Good news for Android scrolling if this sticks. This is probably whats keeping Google from implementing the "glass tilt" effect from the stock 4.0/4.1 home screen system wide.
The rubber band effect makes touch scrolling work. The user knows when they've reached the end. And Apple seems to do this thing where you can zoom out and make whatever really small showing you the boundaries that Android doesn't seem to do. Android can definitely benefit from emulating apple in the scrolling/zooming regard.
I actually prefer Android's current overscroll effect.
Yup. I always found the rubber banding to be kind of an odd way to indicate the end of a scrolling area. The problem is that instead of something indicating unambiguously the end of a view, the movement continues to happen momentarily as if there was more to come and only gradually stops. Users end up not knowing if they botched their finger gesture or if they are actually at a boundary. Even as an experienced user, I sometimes retry pulling a few times to confirm there's nothing more.
This is exactly what I dislike about it. Ironically, it makes it more difficult to realize there is no more content.
Or they could just do their own thing.
I'd argue that Apple is the one needing to do its own thing now. Their patent is being invalidated, that means that what they though it was original is not.
The prior art is also an Apple patent. The judge found that there was no "inventive step" between the prior patent and the new one. That doesn't mean Apple didn't "do its own thing", just that its incremental improvement was not worthy of a new patent.
Oh yes, i read that now. I (kinda) apologize to the parent post.
The glass tilt I'm referring to is distinctive from the iOS bounce, yet it seems they're still erring on the side of caution.