Android 4.0: A coming of age and homage to Windows Phone 7

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/100591-android-4-0-a-coming-of-age-and-homage-to-windows-phone-7

by ukdm • 15 years ago

35 19 15 years ago

extremetech.com

chugger• 15 years ago

Homage to Windows phone 7. How about we call it what it is. A Windows 7 rip-off.

Roritharr• 15 years ago

when do people finally get it? everything is a remix.

drivebyacct2• 15 years ago

I thought it was an iPhone ripoff? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3124131

oakgrove2• 15 years ago

Why would they rip off an OS with essentially no market share and dropping fast from there. Windows Phone tiles are just widgets under a different name.

recoiledsnake• 15 years ago

All this while comparing Metro to a lavatory sign and dissing Apple's design too.

From http://thisismynext.com/2011/10/18/exclusive-matias-duarte-i...

“Across the board Google and Android is taking design a lot more seriously,” Matias says, and points out that Roboto is used throughout the system. “There’s this thing that’s happening right now in user interface design that I find kind of shackling. The faux wood paneling trend, and the airport lavatory signage trend.” He laughs when he says this and pulls up a slide on his computer, a split screen of an Atari 2600 and… airport lavatory signage. It’s an obvious dig at both Apple and Microsoft.

mrsebastian• 15 years ago

Aye -- conflicting, for sure. ICS is definitely a little more fancy than Metro, but that might just be because ICS has a higher resolution (note the two-line previews in Gmail -- only possible because of a higher resolution).

oakgrove2• 15 years ago

The comparisons are very appropriate.

jinushaun• 15 years ago

Apple cranked up the textures to 11 in iOS 5. So ugly and juvenile... I really find it difficult to believe that this is the same company that produced the gorgeous iPhone OS in 2007.

joebadmo• 15 years ago

Strikes me as a healthy blend of homage and criticism.

I think WP7 looks great, but agree that it's kind of austere.

I think a culture of innovators regularly taking the best of each other's ideas and making them their own, putting their own spin, their own personality on them is fantastic.

I'm so pleasantly surprised by this. I was totally expecting just another feature dump or change-for-change's-sake/shallow modernization UI refresh like every other one before this.

I'm really excited about Android having a clear user-centered vision. Not just because I'm an Android user, but because it's great for everyone that there's this level of competition in the industry.

baddox2• 15 years ago

> Android is ready and eager to drop its mantle as the nerd and power user OS.

> We all know that Android is the geeky option.

This doesn't match my notion of the Android and Apple ecosystems.

Mizza• 15 years ago

Fo' real. Anybody who thinks this only reads tech news and doesn't deal with mobile phone consumers in the real world.

Android is the _cheap_ option. You can get Android burners now on budget telcos like Cricket and MetroPCS. Geeks like it too, but that's not the massive perception of the OS. It's becoming just the default phone.

baddox2• 15 years ago

Honestly, the only passionate defense I've seen for Android has seemingly been nothing more than thinly-veiled rejection of Apple, from people who are staunchly anti-Apple. I've never heard anyone seriously defend Android for being consumer-friendly, or easy to use, or fast/smooth, etc.

Adaptive• 15 years ago

Not an homage at all.

ICS and Metro are both examples of Swiss style maturing in mobile UI design.

Apple at its best in iOS is similarly executing Swiss style.

cpeterso2• 15 years ago

And at its worst, Apple gives us faux leather GUIs.

nl• 15 years ago

I call bullshit.

Sure, they have found a couple of Android screens that have squares on them, and it is true that both Microsoft and Google are rejecting the "analogy" approach for UI that Apple has embraced. But that is as far as it goes.

Look at the Android lock screen or the start screen and you'll see they are totally different. Android simply doesn't use the card-based metaphor that Windows uses.

(Also, note that Duarte came from Palm - surely it would be more interesting to see how WebOS influenced Android than Windows did?)

Android 4.0: A coming of age and homage to Windows Phone 7

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