Responding to the same ‘Samsung out-innovating Apple’ piece I wrote about earlier, John Gruber at Daring Fireball talks about the iOS app launch grid:

The utter simplicity of the iOS home screen is Apple’s innovation. It’s the simplest, most obvious “system” ever designed. It is a false and foolish but widespread misconception that “innovation” goes only in the direction of additional complexity.

This is a viewpoint I’ve long shared and continue to argue in favour of. The problem is that the tech press lives in its own little bubble, and often those commenting on articles (and therefore shoring up viewpoints) are also those heavily into tech, tweaking and customisation. The reality is most people either cannot do such things or really don’t care about doing so. Most people just want to get on with performing tasks.

The question with iOS and its perceived limitations is whether it stops people from doing this. Some pundits have said the iOS lock screen should be massively overhauled, to add a slew of widgets, providing immediate access to information from diverse sources. Clearly, that’s something that works for some people, but it’s also a confusing, unfocussed mess for others. I look at my parents, new to touchscreen devices, battling iOS. If they were bombarded with crap the second they turned on their devices, said devices would soon end up in a drawer, never to be used again. But because they get a clean grid of icons and can focus on a single task, they’re getting into using these devices, and exploring the app ecosystem.

Even from my own perspective, I’m becoming an advocate of simplicity over complexity. I used to weld countless add-ons to my Mac, but I’ve in recent years stripped them back to only include add-ons that I cannot do without, because removing them would make me significantly less productive. I’m not sure how a more complex launch environment on iOS would make me any more productive. At-a-glance tiles can barely show any information anyway, and if they were showing something that’s ‘cropped’, I’d be more likely to open an app and become distracted. By contrast, when I open Tweetbot on iOS, it’s because I want to spend some time on Twitter, and the configurable Notification Center can take care of flinging an alert in my face for anything that’s especially important and/or time-sensitive.

Note that I’m not arguing that Apple’s got it ‘right’ and Android and others have got it ‘wrong’. But, like Gruber, I am arguing that taking a default stance that increased complexity is always a boon for computing is a bafflingly wrong standpoint that should cause any writer to take pause and reconsider.

I yesterday wrote about TechCrunch’s article that referred to Samsung out-innovating Apple. To be fair to author Peter Relan, his piece was largely balanced and generally non-mad. CNN, on the other hand, has gone all out into Crazy Zone territory, with Steve Kovach’s How Samsung is out-innovating Apple. He first sets the scene:

Competitors have built upon the foundation Apple laid in mobile and are now leapfrogging it with [a] bunch of useful features you can’t find on iPhones and iPads. The evidence is everywhere, but it’s most apparent in products made by Apple’s biggest mobile rival, Samsung.

He then equates innovation with what I yesterday referred to as Samsung’s “out-flinging-stuff-at-walls-and-seeing-what-sticks-ing Apple”:

[You] can’t ignore the fact that the company has innovated a lot by creating popular new product categories that Apple is wary to try.

Well, you certainly can’t when people writing for CNN keep banging on about it. Kovach mentions the Galaxy Note, which people criticised, and then which subsequently sold quite well. Then there’s the Galaxy Note II, with an even bigger screen and that sold five million units. This, according to Kovach showed how Samsung

created a new category of smartphone that people didn’t even know they wanted, much like Apple did when it released the first iPhone.

Yes, exactly like the iPhone. Because without the iPhone, Samsung would quite obviously have created a slightly larger iPhone-like device. That much is certain.

Samsung isn’t afraid to tout its cool factor either. Since the first commercial debuted in late 2011, you’ve probably seen those “Next Big Thing” ads that make fun of starry-eyed Apple fans waiting in line for the next iPhone.

While hoping one day people will also queue up like that to buy one of its devices.

On the software side of things, Samsung is taking advantage of its mobile devices’ processing power to layer premium features on top of Android, such as the ability to run two apps at once in a split screen or separate window.

Sounds great. Let’s hope there’s not a downside to that!

There is a downside to the split-screen thing, however.

Oh.

Developers have to tweak their apps to work in split-screen mode on the Note 10.1. There are only about 20 apps right now that can do it.

Oh.

Samsung isn’t alone, of course. Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system is built for touchscreen devices like tablets, too, and it offers a lot of advantages over iOS.

Fewer touchscreen-optimised apps, for a start, meaning you don’t waste any time actually using the device like a tablet and immediately wish you’d bought a proper laptop instead.

Microsoft even has its own line of Surface tablets that blur the line between PC and laptop thanks to a clever snap-on keyboard cover.

Of the type that’s completely absent from the iPad ecosystem.

Based on all this evidence…

Evidence?

… Apple feels behind. Take a look at its newest fourth-generation iPad. It has a killer processor and other great hardware features, but the operating system doesn’t take advantage of any of that. The home screen is still just a grid of static icons that launch apps.

Because, as everyone knows, an operating system and the hardware it runs on is only judged by its app launcher, not everything else it can do.

Apple also isn’t nearly as versatile at adding new software features to its devices. Apple usually makes users wait a year or more for a new version of iOS, and even then some older devices can’t access all the latest and greatest features.

Because Android has such a good reputation compared to Apple in updating device operating systems. Still, the original Galaxy Note is now getting an OTA update to run Jelly Bean, which came out in, uh, July 2012. That clearly keeps products alive in the same way Apple’s same-day across-the-board iOS updates don’t. IN YOUR FACE, CUPERTINO!

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Steve Kovach.

“We paid for this? Shit. Yeah, I know you warned me. Anything we can do to disassociate us from this garbage in as obvious a way as possible? An ‘opinions expressed’ line? Sounds great.”

Via The Loop, a nice post by Louie Mantia on skeuomorphism. I’ve written in the past about Apple’s heavy use of textures on iOS, defending such decisions and also highlighting what can happen when the other extreme (over the top minimalism) is instead used.

Mantia rightly notes that a lot of what people are complaining about as ‘skeuomorphism’ is in fact simply custom textures integrated with standard interface design, because something skeuomorphic is supposed to have a connection with an older/familiar way of doing things. Therefore, a direct translation of some music hardware—knobs and all—to the iPad is clearly skeuomorphic. Find My Friends, with its leather stitching, is not, because you never used to use your leather stitched ‘thing’ to find your friends. Unless you were a serious weirdo in a leather suit, often getting arrested on ‘scaring the shit out of people’ charges.

However, the part of Mantia’s post that really struck with me was this:

More importantly, a visually distinctive app such as Game Center, Find My Friends, Podcasts, or iBooks helps you to remember which app you’re in. The colors, textures, and environment paint that picture instantly.

As I’ve said in the past, I find it strange people now see Jony Ive’s shift to looking after all of Apple’s human interface as an indication that future software will be as minimal as the hardware. If that is the case, either they don’t understand Ive or—more worryingly—Ive doesn’t understand good software design. I don’t have a problem with Apple perhaps toning down some of its excesses, but to remove every texture and all the fun from its software and head towards Office 2013-style minimalism would be the wrong decision.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with somewhat minimal design when it’s the best decision for the app in question (such as Letterpress), but as a default it would make it difficult for people to immediately know what application they are in. On OS X, people have complained enough about Apple removing colour from Finder, and removing textures entirely from iOS would be rather similar. Also, the point of iOS hardware is that it is a blank canvas—it’s designed to get out of the way and enable the device to become the application or game that is running. But in making apps extremely minimal, Apple would be in danger of painting shades of white on its blank canvas, which won’t excite anyone and would even cause minimalist advocates to rapidly start griping that iOS was now boring and less usable.

It’s hard to expect too much from a TechCrunch op-ed, but there’s no denying this headline grabbed my attention: The Post Post-PC Era: Will Apple, Google, Samsung, Amazon Or Microsoft Win? I wasn’t expecting answers—I’m not crazy—but I was expecting at least a slice of BWUH? from former something or other for Oracle, Peter Relan.

To be fair to Relan, he doesn’t spend his entire time frothing at the mouth over Android marketshare, nor suggesting that Tim Cook should set fire to his eyebrows and let Jony Ive run the Cupertino show. However, he does smack into a wall when trying to predict the ‘winner’ in tablet device distribution channels:

Though Apple owns the market now, Samsung will likely push ahead since the brand seems to be out-innovating Cupertino and may continue to do so on tablets.

That’s a pretty vague statement. Out-innovating Apple how, exactly? Is this a general claim, in which case it’s pretty difficult for Samsung to out-innovate Apple without some kind of time machine, where its designers can scoot back into the past and come out with its iOS device clones before Apple even releases its own products. (Hint to Samsung: Apple’s Time Machine is merely back-up software, not an actual time machine. You’ll have to look elsewhere or, heaven forbid, actually invent one of your own.)

If we’re talking strict distribution channels, I also fail to see where Samsung is out-innovating Apple. It’s certainly out-spending Apple, and it’s also out-flinging-stuff-at-walls-and-seeing-what-sticks-ing Apple, through selling approximately eight billion different devices. This potentially gives Samsung more widespread distribution in certain markets simply through being (in some cases) cheaper—a race-to-the-bottom that’s worked so well in the PC industry. By contrast, the iPad’s available in Apple’s growing number of genuinely innovative stores, along with being possible to buy from countless other stores worldwide. There’s also now the iPad mini, grabbing a chunk of the lower end of the market.

Still, perhaps Relan is right and Samsung will soon truly out-innovate Apple—once Apple releases something new and innovative that Samsung can innovate from in an innovative fashion.

In an earlier post today, I suggest Nintendo could be another Sega fairly soon, offering its IP on the App Store. Tap! deputy editor Matthew Bolton (who knows more than a bit about gaming), countered on Twitter:

I’m not so sure about Mario on [the] App Store. Nintendo’s technical meticulousness in Mario is unparalleled outside of racers… the controls’ responsiveness is tuned to perfection, and touchscreens are laggy. It’s an Apple situation

I agree. Touchscreens are fantastic for certain types of gaming, but not Mario-style platformers. (That’s not to say there aren’t decent 2D platformers for iOS, but they certainly don’t match Super Mario in terms of, as Matt put it, ‘technical meticulousness’.) But there is a solution: a third-party controller.

It’s not like such a thing is without precedent: I’ve written about iOS games controllers before, and although they’re something of a niche, Nintendo has the hardware savvy to produce such a thing, and the IP clout to encourage plenty of people to buy it. Of course, the company would lose control elsewhere, notably in terms of device hardware. But if Nintendo’s forced into a Sega-like position, its games on the App Store and a Nintendo controller doesn’t seem like the worst alternative.