...
iOS7 - delete email - swipe to the left, to delete sms - hold then swipe down...
winpho - delete any entry in any app - hold the desired entry.
iOS 7 - readability - seriously more difficult than ios6, winpho8 - legible
Icon uniformity - winpho8 all default apps use the same iconography/text coulours
iOS buttons, or text some one colour, some another... this doesn't make buttons too easy to distinguish...
Im pleased that my iphone is just used as a car phone for music/navigation, my partner, she is not enjoying the new makeover of her iphone....
1) "Absence of pervasive notifications"? You don't need a separate screen in WP8, tiles do notifications themselves. That's why tiles exist in the first place. You don't need to swipe, you just look at what the tiles say or display.
2) Is lack of a background image an issue? I set my Galaxy to get a pure black background and get rid of intrusive background images! I do not need to show any ugly baby or ugly cat when I turn on phone!
3) "No way of customizing tiles"? App developers can choose if use the system colors or their owns. Most well written apps let the user decide. Nokia tiles comes in purple, some MS tiles comes in blue, gray or red. Other apps use different colors or icons.
4) "Inefficient use of home screen estate"? Tile size depends on what kind of notification display you like. Tiles are not just icons to access applications, tiles conveys notification and informations. That's why some tiles are larger and other are smaller. I believe it's much more inefficient to use a Windows 3.1 Program Manager interface just to display a bunch of icons and little else (hey, but they're so colorful and there's the background image, cool!). WP8 makes the best use of screen estate - and with a uniform UI.
5) "Advertisement on home screen". My unlocked Nokia device came with no advertisement at all. That's probably something the carrier did to get some money in exchange of the subsidy - it's not a WP8 feature - and I guess some Androids may have that kind of crapware installed as well.
6) App folders? In WP8 you navigate app alphabetically. Just switch to the app list (swipe left) and touch one of the boxed letters (at least one is always available at the scren top). Touch any letter from the list and the apps starting with it are shown. Or you can search from there. Who needs folders? Someone on PC still organize app into folders as it was done in Windows 3.x Program Manager? Or just use "type and search" to find and launch an app?
While I would have given 1 to the almost useles "search" button (I prefer by far the Android "settings" button), and the lack of a quick access to useful settings (wifi, bluetooth, etc.), and lack of a quick way to close applications.
If those guys would like to test UI, they should start to understand and learn how an UI is designed to work. Sure, WP8 UI works in a different way than iOS or Android, you may like it or not, but you can't just say "it's bad just because it's different and I didn't learn to use it - and also I can't put my baby/cat/dog/hamster as the background image!". Otherwise it's just like saying that OSX UI is bad because it isn't like Windows one.
Damn straight.
"Inefficient use of home screen estate"? The whole point of the WinPho home screen is that it is completely customisable, meaning that any inefficiency in its use is by the user, not the UI. iOS, meanwhile, comes with a load of shite that I don't want to use, am not allowed to delete, and whose icons I am not allowed to remove from the home screen. That's inefficient, and bloody annoying too.
"Absence of pervasive notifications"? My screen is showing, right now, incoming emails and texts, my friends' Facebook updates, replies to my own Facebook updates, missed calls, my calendar, and two weather forecasts. I thought they were notifications, but maybe they don't count if they're not Apple.
"No way of customizing tiles"? This is just laughable, an outright lie so big I'm amazed they even thought they might get away with it. I've got contact tiles for my wife, daughter, and two best friends here, and they all show pictures that I chose -- they can grap their profile pictures from Facebook or wherever or I can pick my own -- and can be made any of three sizes. Then I've got a calendar tile from the "Week View" app, which allows me to use up to three or four different tiles, to choose their colours, to choose their size, and to choose what's on both sides of each tile, with loads of different display options. Then I've got two weather tiles, one for each of the locations I commute to (I had five running while I was travelling around Europe over the Summer), each of which has, again, three or four different display options and comes in three different sizes. But, apparently, there's no way of customizing tiles. Really, what the utter fuck?
Background image? Where would that go? The tiles fit snugly together. If there were a background image, it would be almost invisible.
> the lack of a quick access to useful settings (wifi, bluetooth, etc.)
Fair point, but there's an app for that.
Windows Phone sucks big time. Sure there are a couple of people from Microsoft here defending it, but consumers vote with their wallets, and 3% marketshare that's declining is the real Windows Phone story.
I do not own a window phone and I use a Android, though, I will defend Windows phone. Microsoft is new to the competition, this is their first OS for a smart phone, Apple already did 7 OS's. Microsoft yet did not have so many applications in app store because they are new but they may catch up. Have you ever used a iPhone 1? Trust me, windows phone os is 1000 times better.
Good good Microsoft.
MS is not new to this kined of competion since it had several Windows Mobile releases before Windows Phone. But it is true with WP it made a bold effort to rethink the UI in whole different way (up to making the mistake to try to force it on desktop users as well). On a smartphone I like the "tile" concept - every application gets a chance to control what is displayed on the home screen by its tile, while tiles ensure UI is uniform enough without having widgets so different from each other they look ugly when shown together on a screen.
Sure, there are less applications - but how many applications a user really needs? That paper says "dozens and dozens", but I'd really like to measure how many applications the average user really uses frequently - and how many just occupy memory and screen space, collecting virtual dust.
What is more important is if the applications you need to use are available or not. I don't care if there are two billion games apps available, but for example I need apps for my flights check-ins, or a good map application with offline maps to drive in foreign countries easily and cheaply. Others may want as many games as possible - it's up to the user to choose the device that fits best it needs - but the sheer number of available apps says little.
I wouldn't say OSX is a bad OS because there are far less applications and games than for Windows. As long as you can have all the application you need there are other criteria to select what is the best OS for you.
Anonymous Coward,
If someone disagrees with you, that doesn't mean they're being paid to do so. If only: it'd be such easy money.
To address your actual point, insofar as you have one, I'm not for one minute suggesting WinPho is a huge success, or that it will be eventually. That's immaterial. But, even if it dies a flaming commercial death, that won't change the fact that it had a highly customisable home screen.
> Fair point, but there's an app for that.
They just give access to the settings page, AFAIK there's none able to turn for example wifi on and off directly. I guess it's something pretty simple to add to the OS itself, and can't understand why it wasn't added in GDR2. There are also the proxy/VPN issues that should be addressed in the "enterprise pack" next year, but they limit a lot usefulness in a business environment.
But these are real WP8 defects, while most of those pointed out in that comparison are just different design choices, and often more modern and practical than the other OSes.
> They just give access to the settings page, AFAIK there's none able to turn for example wifi on and off directly.
Can any phone do that? I'm not familiar with Android, but iOS doesn't have a switch on the front screen for wifi; you have to go into the settings. On my Lumia, I press one tile to access wifi, and it takes me directly to the wifi on/off switch. Same for Bluetooth, cell, and flight mode. So that's actually slightly more direct and quicker than in iOS.
>Can any phone do that?
On Android from the notification drop down you can turn Wifi, Bluetooth, Sync, etc. on and off. It's a little bit easier than getting to the Wifi tile - which I don't keep among those shown when I access the phone because it doesn't have anything interesting to show, go to the wifi page and then get back. Also tiles for wifi, Bluetooth and airplane mode takes more space than needed.
AFAIK iOS has something similar in its control center.
WP8 shows some basic info when you swipe down from the top, but the icons there are only informative. If they became like the volume control which can control the ringer and vibration - they would be more useful.
BTW: another issue in WP is the lack of separate volume controls - but those guys failed to notice it - and that's IMHO a big lack in the customization dept. Even the old Window Mobile had separate controls for ringer and calls, and I can't understand why WP has not.
> Can any phone do that?
Yes.
My HTC Desire has a panel on the front screen to allow me to turn on/off Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS and PC Sync (whatever that is - I don't use it), and to switch the brightness between three settings.
Vic.
LDS,
> another issue in WP is the lack of separate volume controls
I posted about this elsewhere in the thread, but, hey, since we're having a conversation....
I have mixed feelings about it myself. Probably the only thing I really hated about my old Nokias was setting the phone to silent because I was in a meeting or in the cinema or whatever and then having it beep loudly at me because I'd only set calls and emails and texts to silent, not the bloody calendar. Having one overall volume control is inflexible in some ways, but it is an improvement over that.
> Even the old Window Mobile had separate controls for ringer and calls, and I can't understand why WP has not.
Well, Windows Phone does have separate volume controls for the ringer and for calls: use the volume control during a call and it adjusts the call volume; use it any other time and it adjusts the phone volume. What a lot of people don't like is that there aren't separate volume controls for the ringer, email alerts, apps, etc.
Mike Taylor,
> Isn't it Settings / wifi / off like it is in 7.x? Which is annoyingly one of the few things you can't pin directly on the starts creen
The OS doesn't have it built in, but it does allow devs to access those controls and pin them to the start screen, so there are dozens of apps providing you with those tiles, most of them free.
Further reminder that whoever cobbled WP together doesn't actually use a smartphone.
LDS said:<<<1) "Absence of pervasive notifications"? You don't need a separate screen in WP8, tiles do notifications themselves. That's why tiles exist in the first place. You don't need to swipe, you just look at what the tiles say or display.>>>
When I'm actively using mine I'm in an app and can't see the home screen or any widgets on it (or Tiles in Microsoftese). What I can see is incoming messages, live message counts and other 'stuff' in my notification bar, with full access 1 swipe away, whatever app I'm using. That's how I managed to read 2 incoming tweets and the sender+subject of incoming email *while* reading your post, without touching anything or leaving the browser.
When I'm not actively using the phone its screen TURNS OFF. Populating my screen with widgets showing mail, SMS, IM or some messy combined stream (tried that, hated it) at best saves me one swipe after the chore of unlocking. I get that back by not filling my homescreen with apps if notifications can do the job, for less homescreen scrolling.
LDS said:<<<6) App folders? In WP8 you navigate app alphabetically. Who needs folders?>>
I drop newly installed games into my Games folder. Turns out if you have 5,10 or 30min to kill, it's a hell of a lot easier picking something suitable from a filtered list, over searching through every app alphabetically. Works for me on the desktop and my phone.
Having options is a good thing and Microsofts campaign to remove them is misguided.
Paul Shirley,
What you're talking about there are your personal preferences. Some people agree with you; others don't. Fine. But what this idiotic "research" is claiming is not that Windows Phone's notification system is inferior to Android's or iOS's, but that it has no notifications at all. And that's just a lie.
I am breaking my self imposed silence ... I am that outraged at this article.
On my hip right now is an Samsung S2 and an iPhone 4 running iOS7.
The Samsung is the clear winner for me. The iOS7 was a downgrade as far as I am concerned and when I can find out how, I'll be rolling it back ...if that is, indeed, possible.
This is my personal experience - http://msknight.com/technilife/?p=65 - and you can hate me if you want, but I don't care, nah, nah nah naaaah nah.
Having spent the weekend playing around with an iphone, a samsung galaxy and a winphone trying to get a centralizes streaming network going, I've come to the conclusion that MS has really missed the boat in terms of creating a portable media device for the home.
The one thing I can do out of the box with apple devices is set up and itunes server and stream without any hassle what so ever.
I thought I could set up a MS media centre server for the winphone. Nope.
In the end I settled on PLEX as it was the only software that would service all devices, but I did have to jail break my apple TV.
The one device that really is crap for streaming from a home server of any kind is the XBOX360. Streaming from PLEX and the picture quality is truly crap, stream from Media centre the picture quality is ok, but it is sooooooooo slow navigate around.
This is a paradox, of course if you have more options, customizations and features you will have more buttons and icons. So Android received the biggest score for the most options category but than they have lower it's score because it has too many options and too many buttons and icons necessarily to make it possible to use those options. iOS received the biggest score just because it has 2 useless buttons. I bet this review was sponsored by Apple.
"What separates the Android user experience from iOS 7 is not functionality, but feature-bloat and sloppy user interface design. In terms of user experience, less IS more."
I like how they say Samsung's version of Android until they're really slagging off the UI at which point it just becomes Android. They picked the company with the most bloated and disliked overlay of all Android manufacturers but judge all of Android based on it. Lovely and impartial! I especially like how they show the two versions of iOS but you still only get the Samsung version of Android.
Surely for a fair test they should have gone with a Nexus device which, while not being market leader, is the best example of what Android is in its base form. I guess that's the point though isn't it? The whole thing is skewed in favour of iOS because Apple give you basics then expect you to pay for the rest via the app store.
Forced recollection has an impact. I wonder how many people have even thought about their user experience until asked.
Apple has positioned itself in the mind of the consumer as the purveyor of premier design. Android doesn't really have a focused position in the minds of most consumers.
A well appointed Camry with leather seats and all the bells and whistles can easily make one wonder if they are missing anything by not driving a Lexus. What would be missing would be the "life style/status" position that a Lexus commercial is selling you as opposed to a Toyota. Look at the ads and tell me the difference between the cars. It's not going from A to B in comfort with good gas mileage.
What's the difference between Apple and Android for the average non-technical user ? Look at the ads.
Eh. WinPho 7.10 works for me. Speaking as someone who has run a Nokia E71x and an original iPhone, I can't complain about the WinPho layout all that much. In my two-plus years owning this phone, only a few complaints come to mind:
1) App store availability. Given the state of MS in the mobile marketplace, it's understandable that nobody has developed apps for the platform. Not entirely sure what to make of it at this point in the game.
2) Occasional lockups on the lock screen: I'll have to occasionally reboot the phone at the lock screen. Not a huge deal, rebooting takes less than a minute, but still annoying when you're not expecting it.
3) Listening to fandroids/fanbois talk shit: I don't care about your phone platform. I can't complain about WinPho because I'm not a typical phone user, I guess. I didn't have a cell phone until 2004, didn't have a smartphone until 2007. To this day, unless the platform is missing Facebook/Twitter, I don't think I'd notice all that much.
What we all need to remember here is that this is just one guy's opinion on what he believes to be the best user experience.
I personally use an Android phone (HTC One) and have had many Android phones throughout their short 5 year lifespan.
Having used an iPad which was running on iOS6 and having traded it in for a Nexus 10 I would say that I found the wealth of customisation and having the option of personalisation a much bigger bonus than the overly simplistic approach of the iOS model.
If people ask my opinion on what kind of tablet they should go for I generally tell them to get an iPad if they just want one that works simply and have the cash to burn, but if they want a whole host of other features I recommend Android, it depends on the technical skill of the buyer as to what they find the most pleasurable.
The iPhone is a force in the market due to its style and it just happens to have a simple OS which people can use without thinking too hard. It is a platform to enjoy the content and it does it with ease.
Android can be a choice for those that can't splash the cash on an iPhone or a highend Android device but at least the choice is there, as with Android the choice to do many things is also present. It doesn't just provide the content that an iPhone can also deliver, it enables the user to do much more if they want to, and if they don't they can customise it to make it as simple as iOS.
This war between iOS and Android is dumb, afterall; both OS' have their strengths and weaknesses, as with everything in the world.
Who gives a toss?
I have an S3 running 4.2.2 and iPhone 4 running iOS 7, although the HW should not be considered in this OS argument..
I agree with the report, the report isn't saying one is better, as that is too subjective to conclude, but it has measured various metrics and I agree with those.
Android is good for party tricks, but the novelty wears off after a few months and can be very frustrating and difficult to use when doing something else such as driving or mowing the lwan compared to the tightly integrated and consistant iOS approach - that's not to say that there have been compromises in iOS due to this ease of use such as lack of customisation and less freedom of third party apps to access system resources and usurp the standard apps' functionality.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
