Hacker News Reader

Comment by georgemcbay | Hacker News Reader

I actually think that post-ICS and especially with Jelly Bean that Android is a superior tablet OS to iOS, at least for me. There's basically no feature on iOS that I miss when I'm on Android, but a few (eg. custom keyboards, the overall intent system, etc) that I miss when I'm on iOS.

iOS still kills Android for app availability though (especially when it comes to "tablet optimized" apps) and between that and iOS ecosystem lock-in, Android/Google still has some catching up to do to make tablets a true two-horse race.

View on HN

> iOS still kills Android for app availability though (especially when it comes to "tablet optimized" apps)

I keep hearing that. But never seen it backed up. Based on exactly what does people say this? There's no efficient way to "count" Android tablet optimized apps. So how do you compare? Is it because there are some major apps that still works bad on Android tablets? If so, which ones?

I remember when Honeycomb just came out. It was terrible, most apps I'd download looked terrible, and I furiously uninstalled many of them. It was so frustrating. But it has been a long time since I don't feel like that anymore. Today, every app I use on my phone is nicely optimized for my tablet as well. I literally cannot think of a single example of one app I'm missing tablet support for. Yet, the "Android still doesn't have tablet optimized apps" meme didn't stop.

But maybe I'm just living under a rock and haven't been using the same apps as others. So I humbly ask, could anyone please give me an objective argument for this point to understand if there's actually still any merit to it?

There is a truckload of apps that are iOS only. iA writer, paper, penultimate, infinity blade, just off the top of my head. Great quality apps abound, and usually their iPad versions make great use of the screen real estate, instead of just rescaling the interface.

Lots of others have started on iOS and were only released for Android much later (Flipboard, Angry Birds, Instagram).

I use skritter.com for practising Chinese. They recently released an iOS app after several months work. There is currently no plan to produce an Android app, partly because there is a partial web / flash solution available on Android, but I assume also that the numbers didn't add up for putting the work in to porting the iPhone app.

This is a must-have application for learning to write Chinese in my opinion, to the extent that people would buy an iOS device just to use it. There is no equivalent for Android. I carry around an iPhone as a work phone, and pretty much only use it for this.

So learning Chinese is a little niche, but I'm sure there are other niches where people rely on a particular app, this app is not available on Android, and so they wouldn't switch for this reason.

>There is no equivalent for Android.

Have you tried MonkeyWrite? http://www.monkeywriteapp.com/

(Android only)

Just tried it, nice enough, but not really on the same level. I'm up to 1,500+ characters on Skritter after hundreds of hours, I think that whole app with all the add-ons would take about 30 minutes to get through for me. Doesn't look to have spaced recognition like Skritter does either.

Interesting but you aren't really answering his tablet specific question. Looking at the screenshots of this app it appears to just been blown up on the iPad. That's the very thing that people criticize Android apps for doing.

I don't use on iPad but guess it will come there before Android. You're right I'm not answering tablet specific questions, just looking at app availability versus iOS.

Another example. I'm in Hong Kong and I see them advertising a real time next train app on the MTR, i.e. subway system. iPhone only. They support Android, but iPhone comes first:

http://www.mtr.com.hk/eng/whatsnew/mtrmobile.html

It's pretty clear you've never actually seen an iPad app.

Because if you had then you would know that just because you can view a "mobile" website on your laptop it doesn't make it optimal. iPad apps are specifically designed to make best use of the real estate and there are a number of iPad-only UI concepts.

> could anyone please give me an objective argument

I think it is really subjective and about the "long tail" of apps. If I say that OmniFocus locks me into the Appleverse, someone else will mention an Android-exclusive app and we'll (objectively ;)) discuss for hours. Carcassonne and Anthill may not have worthy Android ports, but I'm probably missing out on Google's best-in-class maps.

The shopping experience may also have a lot to do with each platform's perception. The Play front page[1] looks absolutely uninviting to me. In iTunes or on the iPad, I usually scroll around and discover apps by topic. What do I do in the Play store if I know all the front page apps already (not hard)?

[1] for those of us who are abroad: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:/...

> What do I do in the Play store if I know all the front page apps already (not hard)?

Click on the categories link on the left side, and then browse.

Or select on any app you like and use and scroll down to "Users also Installed" and "Users also Viewed". This is a great way to find cool stuff.

It's also unclear if the grandparent is talking about the literal front page of "featured" apps, or the infinite scrolling list of "top" apps by all the categories (currently: Paid, Free, Grossing, New Paid, New Free, and Trending).

I mean, I'm sure one can ding the Play Store for UI wierdness in places, but discoverability has never been one of its flaws in my view.

Good point about "People also liked".

I meant the literal front page of both stores: Clicking the "App Store" tab in iTunes (same as opening "App Store" on the iPad), vs. going to the page I've linked.

Both stores have categories, but I don't enjoy browsing through them. By topic, I meant the hand-picked thematic groups of apps on the App Store front page, like "Racing Games", "Cookbooks", "Fun for Two Players", "Apps for Travelling" etc. - I really enjoy those. Everything that is hand-picked feels a hundred times more interesting than an automated list to me.

IMHO all appstores actually fail when it comes to app discovery. It comes down to lists of apps and full text search in app descriptions, ranked by such poor metrics as number of installs or user ranking.

If you need an app for iOS or android, do the same thing you do when you need an app for the web:

ask a search engine!

http://goo.gl/kw8UK

http://goo.gl/66kVp

That works when you know what you want, i.e. for the first handful of apps. And on almost every tablet I've seen, games outnumber apps.

And when this thread got me curious and I was googling for Android versions of games I like, I had to dig through pages of spam to realize there was no port.

Most significant Android apps look "okay" on tablets these days in the sense that they are using Android layouts and the icon bitmap dpi system so that when they are scaled up to tablet resolutions they look pretty good, but outside of Google's own apps, very few of them are really "tablet optimized" in the sense that they make extensive use of dual-pane fragment-style UI concepts. Generally they are just bigger, decent looking versions of the single-screen-per-view UIs as seen on Android phones and they feel like that, which isn't horrible, but isn't really taking advantage of the larger (usually) higher resolution displays Android tablets have over phones.

Any examples, though? Honestly that's my experience with the iPad too -- outside of the core apps most stuff looks pretty mediocre, and mostly the same as on an iPhone.

I strongly prefer Android to iOS, and I have both android (Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.0 and Asus Transformer) and Apple (iPad 1 and 2) tablets. One app I use quite a bit on the iPad is DirecTV. It makes TV watching a better experience by providing a nice interface to control your TV, search through the guide and movies, your recordings, and on-demand content and you can even stream shows to it. Contrast this with the Android version, which is a dumb guide with very limited features. It's really a night and day difference.

I think Android will catch up, but it's not hard to find examples like this.

Isn't this a difference in what DirecTV has implemented in their applications? I read the OP as asking for applications that do not function on an Android tablet or function significantly different on an Android tablet vs. an Android phone.

This is a google device, not a run-of-the-mill Android device (most of which are not on ICS much less JB).

This point is very important - it makes the device more like an iOS one - more likely for updates, more fine touches as Google's cred rests on it.

If we see other tablets of similar calibre to the nexus7, then yes - you can say "Android" compares/best iOS. But for right now, it's nexus7 vs. iPad or Kindle Fire.

So their tablet will be at a higher API level than pretty much every Android device out there. You still can't use the latest OS features as a dev unless it's OK for the Nexus 7 to have exclusive features.

Or maybe Google has another go at direct handset sales, or they withhold updates to maintain parity across their flagship products.

At the moment being a "Google device" doesn't actually guarantee you anything.

Edit: I didn't think that through. The OS version is already out of sync! I guess that is what they will do.

My nexus 7 has JB, my Galaxy Nexus has JB, how is that out of sync?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/11/jelly_bean_updates/

Not everyone with a Galaxy Nexus will get it.

But my complaint is moot. I didn't really think it through. They are just going to stagger updates like they always have.

This is a google device, not a run-of-the-mill Android device (most of which are not on ICS much less JB).

I think almost all brand name tablets are on ICS now.

This point is very important - it makes the device more like an iOS one - more likely for updates, more fine touches as Google's cred rests on it

Have you actually used something like the Asus Transformer?

It's very, very good. I have a MBP, Linux Laptop, Windows Laptop, iPad2, iPhone 4, Galaxy S, an old 7" no brand Android tablet and the Transformer with a keyboard dock, and the Transformer gets the most use for general email/web browsing use.

> I think almost all brand name tablets are on ICS now.

I thought so too. Some are. Shockingly enough, I believe the Samsung tabs they gave out last year at I/O are still on 3.x. Tried to update my coworker's before heading to I/O with it and ended up with a newer version of Honeycomb. :/

According to http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=328795820483403 (which is the official Samsung channel) ICS should be on the following tablet devices now: GALAXY Tab 10.1, GALAXY Tab 8.9, GALAXY Tab 7.7 and GALAXY Tab 7.0 Plus.

That's from December 2011, but sometimes there oddities in the rollout, especially with regional variants.

They said that then, yes. They have not, however, actually done the rollout, at least for the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Retail, or the I/O giveaway variant, for that matter.

How much time could you possibly spend with each of your devices?

> It's very, very good. I have a MBP, Linux Laptop, Windows Laptop, iPad2, iPhone 4, Galaxy S, an old 7" no brand Android tablet and the Transformer with a keyboard dock, and the Transformer gets the most use for general email/web browsing use.

I'd bet the Transformer is intended to disrupt the MBAir/ultrabook and will likely compete directly with the forthcoming MS Surface tabs. I like what I hear about it though I haven't used one (friends who have them are favorable).

Do you detach much or simply use the keyboard dock? How is the trackpad? Do you use it with mouse?

The idea of the Chrome/Android ARM laptop is very exciting - I was seriously hoping Apple would have already released an ARM-based MB Air-alike - it would redefine the product in a great way, IMHO.

>But for right now, it's nexus7 vs. iPad or Kindle Fire.

Not really. The ASUS line of transformers have been getting updates very quickly and they're slated to get JB soon. The tablet situation has little to do with the phone situation. Most of the delays and horrid policies come straight from the carriers, not the OEMs. I expect the tablet market to remain competitive and upgrade quickly and fully expect the horrible phone market to be as shitty as ever, if not worse. Google needs to push the Nexus phone harder and make its motorola offerings non-Blur.

Jelly Bean added a bunch of stuff that I'm very happy to see as a developer. But it will take a long while for that to trickle down to the user level, even for people who get on Jelly Bean quickly.

On the other hand, this translates into bucketloads of low-hanging fruit if you're an Android developer.

> But it will take a long while for that to trickle down to the user level

If the Nexus 7 has the same success as the Kindle Fire (or better) then a large proportion of tablet users would be on JB.

…in the US (and maybe UK).

And France, and Germany, and ...

Scheduled for 'September', according to a Facebook post by Asus Italia that everyone is referring to:

https://www.facebook.com/ASUS.Italia/posts/180844915379890

I hadn't heard about that, and it still seems like a half-assed international release to me :(

Android is inferior to iOS. Google Android could be on par with iOS, that's exciting and I can't wait to try the Nexus 7.

But it takes only one glance at what is released under the "Android" name for me to definitively state: Android is inferior to iOS.

But that's the point of Android. There is very, very little centralized quality control so the spectrum of quality goes all the way from the Nexus 7 down to a $99 POS Walgreens Android tablet.

I know I'm not supposed to feed trolls, but:

> Android is inferior to iOS. > > But that's the point of Android.

The point of Android is to be not as good as iOS? Really? That's the point of Android?

Do you make the claim that all cars are rubbish just because some companies make rubbish cars? No. Different cars are different. Obviously. So it is with Android devices.

If one Android device is on a par with the new iPad (or at least in the same ballpark according to MG Siegler) then please judge that device based solely on that device, not on other devices that are similar in OS name only (not even version).

If you're comparing iOS to the full spectrum of Android devices out there, then please compare the full spectrum of iOS devices out there as well, including the iPhone 3GS which is, in this day and age, a POS cheapo smartphone (compared to top of the range Android phones at least).

I actually don't think he's trolling, or at least not in the way you're interpreting.

I could be wrong, but I think he just clumsily phrased his response. In other words, he was stating that the point of Android is to be a decentralized operating system. Individual deployments are not controlled by any one corporation, so there can be a lot of hit and misses. Therefore, I don't think he is making a general claim that the 'point of Android to be inferior to iOS'.

Disclaimer: I'm not claiming anything written above is my own opinion, I'm just attempting to clarify a possible ambiguity.

You're probably correct but then, why judge the Android OS as a whole based on the fact that there are a few rubbish devices out that run it?

Because some of those devices are cheap and sell (see the Kindle Fire as one example - massive sales, really not great - and yes I know it's a fork but it's still Android at it's heart).

Does that make Android crap? Obviously not but it does mean that there a hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people who have that perception (and are right because for them it has been crap).

Excluding the crap ones is no more a representative picture of things than excluding the good ones would be. Android is the sum total of all devices running with all the good (huge numbers, some great devices out there) and bad (fragmentation and massive variation in quality) that that entails.

"You're probably correct but then, why judge the Android OS as a whole based on the fact that there are a few rubbish devices out that run it?"

Because this is how Brands work. You don't get to say Android-Google and Android-Samsung unless you're talking to an analyst or a geek. For most Android owners, they have an "Android" phone. What brand? Uhh I dunno Google? Android?

Android as a brand is the collection of not just the superstar devices, but the shitty POS devices as a whole.

So as a brand, iOS > Android because the average of Android is weighed down by the crappy side of Cheap Android.

That doesn't mean that any one device is superior to any other one device, but rather that as a collective brand, the iOS brand is superior to Androids, and if you blindly buy an iOS device you're more likely to get quality than if you blindly buy an Android device.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com