Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
The reason for enforcing the interface is the same reason they will require hardware to meet a minimum spec. Consistency across the devices which will help from a usablity standpoint but more importantly be much, much kinder to developers.
Developers can now develop applications knowing that the target hardware will behave in the same way across all devices. It will have the same features (i.e gps, higher definition screen, and so on) and it will look the same so they can match the style of their app to the style of the OS. Methods of interaction implemented by the OS can be implemented in these apps without fear that any of the style or function has been overridden on device x.
As mentioned before it gives Microsoft more freedom to refine and develop the OS without waiting for HTC or whoever to bring out an updated skin before it can be considered implemented on all devices.
|
All true. I found on my N95 that while the phone offered features pretty much comparable to the iPhone (and a better camera), most applications made little or no use of those facilities. Probably because the apps tended to be design for Symbian devices generally, so didn't necessarily support the extra features of any specific device. I also think to some extent, Windows Mobile has gone the same way. I also suspect that without tight controls on the phone specs, Android will go the same way.
As Damien says, Apple have the advantage here. They are the ONLY company manufacturing phones using the iPhone OS, so they already have absolute control over the features of the devices. Thus, developers can bung in nice features like Location sensing (with or without GPS) and Accelerometer support safe in the knowledge that they will work on the bulk of the iPhone OS based devices out there.