Well just like the Nexus S it was built by Samsung, but Google themselves are distributing it instead of a certain carrier. Which means no Sprint or Verizon crapware on the phone.
What about Samsung crapware?
As have I. I forgot about Amazon's marketplace. I was only thinking of the one that I use for my phone. Ah well, that's the nature of the beast, I guess.
And that's one of the better known ones. To a degree it's like the electrical superstores here, you can purchase theoretically the same item from any of them but the support you may get will be variable at best.
That's true. It's easy for users to jump from version to version without having to understand a new layout, and I have to give Apple credit for that. It's like the saying goes: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." But the problem that I have is that it doesn't evolve much. It just stays the same, at least visually, during all of it's updates.
Part of the reason for apparent lack of evolution is the fact that it still works on older devices too. and partly because they don't see much need to refine it, because if it isn't broken...
The nature of everything is to eventually change. Software evolves, organizations shift, it's just the way things go. I can't remember where I've read it before but it spoke of how things that were static appear to be dead. While we all know that Apple is very much alive this day and age with all of their iDevices dominating the market, their software seems....inanimate.
As a developer, I have to disagree with that. It's all about the context. Businesses, for example, pretty much depend on software being static, partly because it's about risk evaluation and partly because of the inherent workflow involved in training staff on new software and systems.
OK, piece of history. A few years ago the office I worked for updated all their systems; we'd been bought by a much bigger company, and were integrating our systems into theirs. Until you do a mass migration of 100+ users from Windows 2000 to Windows XP and Office 2000 to Office 2003, you don't really learn to appreciate the importance of things remaining how they were - because your users *will* expect it.
Also, when you're the number 1 'go to' vendor for a given class of device, especially one where your interface is considered pretty much best of breed (and let's face it, that is how iOS is pretty much considered), you do not just change things every release in an attempt to look clean and new.
Then again I've never used an iProduct aside from a Macbook so I can't really speak for any of the iOS devices. Only what I've seen from Conferences.
I think your opinion isn't incorrect. I don't recall significant shifts in iOS since 4.2.0 when I first got my iPad. That's not to say there weren't changes, but overall the experience has remained consistent, and I like that.
The problem with Android, IMO, is for example that people shouldn't care about what processes an app is going to run or modify.. it's a friggin phone!
Correct. While I applaud the fact that such things can be done if one is interested in doing them (and easier than on an iPhone, to be fair), the whole point is that the average user shouldn't have to care unless they want to. I do not care what processes my iPad is using unless it's misbehaving (then I want as much information as possible in dealing with it), and I don't see how that's any different to using a phone, if anything it's even more important because an iPad is not quite the completely-on-the-go device that a phone is.
To a degree I agree. If you operate any complex device, I'm of the opinion you should learn something about it. The standard car analogy is that you should be able to change a tyre and know when something sounds wrong in it - not that you can strip it down and rebuild the engine, and I don't see why that should be any different with a phone that's essentially a small computer in your pocket.
But on the flip side, most people buy such devices expecting them to 'just work' and in this day and age, that's not unrealistic, and Android doesn't seem to do much from what I've seen to aid this.
Android is good for many advanced users, but I think it's not for all the people that for example don't want to go around and search for the right firmware to flash on their devices or other things simple for experienced users but difficult (and non sense to do on a phone) for "normal" users
It bears many parallels to its not-entirely-distant-cousin Linux on the desktop. It's not usually that hard to get working and lets you do a variety of under the hood operations, but most people don't care and don't want to have to care, they want it to just work.
