Are iOS and Android continuing to converging on the same features? What new innovations can be found in the mature mobile market or should be look to other form factors?
I'm sure there are new things coming but the era of gamechanging (or at least gimmicks that felt gamechanging) is probably near an end.
That said, I find nothing wrong with Apple adding features from Android (and vice versa) where it fits the device. The only thing I miss about the HTC One M8 I had was that I could double tap the screen to wake it (that rounded back loved sliding in the car. Reminded me of the iPhone 3G/3GS. Kind of disliked the phone outside of the double tap to wake and the speakers)
Apple very rarely actually innovates. Their innovations tend to be the perfection of an existing technology. I can't think of anything they've done first. They're the prime example of "second mover advantage".
AR/VR is where the new innovations are happening. ARKit, Tango, Oculus, Hololens, etc.
They used to in the Jobs era. Haven't seen anything jaw dropping since then. Mostly new colors, difference sizes and minor UI improvements.. Swift is cool, but it doesn't increase sales.
AR/VR is interesting but won't take off until the hardware lowers in price..significantly.
Handling a smart phone is already stressful enough. You can't touch the entire front of phone in fear of accidentally tapping something, even if the screen is off because it might turn on at any moment. With tap to wake you have to worry about just bumping it and with facial expressions you'd literally need to be concerned about just looking at it funny.
Actually thinking about it...if Apple did a force touch to wake it could be pretty awesome. So a light press would turn on the screen on low brightness, slowly building up as you increase pressure. Let go and it turns off, commit to the press and you are in.
Agreed. My LG G2 had that, and it was absolutely fantastic; but no phone since then has had double tap to turn off, only on.
I guess they're worried about false positives. But LG solved this by only allowing double tap to turn off from any of the default apps (home screen, notifications, settings, etc). You had to quit out of third party apps to turn it off that way.
You know what's even more useful? A physical button, for literally everything except infrequent single tap actions (i.e. not typing) and zooming in. Even for those, I'd prefer a device be required to do it instead of my skin so I can hold the phone like I can a pad of paper.
The Apple watch has tap to wake, I find myself accidentally triggering it a lot. If I cross my arms and I'm wearing short sleeves, I often accidentally start a stopwatch.
Not really - there's a reason why the Android phones that have tap to wake require two taps in quick succession, or similar. It's very difficult to accidentally trigger it.
The facial recognition stuff seems odd to me, in the sense that I can't really figure out what it would be used for (aside from a silly smile detector in the camera app), but hopefully it'll be locked behind permission prompts (or barely accessible at all) in third party apps.
I once read something about games or ads using facial recognition to get a better feedback about how their game/ad is performing. (I think it was Kinect).
Developers can then check what levels are fun to play, and what are a chore. That way they can optimize their future games, or even change the level architecture based on the emotional level of the player.
I think you can apply this strategy to ads too, to learn what kind of ad an user likes or dislikes, so they can target the ads a little bit better/easier.
> I think you can apply this strategy to ads too, to learn what kind of ad an user likes or dislikes, so they can target the ads a little bit better/easier.
Which is exactly why I will refuse to give any facial recognition data to third party apps.
Why? If you are going to be seeing ads anyway, might as well see better targeted and useful ads that make your face cheer up. Don't get all the cynicism.
There has been plenty written about the creepiness of personal information intrusion in today's society, so I won't recap it here. But facial gestures in iOS worry me for two reasons:
1. People will give permission for it without realising their personal information, preferences and data will be collected, aggregated and used to build an overall profile of them as a person, to find the most effective way of convincing them to buy things. Much like the old flashlight apps that curiously required location permissions, it'll be permission creep all over again.
2. Facial gestures are involuntary. You don't explicitly give permission for the fact that X made you smile and Y made you frown because it'll happen before you're even consciously aware that you've done it.
Why do you think ad providers will optimise for things that make me happy? Why not optimise for things that make me worried, and more likely to purchase the answer whatever "problem" they are putting in front of me?
They're not going to optimize for what makes me happy, they're going to optimize for what makes me spend. There's a strong chance these are not the same things.
The rumor mill suggests that the face detect is used for authentication, and is there because Apple hasn't been able to get the fingerprint sensor to read through the screen, and they need a quick-unlock feature like TouchID.
I hope it works - I rather like TouchID and would be disappointed to have it replaced by something crappier.
there were other rumors pointing to the touch id being integrated on the sides of the device and even worse but discredited rumor of it being moved to the back.
my concern with any facial recognition replacing what is currently in use is that many times I unlock my phone without having to look at it and rely on that. The old slip it out of my pocket and quick glance to see if I need to address something now
I'd be ecstatic actually if they moved it to the back. I use a Pixel as my other phone (for Android dev) and the natural placement of the fingerprint sensor near your index finger is IMO a really nice feature.
That said, I don't think it'll ever happen - that placement of the sensor is so much of an Android-ism that I doubt Apple would ever allow themselves to adopt it.
I have a Pixel and the only downside with the sensor on the back is that if the phone is flat on a surface you have to either pick it up to use the sensor or enter your PIN.
I've used 3 different phones with the fingerprint sensor on the back (Nexus 6p, LG G6, Pixel) ... Pulling it out of my pocket is fantastic. Trying to quickly glance at something while it's sitting on my desk is fkn annoying.
I am very disturbed by the prospect of losing Touch ID. It works so damned well and in so many situations that I can imagine facial identification either failing (when wearing a balaclava, if the phone is partially occluded discretely beneath a desk, when unlocking it from bed when I am horizontal with my face smashed into the pillow) and functioning when I do not want it to (if somebody picks up my phone and flashes my face at it, has a photograph or 3D printed head of me, etc.).
> Not really - there's a reason why the Android phones that have tap to wake require two taps in quick succession, or similar. It's very difficult to accidentally trigger it.
That's not my experience. When I put the phone in my pocket I have to take care of positionning the back against my body otherwise my skin through the jeans trigger pocket calls.
I'll believe it. But Apple typically does better than the average Android phone when it comes to hardware sensors, I imagine they'll be able to detect the difference.
On the phones I've owned with tap-to-wake, it wasn't a full unlock, just some level of the lock screen being illuminated.
With my old Moto X, I could just wave my hand over the phone while it was laying next to me and a minimal version of the lock screen with clock and notifications would show up.
On my current phone (Pixel) it does the same with a double tap: clock, notifications, nothing else. The phone doesn't unlock until I use the fingerprint reader or swipe my lock pattern.
Any type of "authentication" wouldn't make sense, that'd be as silly as a finger print scanner. Smile detector might be fun but certainly not worth the privacy trade off. There's only 1 useful feature I can think of and I've yet to see it done: when my head is sideways and the phone is sideways, I'm lying down, don't rotate the frickin' screen. Still not worth the privacy trade off, but people who don't care will be very happy.
Somehow, I think Apple probably thought about this before making a change to their flagship phone.
They have many options, including making the "tap" a force touch. So requiring a certain amount of pressure before actually turning on. Or requiring a double tap. Or being more of a "tap to unlock" using raise to wake.
>Somehow, I think Apple probably thought about this before making a change to their flagship phone.
Like how they thought about how a user's hand could short the antenna circuit with the iPhone 4? Not to entirely discredit the effort their engineers put into these phones, but oversights happen and some aren't discovered until you get enough hands on the device.
They stopped thinking when Jobs died. Now they're just taking his last known visions to foolish extremes. Sadly, the rest of the brands just blindly follow them, so it won't matter, they'll still be "ahead" of everyone else.
As a developer I'm more or less required to keep up with new hardware developments but I'm still fine with my 6S with 3D touch. The rest of the new hardware features work fine within a simulator. I'd rather buy an iPad Pro than a new phone this year.
But I didn't like the design of the iPhone 6 compared to the 4 and 5. It's good to see it change finally. The 4 and 5 looked like a piece of futuristic technology, like the Samsung Edge designs nowadays. From what I've seen the iPhone 8 will outdo Samsung for the first time in years in that department.
Same on the 6S. Not the least because of the audio jack. But the removal of the fingerprint reader is another problem. Looking at your iphone for face recognition is one thing but how can you discretely check your emails during a meeting?
Am I the only person who uses the physical home button to feel for which way is up when pulling the phone out their pocket? I'm going to look like an idiot 50% of the time i pull my phone out once that button goes virtual.
I thought the same, but I've been using various phones with virtual home buttons for years and it's never been an issue. I found that in practice I am almost always holding my phone in my hand before putting it in my pocket so it goes in the same way each time.
Having the extra screen space available for watching full screen videos and such is nice.
There's also the speaker and mic, the power and volume buttons, and the toggle switch (mute/rotate/etc).
If they could use identical transducers that perform well as both speaker and mic, then I'm sure the remaining buttons could be made virtual as well (full touch-sensitive sidebars maybe?), although personally I like having certain buttons implemented as physical devices.
I know a novice user who sticks with iDevices (as opposed to Android) precisely because they have a physical home button. As they describe it, "it's a magic button that's always there and always gets you back out of whatever you're in". By contrast, they dislike Android devices because of the virtual buttons that are sometimes removed in favor of more content.
Usability is very much about consistency with whatever a user is used to, and I'd be surprised if there aren't quite a few more users with similar sensibilities who find the physical button simpler to deal with.
I can't second this strongly enough. Honestly I didn't move to the iPhone 7 solely because of the shift from the traditional button style to the new non press-able button. I don't even want to think about an iPhone without a home button.
I do not think it is just novice users that like the home button.
Modern Android phones have a fingerprint scanner that also acts as a home button.
I just got a $130 Moto E4, and its fingerprint scanner can actually be set to mimic the back/home/recents on-screen softkeys, if you swipe left/tap/swipe right. A long press (until you feel a vibration) switches the phone on and off, and a double-long press (two vibrations) launches Google Assistant.
It works well and is very intuitive, allowing me to remove the traditional Android softkeys, making the 5" Moto E screen seem closer to a 5.5". I assume Moto's more expensive models also do this, and possibly other phones as well.
It made me wonder how I lived for so long with the old setup, so I'd be surprised if Apple goes the other way.
Wouldn't the new virtual button use haptic feedback ("Force Touch")? If so, the lack of a physical button shouldn't matter. Today's home button (on the 6 and 7 series) is also haptic -- if your phone is dead, there's no click.
All this means is that they can use the screen real estate for something other than a button in some cases. If you're watching a video, I wouldn't be surprised if the home button still worked, it would just be hidden. (But it wouldn't be a huge loss if it didn't work, either, in my opinion.)
> All this means is that they can use the screen real estate for something other than a button in some cases.
That's exactly what I was describing as a bug, rather than a feature, in this case. A physical button is always there, always works, doesn't make the UI contextual, and gives a novice user confidence that they can always "escape".
I personally do prefer to have as much screen real-estate as possible, at the expense of a physical button next to the screen; however, that's not a universal preference, and I would not be at all surprised if more Apple users are particularly fond of that button.
Pedant corner: The iPhone 6 has a physical home button, with Switch and all (I know this as I am writing this post on one). The haptic home "button" didn't appear until the 7.
> I know a novice user who sticks with iDevices (as opposed to Android) precisely because they have a physical home button.
Numerous Android devices (including, I believe, all the Samsung lines and certainly the flagship Sn and Galaxy Note lines) have physical home buttons. So its kind of odd that one would base a preference for iDevices over Android on a feature on which the two are not differentiated.
Non-Google devices are typically infested with all sorts of vendor junk, so that's not an improvement. The flagship devices don't have a physical home button.
> Non-Google devices are typically infested with all sorts of vendor junk, so that's not an improvement.
Honestly, I'd don't see much making Samsung's “vendor junk” any worse than Apple's, but, sure, if you prefer Apple's software to that provides by the major Android device makers, that's a legitimate reason to prefer iOS to Android. The patently false idea that Android devices, as a class, don't have a physical home key is not.
> The flagship devices don't have a physical home button.
Many Android flagship phones do. Google's Pixel line does not, but while Pixel might fairly be called an Android flagship phone (well, two, the base model and the XL) or Google's flagship phone(s), it's clearly not the whole of the space of Android flagships.
There's a pretty clear difference between stock Android and non-stock Android. Yes, random non-stock devices also include customizations such as home buttons, but that's not the default experience. And the random other inconsistencies of such devices would rather defeat the purpose.
I used to have Jolla phone and there was no buttons on front face at all. You could get to home screen with swipe. I found it much more handful than Android and iOS home buttons (physical or virtual).
Edit: there was also tap-to-wake which is awesome feature as well. Happy to see it on iOS.
I remember that; I think it's a nice design, if made available consistently and not overridable by apps. There just needs to be some consistent action that always works in any context.
I can't wait for the home button to disappear. It's served its purpose, but with facial unlock (works really well on the Surface with Windows Hello), tap to wake, sound unlock, etc and with 3D touch, there are better ways of simulating home button like behavior without the button.
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[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 162 ms ] threadAre iOS and Android continuing to converging on the same features? What new innovations can be found in the mature mobile market or should be look to other form factors?
That said, I find nothing wrong with Apple adding features from Android (and vice versa) where it fits the device. The only thing I miss about the HTC One M8 I had was that I could double tap the screen to wake it (that rounded back loved sliding in the car. Reminded me of the iPhone 3G/3GS. Kind of disliked the phone outside of the double tap to wake and the speakers)
AR/VR is where the new innovations are happening. ARKit, Tango, Oculus, Hololens, etc.
Even this point is highly contentious.
AR/VR is interesting but won't take off until the hardware lowers in price..significantly.
Android?
1. Double-tap on the screen. Lockscreen appears.
2. Check the clock.
3. Fumble annoyedly until finding the power button to turn the screen off.
I guess they're worried about false positives. But LG solved this by only allowing double tap to turn off from any of the default apps (home screen, notifications, settings, etc). You had to quit out of third party apps to turn it off that way.
That is how it has been implemented in the Android phones I've used so far.
The facial recognition stuff seems odd to me, in the sense that I can't really figure out what it would be used for (aside from a silly smile detector in the camera app), but hopefully it'll be locked behind permission prompts (or barely accessible at all) in third party apps.
I was skeptical, but I have a friend who has a similar thing running on his Windows box and it works surprisingly well.
Developers can then check what levels are fun to play, and what are a chore. That way they can optimize their future games, or even change the level architecture based on the emotional level of the player.
I think you can apply this strategy to ads too, to learn what kind of ad an user likes or dislikes, so they can target the ads a little bit better/easier.
Which is exactly why I will refuse to give any facial recognition data to third party apps.
1. People will give permission for it without realising their personal information, preferences and data will be collected, aggregated and used to build an overall profile of them as a person, to find the most effective way of convincing them to buy things. Much like the old flashlight apps that curiously required location permissions, it'll be permission creep all over again.
2. Facial gestures are involuntary. You don't explicitly give permission for the fact that X made you smile and Y made you frown because it'll happen before you're even consciously aware that you've done it.
Why do you think ad providers will optimise for things that make me happy? Why not optimise for things that make me worried, and more likely to purchase the answer whatever "problem" they are putting in front of me?
That is, maximized micro transactions and addictive potential.
I hope it works - I rather like TouchID and would be disappointed to have it replaced by something crappier.
my concern with any facial recognition replacing what is currently in use is that many times I unlock my phone without having to look at it and rely on that. The old slip it out of my pocket and quick glance to see if I need to address something now
That said, I don't think it'll ever happen - that placement of the sensor is so much of an Android-ism that I doubt Apple would ever allow themselves to adopt it.
That's not my experience. When I put the phone in my pocket I have to take care of positionning the back against my body otherwise my skin through the jeans trigger pocket calls.
With my old Moto X, I could just wave my hand over the phone while it was laying next to me and a minimal version of the lock screen with clock and notifications would show up.
On my current phone (Pixel) it does the same with a double tap: clock, notifications, nothing else. The phone doesn't unlock until I use the fingerprint reader or swipe my lock pattern.
Any type of "authentication" wouldn't make sense, that'd be as silly as a finger print scanner. Smile detector might be fun but certainly not worth the privacy trade off. There's only 1 useful feature I can think of and I've yet to see it done: when my head is sideways and the phone is sideways, I'm lying down, don't rotate the frickin' screen. Still not worth the privacy trade off, but people who don't care will be very happy.
They have many options, including making the "tap" a force touch. So requiring a certain amount of pressure before actually turning on. Or requiring a double tap. Or being more of a "tap to unlock" using raise to wake.
Like how they thought about how a user's hand could short the antenna circuit with the iPhone 4? Not to entirely discredit the effort their engineers put into these phones, but oversights happen and some aren't discovered until you get enough hands on the device.
But I didn't like the design of the iPhone 6 compared to the 4 and 5. It's good to see it change finally. The 4 and 5 looked like a piece of futuristic technology, like the Samsung Edge designs nowadays. From what I've seen the iPhone 8 will outdo Samsung for the first time in years in that department.
Facial recognition usually falls down in low-light situations as well, such as while laying in bed, or on a red-eye flight.
You could always use the old-school keycode unlock.
I worry that in a couple years we'll just have a shiny black lump in our pocket that we'll communicate with via intuition.
Though to address randerson's point, the accessories aftermarket would pick up Apple's shortcomings, as usual.
Having the extra screen space available for watching full screen videos and such is nice.
If you remove the home button then there is no up and down, since the virtual home button would always rotate to the bottom per gravity.
If they could use identical transducers that perform well as both speaker and mic, then I'm sure the remaining buttons could be made virtual as well (full touch-sensitive sidebars maybe?), although personally I like having certain buttons implemented as physical devices.
I know a novice user who sticks with iDevices (as opposed to Android) precisely because they have a physical home button. As they describe it, "it's a magic button that's always there and always gets you back out of whatever you're in". By contrast, they dislike Android devices because of the virtual buttons that are sometimes removed in favor of more content.
Usability is very much about consistency with whatever a user is used to, and I'd be surprised if there aren't quite a few more users with similar sensibilities who find the physical button simpler to deal with.
I do not think it is just novice users that like the home button.
I just got a $130 Moto E4, and its fingerprint scanner can actually be set to mimic the back/home/recents on-screen softkeys, if you swipe left/tap/swipe right. A long press (until you feel a vibration) switches the phone on and off, and a double-long press (two vibrations) launches Google Assistant.
It works well and is very intuitive, allowing me to remove the traditional Android softkeys, making the 5" Moto E screen seem closer to a 5.5". I assume Moto's more expensive models also do this, and possibly other phones as well.
It made me wonder how I lived for so long with the old setup, so I'd be surprised if Apple goes the other way.
All this means is that they can use the screen real estate for something other than a button in some cases. If you're watching a video, I wouldn't be surprised if the home button still worked, it would just be hidden. (But it wouldn't be a huge loss if it didn't work, either, in my opinion.)
That's exactly what I was describing as a bug, rather than a feature, in this case. A physical button is always there, always works, doesn't make the UI contextual, and gives a novice user confidence that they can always "escape".
I personally do prefer to have as much screen real-estate as possible, at the expense of a physical button next to the screen; however, that's not a universal preference, and I would not be at all surprised if more Apple users are particularly fond of that button.
Numerous Android devices (including, I believe, all the Samsung lines and certainly the flagship Sn and Galaxy Note lines) have physical home buttons. So its kind of odd that one would base a preference for iDevices over Android on a feature on which the two are not differentiated.
Honestly, I'd don't see much making Samsung's “vendor junk” any worse than Apple's, but, sure, if you prefer Apple's software to that provides by the major Android device makers, that's a legitimate reason to prefer iOS to Android. The patently false idea that Android devices, as a class, don't have a physical home key is not.
> The flagship devices don't have a physical home button.
Many Android flagship phones do. Google's Pixel line does not, but while Pixel might fairly be called an Android flagship phone (well, two, the base model and the XL) or Google's flagship phone(s), it's clearly not the whole of the space of Android flagships.
Edit: there was also tap-to-wake which is awesome feature as well. Happy to see it on iOS.
Nice! Just what advertisers need. Black Mirror here we come! /s