Google HAS produced a UI as bad as this. Actually worse. The Android UI, up until 4 was amateur hour. And still is not up there yet.
It's just held in much less scrutiny compared to Apple, because nobody expects much better.
Wait what? When did that happen? When did Google get "superior engineering"? For search, web etc, perhaps. But as far as iOS vs Android is concerned that was never the case.
For starters, Apple design and engineered the iPhone first. Google's Android FIRST came out a whole year later. Early Android prototypes, shown by Google just before the iPhone was announced had half-size screens and physical keyboards, just like the rest of the smartphones of the day.
Since then Apple has consistenly beat Google on hardware features, from the retina display (with much better color rendition to boot) to camera innovations, the motion co-processor, a working fingerprint sensor (for a change), and 64 bit ARM (which means far more than "being able to see more memory which isn't even installed") etc. Consistently better battery life.
Well, maybe it's not a fair comparison, because Google is not a hardware engineering company. They had to buy Motorola, which wasn't the best in the business itself, anyway. But the above are still true for Samsung offerings too.
On the industrial engineering side, Apple's designs, machining, fit and polish is unsurpassed on the Android side. Including materials used.
In the software side it's the same story. The iOS Cocoa API is leaps and bounds ahead of the Android API. It was never plagued with issues with scroll lag and display latency (and also audio latency, which is why 90% of Audio/MIDI apps are for iOS). Doesn't have a nightmarish GC experience to tend to for more involved apps. More fit and polish overall. Heck, Android even gets 80%+ of all the mobile malware around.
The major points for Android devices were not better engineering per se, but stuff like bigger screens, different configurations etc. And extra features that got marginal use, like face unlock and near field communication, stuff that Apple could have if that's how they rolled.
Some good stuff Android had first was because Apple went conservative to implement them when battery life better permitted them (like background apps -- Android just unleashed them and the hell with it, Apple trying to get the juice, and hence experience, right first).
There's one genuine thing Android had going for it, and that's the Intents system in my opinion. The "quick settings change panel" was also another good one. I don't think we can go much further.
Agree with your general points but the Moto X also has a pair of interesting co-processors: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/the-iphone-5s-the-mot...
Personally, I don't think Apple's getting anywhere enough credit for their in-house processor design at the moment. If that's not engineering talent I don't know what is. Just look at the Anandtech review for proof of that:
The HTC G1 was also one of the early prototypes shown off. Android definitely came later, but they were already working on a large, capacitive touch phone before the iPhone came out.
> Since then Apple has consistenly beat Google on hardware features, from the retina display
Uh, no, so very much no. Apple was sooo late to the high density party. Android was shipping high density, high resolution phones a year before Apple did. Apple did leapfrog on the density front with retina, but they were definitely, unquestionably playing catch-up on this front, not leading the way.
> camera innovations, the motion co-processor, a working fingerprint sensor (for a change)
All of this was done by other companies first, and in some cases better.
> The iOS Cocoa API is leaps and bounds ahead of the Android API.
This is such a stupid statement. Both APIs have their advantages and disadvantages.
> The major points for Android devices were not better engineering per se, but stuff like bigger screens, different configurations etc.
Which was enabled due to superior engineering in some respects. True density independence, flexible layouts everywhere, architecture-neutral designs, etc...
You sir/mam are a fanboy of the worst kind.
For the record, I feel IOS 7 lost its way. Jobsy would have shot it to pieces and buried it before it saw the light of day.
And now it is clear that you don't know a shit abouit what your talking
By the way, Apple also invented the wheel and the sliced bread
Looking at Google Map, Google Search. Those "defining" application of Google, in addition of incredible engineering they redefined what a map and search engine should even look like, so design. Similarly, the iPhone, iMac, iPod were as much about engineering and than design.
In reality, Apple is defined by making money on hardware and Google on cloud software. It is a quirk that they got to clash, because they very much complemented each other.
Google get some slack with Android because they do not sell phones and the vast majority of users do not use Android UI anyway. On the hardware side, Android world provides hundreds of models, there is at least 10 flagship model at any single time. Each get its own amount of nitpicking but eventually all get lost in the noise of other Android news (announcements, prototype, announcement of prototype, benchmark war, "megahertz" war of the day).
Android 4.0+ has fantastic design, in my opinion.
I very much prefer the UI of my Jelly Bean Nexus 7 to this thing they call iOS 7.
And before anyone says I don't like change -- the new UI does make iOS<=6 look very dated, but the odd icon proportions, color scheme and unbalanced use of fonts (sometimes the font is just too light, sometimes the mix just feels.. weird) don't appeal to me at all.
What I hate is when Apple apologists say "you just have to get used to" the new look. I'm already used to the new look, but I still don't like it.
That's kind of ironic given that the Android blogs and _some_ comments on forums (including hacker news) are all "The UI is Android ripoff" (while the Windows Phone camp is "The UI is a Windows Phone ripoff")
