Die iPad, Die Die

[Jon Miller]

They seem to be pushing to restrict Kindle App.

I am already preparing to have my next phone not be an iPhone.

JM

[Asher]

Please. They have granola in the water coolers at Apple. That does not prevent them from being evil, of course. And I am no fan walled gardens. But I am not going to buy an inferior product based on paranoid delusions about corporate evil.

There's nothing paranoid about it. It's reality.

They're either forcing out the Kindle app (and other apps where you can buy content direct from a publisher), or forcing it to cripple its features.

They also don't permit adult applications. Which some people may like to have. It's their phone, after all. But this isn't an example of them being evil, it's just an example of their restrictiveness. They've also banned apps from the store for having politically controversial cartoons...

[Vanguard]

This is patently false. There are three distinct GPU architectures and three distinct CPU architecture on iPhone that need to be optimized. You'll find there's roughly the same number for Android. Even though there's many handsets, they're virtually all ARM Cortex A8s, A9s (both with the same PowerVR chips in the iPhones), or Snapdragons (with Adreno 200/205s).

This is patently false. The whole point of Android is that it is hardware agnostic. Manufacturers can put it on anything---- and do. Even if we restrict our consideration to just the top smartphones, there are still twice as many cpus as apple----- not to mention the permutations of gpus, sensors, signal processing and IO.

Admittedly, Apple's hardware is starting to get a little fragmented too, what with ipods, iphones, A4s, A5s and Apple TVs. But it is still basically all one family of hardware with slight variations.

iOS supports "native code" in that if you use Objective C with Apple's premade libraries, it's fine.

It most certainly does not support C++ or any arbitrary language like Android does.

It would be nice if you could use whatever language and development tools you liked. But there are actual security and app approval issues here to take into account. And I have to admit that Objective C's garbage collection is a pretty major advantage for iOS.

It's not self-contradictory. They make 0% from webapps, 30% from App Store purchases. They're hobbling the capabilities of UIView because it's used as a way to get around the app store. Just like they banned using Flash-to-iPhone converters, JS-to-iPhone converters, and Flash.

Apple doesn't make anything from forcing developers to offer services through Safari instead of through apps. Understandably however, they are unwilling to allow app developers to offer apps That Do Everything. Why should they let Google (or anyone else) set up their own walled garden on an iOS device? There is no advantage to Apple and no advantage to iOS users.

[Asher]

This is patently false. The whole point of Android is that it is hardware agnostic. Manufacturers can put it on anything---- and do. Even if we restrict our consideration to just the top smartphones, there are still twice as many cpus as apple----- not to mention the permutations of gpus, sensors, signal processing and IO.

Admittedly, Apple's hardware is starting to get a little fragmented too, what with ipods, iphones, A4s, A5s and Apple TVs. But it is still basically all one family of hardware with slight variations.

No.

There're very few chips to choose from. Almost all of the Android phones share the same couple pieces of hardware. And if the whole point of Android is that it's hardware agnostic, why does Google offer the NDK which allows you to write to the metal without any abstractions?

The whole point of Android is the freedom. There is an abstraction layer provided that is quite spectacular. It doesn't matter how many permutations of sensors, signal processing, and IO there are because to Android, it's reported simple as present or not present. Doesn't matter which model it is.

The Apple market is far more fragmented than you think. By virtue of how Apple does its screen layout (straight out of the 90s with absolute pixels...), most apps have three distinct layouts now: Normal, Retina, and iPad. Want to support horizontal mode? Code a completely different layout!

Android offers a relative layout scheme. Write it once, it can scale relative to the screen aspect ratio and orientation and size.

Not to mention the other fragmentation. iOS 3 or 4? 4.1, 4.2, or 4.3? All are still in use. Dual core or single core? in-order or out-of-order core? Wide prefetch or narrow prefetch? 128MB of RAM or 256MB? Or 512MB? High res screen or low res screen? Gyroscope or no? Camera or no? Bluetooth or no?

It would be nice if you could use whatever language and development tools you liked. But there are actual security and app approval issues here to take into account. And I have to admit that Objective C's garbage collection is a pretty major advantage for iOS.

iOS doesn't have garbage collection. Zero. None. Nada. Desktop Objective-C 2.0 does. iOS does not.

Android has a state of the art concurrent garbage collector (as of Gingerbread 2.3). It's even superior to the one Apple's desktop ObjC runtime uses.

Why do you think the iPhone slows down and needs reboots once a week or so? Even Apple recommends rebooting it once a week.

Apple doesn't make anything from forcing developers to offer services through Safari instead of through apps. Understandably however, they are unwilling to allow app developers offer apps That Do Everything. Why should they let Google (or anyone else) set up their own walled garden on an iOS device? There is no advantage to Apple and no advantage to iOS users.

I don't think you get it. Apple is preventing apps coded in HTML5/JS (even ones that run locally, sans internet) because it would permit vendors to bypass the app store. Same reason they refuse to even permit Flash. What is this talk about forcing developers to use Safari?

I'm talking about LETTING developers use Safari's web view using the technology that already exists inside Safari. The vast majority of iPhone apps can be implemented indistinguishably in HTML5/JS. That scares Apple, because it means the internet becomes the App Store.

The advantage to developers and iOS users should be obvious.

[Imran Siddiqui]

There's nothing paranoid about it. It's reality.

They're either forcing out the Kindle app (and other apps where you can buy content direct from a publisher), or forcing it to cripple its features.

They also don't permit adult applications. Which some people may like to have. It's their phone, after all. But this isn't an example of them being evil, it's just an example of their restrictiveness. They've also banned apps from the store for having politically controversial cartoons...

This. Their restrictiveness makes Microsoft look like a paragon of Good.

[Vanguard]

No.

There're very few chips to choose from. Almost all of the Android phones share the same couple pieces of hardware. And if the whole point of Android is that it's hardware agnostic, why does Google offer the NDK which allows you to write to the metal without any abstractions?

Lol. Because you need to if you want decent performance. Not that the NDK actually allows you to do that. You can't use most of the basic APIs.

The whole point of Android is the freedom. There is an abstraction layer provided that is quite spectacular. It doesn't matter how many permutations of sensors, signal processing, and IO there are because to Android, it's reported simple as present or not present. Doesn't matter which model it is.

Well, okay, then what do you need to "write to the metal" for?

We could go back and forth like this all day. I'm really not all that interested in fighting a Holy War.

The Apple market is far more fragmented than you think. By virtue of how Apple does its screen layout (straight out of the 90s with absolute pixels...), most apps have three distinct layouts now: Normal, Retina, and iPad. Want to support horizontal mode? Code a completely different layout!

Android offers a relative layout scheme. Write it once, it can scale relative to the screen aspect ratio and orientation and size.

Yeah, Android is a newer OS and has certain advantages. Apple will undoubtedly fix this in 5.

Not to mention the other fragmentation. iOS 3 or 4? 4.1, 4.2, or 4.3? All are still in use. Dual core or single core? in-order or out-of-order core? Wide prefetch or narrow prefetch? 128MB of RAM or 256MB? Or 512MB? High res screen or low res screen? Gyroscope or no? Camera or no? Bluetooth or no?

True, true. And it is still ten times less fragmented than Android.

iOS doesn't have garbage collection. Zero. None. Nada. Desktop Objective-C 2.0 does. iOS does not.

Correct. Well spotted.

I don't think you get it. Apple is preventing apps coded in HTML5/JS (even ones that run locally, sans internet) because it would permit vendors to bypass the app store. Same reason they refuse to even permit Flash. What is this talk about forcing developers to use Safari?

I'm talking about LETTING developers use Safari's web view using the technology that already exists inside Safari. The vast majority of iPhone apps can be implemented indistinguishably in HTML5/JS. That scares Apple, because it means the internet becomes the App Store.

The reason Nitro was released to Safari now probably has nothing to do with protecting Apple's ecosystem and everything to do with benchmarks. If Apple had not released the iPad 2 with Nitro, then Xoom would have done much better than the iPad 2 on (mostly meaningless) benchmarks comparing the two. This would have been embarrassing, so Apple had to get Nitro out in 4.2.

Simple as that. No need to get all paranoid about it.

[Asher]

L
The reason Nitro was released to Safari now probably has nothing to do with protecting Apple's ecosystem and everything to do with benchmarks. If Apple had not released the iPad 2 with Nitro, then Xoom would have done much better than the iPad 2 on (mostly meaningless) benchmarks comparing the two. This would have been embarrassing, so Apple had to get Nitro out in 4.2.

Simple as that. No need to get all paranoid about it.

I understand the value of releasing Nitro in Safari.

The problem is the lack of Nitro in webpages launched from the home screen (these tend to be "web apps"), and lack of Nitro when a separate app embeds the webview.

[Vanguard]

I understand the value of releasing Nitro in Safari.

The problem is the lack of Nitro in webpages launched from the home screen (these tend to be "web apps"), and lack of Nitro when a separate app embeds the webview.

My sense is that Apple isn't done with it. Not at least with regard to security issues. But they had to shovel it out the door to make the browser benchmarks look good. They were willing to do that with Safari, their own program, which they know well, but were unwilling to do it generally.

[MikeH]

Asher FTW.

[Asher]

Another random example of the things we're unlikely to see on iOS: http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/03...functionality/

CCP is implementing an EVE Online client for Android devices powered by Nvidia Tegra 2 or higher.

[Jon Miller]

Which is some of the reason I am going away from Apple!

JM

[Vanguard]

Another random example of the things we're unlikely to see on iOS: http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/03...functionality/

CCP is implementing an EVE Online client for Android devices powered by Nvidia Tegra 2 or higher.

If they put WoD on it, I'll buy one.

But why would we be unlikely to see things like that on the iPad? iPad 2 looks like it has better 3D performance than Tegra.


Seriously, attempting to boost Android by pointing out software that is available on it, but not on iOS is a futile proposition.

[Asher]

If they put WoD on it, I'll buy one.

But why would we be unlikely to see things like that on the iPad? iPad 2 looks like it has better 3D performance than Tegra.

iPad 2 yes, iPad 1 no. Tegra 3 in August will be significantly faster than iPad 2 (12 unified shaders, quad Cortex A9s up to 1.5GHz).

Seriously, attempting to boost Android by pointing out software that is available on it, but not on iOS is a futile proposition.

The reason it's not available on iOS is because it would be against the terms of service for a bunch of reasons (it requires access to a subscription service...). It also reuses much of the C++ code from the original game, which is not possible to do on iOS since you're required to do Objective C at the lowest level.

They could theoretically hammer it out with Apple Legal (good luck), rewrite their codebase to use Objective C (good luck), and deal with the uncertainty of Apple's iron fist...but no, I doubt it.

Why do you think they're not developing on iOS if it was so practical? (Serious question)

[Vanguard]

My point was, regardless of the fact that certain individual apps might be available only on Android (this one perhaps, VLC, and a few others), overall iOS has at least as good a selection of apps as Android and always will. Not to be too snide about it, it is definitely Android that is on the short end of the software stick, not iOS.

[DaShi]

Look the only app that matters, PLECO, now has an Android version. So there's no reason to buy an Apple product anymore.