Ryne Hager, Writing at Android Police: ‘Do Yourself a Favor and Buy an iPad During Lockdown’

Not the usual fare at Android Police. (I have never understood the name “Android Police”. What is that all about?) Feels like the inconvenient truth, though. There are flagship Android phones from several companies that are, undeniably, competitive with the iPhone. Tablets, not so much (other than at the low end of the market, with devices like Amazon’s Fire tablets). But what I’m most interested in isn’t what Hager likes about iPads, but what he doesn’t:

By far, the biggest advantage of having an iPad comes down to apps. iOS has more of them. It also has more exclusives, it usually gets apps for new services or games first, and apps for iPads often make better use of big-screen layouts than Android apps do. Even if you hate iOS and its weird dated home screen layout, awkwardly monolithic Settings app, arbitrary and draconian default app restrictions, and the lack of deep Google services integration, the apps kind of make up for it.

That’s a pretty interesting list. First, not one of them is hardware related. (He does mention subsequently that Samsung has tablets with AMOLED displays, but that’s tech spec gibberish — no one can argue that iPad displays aren’t best of breed at each price point). iPad hardware is undeniably great. Second, his software complaints don’t even include the multitasking UI complaints I’ve been preoccupied with. Instead his list is:

  • “Weird dated home screen layout”. Near universal agreement on this one. I don’t think Android shows the way forward here, at all, but the iOS home screen really is dated and limited. And it’s not even simple — it’s downright tricky and error prone to move apps around to rearrange them.

  • “Awkwardly monolithic Settings app”. This I don’t get. Yes, the iOS Settings app contains a lot of stuff. But it’s organized pretty well for the most part, and search helps quite a bit when looking for something deep. Ideally every single setting in Settings would be indexed for search, but I find the iOS Settings app easier to navigate logically than the Android Settings app on my Pixel. Regarding monolithism, I assume he’s referring to the fact that Apple’s built-in apps keep their settings in Settings, rather than in each app. At the outset of the App Store, Apple’s guidelines prescribed that all apps put their settings in the Settings app — an idea that was clear on day one wouldn’t scale.

  • “Arbitrary and draconian default app restrictions”. Nothing arbitrary about it, but yeah, that’s been a complaint ever since the App Store opened. According to Mark Gurman, though, Apple is considering changing this in iOS 14.

  • “Lack of deep Google services integrations”. From this side of the fence, that’s a feature, not a bug. Makes about as much sense to complain about this as it would to complain about the lack of iCloud integration on an Android phone, except for the fact that Google actually does offer a slew of iOS apps, whereas Apple’s offerings for Android are, uh, Apple Music. (Why no Apple TV? If they’re making Apple TV apps for TVs running Android why not make an Apple TV app for Android phones?)

(And, of course, the comments section on this post is a goldmine of hot takes.)

★ Monday, 6 April 2020