Meanwhile, over in Androidtown

https://daringfireball.net/2023/01/meanwhile_over_in_androidtown

by robenkleene • 3 years ago

60 86 3 years ago

aetherson5• 3 years ago

Look, it's a blast from 2012, when iOS partisans were fond of claiming that the fatal flaw with Android was lower number of niche, low-audience apps or low app quality or something.

It feels like these 10 years later, we should have some some pretty solid intuitions about how much of a competitive advantage this actually is for iOS.

whynotminot4• 3 years ago

Seems like a pretty big competitive advantage? Isn’t iOS actually gaining market share?

mrowlinson2• 3 years ago

Yes, and in most large markets. I think they’re really going to need to release a full screen iPhone SE to keep the momentum going though and all rumors point to it being canceled.

aetherson5• 3 years ago

iOS is indeed gaining market share. It seems pretty clearly to be temporally unrelated to any app store advantages, which probably peaked 5-10 years ago.

To be clear, I think that the availability of niche apps is some kind of competitive advantage for iOS. But not a particularly big one, and probably less of one now than it was a decade ago.

The recent rise of iOS market share in the US probably has a lot to do with the wealth spike created by the pandemic, which advantages a marginally more expensive product. The other place I'd look is iPhone cameras vs Galaxy cameras, though honestly I'm not sure how good Galaxy's cameras are since I don't like Samsung's Android dialect.

IndigoPrime2• 3 years ago

Another way of looking at this is that it clearly isn’t a fatal flaw. Most phone users don’t download many apps. Once they have the few usual suspects, they’re done. Android is, for that market, a good bet. It’s also superior for anyone who wants to more heavily customise their device (launchers, actions, etc) or dig into categories that are effectively banned on iOS (such as open emulation).

Where in my experience Android fares poorly is in a certain kind of ambition. Part of my beat is apps coverage. I was relieved when an article I used to write was canned because it was a nightmare each month coming up with consumer/creative oriented quality apps on Android. (Things are getting tougher on iOS there, too, but it’s still ahead.)

Even in that space, there are quality apps on Android, and surprises do happen. LumaFusion is a good example of that – even if it showed up years after it had been on iOS. But in these sorts of premium app spaces – media creation; writing tools; cameras; children’s apps; even games – iOS remains ahead.

For most, that won’t make any odds. But for some, it’s the difference that matters.

lern_too_spel6• 3 years ago

Meanwhile, over in iOS land, you cannot call route calls through another service, filter notifications, or run emulators. There is missing functionality, which can never be fixed, not just missing UI niceties in particular apps with (let's be honest) relatively low usage, which get fixed over time as usage increases.

neallindsay• 3 years ago

Those are great examples of why iOS will never take over the entire phone market regardless of how much better a user-experience they have. Low price is another prominent "feature" that you can't get in an iPhone.

Apple is interesting in that they don't try to be everything for all people. They find a niche (usually a very profitable one) where they can execute better than the competition and they don't try to eat the whole pie. What other tech companies are like that? Nintendo?

jjtheblunt• 3 years ago

Porsche, Ferrari?

lern_too_spel6• 3 years ago

I would say that not being able to filter notifications trashes the user experience. It's like not being able to filter email. Nobody who uses their phone or email for productivity would put up with it.

MBCook5• 3 years ago

It’s not a trade off though. Having those abilities shouldn’t do anything to prevent Android apps from being just as good.

All it should do is enable Android to have even more good apps.

So when both platforms are capable of making an app, such as Mastodon, why does the disparity exist?

lern_too_spel6• 3 years ago

why does the disparity exist?

I explained why. For an app with few users, it sometimes takes longer for open source to catch up.

All it should do is enable Android to have even more good apps

And it does. It has far more and far better apps than iOS (maps with navigation long before iOS, ReVanced, better voice assistants, driving mode apps, better in-call abilities, better keyboards, better system-wide adblockers, better Firefox and Chrome, better GeForce Now, better BitTorrent apps, and on and on). Just not this cherry-picked example to Gruber's UI taste.

chazeon• 3 years ago

Posted yesterday:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34605535

Groxx• 3 years ago

Android's Mastodon choices are indeed rather... surprisingly underwhelming. For many reasons, not just lack of flair. It feels odd to me too.

But more broadly they all just look and especially feel inert and rigid. Nothing shrinks or stretches. There’s no life to them.

I've been disabling animations on my phone for a few months now, and oh boy. Give me more of that dead, lifeless feel please.

It's so much faster, and it makes my phone into more of a tool rather than a fancy toy that sometimes gets in my way for no discernible reason or benefit.

I get why life-full things are popular, but it's increasingly smelling like a form of addiction-feeding to me.

Also UI design still hasn't recovered from the absurdities that excessively flat, whitespace-heavy nonsense forced on the world. It's slowly regaining sanity, but I'm kinda glad there are a mountain of Android apps that have not followed along.

ryandrake3• 3 years ago

What does it even mean for an app to "feel" like something? How do you quantify that so you can do a proper comparison with other apps, or (from the app author's side, take corrective action)?

Author calls these apps "brutalist" and leaves it at that. To his credit, he does list three features that he's like to see: fluid scrolling, swipe gestures, and tap-and-hold contextual menus. Fine. But then goes on to describe his feelings "inert and rigid". Then "comfort, fun, and panache". What on earth is he asking for out of these apps? How do you objectively compare one app's "panache" with another? If I was a developer, what are the steps I can follow to program some "comfort" into my app? These complaints seem so wishy-washy and underspecified.

Then he leaves with the Kubrick quote: “Sometimes the truth of a thing isn’t in the think of it, but in the feel of it.” We're fully in the realm of mysticism now, this is not an attempt to fairly compare or measure anything.

robotshmobot• 3 years ago

You want to quantify feel? Gruber's saying the vibes are off, that the attention to detail in the interaction design isn't there.

jefftk2• 3 years ago

I'm on Android and use Mastodon in the browser. I wonder whether this is disproportionately common on Android relative to iOS, and so there's less interest in Android native clients?

MBCook5• 3 years ago

Why do you choose to use the browser instead of an app?

jefftk2• 3 years ago

My process normally is to start with a browser and only seek out an app if I'm dissatisfied.

tsm• 3 years ago

If it were about something older than Mastodon, this post feels like it could've been written in 2011.

Anyway, I'm a happy user of Tusky. It has all the features I want, and while the UI looks dated it's not at all hard to use. I'm in fact probably happier with a Tusky-style UI than overly-animated whitespace-filled configuration-free apps made by big companies that I also use (and look "prettier").

And yes:

Android seems to be the platform for people who consider this comprehensive feature checklist to be a helpful resource evaluating which apps they should try

I do find such checklists helpful, since I care about the functionality of apps I use. Maybe Gruber should just let people enjoy things?

WoodenChair2• 3 years ago

Maybe Gruber should just let people enjoy things?

How is his criticism not letting people enjoy things? You’re welcome to enjoy it and also welcome to not read John Gruber if reading him lessens your enjoyment. And he’s welcome to criticize. Maybe he enjoys criticizing. Maybe you should let John Gruber enjoy criticizing?

Some criticism is healthy. He’s criticizing dated UIs. You even agree with him. You said of the same app as him “…the UI looks dated…” Maybe this will spur some app developers to improve their UIs which will cause people to enjoy things even more.

armadsen4• 3 years ago

He talks at length in this post and the follow up about him being able to understand why some people prioritize things other that UI design and experience. He says that having other priorities is reasonable. He’s pointing out that _his_ priorities (and those of many others, myself included) are not well-met by Android apps.

danaris• 3 years ago

"Just let people enjoy things" is about not criticizing the people for enjoying them, not about not criticizing the things if there are legitimate criticisms to be had.

You may not think Gruber's criticisms are legitimate, but I, and many others, do, and he's not criticizing the people who enjoy the Android apps.

VWWHFSfQ• 3 years ago

does ios allow web browsers to have ad blocking extensions? because that's literally the only thing that will ever matter to me about the difference between the platforms

salzig• 3 years ago

with https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/get-extensions-iphab0...

Yes, kinda, e.g.: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-focus-privacy-browser/...

musictubes• 3 years ago

Yes, there are a slew of “content blockers” in the App Store. I use 1Blocker but plenty of people like Adguard.

teg4n_• 3 years ago

yes there are Safari extensions you download from the app store. I like 1Blocker: https://1blocker.com

haunter2• 3 years ago

Yes I'm using AdGuard Pro and you can use custom filters > same as uBlock Origin on desktop. Works flawlessly.

howinteresting6• 3 years ago

Only if you use Safari (which means you can't sync your data if you use a browser on a non-Apple OS), and all of them are significantly worse than uBlock Origin. I don't know if any of them even have anti-adblock blocking to the quality level that uBO does.

robin_reala• 3 years ago

That’s not true; I use Firefox on iOS and have Firefox Focus as a block list provider.

anaisbetts2• 3 years ago

...on my home screen on my Pixel 4...
Things like fluid scrolling...

Well, yeah. It's not exactly apples to Apples to compare your 2022 iPhone to an Android phone from 2019. On my Z-Flip 4, Tusky has no problem hitting 120Hz scroll.

That being said, I can't disagree with his larger point when it comes to many commercial apps - design teams are all iOS and ship designs that aren't Android-first or even Android-adjacent. Android developers often end up fighting (and losing) to design teams which only care about one platform

thrtythreeforty• 3 years ago

not exactly apples to Apples to compare your 2022 iPhone to an Android phone from 2019

I kind of disagree. If you can't make a UI run fluidly on a phone from 4 years ago, you might be doing it wrong. UIs have tight timing budgets, true, but computers are _plenty_ fast enough to keep up. Android has more overhead than iOS and it shows.

I put up with Android because I can run my own code on my own hardware. But I'm increasingly looking at iOS favorably.

anaisbetts2• 3 years ago

Keeping your frame times low is one thing, but it's not fair to compare a 60Hz display to a 120Hz one

hellisothers• 3 years ago

An iPhone from 2019 (which my wife has) still scrolls very smoothly. I assume he isn’t talking about refresh rate, he is talking About jerkily scrolling because the developer is making blocking calls on the main thread or re-rendering already visible elements. I also experience this on my Android test device.

jgruber4• 3 years ago

Correct. I am not talking about frame rate.

detaro• 3 years ago

Tusky is just fine on my 2017 mid-range Android phone...

alexbrooks• 3 years ago

Some people just can't see it.

benced• 3 years ago

I have a 2019 iPhone (11 Pro!) and the scrolling is perfect. Battery about to die though.

politelemon• 3 years ago

This is a strange read. Making assumptions about an entire platform from a few cherry picked examples. That's a very low quality post.

Having worked in both platforms I can say their conclusions are demonstrably false, if not outright biased.

widowlark• 3 years ago

its almost like it's an extremely apple centric blog with a ton of bias

for real - i'd rather have a 'brutalist' mastadon client that cannot be removed by Google than 100 pretty mastadon clients that will be blocked permanently from the iOS store the next time a mass shooting occurs.

friedman232• 3 years ago

Can you prove the results are cherry picked? Android app quality being worse than iOS is my personal experience as well. There are many reasons for this too. Show us well known consumer Android apps where the iOS and Android app experiences are on par.

howinteresting6• 3 years ago

Firefox on Android is significantly better than on iOS.

akmarinov2• 3 years ago

Obvioulsy Gruber is extremely pro-Apple

He's also been showing his age quite a bit, being against a lot of recent developments, like being anti-remote work.

MBCook5• 3 years ago

like being anti-remote work.

I don’t remember that at all. Can you provide a link?

armadsen4• 3 years ago

I like John Gruber and usually agree with him. But his anti-remote work thing is baffling, and made even more so by the fact that he himself has worked from home for going on 20 years.

adamredwoods• 3 years ago

He has a lot of strange, biased writings, because he's an Apple evangelist.

> But more broadly they all just look and especially feel inert and rigid. Nothing shrinks or stretches. There’s no life to them.

I can see this two ways: some people WANT to be entertained by the UI when they're surfing. Others like myself, don't want extraneous distractions. The UI should be secondary to the information.

The second quote on the developer choosing OSX over Windows, is quite interesting. I would think that an application developer, being even more into their craft, would eventually want LESS interference from the device UI, to where they would become platform agnostic and roll their own "life" into the application's UI.

kitsunesoba2• 3 years ago

If well applied, things like animation in UI isn't superfluous. I would agree that a lot of animation in software is superfluous, but that doesn't mean that it has to be.

As far as developer choice goes, that's going to depend on what gets that particular individual fired up. Personally speaking, it's the possibility to produce something that's both polished and thoughtful on top of being highly functional. For me a project where the human interface is to be phoned in sounds like a miserable slog.

Gorbzel• 3 years ago

I’ve worked on both platforms for over a decade. Gruber’s conclusions are spot on.

friedman232• 3 years ago

People don't invest a lot in android apps because android users don't pay money for things at the same rate that iOS users do.

WoodenChair2• 3 years ago

The missing piece here is the platform APIs. It’s less effort in UIKit to do swipe gestures and contextual menus than it is in the traditional Android APIs, so more developers do it. This equation may change with Jetpack Compose vs SwiftUI but I don’t have enough experience with Compose to say.

rerdavies• 3 years ago

On Android, it is utterly trivial to do swipe gestures with RecyclerView, which is the current platform standard UI control for displaying lists (and has been for a long time). And context menus aren't particularly difficult either.

kitsunesoba2• 3 years ago

As someone who develops for both platforms I agree. Android Framework is just not as good as UIKit and may never be. Jetpack Compose does seem to be an improvement based on the dabbling I've done, but it's still a work in progress and there's no telling how long Google's interest in the project will persist.

That said, as the sibling comment notes, swipe gestures and context menus aren't too bad to implement on Android. Like Gruber says, it's a cultural difference. For whatever reason it just doesn't strike the average Android dev that these features might be desirable.

haunter2• 3 years ago

Android users are less likely to pay for apps. Simple as that, this is not a new phenomenon known for more than a decade now. So for a lot of devs it's just not a worthwile thing to invest in making apps _that good_ worth paying for.

akmarinov2• 3 years ago

True

My data, on an app with 100k MAU, iOS makes 3x on subscriptions AND ads, despite Android having 3x the userbase.

mrowlinson2• 3 years ago

That’s an incredible statistic. I think it really says everything you need to know about this debate.

jFriedensreich• 3 years ago

even on ios the elk.zone add to homescreen webapp experience was so good i did not even consider looking for a native mastodon client, as i assume the android PWA support being much better why would anyone even bother with android apps?

yellow_lead• 3 years ago

years ago my friend Brent Simmons wrote about why he chose to create apps exclusively for the Mac, despite the Windows market being so much larger:
> One of the reasons I develop for OS X is that, when it comes to user interface, this is the big leagues, this is the show.

What?

armadsen4• 3 years ago

He was writing in the context of Windows vs Mac 20 years ago. At that time especially, the overwhelming majority of people who really cared deeply about UI design used and designed for Macs, despite the overall small size of the Mac market.

For some evidence of design’s importance on the Mac (and now iOS), Apple has been awarding Apple Design Awards for many, many years. Winning one is considered by Mac/iOS designers and developers to be a high honor. I’m aware of no equivalent for Windows or Android.

howinteresting6• 3 years ago

I used iOS for many years full time and everything felt very slow, even with Reduce Motion turned on. The menus pop up slowly, the animations take too long. Everything looks nicer but functions worse. I'm sure normies like it but I hated it, it just gets in the way.

On Android the default experience already has faster animations than iOS, and you can tweak them to run quicker which makes it feel like a device that is interested in getting me to the things I want rather than one that wants to show off. And the scrolling on a $500-600 phone (Pixel 7) is much smoother than on a similarly-priced iPhone (90 vs 60Hz). And use real uBlock Origin. It's so much nicer.

We clearly prioritize very different things in life.

Meanwhile, over in Androidtown

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