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iOS needs to improve on iPad

D

dayloon

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 19, 2005
309
50
Stafford, UK
Hi,

I've got an iPad2 and even though i love it and wouldn't swap it, I can't help feeling a bit let down by iOS. When i see youtube clips of Honeycomb/Android 3 on tablets like the Motorola Xoom, it looks far better than iOS. Google designed Honeycomb from the ground up for tablets didn't they ? Why couldn't apple do something similar instead of just sticking the iphone/ipod OS on there?

I really think it needs to improve. The hardware is great but the OS is really falling behind the competition.
 
Thank god your in depth analysis of YouTube videos of other tablet OS's has revealed iOS's flaws. Please email Steve.
 
i haven't used the xoom before. What would you say is better on the Xoom compared to the iPad?

From what I've read about the Xoom, it seems to have many good features but lacks the overall polish which in turn makes it frustrating to use.
 
Im really just talking about the OS. I get the impression that google made honeycomb to make the most of the tablet. Apple have just stuck the iPhone OS on there. It doesn't seem to take advantage of the screen size. I'd like to see widgets for a start

/edit - This is a good video which compares the 2 OS's on tablet devices. Maybe you'll see what I mean. It boils down to iOS having no personalisation options

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9aZDm7DOZo&feature=youtube_gdata_player
 
dayloon said:
Hi,

I've got an iPad2 and even though i love it and wouldn't swap it, I can't help feeling a bit let down by iOS. When i see youtube clips of Honeycomb/Android 3 on tablets like the Motorola Xoom, it looks far better than iOS. Google designed Honeycomb from the ground up for tablets didn't they ? Why couldn't apple do something similar instead of just sticking the iphone/ipod OS on there?

I really think it needs to improve. The hardware is great but the OS is really falling behind the competition.
Click to expand...

so you're basing an opinion of the xoom on videos rather than actual usage? riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. just cos something looks better on random youtube videos, doesn't mean it is.
 
I think ios5 is going to address most problems.

Now competitors have trickled out their devices I cant see Apple pushing out minor changes. I think something very cool is coming our way addressing the likes of Widgets and easier work flow for documents and files without iTunes
 
Ps - the lion preview page on Apples site already confirms wireless syncing of docs to the iPad
 
I really don't get this fascination people seem to have with widgets - what are they good for, exactly? Why should I want them cluttering my screen?

It is my understanding that Apple made the iPhone knowing that they would eventually produce the iPad... so I wouldn't say that iOS was designed just for phones.

iOS looks simple. You just have your apps and no distractions... I'm sure there are areas where it could be improved (cough..notifications...cough) but not taking advantage of the screen size? That's up to individual apps... isn't it?
 
forget widgets, why after seeing iCab and atomic..why can't Safari have half of those features? why must these default browsers be so miniimalist?it frustrates me. if Safari can adopt those features. Heck if Apple can learn from most its competitors of its default apps. Ipad stock would be so much better.
 
dayloon said:
Im really just talking about the OS. I get the impression that google made honeycomb to make the most of the tablet. Apple have just stuck the iPhone OS on there. It doesn't seem to take advantage of the screen size. I'd like to see widgets for a start
Click to expand...

Actually, making the most of the tablet involves having more than 15 tablet apps available in my opinion. :)

This myth that Google has perpetuated about Honeycomb being a true tablet OS is getting really old.
 
I'm pretty sure people look at Android 3.0 and get excited merely because it's different. It's a fresh tablet OS, so of course people are going to be intrigued. Wait until it becomes the norm and is on every cookie-cutter tablet, then see how impressed you are by it.

I've never used a Xoom before but I'm not interested almost entirely because it's a tablet and OS designed primarily for landscape use. If anyone has any doubts about this, just look where the forward facing camera is. The software and hardward (screen res) almost prohibit functional portrait use as far as I can tell.

Also, I for one really like the vertical integration of iOS on my iphone, iPad, and soon iMac with Lion. Having a common interface across an entire spectrum of devices is awesome. Just my $0.02.
 
iOS can always get better, but you have to realize what Apple did here. In the keynote address for iPad 1, Jobs made a big deal of noting that "you already know how to use it." This has proved to be a big advantage for the general consumer that doesn't want to learn a brand new operating system and is confused by Honeycomb.

Also, remember Apple's design philosophy is to get the OS out of the way to let applications do their thing. I would argue that it's not the OS that needs to be optimized for the tablet, but more that apps need to be built to utilize the big screen.
 
iOS on iPad is rock solid, but I can see where you are coming from. While functional, it does look quite bland in comparison to the new Honeycomb UIs (which IMO look pretty damn awesome).

However, I think the issue would be to make an attractive UI without trading off on any functionality/ease of use.
 
ForumViewer said:
.

Also, I for one really like the vertical integration of iOS on my iphone, iPad, and soon iMac with Lion. Having a common interface across an entire spectrum of devices is awesome. Just my $0.02.
Click to expand...

Just curious, but what integration? I actually think integration is way underdeveloped. Look at the upcoming HP webOS devices. Transfer data between the a phone and tablet just by tapping the two together, pick up a call on the tablet that comes through on the phone, etc. That's the sort of integration that just seems like a no-brainer. I'm sure Apple is working on something.
 
I was just thinking of how apple could improve ios to allow widgets and I see them doing it by adding a "dashboard" very similar to the way it is done in lion. They could replace the search page with a dashboard page.. that would work well
 
I agree, ios on the iPad seems abit lazy to me... so much more could have been done to make it more useful for a tablet. It works ok the way it is now... its just a bit boring now... and with all the screen space it could be so much better
 
thelookingglass said:
Just curious, but what integration? I actually think integration is way underdeveloped. Look at the upcoming HP webOS devices. Transfer data between the a phone and tablet just by tapping the two together, pick up a call on the tablet that comes through on the phone, etc. That's the sort of integration that just seems like a no-brainer. I'm sure Apple is working on something.
Click to expand...

It seems like he's talking more about the UI. With Lion, finally OSX and iOS share a lot of the same UI elements.

There could be better integration across the devices, but there is some. Remember MobileMe syncs all the devices very effectively. You can share files over iDisk. Apple seems to be taking more of a cloud method of integration while Palm is taking a local one. Like you said, Apple is certainly not resting on it's laurels, and I'm sure that any innovation that they see in Palm or Android as being useful for iOS is probably in development.
 
I locked up my iPad 2 yesterday to the point where I could not swipe screens left or right. I was using iCircuit. The only thing that worked was the 4 finger swipe up gesture.

I had to hard reset my iPad.
 
The only current system I can think of that was specifically built for tablets is on the RIM Playbook.

iOS and Android both simply tacked on GUI element support that let apps take better advantage of the larger screen space. (e.g. split windows and popups)

WebOS did similar, but also had a better multitasking paradigm to continue with.

They'll all eventually converge to look pretty similar. It's just too bad that they all run different apps. (Well, okay, it'll be really easy for developers to convert Android apps to the Playbook.)
 
iOS 5 will probably take advantage of the screen size of the iPad, as previous iOS iterations were mostly developed before iPad 1's release.
 
Let's also remember that Apple is trying to maximize battery life on their portables. Having widgets running in the background, while nice, is counter to this.
 
dayloon said:
Im really just talking about the OS. I get the impression that google made honeycomb to make the most of the tablet. Apple have just stuck the iPhone OS on there. It doesn't seem to take advantage of the screen size. I'd like to see widgets for a start
Click to expand...

Ah, right, I see where the problem is here and I think it's a matter of perspective. You seem to be saying (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that a tablet OS should make use of the size of the device by allowing multiple sources of information at one time. Widgets, Apps, whatever you want to call the programs providing that information doesn't really matter. This is a perfectly valid interpretation of what a tablet OS should be but it's not the one Apple's gone with.

Their design language is based around the concept of full screen apps and ONLY full screen apps. While this limits the number of simultanious tasks you can do (to, uh, one actually) it has major benefits in terms of useability and functionality, primarily because you can guarantee that users will ALWAYS be looking at a full screen application and can therefore make good use of the size of the screen. This is also a perfectly valid interpretation of what a tablet OS should be.

What you, personally, prefer is entirely subjective and it's good that the market supports multiple solutions to this particular problem. That said for the market Apple are targeting the current full screen approach is probably the better one for the majority of people. I'm sure iOS 5 will see some changes but I wouldn't necessarily expect a move away from this particular design philosophy.

One thing I would say though, it's entirely innacurate to say iOS wasn't designed for tablets. The OS is designed to get out of the way, keep things simple and show one app at a time and that approach works on both smartphones and tablets. The key is the applications (including the bundled stuff) and there can surely be no argument that Apple did a hell of a job with both first and third party apps when it comes to the iPad.
 
Apple started this tablet craze

Steve jobs admitted the iPad was developed first!!! He decided the idea could be used in a phone!!! If you think about it, the iPhone was the first successful tablet!!!
 
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