Oreo

I received an over the air upgrade to the Oreo version of Android (Android 8) yesterday.

It makes my phone feel even more like an iPhone. Notifications work more like iOS.

Google has polished the UI quite a bit and it is a joy to use.

I have been saying for several years that Android and iOS are copying the best things from each other and they feel more and more similar than ever.

I don’t really think it matters what mobile OS you use these days. They are both really great.

#mobile

Comments (Archived):

  1. LIAD

    OS alone does not a mobile experience make.

    1. JimHirshfield

      Try not. Do iOS or not iOS. There is no try. – Yoda

      1. Girish Mehta

        When you look at the dark side (search), careful you must be. For the dark side looks back. – Yoda.

        1. Chimpwithcans

          Unpredictable in timing and quality, the OS updates are.

  2. jason wright

    have you toyed with Ubuntu Touch via ubports?https://ubports.com/i'm holding out for the new Pixel 2 phones. 4 more weeks.what is an Oreo?

  3. Eric Satz

    Had same experience of Oreo yesterday. They did a super job with it.

  4. JimHirshfield

    What handset are you on now-a-days?

  5. Seth Godin

    As a marketer, I’m fascinated by their lazy approach to branding/naming. They pay significant royalties for words like ‘droid’ and ‘oreo’, creating no ownable new value.As software tools become ever more similar, our emotional attachment to them is the thing we’re actually paying for. But when Google licenses someone else’s trademark, they lose that ability.Apple has a long history of irrational naming (if an iphone is a phone, what’s an ipod?) but Google’s even worse.

    1. LIAD

      They pay royalties? I’ve been under impression brands would pay them for the exposure.

    2. William Mougayar

      Yup, that’s a very engineering-driven type of marketing, which doesn’t yield the best “output”.

      1. JamesHRH

        I think it is even simpler – the founders don’t believe in brand value.

        1. Salt Shaker

          Brand value starts w/ quality. Maybe GOOG doesn’t believe as strongly in tools that drive image enhancement (e.g., mktg), but they don’t have to.Forbes #2 ranked brand based on a range of criteria.https://www.forbes.com/powe

          1. JamesHRH

            Brand starts with attribute and product’s delivery on that attribute.They are product people, not brand people and never will be.But, don’t get me started.

          2. Salt Shaker

            Brand attributes are meaningless unless they deliver meaningful, relevant benefits, either implicit or explicit.Android is built on mkt share and volume (w/ lower price a key attribute), while iOS is built on high margins, with marketing and brand image playing a significant role in achieving that goal. Jobs (and Lee Clow) understood its importance early.GOOG doesn’t necessarily need to be “brand people”, while APPL does.

          3. JamesHRH

            We are agreeing violently.

        2. William Mougayar

          Who are the founders in this case?Good to see you keeping your head above water 😉

          1. JamesHRH

            Larry, with Sergey.Everything about Google / Alphabet culture & attitude fits Mr. Page’s personality. The structure is Mr. Brin.We are very close to complete destruction to our SW & W. We chose our location with flooding in mind, but there anecdotes of “my parents lived her for 43 years and never had a drop but now have 8′ ” are legion.You know how young boys run outside when a helicopter flies overhead, low and fast? The boys in our neighbourhood don’t even look up at this point.Its a shoulder roller for sure.

          2. Donna Brewington White

            Ah, James, I thought you had escaped the flooding. Sorry to hear this.My brother and his wife in Katy are having a hard time of it. Such sad times.

          3. JamesHRH

            We did not have any damage, but our area is bordered by Buffalo Bayou. The homes and business near the bayou took a lot of damage.

        3. cavepainting

          They believe in making great products that work. The brand value gets built as a consequence, It is not a purpose or objective in itself.

    3. panterosa,

      We pay for emotional attachment or pay with emotional attachment? Yes you purchase a device with dollars, but the most expensive currencies of today are time/attention and emotional no?

      1. LE

        It’s what I have called the ‘party in your brain’. It’s what you think people think of you and not what people think of you when you have some brand or other halo type situation. So it is actually both of the points you have raised.The girl who cuts my hair told me she was thinking of getting botox. I said to her ‘why does it matter you are already married’? She answered “I am doing it for me not anyone else”. Think about that for a second. What does that actually imply? Does it mean that if she lived by herself on an island and nobody saw her but animals she would do exactly the same thing? She is doing it because she will think better of herself without wrinkles. But part of that almost certainly have to be what she thinks people will think of her if she does have wrinkles.

    4. Salt Shaker

      God may be lookin for her 10% royalty from you, but perhaps you can negotiate her down to 7%.

    5. Richard

      My guess, Scroll Wheel (most innovative part of the decode) definitely resembled a landing pod from sci – fi.

    6. LE

      According to this it is what common sense dictates. No cash cost. And even if there was a cost given their profits it’s a who cares.https://101android.com/mone…So it benefits both parties. And there are no royalties. Assumes the above is correct but it certainly makes sense to me.And I think since the OS is essentially ephemeral they are not thinking about any long term value. The OS will be replaced. Most likely the gain from associating with a known product is what is of value for google.To me though the entire idea of giving the OS names like that is stupid. I can’t keep track of mac osx names I only can remember that 10.12 is newer than 10.11. I would suspect most ‘normals’ (my wife and my aunt) are exactly the same.As I have stated before I think calling it Android to begin with is bad marketing wise. A name that appeals to computer types which is the way computer types roll. You may not like ‘iphone’ but it is way more people friendly than Android.One important thing though. When you are such a large force like google or Apple is you usually don’t sweat the small stuff. You can have all sorts of leaks in the company and the profits and overwhelming demand completely flatten all of that. It’s like a large semi truck dragging a mini cooper and not even know it is doing so.

      1. cavepainting

        exactly. marketing and messaging matter a lot more when your positioning in the consumer’s mind is not unique and you are struggling to make an impact. It is also not a natural part of Google’s DNA and in a way it serves them better to make great products than worry about how best to market them. Maybe it might hurt them in some segments, but it is all pennies compared to the big picture.

    7. cavepainting

      Yup, another way to think about it is that when you have tens of billions in cash and approx. $200m in revenue and $50m in profits are flowing in every day, you are likely to stick to what you have been doing and the models that have worked before. Google is an engineering company that makes great products.

    8. creative group

      Seth Godin:do you have any information on Google paying significant royalties. Would enjoy reading that link from a new wire. Thanks

  6. Vitomir Jevremovic

    We are expecting big innovation from new iPhone. Especially in AR, VR and 3D scanning sector. We’ll see.. and hope. Hopefully less makeup and more functionalities. It will be a new boxing round.

  7. John Pepper

    I’ve tested both pixel (for work) and iPhone 7 plus (for personal) for last 3 months – trying to see if untethering from work when with family would help my ability to be present. Pixel never as intuitive and last week I finally decided to give up (and sell it on eBay). Now it sounds like I’ll give it one more shot…. thx for this Oreo update.

  8. Joseph Burros

    I am sure this is the case, but I am going to stick with Apple products. My trust in Apple to keep my personal information private is so much greater than Google. One of the primary purposes of Google is to make money by showing me advertising based on tracking my every move on the internet. Apple does not do this, they make money on the hardware and software they provide me. In fact, Apple prides itself in protecting the privacy of its customers. Correct me if I am wrong, but this is my understanding of the difference between these two companies. And it is a huge difference!

  9. onowahoo

    The more similar the operating systems get the more I learn towards iOS because of iMessage and other iOS exclusive features. The ability iMessage from my Mac alone is enough, let alone FaceTime and other features. Google has a much better photo app though.

    1. creative group

      Jesse Burros:Your post is more reminiscent of a fanboy than anything Alphabet. We doubt with all you listed that an Oreo was ever destined to your OS digestive system.

      1. SubstrateUndertow

        Repeatably pointing out how opposing opinions colour others as fan-people makes your insinuations somewhat set-referrencial, does it not?

  10. Brett Bedevian

    I have been using Oreo for a few weeks and love it! The secret is to opt in to the beta program and download only towards the end of the testing so you get all the new features without the bugs. My top new feature is the passive notifications on lock screen which not many have written about with the colored music notifcation coming in close second.

  11. jeffyablon

    >>I don’t really think it matters what mobile OS you use these days. They are both really great.EXCEPT: Apple still maintains much more of a walled garden. Oh wait … Google’s headed bit-by-bit in that direction too.

    1. SubstrateUndertow

      Walling things off is crucial for all complex processes operating in complex environments. It is a balancing act between access and defensive security. Competing for the best balance is ever more important moving forward. For the average user the truly dangerous crap has not yet hit theses competing walls but that is just a matter of time. This is no time to be cavalier!Walled Gardens:in cells they are called semipermeable membranes, in organisms they are called skin and their access/wall balance is survival defining.

      1. jeffyablon

        Fair enough. I guess for me, as a Windows-and-Android user, “control” always felt better that “they have my back and I trust them”.That said: I stand by my old position when it comes to computers; I truly detest the layers of obfuscation-leading-to-early-obsolescence built into MacOS. But on phones … there’s a lot going on in there that makes maybe giving up control to the mother ship a good idea. Of course … here I sit using my Pixel.THAT said: I bought my Pixel pre-launch from Verizon, because I could get it for $200 instead of $700. And it gets all its updates (via VZ) unaltered from from what GOOG creates. BUT: unless I’m ready to give up on future updates it means I’m locked to VZ; put in a T-Mobile sim and I’ll never see an update again.And that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about being a problem. Once you give up control (In this case I sold it for $500; my fault), you’ve … given up control. And the safety benefits aren’t NECESSARILY worth the give.

  12. creative group

    CONTRIBUTORS:FANBOYS & GIRLS BE GONE!Go eat the overpriced hardware at Apple.

    1. SubstrateUndertow

      “Go eat the overpriced hardware at Apple.”self contradiction possibly 🙂

  13. markslater

    until 11. there is all this talk around the AR stack coming in 11 that is much harder to replicate for android given device disparity.Not being an apple fan boy just wondering whether the “promise of AR” which has largely gone un-promised, might finally break out with apple’s version of it.

    1. PhilipSugar

      And they pushed and update message on my phone today. I wondered why, now I know.

    1. creative group

      JimHirshfield:this what happens when you have entirely too much time on your hands.Just makes people actually working look bad why don’t you.https://uploads.disquscdn.c

      1. JimHirshfield

        Sweet….way too sweet.

  14. William Mougayar

    Yup, I’m on my 3rd Xiaomi in as many years, and have had that same feeling for a while. I did a 6-month come back to an iphone6+ last year just to see if I was missing anything. It turned out that I wasn’t.

    1. creative group

      William Mougayar:With Android more Manufacturers means more options. Enjoying the unlocked 6.2 Lenovo Pro Phablet with Tango.

      1. William Mougayar

        But it also means fragmented marketing + add the mumbo jumbo of Tell Cos marketing their pathetic plans.

        1. creative group

          Willaim Mougayar:last year several of the Contributors provided the room with the inexpensive options for mobile wireless service.Also as you know Unlocked Phones (Which we know is the best way to purchase a phone so you maintain control and can change carriers at will)Unlocked Android Phones should have limited to no bloatware.We already have concluded a couple of years ago that Canada doesn’t provide the best Unlimited wireless options. But you said you would look into establishing a Unlimited Plan in the States.

          1. William Mougayar

            I ended buying an extra SIM that I use when in the US.

  15. Dorian Benkoil

    Fred, what about others in your sphere, both home and work? Are there impediments or hoops you have to jump through to, say, communicate, share, etc? For example, after I moved to iPhone about 15 months ago, my sister and baby nephew started Face Timing. We can share certain Apple-centric documents, and so on.

  16. Jay Rolette

    Couple of places where there are still differences that really matter in the OS:1) Software updates for security fixes. The Android universe isn’t even playing in the same ballpark as Apple on this one. Given how much of our lives are on our phones, I’m always amazed more folks don’t get how important this is.2) Ease of updating to newer models of phones. Maybe this has gotten easier on Android over the years, but Apple makes this drop dead simple. What I hear from friends with Android phones doesn’t sound like fun.

    1. Sunny B.

      Bullshit. Transferring content is easier with Android.

  17. DJL

    Agree. Although I have never owned an I-phone, I have other “I-devices”.Kinda reminds be of the Windows-Mac UI race, but with a major change in players.

  18. Raj

    I disagree that the OS doesn’t matter. There’s network effect in play with mobile operating systems too. iMessage being the most obvious, but it extends to FaceTime and shared photo albums as well. Disrupting FaceTime with grandparents because I may want an Android? Not happening if my parents have anything to say about it. 🙂

    1. creative group

      Raj Bala:Real world can’t do without is your imagination.Duo by Google, Skype and a dozen other Android platforms that can be used with hundreds of phones.

  19. Frank W. Miller

    They are both really good, I’ve used both for durations. But I made the switch to Android about a year ago and I’ll never go back. The iPhone was the last Apple product I’ll ever buy.

    1. Richard

      What Fred had failed to see for years is that Apple is a brand. There is not a junior high school girl alive hoping for an Andriod phone for her birthday.

      1. Frank W. Miller

        lol! I have two and you are right.

      2. george

        Great point – Apple is a brand, Android is an OS. The battle goes beyond usability…

  20. k77ws

    Over the air upgrade? Didn’t know there was any other way to do it.Or does Apple require some sort of cumbersome syncing with its iTunes stuff (which sounds horrendous and awful)?-Long time Android User

  21. LE

    I don’t really think it matters what mobile OS you use these days.As part of disaster planning [1] (and actually because comments you have made here in the past) I bought a Samsung Galaxy S8+ (on tmobile which is a different carrier than I have for iphone).I found the experience different in particular downloading apps and some other gotchas that I have run into. I will upgrade to the new iphone when it is released and plan to continue to use that as my primary device.[1] So much of life and work is tied to having an operating cell phone I thought it was a good idea to carry two of them on two different networks. I worry about things like that.

    1. Vasudev Ram

      That is always a good idea. In India, since dual-SIM phones are very common now, and since mobile rates are fairly low, lots of people use them, or have more than one phone. (Low-end Androids are also fairly cheap.) Even before things became this cheap, I’ve seen people sitting in cafes, texting on two phones at the same time 🙂

      1. LE

        (Low-end Androids are also fairly cheap.)The original idea was to buy exactly that for redundancy. But the ‘new car smell’ of the bigger and more attractive S8+ was just to hard to resist. For another several hundred dollars I didn’t have to wonder or make excuses.

        1. Vasudev Ram

          He he. You could call it the smell of success.

  22. Sunny B.

    >reads this post>Check too see if my S8+ got the update> 🙁 All jokes aside the only issue I have with Google’s update policy is how lenient they are when it comes to pushing updates to manufacturers. It doesn’t make sense that some flagships get updates 3 months late. Samsung has been better as of late but overall since HTC pretty much left the game, all manufacturers are lagging a little behind.

  23. Collin

    Am I the only person who finds the autocorrect on Android to be horrific? It was often autocorrecting the word I spelled properly to some completely different word. I had turned off autocorrect completely by the time I switched back because it was so bad.

  24. JamesHRH

    Apple has captured those of us who went all in on the Apple personal integration. I can’t imagine switching, as the interconnection work would force me to drive hot nails into my eye sockets (I assume).If someone ever actually get really good at services and cross device integration……

  25. SubstrateUndertow

    Fair enough so being more pointed about the cost issue is a better approach 🙂

  26. Pete Griffiths

    I think there are material differences.1) Siri sucks. Chalk up one for Android.2) updates are a problem on many Android phones3) ihone better for applications that demand very tight integration of hardware and software e.g. photography, sound

  27. Pointsandfigures

    Except, if you are on Android your texts don’t show up in iMessage. I have Apple, my partner uses clone/Android. I can text on my phone, but not computer.Thinking of switching over.

  28. cavepainting

    yes, but apple products work together more cohesively across laptop, mobile, tv, airpods and more. On mobile, Android is as good if not not better, but not as a collective whole across multiple devices.For markets where mobile is the only device that matters (like India), Android is and will always be king.

  29. howardlindzon

    maybe …but in the end apple will continue to crush them in USA because of the genius bar and the stores. Knowing you have that support close by is the insurance worth being loyal to them for most

  30. daryn

    I’m up for a new rev soon, waiting to see what Apple announces next week and how it stacks up to the Essential and other new Android phones before deciding.I’ve been mostly loyal to iOS over the years, but like you said, more and more it matters less and less.

  31. Aryeh Mergi

    iOS is still significantly safer and more secure.With us doing so much on the phone this is a major factor to me

  32. ash

    Who is finding this crazy names?