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OS DOES matter in smartphones

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#1 of 11 Posted Nov-1 5:33 PM

From Frank B. (Forum Janitor) Posts 4689 Last Nov-24
To All [Msg # 129663.1 ]

Several times here we have noted that the OS on a phone is a non-issue in the minds of many. This may be changing.

This article from PC World quotes ABI mobile devices practice director Kevin Burden as saying: "Nearly all consumers used to choose handsets based on the physical characteristics of the hardware, not the software inside. The iPhone changed that: more users are now shopping for their handset based on the operating system and software, which is something once thought to be very unlikely."

Android is becoming a recognized 'brand name' in the new wave of handsets coming out all over the world. Google is no doubt behind a lot of this.

What is your take? Will Android 'critical mass' be reached early, sidelining many of its competitors?

Frank.

-----------------------
Single booting Linux all day, every day, at home and at work.

#2 of 11 Posted Nov-5 11:37 PM

From Mike Halloran Posts 137 Last Nov-24
To Frank B. (Forum Janitor) [Msg # 129663.2 129663.1 ]

The iPhone's brain- damaged hardware and inbuilt stupidity manage to fluorescently illuminate the disadvantages of single- tasking, for one thing.

-Mike-

#3 of 11 Posted Nov-6 9:30 AM

From Frank B. (Forum Janitor) Posts 4689 Last Nov-24
To Mike Halloran [Msg # 129663.3 129663.2 ]

Mike:

Not having one, I don't know. However, I guess Apple could change that. Mac OSX is built on a Unix kernel. I'm assuming that they could do the same for the iPhone if they wanted. After all, they did straddle both fences when switching from the PowerPC to Intel, producing an OS that would run both new and legacy software.

I thought the point of the article was more the ovewhelming early adoption of Android as an OS by many manufacturers. There are other OS's out there that could be as capable as Android, but market pressure may be squeezing them out. In this case, Google is becoming the new MS with regard to influence in this area, and people are beginning to jump ship, it would seem. Critical mass for Android is developing quickly.

Frank.

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Single booting Linux all day, every day, at home and at work.

#4 of 11 Posted Nov-6 3:21 PM

From D.F. Yriart (Sysop) Posts 524 Last Nov-24
To Frank B. (Forum Janitor) [Msg # 129663.4 129663.3 ]

Frank,

>> Not having one, I don't know. However, I guess Apple could change that. Mac OSX is built on a Unix kernel. I'm assuming that they could do the same for the iPhone if they wanted. <<

The stated reason that the iPhone OS doesn't multi-task for most applications is power management. Given how power-thirsty my Android G1 is with several apps running concurrently, I can believe this. New generations of CPUs and batteries will alleviate the problem, and then Apple will probably allow iPhone OS to multi-task.

Doug Yriart
Linux Rocks!

#5 of 11 Posted Nov-6 5:59 PM

From Frank B. (Forum Janitor) Posts 4689 Last Nov-24
To D.F. Yriart (Sysop) [Msg # 129663.5 129663.4 ]

Doug:

>The stated reason that the iPhone OS doesn't multi-task for most applications is power management.<

I would think it would be more of a case of memory management. Background tasks don't have to take a lot of power. In fact, they could be all but suspended. It is the user that can't multitask. I suspect that all the user wants is to be able to switch between apps already loaded.

I guess there is the overhead of switching the processor from one area of memory to another, reloading registers, doing a few checks, and so on, even if the task is dormant. Does that really consume that much power, however?

Frank.

-----------------------
Single booting Linux all day, every day, at home and at work.

Message 129663.6 was moved to 129680.1

#7 of 11 Posted Nov-6 9:24 PM

From Mike Halloran Posts 137 Last Nov-24
To Frank B. (Forum Janitor) [Msg # 129663.7 129663.5 ]

The iPhone already keeps multiple power- hungry pieces of hardware on. The iPhone can get its location directly from the GPS, or infer it from a WiFi signal. But it also needs 3G or Edge to bring you the maps, which are not stored on the phone, and not cached to any noticeable degree.

Aggravating demo of single tasking, and/or architectural dimness: If the display is too bright or too dim, you have to shut down navigation and load the 'Settings' app to change the brightness. Of course, you can turn on auto- brightness, which doesn't always work, and even when it does work, it's not automatic. I.e., to demonstrate auto- brightness, you turn off the power switch, and then turn it back on. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes your app fires up again, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the brightness doesn't change anyway.

Suppose you're navigating down the road, and you need to call someone, or read or write a note. You can't just 'flip away' from navigation and come back real quick; you have to kill it off and restart it. Like most apps, navigation sort of remembers what you were doing and more or less where you were, but it still has to go through its entire startup process when you go back to it. That can take a while. ... and app startup time has gotten _way_ worse as AT&T keeps selling iPhones without, apparently, expanding the system.

Even the news apps remember where they were, which is really a Bad Thing, because they go through their startup process, getting longer by the day, and eventually load, more slowly by the day, .... yesterday's news. Then they blank the screen and start to load, more slowly by the day, today's news. Then when you select an item, they load, ,more slowly by the day... I.e., there's no predictive prefetching of the stuff you _always_ load. Okay, maybe that's expecting a lot, but it's hardly a new idea, and not all that difficult to do.

One thing that _really_ took me by surprise, for a device coming from Apple; the user interfaces of apps can be substantially different from each other. They all have a subset of the same functions, more or less, but the trigger locations are not uniform. E.g. most nav apps use the same icon for 'find my current location and use it', but the icon could be anywhere on the screen.

-Mike-

Messages 129663.8 through 129663.11 were moved to 129680.2

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OS DOES matter in smartphones

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