I may not know what WebOS is, but I know enough about iOS, Android, BB, WP to educate people about them. You telling me I have no business doing that is like you telling a mathematician that he shouldn't be teaching number theory, just because he doesn't know game theory, despite him having vast knowledge of number theory itself. But that's irrelevant, because I never said I'd be educating anyone on mobile tech. I said, if you read that again, that I was trying to educate people who supported apple on that particular issue that they were supporting something that was good for neither them as a consumer nor the industry as a whole. And you may like to know that Android was actually in development before iOS. So yeah...

Edit: a quick google search revealed that webOS was released in 2009, Android 2008 (which had notifications from the get-go), iOS 2007. So that's another wrong assertion by you. Perhaps you're not qualified to be educating people on general mobile tech.

That's a disengenous statement. Yes, Android started development in 2005. It also released a full 18 months after iOS was shown to the public. When it "started development" is really irrelevent.

Look, you're trying to defend Android. That's nice but I don't really care about companies. I bounce back and forth between devices based on what I think is the best value at the time. But it's blatantly apparent to any objective viewer that Google aped the iOS design aesthetic in early incarnations. Yes, they branched out from that point into some pretty good design but it's impossible to deny that those early OSes were heavily influenced by Apple.

I'm not going to bother arguing with you if you don't bother to even quote me correctly and just want to defend Android no matter what. I didn't say Android had no notification system, I said neither Android nor Apple had notifications worth a damn until WebOS led the way with their notification system, which both Apple and Android later adapted for their own use.

So you're saying that Android development was just a stagnant project until iPhone was released, at which point Google got off their asses and started working? Do you know that Google released Android beta with its SDK a mere months after the iPhone release? Now you're going to tell me Google just slapped a few sticks together in the image of iPhone in those couple of months? Come on, man... Besides, the original iPhone's UI was in no way original. Icons on a static (unchangeable) background. Where have I seen that before? How about pretty much every OS with a UI ever made?

I'm not denying that Android was influenced by iOS, because that may well be true. Who were, in turn, influenced by others. I'm not against that. But if you look at the state of these two systems now, Android is miles ahead. Gingerbread (and perhaps even FroYo) was a more powerful OS than iOS5. There are features that iOS is taking from Android now. Again, I'm not against that. What I'm against is lawsuits and anti-competitive behaviour, which Apple is heavily engaging in now.

It's true that my preference is Android, but that has nothing to do with this. In fact, I also really like WP and even iOS is not bad in my opinion. And I've had more than enough exposure to all of them to form an opinion. Don't try to make this look like I'm getting into an emotional argument because you insulted a product that I am apparently in love with.

Funny you should say that, because just in your last text you didn't quote me correctly, when, unlike you, I was perfectly clear with what I was saying. You, on the other hand, said, "They had an excellent notification system long before either Android or iOS came developed anything worth a damn." Besides being gramatically incorrect, that's also quite ambiguous. You said "a damn". That's quite a general statement, distinct from your latest claim that it was about a notification system only. In short, you're either changing what you said, or you have trouble using the English language. And, seeing as how you were able to say it perfectly clearly the second time around, I'm tempted to go with the former option.

But even your updated claim is incorrect. Android has had pretty much the same notification system since 1.0 (2008). WebOS was released in 2009. Not that this info matters much, but get your facts straight.

It was a typo. It's pretty obvious the word "came" shouldn't be there and I deleted it, I simply didn't see the word in time to avoid you quoting it. The phrase "not worth a damn" is a commonly used phrase in the American lexicon. If you don't understand it, that has little to do with my writing abilities. I was stating that, yes, Android and iOS had notification systems. Neither one was very good. Android has subtlely tweaked their notification system since Gingerbread, starting with Honeycomb. It looks largely the same but now it delivers more quality information and the user can now "swipe away" individual notifications... Much like the system WebOS had from the get-go. All in all, it's a somewhat significant improvement from what they were running in Gingerbread and previous operating systems. iOS's notifications were awful in the early days. They also adopted a similar solution and ended up using something that's a lot like both the Android and WebOS notifications.

You betray your own allegiances with posts like this. Android is not "miles ahead" of iOS. It has some nice features that iOS is lacking (Apple really needs to do something about their UI and its static icons). iOS also has some nice features that Android has been lacking. Jelly Bean finally added a decent voice activation system to compete with Siri but Apple was ahead for over a year there. Apple is releasing Passbook, which could be an interesting method of payment going forward (assuming it gains traction with retailers). There are a lot of little things that differentiate the operating systems. Saying one is "better" is absurd because not everybody wants to use a phone just like you. Apple's strength is also its weakness. A closed ecosystem means better support for both software and hardware. It means more stable apps. It means more developer support because of the limited testing and hardware needed to make an app. On the other hand, it also means "if you don't like the iPhone, go find another OS". It means "if Apple doesn't like your app store submission, you're screwed". Each system has their benefits and each system has their negatives. It's not so clear cut as to declare a "winner". It's all about what YOU want to do with the device and what you expect from it. Android has a quite lengthy list of flaws itself, starting with the "why doesn't my phone get an OS upgrade?" question. Google has a long road in front of it as it tries to repair its quickly fragmenting ecosystem and it's enough to make users like me leave the ecosystem entirely. I don't need my phone to do everything and the kitchen sink with options. I just want the thing to do a few simple tasks and that's that. Right now, iOS is a better solution for me and that's why I'm (somewhat grudgingly) returning to that ecosystem after owning an Android phone.

And I'm not claiming that Google sat on their hands for two years, waiting for Apple to release their device. I'm saying that they had a full 18 months to see what Apple was doing and alter their path slightly to copy what iOS did right. The end result was an operating system that looked a hell of a lot like iOS. Does that mean Apple should sue them? Hell no. Screw Apple and these lawsuits, they're ridiculous. Does that mean Apple should be a little miffed that one of their partners (who surely saw early prototypes of the iPhone long before the public announcement) blatantly hitched their wagon to their train? Yeah, I'd be a little pissed about that myself.

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.

My allegiances? Whatever do you mean?

Android has a lot of features that iOS is lacking. I honestly can't think of a single thing iOS has that Android didn't since 2.3. Don't give me Siri and all that, because you could get voice software from the market. Siri is just a voice recognition software hooked up to Wolfram Alpha. And, honestly, that's not as big of a deal as people claim. Everyone I know who has a 4S played with Siri for a day, then never used it again. No exceptions. When I get Jellybean myself, I'll certainly play with the voice commander for a bit, then never touch it again. It just isn't useful. Plus, these speech analyzers suck. Siri has no idea what you're talking at least half of the time. Jellybean's (official Google search app) is apparently better at this, but it's still not perfect, and, like I said, even if it were perfect, nobody would use it, because it's not useful.

You're the master of misquotation it seems. I purposefully did not say "better". I said "more powerful", meaning Gingerbread can do everything iOS5 can, and then some. I understand that the two systems have adopted substantially different paradigms, but I have a problem with neither: I have never said that I was against closed or open ecosystems.

I'll give you the nod with the Android fragmentation issue. Although that can be easily fixed with custom ROMs. I understand some people don't want to do that though, and, thus, we have the problem. This problem, it must be noted, is the result of the open nature of Android. Google surrendered control to the manufacturers and carriers; Nexus devices themselves get the updates ridiculously quickly. But it's also not true that Apple has a perfect solution. I know people whose 3GS phones became incredibly slow and laggy once the iOS5 update rolled in.

I already admitted that Google took some inspiration from Apple. Even still, the original iPhone and Android's UIs were noticeably different. In fact, Android looked more like desktop operating system, with its homescreens and widgets. Is that a wrong practice? Hell no. Everyone does it, and everyone benefits. "Borrow and improve." Sounds good, doesn't it? Steve Jobs himself said that, "We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."

We agree on the bolded; and somewhat agree on the italicized. Apple was mad? They have a right to be; they don't have a right to force others to give them compensatory cookies for that though. Some Android users were mad when iOS took some ideas from their OS. Google itself, however, wasn't. Although I have no idea where you got that Google was a partner who received early prototypes from. Source?