Wozniak praising Android over iPhone limitations
reghardware.com
Likes Android for its openness to dev, better software. iPhone is still better UX.
reghardware.com
> I never got into Linux. I swear to God, it's only lack of time. I'm past the years of my life where I can really dig into something like running a Linux system. I'm very sympathetic to the whole idea; Linux people always think the way I want to think.
In another article, I read that he was dismissive of the whole specs race...this is not necessarily at odds with people who build their own computers, but a recognizance that simplicity has its own advantages for a hacker who wants to operate on a different level.
He complains about being misquoted all the time. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens again.
I tend to agree with Woz, but his comments are painted with a very childish brush in these articles.
Moreover, my relatively tech-unsophisticated roommate recently switched to Ubunutu; he has had no problems running the completely standard setup (I think he hasn't even changed the background).
On the other hand, on OS X, if something genuinely annoys you (like the menu-bar at the top) you would find it very difficult to fix.
That is from an Android site. I like that title much better.
The iPhone or iPad let you just be a user with very little cognitive load.
If you want to tinker with your handset even while you're spending your day or maybe even weekend tinkering with servers, that's a different story. Android's definitely the tinker's tartare.
If that "thing" wants to be the hacker's tartare, maybe it would give me access to its bootloader, show open drivers and not call me a "pirate" for circumventing their laughable restrictions.
It would also allow me to manipulate the Linux it claims to deliver the way I want it, the way 40 years of Unix culture taught me.
Apple's gadgets may be a hacker's nightmare, but Androids are far from being the answer.
How would you feel if Toshiba didn't grant you root access on your laptop/mac/machine? It is as destructive, isn't it?
i am no fan of lockdown, but im also capable of making decisions about how i spend my money. i bought the gizmos because i like how they work. if someone wants something not on the market ..... gobuild it and sell it,right?
IIRC there's still no jailbreak for the iPad 2, even though it's been out for nearly a year now.
Then are the updates. You can't just update to the next version of iOS when it comes out. You often need to wait many many months for newer versions to be jailbroken. There is always the threat that you will never be able to break the next version due to the security race between hackers and Apple.
The end result of all this, and I've seen this with every single jailbroken phone user, is that users who jailbreak don't often update, if they ever do. This is not a very ideal situation for something that should be available officially and by default.
And finally, you won't often find reputable software developers distributing applications that require jailbreaking. On Android, a good example of this is Skype. It's available through the market, but easy to install outside the market. It's also a top notch company and product.
jailbreaking atv2 units seems tobe pretty dead simple compared to the rest....
a weird one is remote hd sold for iphone ipad........ but requires a jailbroken atv to use with the atv, yet its sold in the app store. go figure.
There are plenty of other very profitable products that have less than stellar properties. For rather extreme examples: fast food, kitchy tourist items, low quality low cost furniture, and scams like power balance bracelets. There is a place for these products, no doubt, but nobody would argue that McDonalds is a great find dining restaurant. Ultimately profitability is quite orthogonal to the topic we are discussing.
Regarding your other comments, giving one example of one Apple device that is currently easy to jailbreak does not address my comments at all. As for this remote hd product you mention (it would be a good idea to give links for things like this in the future), if it does exist, it is certainly a mighty risky business. For one, Apple could pull their app store app at any time. They've done it before. Second, basing your product on a requirement to break the security of a device is not a wise move. Not only is jailbreaking unsupported, Apple actively tries to prevent it. They even tried to have it ruled illegal.
The example I gave for Android is quite different. This functionality is expressly allowed and supported by Google. I'm not sure if some carriers lock it out, but there are enough hand sets that are officially supported that it can make sense. Further, rather than working against the companies producing handsets and the operating system, Swype works with them and has been integrated into the base system of at least some Samsung products. There is no question that Android is more open in these regards and also more flexible.
Wether it matters to the majority of consumers is another discussion. According to this article, Wozniak thinks that it might not.
I think it's fair to say that his opinion of Android Voice Commands vs Siri is far from universal. Nuance's voice recognition is widely regarded as state-of-the-art, but of course this can vary depending on one's accent. There's a pretty fair shootout on the "commands" features here, and Siri generally comes ahead - http://searchengineland.com/head-to-head-siri-vs-google-voic...
The voice command functions and interface were completely overhauled in Ice Cream Sandwich.
Google voice works much better now than it did when it was first released. But it's still fairly easy to find a phrase that it will mess up. For example the names of craft beer breweries and the names of their beers. The individual words it will recognise fine. Put them together and it just fails.
but I've run into many other hurdles trying to do simple tasks due to the 'security' design they've put into Android
Maybe I'm cynical, but I think that the average user absolutely needs this security design. They'd probably turn off the volume buttons by mistake then think their phone is broken.
After that they will be users of a competing product.
I think the general point is that the average user is never going to a sysadmin, and nor is it fair to expect that of them.
At least that was the point when I wrote the original, as you say spammy, comment.
No, the average user won't be a sysadmin, but what about their kids? (Oh god, did I just do a think of the children?)
So then I thought, how about an app for that. Listen for keypresses, set the volume to max, easy peasy. Ha. Services can't listen for keypresses. Apps only listen when they are in focus. All apps are run as their own user and group and the /dev/input devices are not readable by anybody but root or those in the input group. 3 ideas on a simple app, no way to do it without rooting the phone.
Ie, something like: // Get the AudioManager AudioManager audioManager = (AudioManager)this.getSystemService(Context.AUDIO_SERVICE); // Set the volume of played media to maximum. audioManager.setStreamVolume ( AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC, audioManager.getStreamMaxVolume(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC), 0);
Unless there are more requirements here that I am missing, this sounds achievable without root.
Your example is a very weak premise to hang a conclusion as strong as you have on it. I can make phone calls on my non-rooted android phone, for example; that's a use, and directly contracts your claim of "useless". Less hyperbole would improve your argument.
True, I shouldn't have started with 'useless', and yes a non-rooted phone does make phone calls. I guess what I mean to say by 'useless', is that they are useless for those that want to go beyond what is allowed by the default non-root install, security be damned. I am one of those users, and my GF is not, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to work on her phone, especially something so simple as editing a configuration file.
Well that's a fine tautology.
Honestly this example isn't really selling me. If the phone hasn't been screwed-up by the carrier, what's missing?