Comments on: Why is Apple discouraging interface consistency?

By: Danny

Danny — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:42:33 +0000

Long live the BlackBerry (Don’t Shoot, only joking)

By: Nathan Ziarek

Nathan Ziarek — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:28:56 +0000

The initial dock apps — Mail, Safari, iPod and Phone — have a special place in Apple’s pecking order. As the essential applications, my guess is Apple considers them above replacement. Even with the change to allow non-Safari browsers on the App Store, a quick look didn’t look like any used Mozilla or Opera back ends. They’re just new faces on the same WebKit view.

I’m not sure if there is anything deeper than that. My hope would be that Apple would prefer to integrate Google Voice functionality directly into the Phone and Messages applications. Not likely, but I can dream.

By: Josh Walsh

Josh Walsh — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:09:32 +0000

@Jonathan – You’re absolutely right. The letters to the FCC sound as though Apple’s is afraid of an application which duplicates native functionality of the App.

Developers duplicate native functionality on the mac all the time without Apple whining. There’s something deeper going on.

By: dbvanhorn

dbvanhorn — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:34:57 +0000

J.Penn hits the nail on the head IMO.

Watch out Apple you’re starting to sound like those whiny guys in Seattle when some one comes along and challenges your ’standard’…. with great innovation.

In technology, what goes around, comes around. Apple needs to be able to dance with all partners. Call your next product Rita Hayworth in fact…

She danced with all the greats…backwards, and in heels.

Cowboy up Apple.

By: Jonathan Penn

Jonathan Penn — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:23:57 +0000

Yeah, the chat bubble controversy is strange. Why wouldn’t they treat the chat bubble as a device wide “control” that displays conversation threads?

But, from my reading of the letters to the FCC from both parties, Apple isn’t discouraging consistency with Google Voice as much as it doesn’t want Google to do a phone-like app at all on the iPhone. There wasn’t any wording in their letter that consistency was at issue. They were concerned with confusion from the overlap of functionality between the two pieces of software. Google’s phone doesn’t just use interface elements from Apple’s phone app, it could be a *replacement* for Apple’s phone app.