Comment by padobson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by padobson | Hacker News Reader

Reasons why Android sucks: OEM's installing crapware, no unified hardware strategy, lots of crappy apps

Reasons why iOS sucks: App store monopoly, crappy memory management, no hardware freedom, read-only devices

That's really it. If you're a power user, like most of the HNers, then Android tends to be much more attractive. My ASUS Transformer Prime with keyboard dock might be the the best piece of hardware I've ever owned. I think ICS multitasking is the best I've ever seen. I've owned no less than 3 iOS devices, and I can see how they're great for the layperson who is maybe just learning to use computers for the first time, but I can't use one for 10 minutes without being frustrated with a thought like "Is that app still running in the background?" or "Why can't I customize the way this works?"

But then, that just proves I'm not 90% of the Tablet market. I don't fault Apple for going after the lowest common denominator, but doing so means there devices are of no use to me.

> maybe just learning to use computers for the first time

I've been coding since I was 10 and I will choose iOS over Android as my tablet OS. I may be swayed by an ICS handset sooner or later, but for tablets it's a no-brainer. I think there is a noticeable absence of careful and deliberate design on the Android tablets (like the article's author points out in the device-maker-installed crapware), where the experience is driven by marketing people instead of technology and design.

iOS is not as power-user-friendly in the traditional sense. But an iPad is also not a traditional device. I have a few use cases for it:

    * watching movies/shows
    * playing music at home
    * reading stuff (browsing online, or Instapaper, Kindle, iBooks)
    * entertaining a toddler

Those are all "relaxed" sort of activities. Anything I'm doing on the iPad is secondary and I don't think more power-user features would change that.

That is, even if I could compile code or access the filesystem on the device, I would not, except out of curiosity. It wouldn't help me get any work done.

"Is that app still running in the background?"

My Android experience has been on par with this, except with "how can I make that app stop running in the background?"

If there's a way to easily just close an app and have it be done with, I don't know of it. Task managers I've found to be cumbersome and people tend to frown on them saying the system runs more efficiently on its own. So why is this background app listed above Bluetooth in the power manager?

Yeah, this has been a paid. It's fixed in ICS. Hold home button, see list of running apps, swipe left any you want to close.

AFAIK, this doesn't actually kill the task. I believe that it just removes it from the displayed list.

You are correct, it doesn't kill the task.

On android, apps aren't explictly closed, the OS garbage-collects them when they been stopped for too long. Those stopped processes use no cpu, just memory. Only the top activity in the stack is running (activies are visible part of the app). To have something running in the background, you have to create a service (most apps don't create services).

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