Android vs iOS – a representative example

So I went Android recently in an attempt to understand how the rest of us live. Initial thoughts: Hated it. It had a very technical learning curve (and this is coming from a geek). Most notably, the apps built on it didn’t seem to have the same level of quality control Apple has. For all it’s limitations, the walled garden approach has a number of upsides… Anyway, after weeks of being on the Android, I had one experience that was just so representative of the difference between the two OS’s. Here’s a dodgy visual aid that I made earlier. The scenario on Android (red) is as follows: I’m walking along in-step with my 120 bpm house-track, nodding away… In comes a message. The sound *pauses* – the notification sound plays – and my music kicks back in. I’ve lost rhythm with my walking, and now I’m just pissed off that I got an SMS. The scenario on iPhone (blue) is as follows: Same as above, I’m stepping to the groove… In comes a message. The sound turns down most of the way, the song keeps playing, and the notification plays over the top. I’m still groovin’ to the beat, and I can read the message if I want. The diagram in itself is so representative of the two companies: - Google looks angular, and like how an engineer would expect the “right” experience to occur – it’s probably more important to tech-types that they don’t miss a moment of their sound-file (because hey, you could be listening to a podcast with someone talking – right?) - Apple looks elegant, and more “human” – nothing happens suddenly, you have multiple things going on at once, just like in real-life. And lastly, this “problem” could be something that actually does happen on a vanilla install of Android. But it could be Samsung… Or it could even be Optus – you just don’t know, because the OS is open source. They just all get slapped with the same level of discontent, even though some of the brands might be innocent. So that’s my highly representative example of the difference between Android and Apple’s UX. mattrusty.posterous.com