It's the little details that make iOS so great

[kdarling]

Tap the top of the browser bar in Safari to bring you back to the top of the webpage when you have reached the bottom of the page.

I use this feature a lot! I don't think Android has it?.

On some/all (?) Android devices, once you flick past a certain speed, the scrolling doesn't do the decay bit. Instead, it continues until you stop it. (I think this is what's confusing those posters above who complained about the scrolling.)

This is very handy for going quickly to the top, bottom, or even middle of a long document.

Personally, I think it was a huge mistake to throw out the baby with the bathwater, and get rid of scrollbars altogether. They're perfect for fast movement to the place you want to go.

 

[ritmomundo]

It all depends on what youre coming from and what you were used to before iOS. That will determine how "amazing" you find all these little things.

 

[DeepIn2U]

If you ask most average non-tech savvy users why they like iOS, they can't tell you exactly, but they just love it, it's magical. In fact most tech savvy users can't explain either.

And it's the little things, there are so many little details in iOS, attention to small details is incredible...

Couple of examples...

- Double tab space bar to get a dot(.) and a space

- Names that you have entered in your Contacts are suggested/corrected when you type them anywhere else... this is particularly good if you have Contacts with complex surnames or names, when you start typing their name in a message or notes or anywhere a correction bubble pops up.

- Camera controls, icons and preview thumbnails rotate as you rotate the phone from portrait to landscape.

- You know that ".com" on the keyboard when you are entering a web address? If you add a dot manually and then tap on the ".com" button, it still only registers one dot instead of "..com"

- If you're on the call and an alarm rings, it starts ringing quietly and through the ear piece to let you know that the alarm is ringing.

- Scroll lock

- Keyboard invisibly widens hit detection for predictable words when you are typing.


So that's what I noticed and there must be so many more little things that overall make for a wonderful experience. And just for the interest I tried these with an Android, Galaxy S II and old double tap space key for a dot works, no magic.

Very odd how some of these "little things" most iPhone users do NOT notice have been available on previous phones.

Double-Space = ending a sentence with period = BlackBerry (for eons)
Names in Contacts available in Emails (subject/body), sms/mms, twitter & other IM chat forms, dialing a name for a call brings up all their contact information = BlackBerry again.

The ability to set the alarm to notify you during a call or NOT = BlackBerry.

I'll agree that the iPhone is KING and I LOVE it, really do - it took me 3 try's at iPhone to get used to it.

There are some LITTLE things that ARE annoying that even a simplistic feature phone can do that I cannot do on iPhone:

type an sms and press send when OUT of coverage, expect it to send when back into coverage automatically: iOS5 beta 3 still doesn't do this. You MUST go back to tap on it and "resend".

Turn off the phone and can rely on the sub-system to turn ON just the speaker and screen for the Alarm to activate and notify; then go back into a deep sleep or into full off again. Saves battery life especially when travelling.

Delivery reports when sending sms/mms msg's .. this thankfully will be back on IOS5

Apple is getting better at this phone game and I pray they continue to innovate EVEN when the chips are down like what RIM is facing currently. Apple has a bad history of giving up on products quickly when they don't sell well: iPod Speaker, Power Mac G4 Cube, etc. Only the Newton lasted several years despite it not selling.

 

[appleguy123]

When you use Find My iPhone to play a sound, and your phone is paired to bluetooth, the location sound is played through the phone speaker and not your headset.

 

[PNutts]

I like the way HTC phones work: when you pick them up while ringing, the ringer automatically drops in volume by 80%.

Interesting. I keep mine in my shirt pocket. Do they know the difference between, say, walking and picking up the phone from rest?

Or if you're not interested in taking the call, you can just turn the phone face down and it silences the ringer.

No need to press any buttons.

In my pocket the button is always up and when on a table the button is available without picking up so it seems natural to me, but that is a personal prefernce compared to picking it up and turning it over. Neither one would leave me winded.

 

[uiop.]

Many of these features aren't native to the iPhone. But Apple does a good job of making people think they created them.

 

[AppleDApp]

Many of these features aren't native to the iPhone. But Apple does a good job of making people think they created them.

Apple implements them well in there products.

 

[mousouchop]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_9 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E501 Safari/6533.18.5)

My favorite feature is tapping on the notification bar (where the carrier info, time and battery meter are) to scroll to the top of the page in any app. Love it. Only wish there was an equivalent to quickly jump to the bottom of the page. Maybe two finger tap on the notification bar?

 

[shazzam]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/9A5259f Safari/6533.18.5)

The experience is smooth and consistent. It all works together and nothing feels out of place.

 

[maclaptop]

1) You make it sound bad,

2) other companies also get your money but they don't give as much back for that money.

1) Good or Bad, it's a choice, just like any other purchase.

2) I disagree, value is also subject to each persons preferences.

I spend far more on Mac gear, some of which like my MBP's are more expensive than my similarly equipped ThinkPads, which are the premier PC laptops.

At the end of the day it's personal preference that prevails.

Personally I don't care what I pay, if I get what fits my needs that's all that counts.

 

[PNutts]

Many of these features aren't native to the iPhone. But Apple does a good job of making people think they created them.

How?

 

[DeepIn2U]

I like the way HTC phones work: when you pick them up while ringing, the ringer automatically drops in volume by 80%.

Or if you're not interested in taking the call, you can just turn the phone face down and it silences the ringer.

This is NOT new technology. This has been around since feature phone days and the very FIRST phone to feature this is the Ericsson R520m. Buggy but it was there back in 2004; search for sensor in this link.
http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/user_reviews.php?phone=44

Still it's nice to see technology's that made sense get advanced and not forgotten.

 

[CSpackler]

When a UPS/FedEx/USPS tracking code comes in via a website or email, iOS automatically hyperlinks it and when you tap it it brings up the menu that says Track Package or Cancel. Tap it and it'll bring up the browser with the corresponding website's tracking info. Nice little touch.

 

[CBJammin103]

It's easy to forget how revolutionary the very first iPhone was even without all the things we take for granted now in iOS. Just think, no App Store or "apps" - hell you couldn't even move apps around the screen. But it was still a show stopper.

I just remember getting mine and having a "Holy s@*#, how is this so insanely far ahead of every other device in its class?" experiences.

How far we've come in a few years!

 

[Savor]

Apple didn't become great because of iOS. It started earlier with Mac OS X.

I remember how extremely impressed I was when my brother was showing me his new 15-inch MacBook Pro. Extremely fluid and organized. Lion makes me go wow. Ran quietly. Didn't overheat like my VAIO. They have mastered software and exterior design for years.

iOS just happens to be more familiar to more users because it is far more affordable and popular of the two. But Apple's true genius started with the Mac.

 

[ritmomundo]

Apple didn't become great because of iOS. It started earlier with Mac OS X.

I remember how extremely impressed I was when my brother was showing me his new 15-inch MacBook Pro. Extremely fluid and organized. Lion makes me go wow. Ran quietly. Didn't overheat like my VAIO. They have mastered software and exterior design for years.

iOS just happens to be more familiar to more users because it is far more affordable and popular of the two. But Apple's true genius started with the Mac.

True, Apple's genius started with the Mac, but it had rapidly declining popularity throughout the 90s. Apple's grand savior was the original iPod that launched in 2001, putting a spotlight back on the company, and thereafter increasing the popularity of the Mac. OS X came later the same year. Many may argue that it was the other way around, or that the iMac (1997) helped most, but in all honesty, there's no way to know for sure. In either case, iOS came along several years later, and became Apple's most widely used, and thus familiar, system.

 

[DeepIn2U]

True, Apple's genius started with the Mac, but it had rapidly declining popularity throughout the 90s. Apple's grand savior was the original iPod that launched in 2001, putting a spotlight back on the company, and thereafter increasing the popularity of the Mac. OS X came later the same year. Many may argue that it was the other way around, or that the iMac (1997) helped most, but in all honesty, there's no way to know for sure. In either case, iOS came along several years later, and became Apple's most widely used, and thus familiar, system.

if I recall OSX debuted 2 years (1 in beta) before the iPod launched.

The first version released was Mac OS X Server 1.0 in 1999, and a desktop-oriented version, Mac OS X v10.0 "Cheetah" followed on March 24, 2001.

iPod is a line of portable media players designed and marketed by Apple and announced on October 23, 2001, and released on November 10, 200

iPod was released on OS9/OSX for Mac ONLY ... it was already competing with the likes of River, Rhapsody, RealMusic and a few others in the hardware/software game - in fact the SYNC application 1.5yrs after initial release for Windows was NOT done by Apple ... Apple bought that company a few months later after realizing just how good that was and the prospect of becoming dangerously BIG and possibly affecting royalties.

The iPod definitely helped sales of the Mac ... recall iMac's basic current design was helped by the iPod in the dock (from iMac Lamp to floating screen as Ive would have it).

iMac saved Apple NOT the iPod .... iMac for almost 10 years was the TOP selling personal computer in history until a few years ago if I'm not mistaken.

The Magic that we see in iOS started with the core of OSX but originally started with the promise of what the Newton brought us eons ago.

OSX animated app alias removal from the dock, that puff = debuted in Newton.

Ability to do incredible things and keep managed away from the PC = Newton.

Powerful core system and extensibility = OS X.

I'm a bit worried that Apple may have forgotten about the Mac a bit in terms of pure creativity and less about cloning an experience in Lion. The Beta is running a bad taste in my mouth - but I'll go officially soon enough.