I’ve been an Apple convert for a few years now (I started to see the light in 2010-ish), but every 12-18 months, I grab a Google-endorsed device that can run the latest version of Android and put it through its paces.

I do this because I feel obliged to speak without ignorance on the advantages and disadvantages of the major mobile platforms. Also because playing with new tech is fun.

There’s more to it than the UI

When it comes to Android vs. iOS, the differences are much bigger than user experience. Apple’s business model is completely different to Google’s, which impacts on everything about its hardware, software and online services.

Some of the differences are less obvious than others. For example, Google’s efforts to retain and profit from its users’ data are no secret, but most people don’t realise just how much of their personal information is being passively disclosed. Apple, meanwhile, draws most of its profit from hardware sales and actively avoids the disclosure and retention of user particulars.

A more obvious difference is in the area of version fragmentation. Android hardware vendors aren’t obliged to provide timely software updates for their devices–even if they contain critical security patches–and most of them don’t. Meanwhile, iOS updates are made available, to all devices capable of running them, simultaneously. You can guess which of these ecosystems is riddled with unpatched, deprecated operating system software.

But let’s talk about the UI anyway

Assuming we’ve made peace with Android’s underlying constraints, the next question to ask is: how does its user experience stack up?

To find out, I tested Android “Lollipop” (5.1.1) on a Nexus 7 (2013 version). I tried to use it productively for about a week, in place of an equivalent iPad.

I accept that without migrating all of my data to Google’s cloud services, my experience of the platform wasn’t completely immersive, but hopefully you’ll agree that it was immersive enough to make a few meaningful observations.

1. Reading and typing

iOS always set a high bar when it came to the display, entry and editing of text, but with Lollipop, Android has caught up pretty comprehensively. Its new font (Roboto) is crisp and appealing; the default keyboard has an improved layout and responds without the lag of earlier versions; and working with text selections is much less frustrating than it used to be.

It’s not just the keyboard that’s more responsive. Animations are vastly smoother, and scrolling is finally on par with iOS. I can’t overstate the importance of these these improvements–they significantly increase user enjoyment and confidence.

2. App updates

Android’s built-in apps receive updates via Google’s Play Store. This allows core apps to be updated without the overhead of a full operating system update (great!), but it also makes for a volatile experience when the Play Store app itself needs updating (not so great!). After factory resetting my Nexus 7, I had the Play Store app crash, then declare it wasn’t installed, before eventually starting to work again. Unfriendly much?

The Play Store also had trouble resolving dependencies between core apps while they were being upgraded. A bunch of “You must upgrade X before you can upgrade Y” notifications were thrown at me after I hit “Update All”. This sort of thing shouldn’t happen ever, much less immediately after a factory reset (i.e. with no third-party apps in play).

3. Settings, settings, settings

The design of Android’s “Settings” app has improved significantly since previous versions, but I still found it relatively cluttered, with too many superfluous “advanced” options offered too prominently. Your mileage may vary.

Enterprise users will be annoyed to find that proxy auto-discovery remains unavailable in Lollilop. Manually entering a PAC file URL is still necessary. Apple has been all over this for years now. C’mon, Google!

Also, disabling those annoying keyboard tap sounds is not a simple task, because settings for “Sounds” aren’t all in one place. (I eventually found the toggle I was looking for–deep in “Keyboard” settings. Argh.)

Finally: IMAP users still can’t configure the stock email app to use custom mailboxes for Sent messages and Trash. Their names are hard-coded into the app.

4. Notifications

I liked that I could turn off all notifications for a set period of time (unlike “Do Not Disturb” mode on iOS, which needs to be manually switched off). I didn’t like that I could allow “priority” interruptions during this notification blackout–simply because it’s not clear what a “priority” interruption is (“Did I configure this? Do I trust my former self to have configured it properly? Is my presentation going to be interrupted by a Facebook message?”) I also didn’t like that the UI for this feature only appeared when I used the volume rocker. It belongs on the main notification panel.

My verdict

Android as an operating system isn’t bad. Like iOS, it has annoying shortcomings in some areas, but overall, it’s fast, beautiful and easy to use. When it’s not, pop-up tips pick up the slack.

So why do I think it “still sucks”?

It’s the apps.

Or, to be more specific, it’s the tablet apps.

Android has been tablet-friendly for years now, but a large of number of app developers (including Facebook) stubbornly refuse to build tablet versions of their apps. With a few exceptions, most of the apps I tried on the Nexus 7 opened as stretched or magnified phone apps. I could access all of my content, but the apps were so useless I couldn’t do anything with it.

The iOS App Store, meanwhile, is full of high-quality tablet apps.

Also, iOS plays nice with IMAP.

Also, Apple doesn’t hunger and thirst for my metadata.

The post Why Android still sucks appeared first on luke arms.

Click through for a thorough and insightful commentary on Google’s move towards “closed source” with Android. There’s some eye-opening stuff on the so-called “Open Handset Alliance”, too.

Things are much more straightforward over here in Apple-land.

The post Android: less “open” every day appeared first on luke arms.

Click through for some enlightening analysis of Google’s pursuit of Android despite their lack of genuine interest in mobile hardware and operating systems. In light of the breadth and length of today’s keynote at Google I/O, this makes a lot of sense:

…now that Android is successful, Google is back to focusing on “the best of Google”.

(via Marco Arment)

The post Android as a “detour” appeared first on luke arms.

Marco Arment’s take:

The Verge’s headline for this article: “Google changes how it measures Android version adoption, sees uptick in Jelly Bean devices”.

A more accurate title would be: “Google changes how it measures Android version adoption to show an uptick in Jelly Bean devices”.

Stay classy, Google.

The post Number-fudging 101, by Google appeared first on luke arms.

Because tailoring Android for education will make it so much more useful for teaching and learning.

For extra laughs, note that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. is behind this. Because, you know, News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch himself have so much cred when it comes to tech and the interwebz.

The post “The iPad may soon have competition in the education sector” appeared first on luke arms.

My inner geek loves the idea of running Windows apps on phones and tablets via WINE on Android, but I can’t help putting it through my will-this-actually-help-any-end-users filter, and, ah, yeah. WINE on Android is going to be completely and utterly useless. (Except maybe for my dad, who’s a sucker for any modern environment capable of running WordStar.)

Most Windows software is unintuitive with a large, 72dpi screen, full-size keyboard and two-button mouse. Who in their right mind would want to run any of it on a small device optimised for touch-based UI’s?

Not even Android sets its usability bar that low.

But you have fun, Alexandre Julliard. It looks like you know how to:

“Julliard uses an Apple MacBook for development of his software that runs on Linux to run Windows software… Android was emulated for his demo.”

The post Windows apps on Android: because that would be, ah, awesome appeared first on luke arms.

If I’m staring at a screen for fun, it’s to read, write, socialise or code.

But I’m truly impressed with the real-time 3D rendering this free showcase app demonstrates:

Epic Citadel for iOS
Epic Citadel for Android (Google Play)

Check out the falling leaves, flowing water and dynamic sun flare!

Here’s the kicker: the framerate on Mr 3’s first-gen iPad is perfectly acceptable. Of course the iPad 4, iPad Mini and Nexus 7 smoke it, but still. Unreal Engine 3 is amazing.

The post Unreal 3D rendering on iOS and Android: Epic Citadel appeared first on luke arms.

Stephen Hackett, on The Next Web’s withdrawal of its magazine offering for Android:

I’m starting to think that the biggest thing holding Android back isn’t the carriers and Google, but the users of the platform.

It occurred to me a few months ago that most of the rabid Android fans I know aren’t good friends, and never will be (for unrelated reasons).

There might be more to that anecdotal correlation than I thought. It looks like Android users tend to be content-thieving if-it-ain’t-free-I-don’t-want-it types, for example.

Interesting.

The post The biggest problem with Android? The users. appeared first on luke arms.

Not that I’m complaining. You’d have to be slightly crazy to expect a 7-inch tablet to be a comfortable workhorse, and at $250-odd for the Nexus 7, you’d be forgiven for thinking “dedicated backlit book reader”, like I did. Fair warning, though: you might find yourself inexplicably drawn to the other niceties of Google’s new tablet.

I still love my iPad, and I still think iOS is the bomb, but for the first time ever, Android has genuinely impressed me. The Nexus 7’s “Jelly Bean” UI is every bit as smooth and responsive as iOS, the physical device is a delight to hold and use, and the operating system itself finally feels both polished and robust.

These improvements won’t solve Android’s inherent device fragmentation problems, but I think the buzz Google has created by so successfully launching a slick, affordable 7-inch tablet will go a long way towards attracting high-quality tablet apps to their app store. (There are still relatively few tablet-optimised Android apps available, but it’s reassuring that Google Play is making it easier than ever to find them. I’ve been particularly impressed with Evernote, Instapaper and Plume so far.)

Will the Nexus 7 take a sizable bite out of Apple’s enormous tablet market share? It’s too early to say. My hunch is that we’ll see Android grow as iOS developers port their apps for Nexus 7 users, but if Apple reply with a cheap 7-inch iPad before Android tablets gain momentum, the strength of Apple’s app ecosystem will continue to make it tough for Android.

May all of the good products win!

(Also: Google/ASUS should take packaging lessons from Apple. Liberating my Nexus 7 from its box required surgery to the box ;) )

The post Google Nexus 7: Android’s salvation? appeared first on luke arms.