Androi and Apple, where are they going?

[Catfish]

This thread I hope will not become a android/apple hate thread. But I havebeen wondering what plans Apple has in the future to keep competing with Android?

Yeah i can see them competing with their phones but as time goes by I can see Android is going to be used on so much more than phones. The biggest advantages I see with this is that people will be able to use many devices without having to re-learn how to use them and you will be able to view, share, modify etc your data (net connected or sd card stored) from anywhere you have an Android device thats (optionally) network connected.

So what does Apple have in store for the future? Will we be seeing set top boxes, TVs, car steros etc coming out with iOS on them? If not, how is Apple going to compete to keep consumers with their products?

I held out on getting my Android phone/device because I could see this happening. A lot of my friends got iPhones and kept telling me I made a mistake getting an Android. I said to them "wait and see. in two years you will be going back to the phone shop and signing up for an android like you should have done this time."

What does everyone else think? No Apple sledging please, lets try to keep the discussion informative and based on sound reason.

 

[poopookakada]

I would like to see apple branch out into everything, but I don't think they will. Imagine an apple satnav... it'd be dead simple to use and really quick..... I think I'd actually get one of them.

Did I hear that they made or are making boxes for your TV so you can stream things from your iPhone/iPod via the box to the TV or did I imagine that?

I know that HTC are going to be branching out to cars (the built in SatNav and stereo systems) so maybe Android will be heading for cars too?
I'd also like to see Android PCs (I know it's just Linux but I have a vision of it with scrollable apps like phones and tablets do) and Internet TVs that support it would be pretty cool too.

 

[Vihzel]

From what I understand, Apple is revamping its OS with iOS5. It has a very long future with its iPad line... who knows where they're headed.

 

[Isthmus]

correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't IOS already into a fairly wide array of devices? Also doesn't it alreadyhave pretty tight integration with MacOS?

I think going forward Android will almost surely expand into greater product categories, but I'm not quite so sure about the level of integration you expect. don't forget that while it os all based on the same core, manufacturers regularly alter desktop environments, restrict features, and lock bootloaders in Android, so commonality is not necessarily something available to the average user.

I think of more interest (at least to me) is the future of GNU-Linux as a whole relative to every other type of operating system. Already Linux (in some form or another) has displaced the market leader or is in the process of displacing them, in most major device categories (from super computers to mp3 players). the only place where they haven't done this is in the traditional desktop user environment for both private and corporate users.

The crazy part is that in many ways, linux is superior to the major desktop operating systems, but people are simply ignorant of what it can do and resist it.

 

[Catfish]

isthmus - re: linux on desktop, I think a lot of people are ignorant of linux and what it is good for or good at, but I think most people are not ignorant of what linux is not good at, which usually are problems that occur at run time of user applications or when trying to install application and end users just can't fix them. You might need to be a system admin or a developer to fix them.

I've found the biggest shortcoming of Linux - in the desktop scene - is that it usually fails for the end user at some point (all computer software does this I know). Usually for me it was that I couldn't install particular applications I wanted, and my knowledge with the operating system wasn't good enough to work out a fix.

 

[Isthmus]

isthmus - re: linux on desktop, I think a lot of people are ignorant of linux and what it is good for or good at, but I think most people are not ignorant of what linux is not good at, which usually are problems that occur at run time of user applications or when trying to install application and end users just can't fix them. You might need to be a system admin or a developer to fix them.

I've found the biggest shortcoming of Linux - in the desktop scene - is that it usually fails for the end user at some point (all computer software does this I know). Usually for me it was that I couldn't install particular applications I wanted, and my knowledge with the operating system wasn't good enough to work out a fix.

Fair points Catfish. However I would say that much of that is less and less true every day in linux land. It might very well have something to do with the development of linux, which traditionally has not been focused on end users, but rather on technical users (sys-admins and developers). I would argue that ever since ubuntu forked out of debian, there has been very steady progress toward making desktop linux (for end users), easy and complete for inexperienced as well as technically savvy users. The funny thing is that making Linux accessible to all skill levels has really taken off and now most of the most popular distributions really go out of their way to be truly complete desktop environments.

You are right though, that since linux continues to be community developed it remains factitious. Also the community doesn't work under the same timelines as corporate environments, so what might be a priority to a commercial OS might not be as much to the community. This is especially true of application, not so much the distros themselves (at least not the major ones). IN my experience I find that often times linux software is as good or better than comercial counterparts, while at other times it is annoyingly lacking. In my case, and I would think in the case of most people these problems are increasingly fewer and further between (especially since the introduction of WINE).

As I see it, The gains in terms of speed, compatibility with legacy hardware, use of system resources, stability, security, UI options and level of customization (ie flexibility), more than make up for having to familiarize myself with Open source alternatives to popular commercial programs. For my uses, the only thing linux doesn't do well is Games - and that's only because most modern games are written specifically from windows.

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BTW, I would encourage you to try and give WINE a shot. you can use it to run most programs written for windows in linux. Most of them run well.