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Uhhh consistent user interface? Have you recently looked at apps on the android marketplace? You can find anything but consistent user interface. Some copy the iPhone, other have purple square buttons, others have grey Windows buttons. Some have some iPhone keyboard, others use the native keyboard. There is zero consistency in android app.

I like how people hold the freedom of the Android market against Android. "I want to force every developer to do things Apple's way, because change scares me." The solution to that is to write your own software, not to refuse to let people publish theirs. Want a consistent interface? Shut the fuck up and write some code.

Let me know when my iPhone (+) can turn off its ringer when I get to work, or when I can chat on IRC over ssh, or when I can share my location with my friends automatically. One app may have purple buttons or its own keyboard, but at least my phone can do something useful.

(+) Warning: literary device. I do not actually have an iPhone.

I must second this. I use Locale on my ADP1 (better known as the G1), and it's one of the most impressive things I've ever seen on a phone. I never have to worry again with my cell going off in class, as it knows when my classes are and when to turn the ringer off. This is the precise kind of thing that Apple disallows by restricting you to a set of whitelisted APIs which explicitly do not allow you to mess with system settings or run things in the background. The freedom of the Android market is one of the reasons that I find Android to be a better platform even in a strictly technical sense-- you can simply do more with it.

Have you tried running an Android with multiple apps going at once, especially when its memory is close to full?

No multitasking on iPhone is a feature.

It's not really fair to compare an Android device with 32M of RAM to an iPhone with 256M or RAM.

Try multitasking on a Nexus One or an Archos 5 Internet Tablet. It works brilliantly.

What?

I've got an HTC Hero with 200-some megs of RAM. Open a couple apps, thing slows way down and gets choppy.

Change scares users. By forcing developers into one consistent UI, Apple has done the correct thing from a user-friendliness standpoint.

* Want a consistent interface? Shut the fuck up and write some code.*

This approach leads to the exact opposite of a consistent UI. Look at desktop Linux.

It's consistent for whoever wrote it.

If you want your definition of consistent, you are going to have to write your own software.

Is this a serious comment? If you write your own software towards your own definition, then, by definition, others have different definitions, thereby making things inconsistent.

> This approach leads to the exact opposite of a consistent UI. Look at desktop Linux.

Ever looked at the KDE desktop? It's much more consistent than both osx and windows.

The correct solution for Android would be for Google to release UI guidelines (perhaps these exist, I don't know) - but don't stop developers from innovating and then letting the users decide what is best.

at least my phone can do something useful

Meanwhile, my iPhone does useful things in ways which are usable.

But seriously, we get it already. You hate the iPhone with the heat of a thousand supernovas, and don't seem to feel bound by much of anything -- logic, facts, basic civility -- in coming up with ways to express that hatred. Meanwhile, life goes on and the world doesn't end just because somebody liked something you didn't like.

Speaking as a happy Android Dev Phone 1 owner, yes, I have looked at the apps on the marketplace. No, it's not perfectly consistent, but it's rather damn good for the most part. Moreover, it's improving all the time as Google improves the native keyboard and identifies what tools developers want. It's sheer hyperbola to say that there is "zero consistency" in Android apps.

I think the big concern people have is the version mismatching going on. A lot of people who bought Android phones have been burned by their carriers not keeping the hardware updated. Result: they can't run a lot of apps.

This is in sharp contrast to the iPhone store where you hit this problem incredibly rarely. So it's obviously going to be a talking point.

P.S. “hyperbola”, huh? Thank you, made my day.

I agree, but that's a different problem. Consumers need to get angry with carriers and manufacturers that drop the device at the first sign of obsolescence. That carriers are jerks says nothing about the platform itself, but rather that Google isn't successfully strong-arming carriers into supporting handsets for a reasonable length of time.

> "Also inexplicable is Apple's love of DRM"

Love of DRM? Hardly - Jobs was the one who wrote an open letter slamming the music industry for insisting the use of DRM. They also managed to completely remove DRM from the entirety of the iTunes Store (after Amazon did it first, to be fair).

As for the nonetheless strong presence of DRM on the device, there's nothing inexplicable about it: they don't own the content on the stores, and the people who do are unwilling to give up DRM. Kindle books are still entirely DRM'ed, and both devices support non-DRM formats for books you get from wherever. On this part one ought to blame the publishers, not the people who deliver the content - the moment publishers allow Apple/Amazon to drop DRM on e-books is the day it'll happen.

the moment publishers allow Apple/Amazon to drop DRM on e-books is the day it'll happen.

Or so Steve Jobs would have us believe.

Be glad that Apple is demonstrating the market potential for iPad-like devices.

How long now before Google partners their way into a Chromium/Android tablet that is to the iPad what the Nexus One is to the iPhone? I'd love to have that device, and in the meantime I'm also excited to borrow an iPad when I get a chance.

I'm also looking forward to the momentum from the iPad giving courage to Google's hardware partners, but I wish that just once one of them would take the lead. Google has obviously been ready for tablets for a while what with Android's early focus on extensibility and with their development of Chrome OS, but beyond a few entries like the Dell Mini 5, there's been very little talk of actually applying these platforms to the tablet market.

Oh, well. Just more time for display technology to improve first!

In fact, Apple's fear of the customer (which leads to their love of DRM) runs so deep that they avoid any built-in peripherals that might allow side-loading of content and applications. The only hardware interface to the device is completely proprietary and requires a license to access.

The device is conceived from the ground up with the idea that Apple must control all aspects of it's use. Any features that might lessen that control are thrown to the side.

I have a hard time watching the evolution of computing go from relatively open platform that sparked my interest as a young person, to locked down DRM restricted devices.