This isn’t an iOS vs. Android thread, although I’m aware this might come off that way to some. I’ve been using Android phones since the Galaxy S4 and at the time it felt like Android was far and ahead the best smartphone OS at the time. It was objectively better than iOS in 2010 in just about every metric apart from UI fluidity.
I’m not so sure about that any more. I still do prefer Android - the UI, the customizability, the ability to sideload apps, etc. That said, why is it that every single time Android gets a feature that truly makes the phone more usable, Google goes ahead and guts that functionality, only for Apple to actually give a shit about that feature a few years later and do it way better.
Just off the top of my head, I can’t believe Google screwed up:
- Android Beam
- Google Now on Tap (not to mention all the things it did that Google Assistant can’t)
- Hangouts (not necessarily Android but it could have easily been better than iMessage)
- Nearby Notifications
- Android @ Home
- Bump!
I get that Google as a company is out to make money, but do they really have to shut down any functionality that isn’t directly generating revenue?
No you’re completely right and these are great examples.
I mean these are all revenue-generating functionality. Making people want to use Android generates money. That’s why they make it.
But yeah their incessant need to kill off their services instead of improving them makes me personally want to switch to iOS. Their only saving grace is that iOS ALSO sucks so badly at so many things, and that’s without getting into the ethical complications of Apple the company.
My hope is that PWAs usher in an era of platform agnosticity(?).