Droid Sector » iPhone

Reasons to jailbreak iPhone… or buy Android

Jeff — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 19:42:28 +0000

Yesterday I’ve read a post “What to install in iPhone after jailbreak” and these apps and hacks were recommended:

sbSettings – quick switch wi-fi, bluetooth, 3G, ssh by swiping down from the top bar.

Activator – use volume buttons to control music player (next/previous track).

iFile — file manager.

Installous 4 — download and install any app from Internet.

FreeSync — patch that lets you use device as usual while syncing with iTunes.

FullScreen for Safari — self explanatory, also adds finger gestures.

Lockdown Pro — password protected apps.

MxTube и YourTube — download videos from YouTube.

PlayAwake — patch, allows to use any song from media library in the alarm clock.

Safari Download Manager — download any file in browser.

StayOpened – patch, prevents AppStore closing after downloading each app.

xGPS — download Google Maps for offline use.

See the trend here? A lot of people saying iOS is better, but they still need to jailbreak their devices and install patches to get the functionality available in Android without rooting.

Android and iOS fragmentation

Jeff — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 09:45:04 +0000

A CEO of Blue Frog Gaming talks about Android fragmentation:

One thing I always hear when reading about mobile development is fragmentation. Steve Jobs, who talks about Android so much because he isn’t worried about it, harps on it relentlessly. Just today I read, on an Android blog, the following quote:

“In an iOS world, you only have to write code once and know it is optimized for every phone that’s been sold.”

Bahahahahaha. Yeah right. I do iOS development, and let me tell you, fragmentation there is a huge problem. First off, there are different OSes on different devices. Here’s a chart of that:

Compare that to Android:

Pretty similar. Android in this case has the benefit of having fewer OSes in play.

Our newest app (not yet released) uses Gamecenter, which runs on iOS 4.1 or later only. Which means that when we move to the iPhone we’ll have to do two apps or simply be unavailable to half of the population. Even on the iPad, where we are developing now, it remains to be seen how many people will upgrade to 4.2.

Then there’s the hardware. Good luck developing anything for any iPhone before the 3Gs. I can’t find how many of those are left on the market (thankfully probably not too many, at least in the US) but if you want to support them you’re going to be adding a decent amount of extra work. Same for the first couple generations of iPod Touch which, by the way, don’t get upgraded nearly as quickly as phones.

And then there’s the display. We’re making a universal binary of our game that we want to work on the iPad, the iPhone 3GS, and of course the iPhone 4. As a result we have to do a bunch of extra work to get things to display properly on both handsets.

There’s plenty of fragmentation on iOS. It might not be as bad as Android. It just depends on what you’re doing. For some apps it won’t matter much at all on either platform. For some it will be impossible to support all devices. For many it will fall somewhere in between.

www.mattmaroon.com/2010/11/18/fragmentation

As an Android developer I can add that, up to this point, we have had no problems with fragmentation. Our apps have been downloaded over 1 million times and we have received only one report of looping sound on a Huawei U8230 phone. An extra line of code and this minor problem was fixed too.

Moreover, we have written not one line of code aimed at specific devices, and our apps only have two sets of graphics (mid- and hi-res). Of course some additional work is required to adapt the UI for a 10-inch tablet screen, but that’s about it.

Max Howell, TweetDeck:

Fragmentation is not really an issue, despite what you might hear. The underlying Android layout system scales your app almost perfectly for the different screens. Some tweaking is inevitably required, but web-development is certainly more difficult. Writing code that works on 1.6 but takes advantage of 2.2 is really easy, and the sort of thing you have to do on iPhone too. Nobody has to compromise. The fact that multiple vendors have customized their Android distribution is barely a problem. Custom UIs like Sense have to be taken into account, but you have two options really: do your own assets for controls, or do it 100% with native ones. So the only time we had trouble was with the black status bar region that Sense has, so we had to rethink our notification icon. www.androidpolice.com

Marco Arment on iOS Multitasking

Marco Arment on iOS Multitasking

Jeff — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 23:10:37 +0000

I’ve already received multiple emails from people who are excited for iOS 4’s multitasking because they can’t wait for this to finally stop being an issue, because they think Instapaper will be able to download articles periodically in the background.

It’s painful to respond, crushing their hopes, to tell them that the iOS multitasking system doesn’t allow me to do that.

By naming these features “multitasking”, Apple has set customers’ expectations to include what apps can do in a traditional computer multitasking environment.

It’s going to mislead people into expecting such behavior from apps, but we can’t actually deliver most of it.

Some people will notice that no apps can do these things and properly focus their disappointment on Apple. But many others will only notice the shortcomings in one particular app that they need to do the “impossible” and blame that application, leading to dissatisfaction and negative thoughts about the app.

As long as iOS “multitasking” can do much less than traditional multitasking — which will probably always be the case — this is going to be an issue.

www.marco.org

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Lifehacker article: which Phone Is Best for Power Users?

Jeff — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:46:30 +0000

Full article: iPhone vs. Android Showdown: Which Phone Is Best for Power Users?

Buyers guide: iPhone vs Android

Jeff — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 02:15:30 +0000

The new iPhone 4 now on par with the latest Android handsets hardware wise, making it harder for potencial buyers to choose between these two platforms. This is my take on the current situation.

Screen

The screen in the new iPhone is very impressive: IPS matrix with 960×640 resolution. It has a wide viewing angle, similar to AMOLED and Super AMOLED. Blacks are really good on these displays, since no backlight is used. AMOLED screen is less usable under direct sunlight.

The winner here is the Super AMOLED screen. If you need a perfect screen, get a Samsung Galaxy S. Just make sure it has no problems with Wi-Fi…

What about a “retina” resolution? It would make sense on a bigger screen. I’m afraid you’ll need a microscope to see the difference between the iPhone 4 and Droid screens. Why so many pixels then? Apple simply can’t use an other resolution without breaking all existing apps.

Controls

The Back button on Android devices is not only used to return to the previous screen within the same application, but also to return to the previously started application. Menu button might not be very intuitive in the first day of use, but it saves a valuable screen space. You’ll miss these buttons if you switch from Android to the iPhone.

The Trackball is rarely used, but it’s useful for precise link navigation in a browser and text selection.

Applications

Both Market and AppStore have a lot of apps now. Some apps in the AppStore are more mature, some apps exclusive to Android Market. One thing is true – most people can find everything they need on both platforms.

A few things are making the Market more attractive for users and developers: 24 hours money back and instant app publishing. Money back isn’t very attractive for developers with crappy apps though.

Flash

This one is simple, iPhone doesn’t have a Flash and most likely will never have. If you think that Flash is mostly used for displaying annoying ads, don’t worry, ads in HTML 5 format coming your way..

Flash is running just fine on the Nexus One. I can listen to podcasts, see streaming videos right on a webpage, without launching a dedicated app. Is it really necessary to kill Flash? Probably it will be replaced by HTML 5 in 2-3 years, but right now there are tons of Flash contents.

Notification system

Notifications are still the same on iPhone 4. See an example. Notification bar in Android is a much more elegant solution.

Cloud/Sync

Another strong point of Android is higher level of integration with online services. Address book can be synchronized over the air with FaceBook and Twitter, photos with Picasa web albums, podcasts with Google Reader… Google even has a demo of automatic over-the-air sync with music store recently at Google IO. Apple still charges $99/year for MobileMe and no sign of cloud-based music store yet.

Of course the iPhone/iTunes media sync still wins in terms of simplicity. Rating and playback stats sync is very nice feature to have.

Customization and open source

Widgets, home screens, messaging apps – many parts of Android can be customized or even entirely replaced. Open source helps coders like Cyanogen tweak the system on a deeper level and create a great mods.

That’s it, but maybe I’ve missed something? What features in Android / iOS is important for you?

Android running on iPhone

Jeff — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 06:39:18 +0000

Planetbeing and several other Dev-Team members managed to port Android OS to Apple’s iPhone.

Pre-built images and sources at http://www.mediafire.com/?xqjzn12igfn. Read the README. For generic openiboot instructions, there’s plenty now that you can search for.

It should be pretty simple to port forward to the iPhone 3G. The 3GS will take more work. Hopefully with all this groundwork laid out, we can make Android a real alternative or supplement for iPhone users. Maybe we can finally get Flash.

Source: linuxoniphone.blogspot.com

Dear iPhone fans: Nexus One is better, get over it