How can an OS be boring?

tigerinexile

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iOS limits what you can do, but makes sure that you can do what you can do really well.

Trade-offs, etc.

If we weren't willing to make that trade, we'd all be running Linux on our laptops and switching Android ROMs all the time on our phones. But those don't have the same reliability, and so on...
 

Bazza1

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Yes....becasue with the iphone 5, all you are getting is a camera that loads 10 seconds faster. You are not getting a larger screen, lighter and thinner design, premium build quality, LTE, much faster processor, improved graphics, increased ram efficiency, improved low light camera optics, improved charging port, etc. Good point.

Your also getting, with the iPhone 5 (and if recent reports are to be believed) a phone about to be pulled from the market, while still leaving an older one. You want to buy into an orphan product, less than a year old? All the hardware improvements in the world mean diddly-squat if the manufacturer isn't interested in supporting it and the iOS and its built-in apps are lacking.
 

Bazza1

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Are there 3rd party apps that offer this? I ask because I don't use email much so I haven't run into that.


Yes, there are - but they are overwhelmingly 'paid' apps and require that you start your email from within them, which is very counter-intuitive and is a mess of cut/ pasting if you are trying to reply to an email that is best served with an attachment. And to my knowledge, only Documents to Go allow multiple individual files to be attached to one email.
Short of photos or videos, you are unable to store locally (or via iCloud) files for direct inclusion in Mail. Sloppy development of a built-in iOS app which is not business friendly. BlackBerry, several free 3rd Party Mail apps in Android (and even my old Palm TX did) allow for attachments directly from the app.
 

Eileen89

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iOS is about keeping it simple and easy to use for Apple customers. I don't believe they build their OS around keeping people entertained. That said, I'm not bored, but I am looking forward to what iOS7 has to offer.
 

finn5975

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Your also getting, with the iPhone 5 (and if recent reports are to be believed) a phone about to be pulled from the market, while still leaving an older one. You want to buy into an orphan product, less than a year old? All the hardware improvements in the world mean diddly-squat if the manufacturer isn't interested in supporting it and the iOS and its built-in apps are lacking.

Who said the manufacturer isn't interested in supporting it? They are still offering IOS 7 to the iphone 4. Do you honestly think that simply because Apple pulls the 5 from shelves to promote sales of the lower cost model (which is purely rumor at this point) that they are going to leave the millions of purchasers in the dust and not support it with future OS updates? Never happen.

You want to talk about lack of support, that would be my HTC Rezound not getting ICS until 10 months after it was released, or my RAZR not getting it until longer than that. Yet both devices cost me nearly the same off contract price as the 16GB iphone. Go figure.
 

John Yester

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Who said the manufacturer isn't interested in supporting it? They are still offering IOS 7 to the iphone 4. Do you honestly think that simply because Apple pulls the 5 from shelves to promote sales of the lower cost model (which is purely rumor at this point) that they are going to leave the millions of purchasers in the dust and not support it with future OS updates? Never happen.

You want to talk about lack of support, that would be my HTC Rezound not getting ICS until 10 months after it was released, or my RAZR not getting it until longer than that. Yet both devices cost me nearly the same off contract price as the 16GB iphone. Go figure.


​Very well stated Sir.
 

sejgiul

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I have the luxury of having an iPhone 4S for work and a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 for personal use. Since I got my Note 2 4 months ago, I haven't touched my iphone (because I was bored with the OS). Just today I have updated to ios 7 beta 6 and I think the refreshed interface is nice and smooth, but little too late in my opinion. This also makes me wonder how long Apple will stick with these looks, if it sticks with the same looks again for 4+ years, then I personally would not be interested in purchasing another iPhone again.

It is of my opinion if Apple wants to keep momentum, that more needs to be done in terms of functionality and design improvements. A couple of fancy animations and a graphical redesign just doesn't cut it in my opinion. The settings menus are still horrendous to navigate; I believe this is one of those things that should be improved instead of adding a moving wallpaper or a parallax effect (which is really pointless in my opinion, and you can't even turn it off! I know you can reduce the motion in accessibility, but that's still annoying).

Sorry for ranting guys, I've been an Apple fan for years (since the 3G) and still am. I do think however that the Galaxy Note 2 currently provides me with a superior experience.

I surely hope Apple is working on phones that;
1. are bigger (3.5 or 4 inch is just too small for me);
2. have less bezel, the iPhone 4S bezels are so big it actually bugs me.
and 3. have no giant home button!

I'm looking forward to what Apple has to announce in September :)
 

John Yester

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I have the luxury of having an iPhone 4S for work and a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 for personal use. Since I got my Note 2 4 months ago, I haven't touched my iphone (because I was bored with the OS). Just today I have updated to ios 7 beta 6 and I think the refreshed interface is nice and smooth, but little too late in my opinion. This also makes me wonder how long Apple will stick with these looks, if it sticks with the same looks again for 4+ years, then I personally would not be interested in purchasing another iPhone again.

It is of my opinion if Apple wants to keep momentum, that more needs to be done in terms of functionality and design improvements. A couple of fancy animations and a graphical redesign just doesn't cut it in my opinion. The settings menus are still horrendous to navigate; I believe this is one of those things that should be improved instead of adding a moving wallpaper or a parallax effect (which is really pointless in my opinion, and you can't even turn it off! I know you can reduce the motion in accessibility, but that's still annoying).

Sorry for ranting guys, I've been an Apple fan for years (since the 3G) and still am. I do think however that the Galaxy Note 2 currently provides me with a superior experience.

I surely hope Apple is working on phones that;
1. are bigger (3.5 or 4 inch is just too small for me);
2. have less bezel, the iPhone 4S bezels are so big it actually bugs me.
and 3. have no giant home button!

I'm looking forward to what Apple has to announce in September :)

I respect your opinion. I am the complete opposite on some of your views.. But that's is what is great about tech... Each user gets a choice.

But.........

​A lot more done on the back end of the OS.... But most people are only reading the headlines.....
 

sejgiul

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I know a lot of work has gone into improving ios further. But the issue at hand here is the lack of innovation. A new design is nice and will make your device feel like new again for a while, but I believe more can be done to improve the experience. The pages full of apps for example, why can't something more innovative be done? An informative page would be far more useful in my eyes, then swipe to the right to access your apps.

I just think overall, it could be made less boring...

Like you say though, everyone has their own opinion :)

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 4
 

anon5664829

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I know a lot of work has gone into improving ios further. But the issue at hand here is the lack of innovation. A new design is nice and will make your device feel like new again for a while, but I believe more can be done to improve the experience. The pages full of apps for example, why can't something more innovative be done? An informative page would be far more useful in my eyes, then swipe to the right to access your apps.

I just think overall, it could be made less boring...

Like you say though, everyone has their own opinion :)

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 4
You know where the old spot light page resided? I wish Apple would put a blink feed alternative there, it would be amazing!
 

pr1nce

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I'm fine with the current look. iOS7 will freshen it up and that'll be great too. I want my OS to be stable. I want it to allow me to be productive daily and get things done.
 

Bazza1

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The fact that the question is even asked suggests Apple has got to significantly step up it's game.

Apple has been many things, but the moniker 'Boring' was left, in the opinion of the company and it's fans, to that monolithic monster Microsoft, its OS and those who supplied it with programs. Apple was the home of the 'Insanely Great' and 'One More Thing' - producing sector-creating and defining, cool looking (if not always entirely well-tested) devices and their OSs.

But now Apple has become the monolith (even with the drop in Mac sales each quarter) it once derided and its OSs now boast some fairly gimmicky apps - and while it seems that it will look and (marginally) behave differently, even if you allow for some 'maturity' in the marketplace (there's only so many things a smartphone can / should do), its pretty much the same product that came out in 2007.

That's Boring.
 

John Flud

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I agree there's stuff I wish apple would do, like put out a larger phone like the galaxy line because it'd be easier for me to read, make a similar keyboard to the blackberry Z10 so typing would be faster and more accurate, and allow us to send any kind of attachment in an email and have a files app, but all that aside I'm never bored with my phone. Between the music, the movies, the books and the web, I've always got something to do to kill time. I'm never bored.

saying the phone is "boring" to me just doesn't say much. I prefer specifics. what do you want and why?
 

leathernuts#WP

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I tried going back to a physical kb after using a touch for a while. I found I type faster now. What's most important on a touch though is good predictive feature or whatever it's called lol. But I know it comes down to personal preference.


Sent from my iPhone 5 using Tapatalk
 

John Flud

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the Z10 doesn't have a physical keyboard.

here read this part of an article on the Z10's keyboard:

from Market News: "So what's to like? First, the Z10 learns from your typing. If you tend to hit "d" when you want "s," it remembers this: In fact, there's a hidden, second-layer keyboard under the one you see, remapped to your typical patterns. You'll never mistype "Bernanke" again.

Other cool things this software can do: It suggests the next word you want and lets you "flick" these from the keyboard into your typing. And, again, it can learn from your history. So if a Trekkie types "Live," it'll automatically suggest "long" "and" "prosper" in succession.

People just love this virtual keyboard -- including AllThingsD's Walt Mossberg.

"For a one-finger typist like me, it was faster and more accurate than either of the native keyboards on the iPhone or Android (GOOG)," Mossberg says."

Market News