iOS 6 Adoption Tops 25% After Just 48 Hours 513
An anonymous reader writes "iOS 6 has seen rapid adoption among iPhone and iPad users, reports developer David Smith. Smith's applications like Audiobooks get around 100k downloads weekly and he's taken to mapping the adoption of Apple's software releases over the last couple of years. This update's data shows a 35.4% adoption of iOS 6, with iOS 5.x holding court at 71.5% adoption. That's a pretty rapid pace, eclipsing Android Jelly Bean's 2-month adoption levels of 1.2% easily."
Always with the jabs (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because comparing the release of Jelly Bean on a multitude of manufacturer, carrier, and hardware platforms is an entirely reasonable comparison to the release of an iOS locked to specific hardware, from one manufacturer.
Re:Always with the jabs (Score:5, Interesting)
According to c|net [cnet.com], as of yesterday Verizon Galaxy Nexus users could download Jelly Bean. Within 24 hours, Apple had 15% penetration across all their devices. I wonder what the percentage is of Galaxy Nexus users?
Are there any very popular Android phones that have received an update in the last year or so that had the update adopted that fast?
I don't know what the Android process is like, but I can say that the iOS process is really slick. At this point, Apple has it down to a science. The update was trivial to install, didn't take too long, and was easily configured on first boot. The 5.1 update process (which was the first delta update, so it was only ~50 MB instead of 700+) was especially fast.
Re:Always with the jabs (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple controls the hardware and software. You're singling out a specific version of the Galaxy Nexus which is renown for having compatibility issues (different antenna if I'm not mistaken) and for being bogged down by Verizon's stupid involvement.
My Nexus S has had Jelly Bean since roughly two weeks after it was announced. OTA updates were available worldwide within the same timeframe. My Transformer received it a month or so later, and that's to account for the docking station support, specific drivers, etc.
You just can't compare the two platforms. If what you want is a closed, smooth environment, go for Apple. If you want an open environment, with both the good and bad that that implies, go Android. It's simple really.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Always with the jabs (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, particularly where updates are concerned, Android doesn't seem very open. You yourself cite "Verizon's stupid involvement" as an excuse.
iOS is closed, but it's maintained by a company that has a vested interest in having it work well. Android itself is (mostly) open, but most of the actual implementations you can buy are considerably less so, and are maintained by companies that have demonstrated they couldn't care less about how well it works.
Re:Always with the jabs (Score:5, Informative)
The Android process is OTA, same as iOS - and, unlike iOS, it has been that way since forever. Your phone will tell you that there is an update via the notification drawer. You tap the notification, it asks if you want to install it. You tap "yes", then go make some coffee, and in about 5 minutes or so your phone is updated.
Re:Always with the jabs (Score:5, Interesting)
The Android process is OTA, same as iOS - and, unlike iOS, it has been that way since forever. Your phone will tell you that there is an update via the notification drawer. You tap the notification, it asks if you want to install it. You tap "yes", then go make some coffee, and in about 5 minutes or so your phone is updated.
You're talking about it from a theoretical point of view. My phone doesn't even have Jelly Bean available yet (SGII on Optus in Australia) - I could install it via various methods but that doesn't count as OTA. When I first put ICS on it it the install seemed to go okay, but then nothing worked properly until I did a factory reset. I don't know anyone who didn't have to do a factory reset. A few days ago it told me about another update (4.0.4) but it failed to install on the first attempt (after taking the prescribed 5 minutes to fail). After powering off then on again it re-downloaded the update, then failed to install it again. I had to install it using Keis, which took ages (seemed like 30 minutes... maybe it wasn't that long but it was way more than 5). After the update everything seems to be working though.
All the iPhone's i've ever updated (lots) have worked first time every time.
Re:Always with the jabs (Score:4, Interesting)
Are there any very popular Android phones that have received an update in the last year or so that had the update adopted that fast?
Did anybody care enough to measure or report it? Seems to me, some iFans are grasping at straws here. Android OTA updates are slick, fast and easy. Just say "yes" to the update prompt and a short time later the device reboots to an even more deco 3D light show.
It's possible Android users don't update as fast because they aren't as desparate. I don't know, I haven't seen any figures, except for these ones that seem basically irrelevant to me. Maybe if it was a security update or something that actually mattered. I don't know. It must be different being an iFan. Maybe they just need something to focus on to distract from that market share thing, which continues to slip, slip, slip away.
Re:Always with the jabs (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it really your position that only some kind of obsessed fanboy would update their software?
No, it's my position that a lot of people accepting an update is not news.
Re:Always with the jabs (Score:5, Interesting)
I didn't want to update my device but in the end it was the easiest way to get all of my storage space back. The process might be slick, but apple are definitely pushing you to do it.
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There's a glut of Application updates right now, because developers have updated their software to take advantage of iOS6 and the bigger screen of the iPhone. That'll be why. She won't have been redownloading the same apps, but new versions of the apps.
Re:Always with the jabs (Score:4, Insightful)
Phones abandoned while still under contract? Try phones are abandoned while they're still being sold in stores.
If an update comes out while the phone is still fairly new it probably will get it. The Galaxy S3 is an example - it is STILL running ICS but being a flagship phone it will probably get JB. Well, unless it turns out like the Galaxy S which was the subject of debate for a year or so back when Froyo or whatever came out.
Even the Nexus phones are generally abandoned about 1.5 years after they are FIRST sold (and the Galaxy Nexus is almost a year old now, so expect that to maybe get one more major version update next Spring/Summer).
I love Android, but their updates are REALLY poor. If you buy an iPhone every two years, you're basically guaranteed to always have the latest OS (well, aside from stuff like Siri, which I do think counts, but that is the exception). If you buy an Android Nexus model every two years you might or might not be able to run the latest OS the whole time - if you get your phones the day they come out you probably will get them all, otherwise you'll probably be six months stale come replacement time.
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The 3GS was introduced in June of 2009 (more than three years ago), and gets the latest OS (though, admittedly, not all the features). Apple has a very, very good history of supporting devices for an extended time. By the time there's a new OS, the 3GS was be 4 years old - that's an absurd length of time to expect to be compatible with a new OS (and honestly, we don't know that it won't be).
Re:Always with the jabs (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, because comparing the release of Jelly Bean on a multitude of manufacturer, carrier, and hardware platforms is an entirely reasonable comparison to the release of an iOS locked to specific hardware, from one manufacturer.
Quoth the Joker : That's the point
Clearly a walled garden system like Apple will have quicker adoption of new software. What's somewhat surprising -and imo newsworthy- is the magnitude. In less than 2 days, iOS 6 has reached over 1/3 of potential clients. Going back a version, iOS 5 (or better) has a saturation level well over 95% in the year since release. That's incredible, compared to Android OS devices, over 75% of which are running 2.x variants, released in late 2010.
The fact that is happened : Not surprising.
The level to which it happened : Moderately surprising
Data : Useful
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If Windows users had to get their Windows updates from Dell, HP, or the guy at the local computer store who built their PC for them, you might have a point.
So Microsoft got their business model right and Google got it wrong.
Comparing 2 different things... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a pretty rapid pace, eclipsing Android Jelly Bean's 2-month adoption levels of 1.2% easily
Of course Jelly Bean's adoption level is very low because what, 3-4 devices support Jelly Bean officially? And those 3-4 devices are a small percentage of all Android devices. Heck, even the "flagship" Android phone the Galaxy S III won't be getting Jelly Bean until the end of September or later. While all iOS devices are Apple phones/tablets/media players and the iOS 6 update is available for all of them made within the past couple of years.
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While all iOS devices are Apple phones/tablets/media players and the iOS 6 update is available for all of them made within the past couple of years.
Apple has auto-update enabled and often forced on their products and their target audience is not the technically adept. The average person doesn't go into options or configuration menus often, if ever. A lot of techies disable auto-update for a number of reasons, including hacking their phones so that leaving auto-update enabled could cause accidental bricking. As well, Apple's product line is, as you mentioned, rather exclusive: iOS only runs on one company's hardware. Android runs on dozens.
Anyway, let'
Re:Comparing 2 different things... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So they update from apple and it suddenly is the carriers problem....
Uh.. yeah, let's talk about this for a sec. The iOS6 update caused my wife's phone to indicate that it was on wi-fi when it was not. She went to re-download her apps and, before long, she got a text from AT&T saying her data for the month was nearly used up and that they were going to add a $15 charge to the bill if she kept going.
So is this Apple's fault? Absolutely. So that means that AT&T is absolved of any responsibility, right? Nope. You see, I asked AT&T to put a limit on her data. I
Re:Comparing 2 different things... (Score:5, Insightful)
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You need to find yourself a new job if you think IT is about the latest and greatest.
Well, you're right, it isn't. In the business world, it's all about improving the business process, either by quality control, efficiency, cost, etc. Generally, the latest and greatest also has the most to offer in those areas; If you're buying into it now. If you already have an infrastructure built up, then you have to weigh the costs and benefits. It's sorta like how we're constantly finding new metal alloys and concrete mixtures which make buildings, bridges, and roads stronger, last longer, etc. We don
Re:Comparing 2 different things... (Score:5, Informative)
Standalone Google Maps app is currently in review and should be released shortly. So no need to panic just yet :)
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I'd be agreeing with you if you hadn't put that last paragraph. Saying that Android won't gain much market share is not only foolish, it's entirely false. By now Android's taken a significant share of the market and I don't see that shrinking anytime soon. If Google can step their game up and fix some the glaring issues such as inconsistent updates from manufacturers, they'll be well on their way to take the dominant position.
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Apple has auto-update enabled and often forced on their products and their target audience is not the technically adept.
False. No iOS products even have an "auto-update" ability. OS X has the option, but it is off by default.
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Of course Jelly Bean's adoption level is very low because what, 3-4 devices support Jelly Bean officially? And those 3-4 devices are a small percentage of all Android devices. Heck, even the "flagship" Android phone the Galaxy S III won't be getting Jelly Bean until the end of September or later. While all iOS devices are Apple phones/tablets/media players and the iOS 6 update is available for all of them made within the past couple of years.
What about Ice Cream Sandwich then? iOS6 adoption is well past it as well, and it's been out for around a year and has much wider support, including on the very flagship device that you cited.
Look, the fact is, this is an apples and oranges comparison of sorts. Pretty much any iOS devcie from the last three years can be updated (though not all, notably the first iPad), so the number of eligible devices makes up a very large percentage of the pool, meaning that adoption rates should be fast. In contrast, the
Re:Comparing 2 different things... (Score:5, Insightful)
> Of course adoption is sky high; it's 1 phone
3 old and one new phone, actually; and a few models of iPod and 2 models of iPad, plus several carriers and several cellular technologies.
> and when iDrones see an update notification they
> automatically do it.
That's the whole point. They don't update because they're "iDrones", they update because it fucking works.
> And lets not forget that most updates to iTunes force
> you to update the iPhone software to work correctly.
Bullshit. Every so often, you're forced to update iTunes to work with the newest OS, but this week's iTunes still works with my five-year-old original iPhone on iOS 3.x. You might need to update to the newest minor version in some cases (I'm not sure about that, but I'll go ahead and concede that to make my next point) but why not? THIS WHOLE SHIT IS SUPPOSED TO WORK.
You're missing the forest for the trees. The fact that it's newsworthy that one company has made software updates work pretty smoothly in 2012 is pretty fucking sad.
Partly this is Android being jerked around by the carriers, but it's also a matter of a bunch of OEMs who don't give a shit about a device once it's been sold, compared to the one company that actually wants you to be a happy customer and voluntarily return to buy more, and not just say "Well my old phone from X sucks, so I'll get a new one, but I'll stick with X, because all the rest are probably just as bad and at least I'm familiar with this one."
Re:Comparing 2 different things... (Score:5, Insightful)
If it just works, why upgrade? They upgrade because they are fans of Apple and they want the new features, not simply because it "works." Some people love that ecosystem. Some people feel that choice is more important that "smooth updates". YMMV. A feature has been deemed compelling by the iPhone fans and they have responded with upgrading. "It just works" is only a side effect of controlling both sides of the equation (phone/OS). The vibe I get from a great many Apple users reminds me of status and one-upping the next person. Is the iPhone 4S a hunk of crap now that the new iPhone is out? Certainly not, but some people (regardless of ecosystem) want the "latest and greatest" of everything. It just seems that a majority of those who are attracted to Apple products are not tinkerers and hobbyists (among other things), but people who view computers and phones as an appliance. I was not a typical Apple customer. I enjoyed tinkering with OS X. I skinned it early on with hacks, I fiddled with all sorts of things under the hood. I returned to Linux to continue to do that... :)
I disagree. To me, Apple has not been concerned about happy customers. They are concerned with their brand recognition and reputation. They only want dependency, just like every other company. The difference between Apple and say, Microsoft, is that Apple is willing to charge into new markets, leaving old ones behind. With an enigmatic and charismatic leader like Jobs, they were able to pull that off successfully (upon his return to Apple). I don't know how well that will work without "His Steveness". They didn't call it a reality distortion field for nothing... I am not demonizing Apple or lauding Android. I like what I like. It just so happens that I used to like Apple's OS X, but I have never liked their phone. My Mac Mini is on its way to being a Linux box. I have been a Linux user off and on since college. What I have learned is that I can work better in Linux than I can any other OS. That is just me, though, and it is my personal opinion. YMMV. No warranties expressed or implied. Operators are standing by.
Re:Comparing 2 different things... (Score:5, Insightful)
"who view phones and computers as appliances"
I view my phone as an appliance, yes. Not my computers though. That's the main reason I DO want a simple, appliance-like phone ... I have computers for tinkering around with and hacking and customising etc. But my phone is an important tool and I can't afford it to randomly get all glitchy or crashy when I'm trying to do something important with it. I want it to be a reliable, stable, platform for making calls, checking my email and browsing the web when I'm out and about (plus navigation and games etc.) I am willing to give away a bit of flexibility in order to get that stability and ease of use (though mind you, the default way iOS does things is usually similar to what I would have wanted anyway, and apps allow you to do almost anything).
It unclutters my life (and my head!) - when I'm tearing my hair out about some weird software bug on my PC or trying to get some obscure driver working on my Linux box etc, it's nice to have at least one device I can fall back on knowing it will 'just work' with zero fiddling around.
Nothing against those that DO like to tinker with their phones - more power to them. But I haven't got the time in the day to do that with my phone in addition to all the other hardware I play around with. So yes, my phone is an appliance, much like my stereo system or my microwave.
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Re:Comparing 2 different things... (Score:5, Insightful)
And did we mention that most people used the over the air direct from the cloud update method.
Which in fact is one of the reasons that people upgrade so fast. Its just so fscking easy. Settings / General / Software Update, click yes. Half hour later and your iDevice is running the new OS.
And what three year old Android anything gets the same update as the current models (bad comparison, the current android models don't always have the current software either...) :-)
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Easier even than that –phones are getting push notifications sent out saying "hey, iOS 6 is released, push okay to update"... push okay, wait 5 minutes, got iOS 6.
Re:Comparing 2 different things... (Score:5, Interesting)
You're missing the forest for the trees. The fact that it's newsworthy that one company has made software updates work pretty smoothly in 2012 is pretty fucking sad.
Actually it seems you're just running around with your eyes closed. Nexus users simply get a notification when an update is available and the update works in 2 clicks, one to download and one to reboot the phone after the download is finished.
The real problem is motivation. I honestly see difference between Jellybean and Gingerbread, but I don't see a benefit. All apps I have now worked just fine back with Gingerbread. The interface may be a tiny bit smoother, but other than that there's no real difference, no killer feature and critically no lack of features on the older systems.
The only benefit I can see to updating the phone is to stop the OTA updater from bringing up notifications that there's an update waiting.
Apple, say what you want about the software and the most recent fuckup is damn good at marketing it's updates. People actually WANT to install iOS6 and that is your key difference right there. I don't have an iPhone yet I know what features iOS6 brings to the table, yet on Jellybean the only thing I can honestly say is different is that there's a button to close all idle notifications, that's the only "feature" I can visibly see since I upgraded, and I'm wondering why I even bothered.
Re:Comparing 2 different things... (Score:4, Interesting)
So hopefully I've made my point that the people who are of the mindset that they buy a device and it last six years are not who computer companies are targeting anymore, at least the mainstream ones. They want to sell a new device every two years to you, and that's why this update crap is a load of non-issue.
I get this mindset, I really do, even though I disagree with it. My IT purchasing habits back up my stance on the matter: I regularly replace my phone, laptop, and PC, usually every 2.5 to 3 years.
Until recently, I haven't been quite able to put my finger on what's wrong with this persistently popular opinion that this regular upgrade cycle is "crap", and somehow a "trick" pulled by the vendors. From a naive ordinary financial perspective it seems... correct. After all, we buy cars that are expected to last two decades, appliances for up to three decades, and even electronics like TVs and HiFi systems usually last at least a decade.
Computers are different, and it's all to do with the pace of Moore's law: Essentially, paying a premium for something to last 6 years or longer is not as efficient for everybody -- vendors and consumers alike -- as buying something cheaper/disposable more often. If it wasn't for the exponential increase of computer power, this wouldn't be the case! In that case it would make sense to buy more expensive computers with longer support and better physical build quality.
For example, I laugh at companies that "invest" in "big iron" that will "last them a decade". Sure, it will, but by the end of that decade it will be 3% as powerful as the "cutting edge" mainframe, because of Moore's law. Had the same company spent half as much every 5 years instead, at the end of the decade they'd have a computer that is 18% as powerful as the bleeding edge. Spending a third as much every 3 years or so would let them stay within 35% of the best possible performance at all times. Even if you assume that spending a third also cuts the performance down to a third, the result is still about 12% of the best available, which is lot better than 3%!
Sure, I'm simplifying an awful lot, but you get the idea: there's an ideal interval to spending, and it's about 3 years. A lot of us IT geeks just "get this" intuitively, but we can't quite put the "why" of it into words without sitting down and doing the numbers.
By the way, this is one major reason why server virtualization (e.g.: VMware ESXi) is so popular: It allows corporations to make the migration process to the "next generation" trivial and virtually risk free. A smooth, regular upgrade cycle of server hardware is so much more efficient than buying "big iron" for a decade it isn't even funny.
Phones are much the same, unless you use them literally only for making voice calls. If you use them for more general purpose tasks, then the same argument applies. Newer phones do more, do it better, and do it all faster, and this pace of improvement is exponential. Sticking to a 6 year or slower upgrade cycle means that you spend the majority of the time near the single-digit percentage level of the best available performance. Why would you pay premium for having less most of the time?
Get a Jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
The good news about living in a walled garden is that you benefit from Steve Jobs's obsessive need for state of the art. The bad news about living in a walled garden is that you have to live with his obsession for control.
And yes, I know he's dead. But his obsessions live!
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Uh no – auto-update doesn't exist in iOS 5 (nor iOS 6 in fact)... The most you'll get is an alert saying "ohai, iOS 6 is available, wanna update?"
Not always smooth (Score:4, Interesting)
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Customer focus (Score:5, Interesting)
Well when you're Apple and have a unique position among the handset vendors where the carrier doesn't insist on fucking with your device software and lets you treat the end user as the customer, and interact with them directly to provide support, then it's a lot easier.
When you have the mistaken perspective (easy to make in the US) that the carrier is your customer and you should cater to them, shit happens like ancient devices without updates. Not that it'd help blatantly irresponsible companies like Motorola, who repeatedly abandon handsets after a year or so, but may be they'd be more willing to do a better job (or more directly feel the effects) if they weren't protected by contracts and buffered from reality by the carriers.
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Yes, and I'm seriously hoping that now that Motorola is officially part of Google, their support will improve, if not for current phones, then at least for the next models. It's entirely unacceptable that so many phones are left with ancient versions of the OS. Google should put it in the licensing agreement for getting access to the Market and Google apps that they need to support their phones for a certain period of time.
Fewer, better phones, I say.
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Re:Customer focus (Score:5, Insightful)
i work for ATT, as stated in a previous post, and the carrier does let you fuck with your device software, like ATT customers cannot use Facetime over the network unless they are are on certain data plans, which is flag created by apple, because they get a percentage of the cost of the data plans, and stand to make more money... not the US but Apple...
And Apple rules at ATT is that if you want to upgrade before you contract is over, you pay 250 bucks plus the cost of the upgrade.
But then I know shite about Apple...
And this is why people hate AT&T with a passion. It's even worse when employees of AT&T actually believe this crap. "It's Apple's fault we have to charge more for FaceTime over cellular" when AT&T is the ONLY carrier in the US to do this. Sprint, T-Mobile (see Unlocked & Unlimited promo), and Verizon have all made it clear they don't charge extra for FaceTime.
Data is data.
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The Android update situation raises an interesting question: Who should wear "the pants" in the carrier/vendor relationship? I can see arguments for both sides, but I have to think it would be better if the vendors had a bigger say in things.
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No one, frankly. They should be wholly separate. With the move to LTE and, from the looks of things, multi-band and multi-format basebands coming early in the technology's lifecycle, it might actually be viable to buy a handset and pick from the carriers.
The stupid thing is letting them try to be more than dumb pipes and put up barriers to customer mobility between them.
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Regulation is always an option. Barring hardware exclusivity, like they do in Europe, is another.
Math is hard (Score:5, Funny)
>35.4% adoption of iOS 6, with iOS 5.x holding court at 71.5% adoption
So, iOS 5.x and 6.0 have reached 106.9% adoption on his site? That's impressive.
Re:Here is a hint: Stay away from numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't have the capacity to read numbers right and are too stupid to work with them
Here is a clue: That 71.5% is out of the 35.4%.
I know ... you are probably too dumb to understand that direct response too. After all ... it has numbers.
I'm too dumb to understand that. 71.5% out of the 35.4% are running ios6? and the 35.4 are running either ios6 or ios5? WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF REPORTING IS THAT??
Actually... (Score:5, Interesting)
... the really funny part is it also eclipses the over-one-year-old Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) [informationweek.com] as well.
Re:Actually... (Score:5, Insightful)
If I wanted polarized arguments with neither side bothering to think at all I'd go read about politics. It is a statistic, not grounds for a holy war. Why isn't anyone here talking about a technical solution to increase that adoption rate? That is what this real nerd was hoping to see here. I wonder what percentage of those are new devices that shipped with ios6? Did his math account for people with new devices being forced to re-download his app? This clearly doesn't show any indication of software upgrade rates on old hardware, but mathematically they must be lower than overall adoption rates since 100% of new iphones are on ios6.
Re:Actually... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you're missing the point. Sure, the article is talking about deployment rates, but the bigger issue is that there is even an update to be deployed. With iOS you get updates for years after getting your device, period. With Android you're lucky to get an update while the thing is still being sold in stores. The actual deployments are reasonably fast (though generally slower with Android - which I think is sane from a QA perspective). They just never happen unless you buy a Nexus device, and even then only for 1.5 years after they are FIRST sold.
If you bought a brand new Nexus phone two years ago, you wouldn't even be running ICS, let alone Jelly Bean. A brand new Nexus phone two years ago would have been the Nexus One. If you bought a brand new Nexus phone a year before that you wouldn't have gotten a single software update - that would have been the ADP and it never even got Eclair.
In other news, Chrome 18 adoption at 33% (Score:2)
Make it easy / free for people to upgrade, and they will upgrade!
http://insights.chitika.com/2012/chrome-18-sees-high-adoption-rates-33-of-users-are-running-latest-version-in-under-a-week/ [chitika.com]
Caching Problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently there is a bug in Safari for IO6 [stackoverflow.com] that causes caching of POST requests, which is causing all sorts of web developers to scramble like crazy to implement cache busting in their apps.
Thanks apple.
Wow, Good riddance, say Apple fans (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
That's great?
No, but wake me up when it hits 125%.
Re:Okay? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes it is – it means that developers are likely to be able to target iOS 6 very soon, giving them the ability to use more features and not have to make hacks to have things work on earlier OSes... great!
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That sounds pretty good, can you post the recipe?
Re:IN OTHER EARTH SHATTERINFG NEWS (Score:4, Funny)
I know that one: mix brown rice, lentils, onions, garlic, yams, plantains, green peas and jamaican jerk flavor until it becomes a vegetable stew.
Re:IN OTHER EARTH SHATTERINFG NEWS (Score:5, Interesting)
Now there are hippies in my trolls!
Not cool.Not cool. Vegetarian trolls can't even make dick jokes, so it's really just a waste of time.
Re:Good luck with those new map service. (Score:5, Interesting)
For those that haven't already seen it, there is a growing collection of iOS 6 map glitches on The Amazing IOS 6 Maps [tumblr.com]
Re:Good luck with those new map service. (Score:5, Funny)
And there was also this, spotted in the London Underground:
http://www.tomshardware.com/gallery/A3QARhSCIAA2R9U,0101-353576-0-2-3-1-jpg-.html [tomshardware.com]
Re:Good luck with those new map service. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good luck with those new map service. (Score:5, Informative)
The RDF is strong here. Now Apple invented the mobile browser?
I guess Opera will be getting letters from Apple's lawyers for that ACID2 compliant SmartPhone browser that was available a whole year before the iPhone even launched.
Re:Good luck with those new map service. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good luck with those new map service. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, there is certainly plenty of fault to go around:
1. You don't have to break maps to deploy security updates.
2. The android practice of not deploying security updates is one day going to lead to a massive cataclysm. If somebody manages to come up with some kind of email worm for Android you're going to see some fun times as the vendors tell everybody to just throw out their six-month-old phones and buy new ones.
Re:Good luck with those new map service. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good luck with those new map service. (Score:5, Informative)
The iOS app for google maps provides a map which shows your route and has two arrow buttons to switch back and forth between turn points. But there are neither voice directions nor "signs" where you have to drive, you have to derive all info from the top down view, which is basically unusable if you have to drive and navigate yourself.
This isn't turn by turn.
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Re:Good luck with those new map service. (Score:5, Interesting)
The big problem for me is I mostly use the google map for its *excellent* bus and train routing. I can just drop in an address, let it pull my current location from the GPS and have it give me really great bus/train combinations. Apple has dropped this feature
Until theres an alternative I simply cant upgrade. Which is a problem for me, being a full time IOS developer and all that.
Re:Good luck with those new map service. (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what would be even nicer than acknowledging the problem? Allowing their users to choose which map program they want to use, instead of forcing them to be pawns in Apple's war on Google.
Re:Good luck with those new map service. (Score:4, Insightful)
That would be nice, but this is Apple we're talking about. They've proven over and over how petty and vindictive and what control freaks they are. If you continue to be a customer of theirs, you have to know what you're getting into, and expecting good behavior from them is naive in the extreme.
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Free to choose (Score:3)
In fact, there are numerous map programs available for iPhone, including some free ones, so users are indeed free to choose whatever map program they want to use. Personally, I like Navigon, which isn't free, but which is quite reliable (although I've never used any GPS mapping app or device that didn't occasionally make routing errors, sometimes ludicrous ones).
The Google-based version of Apple Maps had some nice features, but it hadn't really advanced with the times, and no longer met user expectations fo
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Not clear how a product-planning fuckup on Apple's part constitutes an emergency on Google's part.
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Except it's not just innaccuracies: the first thing I did was switch to satellite view and, instead of the pretty decent satellite/ariel imgery of my local area on the previous data, I get a murky, low res, black-and-white mess, in which the local city centre is shrouded in cloud. Apart from a handful of major cities with the fancy 'flyover' feature, every where I've tried so far has cruddy satellite imagery. How are they gonna crowdsource that?
Then there's major missing functionality: no street view, whic
Re:Good luck with those new map service. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure their implementation is new and Apple deserves some slack for thaT
They deserve slack for replacing a well known, well tested, highly reliable and popular service with their in-house verison which is apparently poorly tested and unpopular-- all in the name of a popularity contest?
No, they took a gamble to try to marginalize Google, and apparently its half baked. I see no reason anyone would give them slack.
Re:Good luck with those new map service. (Score:4, Funny)
You don't understand... Steve was dying, and Google mocked him by making a hydra in the shape of his greatest brain child. That damned Android just wouldn't die, and the more heads Steve cut off, the more the damn thing would grow. He had to crush Google and its Gawd forsaken Android. He had no choice but to jettison every bit of Google from the AppleSphere. If it hurts Apple, so be it, Android must be obliterated or the space time continuum will shatter!
So clearly you must see it was a simple business decision.
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I think that if Apple, Google and Samsung were countries we would have World War 3 today. Why do Apple and Google try to solve their disputes over the backs of their customers? I thought I'd use Google Maps in Safari to get Street View back, but even that doesn't work. Google Earth on the iPad is just a shadow of what it is on the Mac. why is that? And I didn't even mention YouTube...
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They deserve slack for replacing a well known, well tested, highly reliable and popular service with their in-house verison which is apparently poorly tested and unpopular-- all in the name of a popularity contest?
I wonder about that. Apple must have had a pretty strong reason to drop such an important and widely-used app from their most popular product, so what could that have been? Petty spite is possible, but it doesn't seem plausible. Maybe Apple decided it's not good to be dependent on their only competitor in the mobile space? Or maybe Google refused to put any significant work into updating Maps; I don't recall any major new features appearing for it in recent years)? Perhaps Google hinted that it's an awfully
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Google insisted they couldn't do turn by turn navigation on the iPhone, then went and did it in Android. That alone should have been enough.
How much do you want to bet Google is madly working on an iOS maps app right now, with all the features of their mapping service on Android? Wait a few months and iPhone users will likely have much better free mapping solutions than they did a month ago.
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I upgraded just to see what all the maps bitching was all about, and was surprised to discover that the Apple maps were actually quite superior for my area. Google maps actually got street names wrong, where Apple had them right, and the Google satellite views were 3 years old, showing construction zones where Apple showed fully occupied developments. And I'm in Canada where I would have expected them to skimp on data quality for first release.
And the 3D map view with compass turned on is beyond sweet - i
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Google maps for iPhone doesn't have turn by turn directions. Apple couldn't afford not to have that feature. It's as simple as that.
Nor could they afford to fuck up the rest of Maps' functionality just for the sake of turn-by-turn. There are turn-by-turn Apps available, free and paid, and Apple could have probably produced their own turn-by-turm App in parallel with the old Maps app (AFAIK the App itself was always written by Apple - it just used Google's mapping services/API). Quite honestly, it doesn't matter that much if turn-by-turn is separate: it needs a unique UI anyway, plus it's not much use for the millions of people with WiFi
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It doesn't need a unique UI. When you get directions in maps, it will automatically guide you as you're driving.
The claim that they've fucked up the rest of Maps' functionality is largely overblown. I'm a developer, and I've been using the maps application since the beta was released to developers. I haven't even noticed any errors in it, let alone been inconvenienced by them. On the other hand, I've found the 3D maps useful for finding hiking trails, as strange as that sounds, because the image quality in
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It may well be true of the majority. Just because the reviewers are looking for errors and find them (perhaps by googling for them), doesn't necessarily mean that they are so common the average user will notice them in general usage. Back in the day, people used to have fun finding the most ridiculous errors in Google maps too. But it didn't mean that Google maps was problematic for the average user in those early days.
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Re:Good luck with those new map service. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maps and navigation are a big deal on smartphones. Phone calls are their most important function, but Internet browsing and maps/navigation vie for the second most important feature.
And no, Google Maps doesn't even begin to approach this failure. Not even close. Aside from the horrific rendering, missing roads, and an inability to find what should be obvious searches, it doesn't even attempt to duplicate useful functionaly present in Google Maps. Public transportation? Use 3rd-party apps. Walking directions? Lol who walks these days?
Apple fans agree. [macrumors.com]
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That's what my fanboi friend said (not implying that you are a fanboi). But the truth is, Apple broke my iPad with iOS 6 and I want my money back. Why would I download some third-party apps to get back the fuctionality that I had?
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It sounds like what you are saying is that you didn't bother to check out what the advantages and disadvantages of the new iOS version before updating (even though there were articles about it all over the net even before the upgrade came out), and you are too lazy to download 3rd party apps, and you blame Apple.
Apple's apps are nice, but if you don't take advantage of apps other than Apple's, you are actually missing out on much of the functionality of your iPad.
If you really miss Google Maps all that much
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Misinterpreted destinations, sure, and those glitches aren't obvious if you don't know the area, so they can be very time consuming to find and correct. If you page through the Amazing Maps collection, you'll find a lot of stuff that is obviously messed up even to someone that doesn't know anything about geography, like clouds [tumblr.com], warped roads [tumblr.com], and complete mutilation [tumblr.com].
Anyway, I don't have a horse in this race -- I just thought it was interesting to look at.
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The difference is in the sheer magnitude of glitches. When your map software shows Golden Gate bridge and Washington monument off by several miles, it begs the question of who even tested it, and how.
Re:Good luck with those new map service. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yawn, call me when Google Maps starts misspelling or misplacing capital cities of several countries around the world.
Man some of you guys have been severely blinded by the shiny. Steve is dead, you can come back to reality now.
Good luck with Google (Score:4, Informative)
Apple maps is still a little raw. But I've had Google direct me to closed stores, and to THREE imaginary Arby's when driving through Nevada.
Apple maps will get better too, now that they are crowdsourcing map errors. That's what Google had to do also.
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The ultimate irony, however, is the fact that Apple would be whining about Google not being fair with their pricing. This is the same Apple who's launching countless lawsuits against Android manufacturers. If I were running Google, I wouldn't even negotiate with them. Nor would I submit a Google
Re:Good luck with those new map service. (Score:5, Insightful)
Isnt IOS 6 a free upgrade? And compatible across ~90% of apple devices?
Im gonna guess THAT is why the adoption rate is so high, not because Apple is good at bilking money out of users (which is irrelevant if the update is, in fact, free).
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iOS upgrades and Android upgrades are not comparable.
Most android devices aren't even eligible to upgrade to the next major versions. My droid charge for example is stuck at 2.3.x.
Isn't that the point?
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There was no reason to have a native YouTube app included in the OS, was there? I can count the number of times I opened that app on one hand in the 4 years I've owned an iPhone.
I downloaded the new YouTube app, opened it once and then deleted it. It's the same shit you get on the web and it's mainly for finding new videos rather than anything truly useful. It's not like you need the app to view the videos.
This is really a non-issue.
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Don't forget to get the new youtube app, since apple dumped the native one for no good reason.
And thank God. The old one was really outdated--a relic from when Apple needed a custom solution in order to even play Youtube videos (during the whole "no Flash" debacle)--and borderline terrible. The new one on the App Store is loads better.
And yeah, the license they had with Google expired. Sounds like a good reason to drop it. Besides, if you don't want it, why should it be taking up space on your screen? (Now, if only I could drop Stocks and Newsstand. They just added Passbook, but it looks like