Jokes fly as Apple updates its iOS
AN ANDROID phone walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Hey little buddy, did you know we make a drink named after you?”
“Really?” says the Android. “You make a drink named The All New Motorola Droid Incredibot R3 Galactic Revolution Premium 4G LTE with VCast brought to you by Verizon featuring Beats audio powered by Google?”
Why is the Apple still reporting record profits?
Because iPhone users are just as oblivious to the economic crisis as they are to the people around them.
The iPhone-versus-Android jokes are, predictably, flowing thick and fast in the wake of last week’s release by Apple of its new, completely refurbished operating system, iOS7.
It’s mostly good-natured stuff, even if the humour is a bit on the lame side, and I (an iPhone 5 user, who rushed to install iOS7 as soon as it was available) can hardly blame Android users for pointing out some old Android features that have only now made it into iOS, and some which have still not put in an appearance, when I was quick to make a mountain out of the similarities between the iPhone and Samsung’s topof-the-range, Android-running Galaxy S smartphones.
“Internet speeds have gone to pot today.... Must be all those people downloading IOS 7!” went a status update posted by a colleague on Facebook. “IOS7? You mean Android lite?” came the retort from another Android-using colleague. “They’ll be adding widgets next.”
“And viruses and security flaws!” I responded.
The truth is, some of the vast improvements that have accompanied the release of iOS7 have been a part of Google’s Android operating system almost from the very beginning; the one-stop notification centre, which is accessed by swiping
A phone-lock feature that doesn’t lock the phone is probably one feature Android users will happily do without
down from the top of the screen, and the carousel style used for multitasking not least among them.
Apple has also been the subject of much derision since iOS7 became available because of security vulnerabilities caused by its new “Control Centre”, which is accessed by swiping up from the bottom of the screen.
Hackers quickly found ways to view other people’s photographs and make calls from their locked iPhones because of a setting that allows the control centre to be accessed from the phone’s lock screen without first unlocking it. A “phone-lock” feature that doesn’t actually lock the phone is probably one feature Android users will happily do without.
But despite all of that, iOS7, which was redesigned from the ground up and is about as different from its predecessor as it is possible for two operating systems to be — even more different than iOS7 and Android — is a refreshing move away from the iOS of old, with its annoying skeuomorphic paper, leather and felt.
Although there are also huge improvements to the native camera app, among others, it’s the look and feel of the thing that has most users hooked. “It feels like I have a new phone,” I’ve heard a few users say. My wife, who is running it on a relatively old iPhone 4S, loves the way the icons fly in and out of the screen when opening and closing apps. One of my favourite things about it is the 3D parallax background effect, which makes it look like the icons on the screen are moving relative to the background when you tilt the phone.
The bottom line, however, is that both iOS7 and Android users (depending, in the latter case, on which device it’s running on) have top-notch smartphone experiences rivalled only by each other, with Windows Phone having to play catch-up. The real joke is on people who still believe a BlackBerry is worth having.