Ah yes, the good ol 'if I repeat it enough times I'll be correct!' logic. It doesn't work, bub.
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Tablets Thoughts on the Nexus 7 - My experience so far...
- Thread starter taeclee99
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Ah yes, the good ol 'if I repeat it enough times I'll be correct!' logic. It doesn't work, bub.
Sure bub. This is a fact and is indisputable:
The Retina display is BETTER than the screen on the Nexus because the average person cannot discern the individual pixels on the iPad screen. The ppi on the Sexus is not enough to qualify as a Retina therefore the average person CAN discern individual pixels. Period. End of story.
And what is so groundbreaking about iOS6?
I'm not anti iOS, but let's face it things like Google Now really make Siri look slow and behind the times.
Wow you're clever! Who would have thought they discuss things like this on a Mac/technology forum.
Arguing over a trivial difference in PPI? Wow.
Yes the iPad's screen is technically better, but in the real world, it's trivial.
And what is so groundbreaking about iOS6?
I'm not anti iOS, but let's face it things like Google Now really make Siri look slow and behind the times.
Wow you're clever! Who would have thought they discuss things like this on a Mac/technology forum.
Haven't tried Google Now. Is it any good?
Yes, judging by the numbers, it is better. I have never once doubted that. Is the improvement noticeable to the naked eye? To mine, it is not.
Why don't you try it? You were very insistent about you being the owner of one (albeit an unhappy owner), so you really ought to try it yourself.
The Retina display is BETTER than the screen on the Nexus because the average person cannot discern the individual pixels on the iPad screen. The ppi on the Sexus is not enough to qualify as a Retina therefore the average person CAN discern individual pixels. Period. End of story.
As for Google Now, it's ok. On my 20 minute test, it's faster than Siri but much more limited.
How so? Every video I've seen of the two compared side by side shows that Now is capable of everything Siri is.
"What movies are playing near by?" Then it gave me BS Web results.
I should mention I'm using latest iOS 6 and I'm getting all of the added features to Siri as shown in the WWDC 2012 video. Siri's movie listing with nice interface, trailer, and aggregated listing built right in is great.
Siri is also much more scalable and powerful in my opinion. Like tapping into other Apps: opening them, setting timers, her sense of humour, accuracy, etc.
All Google Now does is perform a web search. Type a question into Google Now on your computer or tablet and you'll get the same answer above all the web results.
As you can see below, I typed in "how old is dustin pedroia" and Google loaded with his age and birthday at the top. It's the same exact thing that Google Now will show, the only difference being Now puts it in a card format. You even get more info on the right side. Of course you can't go to Google.com and type in "remind me to feed the dog" on your computer. I'm only talking about information based queries, not productivity things Now does.
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I owned an iPhone 4 and iPad then iPad 3.
The reason I purchased a Nexus was for my girlfriend for her birthday.
I loved it so much my iPad is now on eBay and ive got myself one!
Reasons for getting it was the Google features, I love the widgets, like another post said, Ive never used android but im really impressed! I now have a windows phone 7 and the live tiles/widgets were the reasons im leaving apple products.
Thanks Apple for 4 good years on iPhone!
The reason I purchased a Nexus was for my girlfriend for her birthday.
I loved it so much my iPad is now on eBay and ive got myself one!
Reasons for getting it was the Google features, I love the widgets, like another post said, Ive never used android but im really impressed! I now have a windows phone 7 and the live tiles/widgets were the reasons im leaving apple products.
Thanks Apple for 4 good years on iPhone!
Well... I'm not a developer, so I can't say for certain, but my guess is that where different versions of apps exist for the iPad and iPhone, like Pages for iPad and Pages for iPhone, or Calendar for iPad and Calendar for iPhone, more than half of their code is the same. And in many cases, apps for iPhone and iPad are even more closely related to each other -- some iPad apps are almost the same as their iPhone versions except for cosmetic differences to adjust for the different screen sizes. So you just can't make a blanket statement that iPad and iPhone don't run the same software. In many cases, they do. And even in cases where the iPad and iPhone versions of an app are distinctly different from each other, they clearly belong in the same family, especially when compared to desktop/laptop apps.
I'm not making a blanket statement, simply countering freudling's blanket statement that they dorun the same software ... which they clearly don't. Similar versions of the same software at best (disregarding the same versions that fail to take advantage of the iPad's larger display). The iPhone offers lesser ability to run useful apps due to it's smaller screen -- it is in effect, a different tool.
So to make an analogy, iPad and iPhone apps are like wolfs and dogs, while desktop/laptop apps are cats
A biologist is going to say that dogs and wolves are pretty much the same, and they can even interbreed. He's not going to place as much importance on the domestication factor. But to a farmer, a dog is a trusted helper, and a wolf is a dangerous predator. A farmer might get understandably upset if he thinks a biologist is treating dogs and wolves as variants of the same category. A biologist would be exasperated at the farmer's short-sightedness in insisting that dogs and wolves are different when they obviously share so many characteristics.
It's all a matter of perspective, is what I'm trying to say.
All sorts of analogies could be made. Here's mine:
Say there's a person attempting to loosen a bolt with a set of wrenches. They pick up a wrench, and find it's the wrong size. Now what then would be a more useful way to categorize the device in hand:
A. It's a wrench, just like the others.
B. It's the wrong tool for the job.
I would say that spending time arguing over A. would be time wasted.
Like you say, it's a matter of perspective.
Well, but from a software development perspective, nobody makes a "MacBook Air" app, or a "Mac Pro" app. So in that sense, the distinctions among various types of desktop/laptop aren't as important as the distinctions among different-sized multi-touch devices, as you also mentioned. And it is because of this that I do feel suspicious of the "tweener" size tablet. Unlike freudling, I'm not going to say tweeners are destined to fail, but since the size difference between an iPhone and iPad does necessitate, for most apps, a separately designed UI for that particular size device, then there is a likelihood that the tweener tablet also needs its own UI, different from both the iPad and the iPhone. If Apple and the devs don't provide such an optimized UI for the tweener, then the user experience may not be as good as either the iPhone or the iPad. And I do think this is what freudling is claiming about the Nexus 7, that the user experience is inferior because the UI is not optimized for it, but he's going about it in an antagonistic and needlessly argumentative way.
You might find it interesting to pick up an iPad Nano.
It's also a touch display device that runs versions of Apple's Music, Podcast, Photo and Settings apps.
It's a radically smaller device than the iPad and iPhone, and yet the touch targets are still the same size as what's mentioned in Apple's Human Interface Guidelines.
freudling's argument has been that this size device would require a radically different UI -- It does not.
"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you"
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You need to calm down mate, it's 7in and far more usable than a phone when browsing on a website. This is due to the fact your fingers do not scale down like your screen size. So unless you compare a small baby using an iPhone to an adult using the nexus, its not going to be the same at all you muppet. Retina will make the screen look sharp but again, its on a smaller screen so you need to zoom in.
Another example is I have a 24in monitor at work, if this was a 7in retina monitor, yeah I could see everything still and its super clear but its not practical, that's what its all about! It's just not as practical to browse the web on a phone, even if it is clear.
I use my phone to call and check quick things using apps. The Nexus is better for sitting on the sofa and web browsing comfortably for longer periods.
I found the 7in the sweet spot after downgrading from my iPad 3, iPad can sometimes be heavy to hold and move about, which irritated me sometimes.
An Apple 7in tablet with retina would obviously be the ideal, but I really think Apple need to update their OS to add widgets or live tile style functionality. I loved iOS until I upgraded to Windows Phone 7 and then started to realise the short falls.
Hope this doesn't sound too biased or anti Apple but its my honest experience. I loved my iPhone just think its starting to look a bit dated.
I do have an iPod nano, and I think it rather proves the argument that different-size screens require different UI. For instance, the nano has a 2x2 icon grid, the iPhone is 4x5 including the dock, the iPad has a 4x5 grid for the home screen and you can put 6 icons in the dock. Nike's pedometer app on the Nano is resized to fit the square Nano screen, they don't just use the iPhone UI that was designed for the phone's larger rectangular screen.
So that's the kind of thing I was thinking of when I said each screen size needs its own UI. Of course all multi-touch devices will share features in common, but adjustments are needed to optimize for each size. The question is, can a tweener make do with just a scaled down or scaled up version of iPad/iPhone UI, or does it need layout adjustments of its own?
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My point there was that the touch target size within the apps remains the same, despite the radical change in screen size -- something that freudling claimed would not be the case.
As for the home screen - iPad scaled down to 7.85 size presents nothing that falls outside of Apple's guidelines that I can see. If someone can point something out, please do.
One thing you can certainly say about the iPad's current home screen, is that there is a huge amount of wasted space between the icons - mini scaled would not move them uncomfortably close, that's for sure.
Did he? I can't remember much talk of target sizes. (Or to be more accurate, I don't remember exactly who said what -- it's all turning into a giant blur
) But in order for touch target sizes to remain the same, wouldn't the layout have to change? For instance, the forward/backward, bookmark and sharing icons at the top of Safari in iPad. If you just shrink the whole iPad UI, all the icons will get smaller and squished closer together. I know that in the case of Safari, the result might still be within Apple's interface guidelines, but will that be the case with all UI elements in all apps? And just because something is within Apple's guidelines, doesn't guarantee that it will be easy to use. Will I find that I can use a scaled down Safari UI on an iPad mini as easily as the full-sized one on the current iPad, or will I wish the mini had its own layout? I won't know until I actually try one.As for the home screen grid, okay, that will be no problem if the layout stays the same on the iPad mini. Maybe Apple did plan ahead and always planned to come out with a mini tablet, even while Steve was bashing other company's 7-inchers!
Well it's doing pretty well considering the 16 GB model is sold out everywhere.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/23/tech/gaming-gadgets/google-orders-16g-nexus/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/23/tech/gaming-gadgets/google-orders-16g-nexus/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
I don't get what about IOS is dated compared to jelly bean?
I have both devices and both operating systems are very similar in terms of features. If anything thing Jellybean more closely resembles IOS in it's aesthetic than any previous version of Android.
I also don't understand what is the big deal about widgets? The only widget I have on my home screen is the clock.
I guess it is the ability to have them if you want them! I just got off the phone with Google to arrange for the return of my Nexus 7 tablet. AFter a full week with it, I find that I don't need it. I have a Galaxy Note phone which I love, and an Ipad2 which I also love. For me, surfing on my Note is every bit as good as it was on the Nexus 7 tablet, so the device was a bit redundant for me. If I really want the best tablet user experience, I use the iPad because of it's ability to view full screen desktop websites without having to constantly pan and zoom.
I do love Android after a few months with the Note, but since I already have an iPad, I'll stick with it. Had I not already had one, I'd probably give a full size Android tablet a go. IOS and Android are both nice for me, and the only reason I left iPhone was over the not so large screen size.
Did he? I can't remember much talk of target sizes. (Or to be more accurate, I don't remember exactly who said what -- it's all turning into a giant blur
As for the home screen grid, okay, that will be no problem if the layout stays the same on the iPad mini. Maybe Apple did plan ahead and always planned to come out with a mini tablet, even while Steve was bashing other company's 7-inchers!
You're probably not going to get anywhere with people like knucklehead because they keep posting things over and over that demonstrate they lack an understanding of software development and interface design.
The larger point I made was that you can't just keep the UI the same with varying screens because the UI will get 'messed up'. For instance, you can't just scale down an iPad App, like the iBooks App to the size where it would fit an iPhone screen. Buttons would be tiny, some features overlapping, it doesn't make any sense. In a similar fashion, you can't leave all of the buttons the same size and try to position them on screen: they'll overlap each other because the screen is far too small. It's why you have to design new interfaces for different sized screens, which is exactly what Apple has done with the iBookstore and other Apps on the iPhone: it's a simplified UI compared to the iPad version because their's LESS room for UI elements. And UI elements can be seen to actually be FARTHER apart from one another (check Safari on your iPhone vs. your iPad... back and forward buttons) because Apple knows that people use that smaller screen with their thumbs: the meatiest pointing device on your hand. You need more space in between UI elements to mitigate spurious inputs.
None of this is to be confused with having MINIMUM sized touch targets, which is a whole other conversation.
But back to your point, I've actually scaled the iPad iBookstore App down to the size where it'd fit an iPhone screen. The result is absurd. I demonstrated before how the size of the touch targets scale down much faster when you just try and scale an App down without making any other changes: they get too small too fast. The buttons on the iBookstore are tiny, for instance, and on the Tweener, the buttons are still too small.
Anyway, another point to knucklehead:
The iPad and the iPhone use the EXACT same operating system. To argue that the operating systems are different when run on a different screen size is absurd. There is NO difference between them whatsoever. Zero. Nothing. The only difference is scale of the OS. It's like saying Windows is a different operating system on laptops with a 17" screen compared to ones with a 12" screen. Screen size has nothing to do with the operating system and the hardware architecture. Both the operating system and the hardware architecture are the same on the iPad and the iPhone. And the iPod Touch. The hardware here is different than what OS X runs on. And the input method for iPod Touches, iPads, and iPhones is different than point and click devices running OS X, but are themselves the exact same: multi-touch.
Thus, devices running iOS are in a category by themselves, whereas those running OS X are in their own category. These are different devices. One's meant for mobility, the other productivity.
Wait, what? Nobody is arguing that the iPad interface should be scaled down to iPhone size. Of course that would be absurd and unusable. The discussion is about whether we can scale the iPad interface to a 7-8 inch tablet and if that would be usable or not.
Yes I know. What I determined was that buttons scale down too fast and become too small on the tweener. It's not proportional... therefore no magic button that will just make the larger interface work on the Tweener without work. I kept going all the way to see how bad it would get to the iPhone.
Might want to check your "facts" there buddy. You DO realize the new iPad's ppi is 264 right?
... but I'm sure you knew that....What you need to understand is pixel discernment has as much to do with distance as it does ppi. The term "retina" was used because after 300ppi, the human eye cannot discern individual pixels at a distance of 11". A person would not hold a tablet 11" away from their face, hence why Apple used the term "retina" for the new iPad. With a tablet, it can be as much as 24"+ away from the user's face, therefore a much lower ppi can be used and individual pixels still cannot be discerned. That said, if you want to say the pixels in the Nexus 7 can indeed be discerned, then you need to show me a definition for "retina" that was used in the new iPad and show the distance limitation for that ppi. Until then, you might want to stop with that argument because you've already made yourself look silly.
Might want to check your "facts" there buddy. You DO realize the new iPad's ppi is 264 right?
What you need to understand is pixel discernment has as much to do with distance as it does ppi. The term "retina" was used because after 300ppi, the human eye cannot discern individual pixels at a distance of 11". A person would not hold a tablet 11" away from their face, hence why Apple used the term "retina" for the new iPad. With a tablet, it can be as much as 24"+ away from the user's face, therefore a much lower ppi can be used and individual pixels still cannot be discerned. That said, if you want to say the pixels in the Nexus 7 can indeed be discerned, then you need to show me a definition for "retina" that was used in the new iPad and show the distance limitation for that ppi. Until then, you might want to stop with that argument because you've already made yourself look silly.
Hey buddy. Silly people like you who can't do math make themself look silly all the time. Let's see if you can figure out why the Nexus 7 needs closer to 300 ppi to be Retina.
iGentenlemen: "Arrrgh [blue in the face]. I'll show you!"
I see what you're saying, but the Nexus 7 has a smaller display than the iPad, thus making the smaller pixel count still "retina-like" for it's screen size.