Standard reply here: If you don't like it, don't vote it up.
Also: Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.
It may be easier on OS X than other platforms, I don't really know, but Mac OS X, despite a lot of talk over the last 4 years or so, remains not fully resolution independent, and the new iOS approach is a pretty big departure from what has been going on in Mac OS X.
"iOS's implementation of resolution independence is the best and most standardized implementation that exists."
How do you know that? You don't even know that alternatives even exist, and here you're passing absolute judgment on them? Sorry, but you're woefully ill-equipped to make that statement.
For the past three major releases of OS X I've been hoping for a move to resolution-independent "fixed-size" interfaces. That is, the interface will take up the same physical size on any screen (unless you choose to zoom it in or out). What's holding them back?
iOS 4 is the first OS to be completely resolution-independent. Even Android's attempt at resolution independence is not widely supported well by Android apps.
Any Android app by a competent developer will look great from one resolution to the next. Now the iPhone can do that too, just with some growing pains as developers update their apps to provide higher-definiton resources.
It's great that the iPhone is progressing, but there's no need to adopt this "finally Apple gets it right!" stance and trash their opponents who have been for years doing pretty much the same things you tout as revolutionary and unprecedented.
When I had an iPhone I'd often accidentally select text when I didn't want to. It was not reliable what it was going to do. Is it going to scroll this time, or think I'm selecting text?
From what I've experienced of android in the last few weeks since I switched, I like it. It seems solid and reliable. There's no ambiguity there. I click 'select text', select some, then go some place else and paste it. It's easy.
I love how you hold your finger down some place to get a contextual menu... then just select paste. I'm not sure how you could make it any easier TBH.
So FWIW, I much prefer Android copy+paste.
They could make it work the same way on text that isn't editable rather than making me dig into a menu. That's just one idea.
Not to mention that without multitasking copy/paste is much less useful.
Copy and paste in iPhone is universal, or about as close to that as it needs to be. It works on essentially all text, and basically the same way in all places. In contrast Android copy and paste is much more selectively available. It is often hidden in menus that are different from application to application.
Copy and paste is one of those things that has to be done the same way everywhere to achieve its height of usability. My Nexus One does not live up to my standards for that.
Copy and paste on Android works just the same, if not better. On Mobile Safari, for instance, I always select some text when I just want to scroll or zoom in some part of the page. This doesn't happen on my Android phone (but this could be just because Android waits a bit more before acknowledging the gesture).
Apple does a lot of choices that are aesthetics over functionality. A physical trackball/trackpad or arrow key pad, for instance, is invaluable when you need to move to some specific point in text. But Apple touchscreen devices just have the home button, to look more futuristic. And revolutionary.
Really? I use copy/paste all the time on both my iPhone and iPad, and iOS 4 is still in the future.
Here's some 'wow' features on my Nexus One which I didn't even know existed when I had my iPhone:
* Google translate - talk into the phone, select language, it speaks in french etc for you. Awesome. The speech recognition is truly amazing. * Google sky view - shows you stars etc * Google goggles - take pics of stuff, google tells you about them, prices etc etc * You can use an mp3 as a ringtone! * Over the air OS updates. No stupid iTunes stuff * mp3s, photos, etc all just saved on the card - removable storage * record videos, share via email, youtube, etc etc
God no. Apple has rarely ever introduced any features that is simply unheard of on other devices. That is not Apple's core strength: their strength is doing the same things everyone is already doing, but doing it better, making it more accessible and usable, and giving it sleekness and sexiness that it simply did not have before.
Apple is never at the very forefront of raw functionality, it's at the forefront of accessibility and usability.
Even now, it's fairly well acknowledged that Apple's copy/paste is the slickest/easiest implementation out there on a mobile device. They were late to the game (and admitted themselves as such) but they did it better than the incumbents.
I'm not sure where this Apple hate comes from, with the "hur hur hur Apple plays other people's inventions off like their own!" - this has rarely ever been the case.
I strongly disagree with that. Provide some evidence. For me, it has a false positive rate of about 50% - eg half the time I'm trying to scroll and the copy thing pops up.
Also I think that in the past Apple has innovated. The magnetic power supply connector on the Macbook is still one of my favorite features. That's a 'wow cool' feature other laptops don't have.
Android has long been doing this (and it is hardly alone in doing this). To quote a Apple-friendly source that HN should like - http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/04/19/android-dips
In other words the linked blog entry is basically "my world only exists of the iPhone, therefore as it it adapts I can only assume that it is completely novel".