Apple’s iOS Is Looking Seriously Stale, But It’s Still the Platform to Beat

I'm an iOS user, and I don't much exposure to Android, but I wonder -- is iOS really stale?<p>Apple's added a lot in the past few years while keeping the core design consistent. I'm sure they could have done more in this time period, but my personal feeling is that they don't want to confuse users with some of the more advanced things that can be done on other devices.<p>They want their devices to be useable by everyone, and even now, some things are confusing to novice users (folders, notification center). They are being conservative in their design, but it seems deliberate, and I wonder how that translates to the masses -- usable or out-of-date?

I'm not suggesting that it's not worth debating whether iOS has become stale, but we can come up with more impartial arbiters of staleness than some of Apple's chief competitors, right? They make vague mention of, but never support with quotations, that this argument is taking place among non-competitors too. That's pretty lazy journalism.<p>From the article:<p><i>"BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins claimed that the look and feel of Apple’s mobile OS is outdated</i>. “The rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don’t innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly,” he argued. <i>Chris Weber, executive vice president of Nokia’s sales and marketing, claimed that iOS’s focus on the app was “outdated.”</i>

Looks fine to me. Would be more interested in additional functionality than cosmetic changes to the OS.<p>By the same token, does Google's homepage look stale?

The iPhone is stale in the same way that the 911 is. This years 911 is better than last years, and this years iPhone is better than the last one. But this <i>isn't</i> about the iPhone, it's about iOS. A lot of the discussion has focussed around the devices themselves but that's not the point of the matter.<p>iOS in some respects is stale. The 'look' has been the same since the first iPhone came out of box. Is that a bad thing? Sure, to some people it is, they want new and fresh and different. That's not how Apple works though, they settle on a design paradigm and iterate repeatedly until they think it's time to move on.

At some point Apple is going to need to redesign iOS to better integrate features they've accumulated since 2007. I don't think we're anywhere near that point yet.<p>FWIW, Apple has made tweaks to the look and feel. The "dock" at the bottom of springboard has the 3D shelf instead of the grated metal. Apps like Music (formerly iPod), iTunes, Maps have had thorough design updates.

I think this feeling is down to two factors:<p>1. Many iOS users are now, for the first time, trying out Android as a result of affordable yet high quality devices being available (Nexus 4 and 7, especially).<p>2. Other platforms, especially Android, are introducing new features that iOS does not have and Apple may not wish to copy. For example: Android recently introduced lockscreen widgets, something I personally find to be completely over the top. Meanwhile, Samsung are trying out all kinds of wacky ideas (as seen with the S4 release). Compared to these, iOS does seem a little plain and boring - though personally I'm glad.<p>Up until 3-4 months ago, I was an Android user and had been for many years. I switched to an iPhone 5 and suddenly iOS feels fresh whilst Android feels stale. It's just what you're used to, I suspect.

Why do so many people take sides in the phone wars, when we the consumers benefit the most if these companies are competing fiercely with each other? Especially mystifying with reports like this one that are so thoroughly weak and lazy.<p>It would be bad if one company were to "win", which perhaps explains a lot of the zealous anti Apple commentary lately, because they've dominated for a while, but in the mean time don't forget that we are arguing over the features of <i>commodity appliances</i>. Arguing which phone is better is like arguing over which dishwasher is better.<p>It's insanely awesome how fast, how small, and how cheap computers are becoming. Throw in growing connectivity and sensing capability, and you realize this is an amazing time. I don't want Google to lose, or Apple to lose. I want them all to win and keep pressuring each other so they all keep making computers smaller, cheaper and more accessible to me.

Nowhere is iOS's staleness more evident in everyday use than in its virtual keyboard. At the time iOS came out and dominated, typing on iOS seemed like the natural way to do it, so it's not a terrible implementation by any means.<p>But its autocorrect feature is absolutely abysmal. I tend to use the possessive "its" a lot. However, iOS will by default assume that I mean "it's" <i>no matter the context of the sentence</i>...which means that every time I want to use "its", I have to stop typing, look up at the text box, take my hands off the keyboard, and look for that stupid bubble and the tiny 'x' to prevent the autocorrection.<p>Android, by comparison, is practically <i>magic</i>. Perhaps it's because of the physical screen size that makes this possible, but how Android puts the autocorrect choices (three of them, not just one) right next to the keyboard is just pure logical genius. And I don't know what machine learning/natural language algorithm is used to guess the proper autocorrect choices but when typing at full blast, I have to <i>deliberately</i> make a typo for a typo to actually occur. iOS, by comparison, will inexplicably create nonsensical sentences with words I've never seen or used if I don't watch the textbox while typing. Maybe typing is old-fashioned and Apple wants to put more focus on swiping (Android's swipe keyboard is also pretty amazing, FWIW), but Jesus they've really let the keyboard go.<p>And of course, it's hard to imagine them ever catching up to Google in voice-input.

The iPhone has remained virtually unchanged over the last 5 years. Each model is slightly faster and slightly brighter. Sure you fanboys can make the argument about every feature added, but look at the specs differences. And the look and feel of the phone has barely changed[1].<p>If you look at the progress not just in design, but software, hardware and everything. Samsung, HTC, Nokia, all the major manfs have come miles further than Apple in the last 5 years when it comes to hardware design.<p>When it comes to software Android has also come miles in the last few years. People that aren't Android users don't realize this and go with the same standby arguments against Android (fragmented, ugly ui, non-integrated UI). When Android first came on the market (HTC G1) it could not even compare to an iPhone. But Android has solved many of these problems over the years, due partially to the fact that it's open source and has lots of people / companies contributing to it. It has now come to a point where it is miles beyond iOS and iOS has even gone as far as starting to steal features from Android (notifications drawer anyone?).<p>I've said it before I will say it again. Apple should spend less money worrying about and suing it's competitors and spend more time and money on improving their mediocre products.<p>The time for something new from Apple is definitely soon or they risk starting to lose market share. Although, most of their users are to drunk on koolaid to even know what other products are in the market.<p>[1]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iOS_devices#iPhone" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iOS_devices#iPhone</a>

Not only is it looking stale, but it feels stale. The silo workflow for iOS is so bad for accomplishing simple tasks that require cross application integration.

As a user who has moved from iPhone to Windows Phone 8... yes, their UI is stale.<p>I'm never going to be able to convince Mac users that Windows Phone is better as an overall phone (though I believe it is), but the UI is responsive, informative, and pleasantly minimal. Most folks agree with that when they get the chance to play with it (despite their repeated assurances to me that they would <i>never</i> switch to Windows).

Was I the only one that missed the part where the article explains why "It's Still the Platform to Beat"?