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Fast forward to today. The Kindle fire reviews are pouring in and it looks like a great little device. Amazon certainly has a clear answer to the iTunes Store/App Store. But in watching the videos its clear that it’s still Android underneath. Scrolling around in the browser looks more like a gesture than a one to one interaction. The user swipes, and a moment later the content moves. Just like those Windows 1 machines, you feel as though you’re interacting with the device, rather than interacting with the content on the screen. There’s no one to one, and no magic.
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Interesting observation on the Kindle Fire, I’m surprised Amazon didn’t work very hard to make sure there was no lag. Since the first Kindle users have hated the wait turning pages but they were limited by the E ink technology. Speeds have progressively increased as they improved hardware and you don’t hear many complaints about it now but I would still have expected Amazon to use the Kindle Fire hardware as the perfect opportunity to nail responsiveness and user experience.
No, you don’t get to blame it on Android. If it’s a problem with Android fix it on your own damn hardware or software instead of waiting on Google to catch up. It’s open source after all.
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This is Apple’s forte. The company typically re-asks old questions and comes up with better answers than we’ve seen in the past. It holds true for nearly everything that the company does…outside of the iPhone. The iPhone was a complete re-thinking of how mobile devices should operate, rather than perfecting an existing recipe.
Today’s iOS 5 announcements were huge. There’s no denying that. But what it did with the OS was nothing that we haven’t seen before. It’s just the stuff we’ve seen…done better. Using the volume button for a camera? Yep. There was an app for that. Notification Center? Hi there, Android fans. Deep Twitter integration? Most of that has been in Android app hooks for quite some time.
The bare fact is that Apple’s innovation in the mobile is the piece of glass and metal in your hand, not necessarily the operating system that runs on it. And you know what? That’s exactly what you want.
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Apple stopped innovating with the iPhone. You’re welcome. - Apple
Brad’s analysis is pretty astute, if not entirely surprising. iOS 5 is not innovative in the strictly original sense. None of the major features are totally new ideas. The innovation is all in the details and the near perfect user experience (for most of us anyway).
What I find particularly odd though is how disingenuous many of the Android proponents are; saying Apple is just copying them — and implicitly that Android is better because they did it first.
I’ll grant any Android fan that their platform of choice has been doing this or that feature for ages (in phone years) and it most likely does them really well.
The thing is that, with the exception of Twitter OS integration (Twitter not really existing at the time), multitasking gestures (single-touch screens) and the location based notifications, every single feature on Apple’s hit list existed six years ago on my Windows Mobile.
It didn’t do any of it well and it didn’t do many of the features mentioned out of the box, but the original ideas started there (and likely on Palm) — not on Android.
Credit where credit’s due.
If you’re looking for significant and original innovation in phone operating systems right now the only place you’ll find it is on Windows Phone 7. Everything else has been me too and refinements since iOS 2. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
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Android phones store the same type of location information, but, unlike iOS, Android’s cache only contains recent entries — which is to say Android is doing it right.
— Daring Fireball Linked List: Android Location Service Cache
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So here’s the Android bait-and-switch laid bare. Android was “open” only until it became popular and handset makers dependent upon it. Now that Google has the handset makers by the balls, Android is no longer open and Google starts asserting control.
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Daring Fireball Linked List: I Saw This Coming All Along
Raise your hand if you’re surprised.
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Nokia Exec: Using Android is like peeing in your pants for warmth - The Next Web
Ha, that’s awesome (he’d probably say the same thing about the iPhone, or something equally demeaning).
(Source: chartier)
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Google is talking about fighting piracy, but perhaps the first thing they should focus on is actually making it possible for users to buy apps. All users. Sounds rather logical, doesn’t it? So what are we talking about? The problem lies with Android Market.
You can only pay for apps in 13 out of the 46 or so countries where Android phones are available. For those of you who like stats, 13 in 46 works out to less than 30%. Contrast this with Apple’s App Store, which supports paid apps in 90 countries. This is a huge advantage iPhone developers currently have over Android developers.
This is, in our opinion, one of the main reasons why piracy is running rampant on the Android platform. If a large portion of the world’s Android users can’t even pay for apps, is it so strange that some of them turn to piracy?
— Why Android developers are losing money, and it’s not due to piracy | Royal Pingdom
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Do you have any plans to develop Tweetie for the Android platform?
When I can use Android without wincing, sure.——-
What do you think of this whole Windows Phone 7 Series business? by dowson
I think Microsoft’s got some balls for pushing a UI that isn’t yet-another-Aqua-ripoff. It certainly looks better than the tasteless, slow, undesigned garbage that Google puts out.
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Are you willing to trade an advanced copy of Tweetie MAC 2 for sexual favors?
asl? send pics.
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Loren Brichter (atebits) | formspring.me
Q&A With Atebits, the developer of Tweetie for the Mac & iPhone.
