There is a Motorola SDK for Java ME. And there was no development on the iPhone 1 (2G).Lol, ok. So the Razr had/has a public SDK to develop software for too?
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Who cares about iPhone5 ? It's outdated already
- Thread starter Zorachus
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Outamyhead
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The raping of the S II can be easily fixed.
harsaphes
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The new software update to the IP5 is whats taking me away from Android. Everything I hated about the Iphone is finally being addressed. Yes the hardware will probably not change, but that's ok.
Ocellaris
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I wouldn't say the iPhone 5 is outdated, since the iPhone models tend to hold their usability for a very long time. I have a 3GS that I used as a pre-paid phone and game player, I probably have 100+ apps on it, and every app functions correctly and runs smooth. You can't say that about 2+ year old Android hardware at all. With a 2+ year old Android phone you are lucky to get 10+ apps installed before running into problems. iOS development is easy and its not hard for a developer to make sure their app works on 2 or 3 models of hardware. Most people keep iOS current as well.
Meanwhile I am doing some work on an Android application and it is frustrating as hell. Every phone tries to do something different, and there 7 or 8 different OS levels that we need to target. There are a few things that would be nice however we can't even do them because it would exclude people running 2.0 and 2.1 phones that may never get an update. We need to add a ton of bloat to the app to cover all sorts of corner cases because some random person gets a new phone and BAM, our shit stops working. Then it turns out that phone XYZ handles notifications different than every other phone out there. We have people running into performance problems often caused by the horrible handling of background apps on Android. We spend a lot of time just making sure the app works instead of making the app better. The whole thing feels like the inmates are running the asylum.
Meanwhile I am doing some work on an Android application and it is frustrating as hell. Every phone tries to do something different, and there 7 or 8 different OS levels that we need to target. There are a few things that would be nice however we can't even do them because it would exclude people running 2.0 and 2.1 phones that may never get an update. We need to add a ton of bloat to the app to cover all sorts of corner cases because some random person gets a new phone and BAM, our shit stops working. Then it turns out that phone XYZ handles notifications different than every other phone out there. We have people running into performance problems often caused by the horrible handling of background apps on Android. We spend a lot of time just making sure the app works instead of making the app better. The whole thing feels like the inmates are running the asylum.
Interesting, would a good analogy be; creating apps for iPhone's is like working on a game for console machine, they are locked down and have set hardware, where as creating apps for Android would be like working on a PC game, have a million different system requirements to prepare for ?
Ocellaris
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Fairly good analogy. I think it is easier to make a good iOS app than it is to make a good Android app. It is extremely easy to do performance optimization with iOS apps, and compatibility problems are almost non existent.
Zurginator
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Rumor has it another one got lost in a bar... and it looked identical to the iP4, which means no larger screen.
Oh is that what rumor has it as? Guess we should invest thought into that.
How is this true? Android has a consistent API just like iOS, the only variables are cpu speed, physical keyboard or not, screen size (these are all abstracted away by the OS) and the base version of Android (which is no different than updating your app for iOS 4/5). Its nothing like pc software where there literally are millions of combinations of drivers, hardware, disk sizes etc.
Zurginator
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Ask any android dev that has to support more than a dozen devices if they agree. They do... Every device has it's own bugs, err features....
My Android guys hate the fragmentation.
notetcetera
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How is the iPhone5 outdated?
StryderxX
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Exactly what I was thinking. The iPhone 4's been out over a year now and it's still very competitive software and hardware wise with the majority of smartphones out on the market now. Making a statement that a product is outdated before its release without having any facts (only rumors) is a bit silly.
Ocellaris
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One more thing I forgot to point out earlier. Apple is way better at keep devs up to date as well. iOS 5 has been seeded to developers for ~3 months now and those seeds have been updated 5 or 6 times.
Devs already know that their apps will works on iOS 5 devices without a problem, and in some cases updating apps to use the new features. If there was a problem with iOS 5, they have had 3 months to fix it. Who knows when iOS 5 will be releases, but apps are very likely to work on it.
Want to know how many devs are running the next version of Android? Its basically 0 people outside of Google. Google hasn't officially announced the OS or given anyone information on what it will do. No one can check their apps against the new Android OS long before launch, so they will have to scramble at the last minute. But heck who cares, once the new OS is released, it will only be available on a few phones anyway...
Devs already know that their apps will works on iOS 5 devices without a problem, and in some cases updating apps to use the new features. If there was a problem with iOS 5, they have had 3 months to fix it. Who knows when iOS 5 will be releases, but apps are very likely to work on it.
Want to know how many devs are running the next version of Android? Its basically 0 people outside of Google. Google hasn't officially announced the OS or given anyone information on what it will do. No one can check their apps against the new Android OS long before launch, so they will have to scramble at the last minute. But heck who cares, once the new OS is released, it will only be available on a few phones anyway...
Ummm... what are you talking about?
Daniel
iOS and Android Developer
P.S. Please don't speak on a subject that you don't have any clue about. Are you just trolling or what?
Zumino Zufeilon
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Yes and no really. If you're hyper-spec focused (as most people on [H] seem to be), it definately isn't competitive, it's been left in the dirt, because it hasn't been updated in a year.
That said, the iPhone4 is still very competitive in the actual "usability" tests, if it was tested by [H]ardOCP, it would score very well, to possibly top, in the "real world tests", but if you're hyper-spec focused, it appears to be very outdated. And especially on [H]ardforums, tech-spec's matter more then implimentation.
The problem is, those newer phones, with much better spec's, can't seem to really put the rubber on the road in any real noticible fashion. The lack of a platform specific, and very limited/focused OS (i.e. iOS) seems to hampering the implimentation of Android on devices. Raw Spec-wise, the iPhone4 should be destroyed by many Android devices, and yet, in actual performance, at best it's a tie between them, and on the majority of Android devices it's actually a net performance loss, due to poor OS implimentation/integration.
It's similar to Apple Laptops with OSX. There is enough power savings, and optimizations that can be designed, and built into the OS, if you are very specific about the hardware that's allowed, and optimize for that hardware, that you can easily compensate for quite a bit of raw power difference.
dr.stevil
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Specs are only useful to those that are interested in their e-peen size with synthetic benchmarks or if you're comparing it against previous versions of the same hardware. Real world performance is the only thing that 'should' matter to most enthusiasts. I do agree with you though... Google needs to better optimize Android to take advantage of the new hardware being released. Many of my friends Android phones should destroy my iPhone in just about every task... but in reality, my old 3Gs would of destroyed most of them in general computing speed and 3D performance
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Ocellaris
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Please enlighten me as to where you are getting dev builds and feature lists of the upcoming android os, because they certainly aren't available to any of our devs.
Google's lead times for a new OS are measured in weeks, and we usually need to end up testing everything in the Android SDK emulator which is slow as hell on modern hardware.
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tunesintheattic
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I think your right Zorachus. I have an iphone 4 and I don't see much new in the 5. I already have most of the improvements since mine is jailbroke. Apple will never let you have full freedom like jailbreaking does.........and yet they are suppose to be all about using their products to be creative....
+1..
yimingwuzere
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Apple is actually pretty strong in 3D performance because of hardware. The 3GS and iPad 2 are examples of devices that outclass the competition in 3D because of that.
You talk about how you have to fix things to make it work when Google makes updates, sorry, but that makes no sense! When has a new version of Android break compatibility of an app using an older SDK? Older apps are compatible on new versions of Android.
Most Android devices also do not immediately get the upgrades (if ever). If you want to add the new features from the new Android SDK, you're leaving the majority in the dust. We are only using 2.1 SDK here. Most devices can download and use our apps. Are you guys marketing to the majority or just a select few?
Aside from honeycomb, you get the SDK when Google free-sourced it. Maybe you don't quite understand the concept of free-source or open-source apis/sdks. Everyone gets it at the same time, aside from manufacturers who make Google's test devices.
Well, you could say it's a matter of perspective. iOS 5 beta is out, yes, but no users are running it. When ICS comes out, it will be largely the same story as it takes several months for the update to come out for other phones. Consider that your beta period, and then it's like Apple and Google give developers the same amount of time
A5 in ipad 2 is faster than the SoC in GS2 by 25-50%, however, there is a problem about heat and power, after all the ipad2 version of A5 is designed for tablet, so what Apple cando with it is still in question. I highly doubt they can fit a SGX 543mp2 in it and still get good battery life.
Or maybe what Samsung can or willing to do with it, after all it's being made by Samsung and power and heat issue is as much about the process as it's about the design.
Or maybe what Samsung can or willing to do with it, after all it's being made by Samsung and power and heat issue is as much about the process as it's about the design.
Ocellaris
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I'll give you a good example. Since Android came out, they have been slowly making minor (but significant) changes to Bluetooth. To get something working perfectly with 2.1 requires a lot of compromises if you want to do 2 way data communication AND not completely murder the battery on both devices. Then you drop that same code onto a 2.2 phone and it doesn't work, because some of the workarounds for 2.1 got fixed by Google in 2.2. Now we need to waste time/money making it work on 2.2, then someone comes along with a 3.1 table and everything is broken again for the table. Back to the drawing board... Once the whole thing starts working for everyone, its not optimal for anyone.
nobody_here
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apple clearly is litigating their way through a dry spell in innovation, this much anyone can see, iphone 5 is still great for some people, the people who tend to migrate towards the apple products also are more often those who dont necessarily care if their hardware is top end, they just want it to work
Here's the way we do it.
Look at here:
http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html
That's why we're using 2.1 SDK. We do have plans to go 2.3 SDK, and we are adding new features that could only work on 2.3, but, until 2.3 would cover 85%+ of all android devices, we will not release it. And we have plenty of time till that happens. Because we are a small development team, we do not want to support multiple versions although the android market could now support multiple APKs.
The only sucky thing that we have to do is supporting multiple screens, so we have 4 screens to optimize our graphics for, and, of course, manufacturer "features" - like HTC Music over Android Music.
We don't do anything with Bluetooth, so I don't know that complexity involved with battery life hacks. But if you aren't hacking something through a bug exploit, the basic bluetooth functionality will still work on 2.2. And I just looked through the changelogs on bluetooth, there hasn't been any changes since 2.2. So why would something break in 3.1?
iOS is much better than Android. It doesn't matter what the hardware specs are. iOS feels like a polished product. I used to have an Android phone and it required reboots all the time to clear out the memory or fix random problems. Android always seemed unfinished.
notetcetera
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They both have their strengths and weaknesses. One is for people who tweak their phone to their liking, the other is for people that want something to work straightaway.
THAT aside, I don't think the iPhone is/will be outdated when it comes out. The hardware is up-to-date, and the software is up-to-date.
How many devices do you support? My group has to support every device that comes out on ATT, Sprint and Verizon. All form factors, etc.
We make it work on everything, but it's a pain. A lot of devices require good 5-10 hours of work to be put in shape.
It's not just UI. The OS is not uniform between manufacturers and even between different phones of manufacturers. You can have two phones running 2.1 and they have different "features".
Our app is very complex though, using everything from GPS to bluetooth to camera. We touch almost every API available and it makes a pain.
On iOS we just have one target that hits all 4.0+ devices (5.0 including) for both Pad and Phone. Supporting it is a breeze, much easier than Android.
We also had to create a honeycomb specific version of our app, phone app looked and felt like shit on Xoom, etc
That being said... Android gives us a lot of things that iOS simply does not support and in that regard the Android app is superior. iOS though provides a faster/smoother experience.
I like both equally
p.s.
I hate blackberry development environment with passion.
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nobody_here
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If that is your experience you must be using a low end device and/or stock software. A top end Android handset with a well coded optimized rom and kernel turns it into an entirely different experience. That is Googles largest shortcoming with Android. They allow every manufacturer to write their own terrible code and then after that allow the carrier to pack on bloat and crap that burdens the device. Thats where the dev community saves Android. They clean up the sloppily written code, strip out all the crap, and give you full hardware control. It is then that Android becomes superior to the iOS experience. Thats the problem with Android. It is choking on its own distribution method.
We have 22 different Android devices excluding employee-owned devices. And we have come to the conclusion to support just 4 different screen resolutions (with a fifth resolution in waiting for the HD devices).How many devices do you support? My group has to support every device that comes out on ATT, Sprint and Verizon. All form factors, etc.
We make it work on everything, but it's a pain. A lot of devices require good 5-10 hours of work to be put in shape.
It's not just UI. The OS is not uniform between manufacturers and even between different phones of manufacturers. You can have two phones running 2.1 and they have different "features".
Our app is very complex though, using everything from GPS to bluetooth to camera. We touch almost every API available and it makes a pain.
On iOS we just have one target that hits all 4.0+ devices (5.0 including) for both Pad and Phone. Supporting it is a breeze, much easier than Android.
We also had to create a honeycomb specific version of our app, phone app looked and felt like shit on Xoom, etc
That being said... Android gives us a lot of things that iOS simply does not support and in that regard the Android app is superior. iOS though provides a faster/smoother experience.
I like both equally
p.s.
I hate blackberry development environment with passion.
We only deal with GPS for ad-tracking purposes. We do use the camera for an off-market private security app. And camera is another annoying manufacturer specific crap. So I totally understand the pain of supporting manufacturer-specific crap. We try to take the most generic route possible. Some manufacturer-specific coding cannot be avoided, but we just copy and paste that over and over after doing it once. (Ugly coding, but saves time.)
I have already mention that I rather develop for the iOS numerous times cause there are only 4 devices to optimize for. But we haven't had anything break from an Android version update. So that's why I was questioning the legitimacy of his statement. Android 2.1 has been out for a LONG time...
P.S. Did you guys do anything special on the Kyocera Echo?
UI wise, we did not support the dual screen.
That's the only thing that really stands out about that device. Kinda weird device.
Nope. I was using cyanogenmod. It still was kludgy. The iPhone is just better. That's all we recommend at work now after the many failings of the Droid platform, but to each their own.
tunesintheattic
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Really? This is almost as bad as PC vs Mac or Intel vs AMD. Just buy what YOU like and don't worry about what everyone else has or wants..............
At the moment I agree that iOS is a more polished product. I played with a couple of my buddies Verizon Droid phones (different models), nice big screens and it seemed like the opportunities could be endless, but they both complained of buggy software and short battery life.
Unfortunately being in grad school and being in clinicals 80 hrs a week, I don't have time to tinker like I used to so I have to go the path of least resistance and the easiest to use, which would be iOS for the time being.
Plus, Apple is smart, once you go iPhone it is hard to switch to another platform. After purchasing apps and building a music library in iTunes, its tough to bother re-purchasing apps for another platform and removing the DRM from my AAC files.