Apple and iOS Are Falling Behind | Hacker News Reader

Apple and iOS Are Falling Behind

innovationnation.blog

11 pointsgsibble7 comments

I find it interesting that a self-proclaimed Apple fan finds the Galaxy Tab superior to the iPad.

However, this argumentation is not always coherent - for example, equating a lack of foldable devices with a lack of innovation is not an analogy that I would care about (compared to, say, faster refresh e-paper screens for improved professional use, or even just longer battery life). He should give more detailed examples to substantiate his claim of "better hardware, worse software".

From my perspective, Windows, MacOS and Linux (e.g. Ubuntu LTS Desktop) are mostly stagnant or even decaying in end-user appreciable innovation, so singling out iOS appears to be a bit unfair; for instance, X Window supported 16 mouse buttons in 1984, and what's new in Wayland? (And don't get me started about menus called "..." on any platform - one used to find things much more easily in the past before bloat took over.)

iOS is so stagnant it's not even funny. It's had three major overhauls that did absolutely nothing to it's functionality, roughly the same as Windows had in the same amount of time. Expanded functionality concerning USB class compliance, sideloading, on-device programming, VM compatibility, JIT-based recompilers for emulation and web browser diversity all go unaddressed. Things that are decidedly not a problem on Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Galaxy Tab users have been playing emulated games and run code locally for years. They don't have to wait for Apple to greenlight the API, Android can be modded and flashed to add whatever functionality it lacks. These up-in-the-air questions that plague Apple platforms aren't even a second thought on most others, because they don't resist common sense to try and create auxiliary markets.

> and what's new in Wayland?

Developers that want to work on it. I can count the number of "new features" in x11 on one hand.

Windows, not too long before iOS was introduced, came in Fisher-Price green and blue. It did not exactly scream "professional workstation".

Apple could spend an entire major version number fixing every bug and security hole in macOS and iOS. It would pay off in the coming years.

Thank you. While I agree with the other poster that most OSes are stagnant, I think iOS is particularly bad.

Depending on your priorities as a user, Apple has been in dead-last for the past 10 years running. The author sounds upset that iOS software is limited compared to other platforms, but Apple has no one but themselves to fall behind, in that regard. Windows, Android, Linux and even MacOS make iOS look like a content consumption prison by comparison.

Pretty much

Apple starting to be full of annoying bugs, that's very disappointing. My iCloud photos stop to sync completely and can't be re-enabled in any way. That's pity.

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