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ultima on 29 August 2012
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rocketpig said:
ultima said:
I'm a Canadian, so there's no dialect barrier between us. I clearly know what that means. What I criticized was the ambiguity of the statement (or vagueness is perhaps a more fitting term). "They had an excellent notification system long before either Android or iOS developed anything worth a damn." There's no indication there that you meant that webOS had a good notification system long before either Android or iOS did; it actually sounds like you meant that webOS had a good notification system long before either Android or iOS developed ANYTHING worthwile. Which is clearly false, seeing as both predated webOS. Moreover, the statement that you apparently meant is also not true, because Android has had pretty much the same notification system since 2008. You're right that they added the swipe gesture and more info; but those are small improvements, not major redesigns to bring it up to speed with webOS.

And I'd argue that I still think the Android notification system is still slightly subpar, particularly on phones (their tablet implementation in Honeycomb was quite good, I think). WebOS was on the right track with their notifications and I think iOSes' notifications are better than Android (speaking as someone who owns an iPad, an iPod, a Gingerbread phone, and spent the weekend setting up an ICS phone, which I recommended to my father). Virtually no useful information past "this thing exists" is in the phone notification window. I think Apple's system of displaying relevant information at the top of the screen (and quickly rolling it off the screen entirely) is superior and, again, it's much like what WebOS was doing in 2009. Not to mention that iOS shows notifications on the lock screen, which is nice.

Remember that this argument started by you saying that Apple ripped off Android's notifications. I still disagree. They both stole some elements from WebOS and Android still hasn't gotten it right, IMO. Too many people are putting too much stock in "THE NOTIFICATIONS PULL DOWN!!1!!" instead of looking at the actual content and implementation. WebOS displayed their notifications on the bottom and whether the things appear at the top or bottom of the screen is irrelevant. What's important is how they display and what information is given to the user.

In my opinion, Android's notification system is just perfect. You disagree, but that's fine. I personally think that iOS notifications are still disruptive (although not nearly as much as the old pop-up system). I don't like the idea of lock screen notifications, because it's intrusive. When you wake an Android phone, the status bar will tell you if you have notifications and a quick swipe of the status bar will list them for you. Works perfectly.

Ripped off is too pejorative. But it's certainly true that that particular notification system is an Android invention. iOS took this system from Android. webOS also took the system from Android. They added their own flavours to it, but any way you look at it, Android had it before them.