>Google go the extra mile with Gingerbread to really sweeten up the UI a bit

I've never understood what exactly people mean when they say that. The one area Google needs to fix is the settings menu, with a much more logical organisation which they failed to do properly even in Froyo. Other than that, the worst flaws in Android are not things that Google can just wave a wand and fix without breaking backward compatibility.

Agree with you about the widgets, though. Can't live without them.

I present to you the iOS date picker side by side with the Android date picker:

http://i.imgur.com/PcNGf.png

One has a beautiful touch responsive scrolling display while the other requires you to pick out small + and - symbols and tap repeatedly on them until you get to the right date. Mis-hitting the square below brings up the keyboard with a jarring UI-rearranging effect.

This kind of stuff, as well as the fluidity of the UI in general (jerky scrolling, transitions sudden instead of animated) is what they need to address.

Keep in mind that the author of the post is Apple fanboy/Android troll MG Siegler

Keep in mind ad-hominem is a logical fallacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

>The ad hominem is not always fallacious, for in some instances questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue.

Ad hominem is not fallacious when the person is what you're discussing (e.g. "I think X is a political hack and damaging to the country"), but otherwise it would be (e.g. the boy in "the boy who cried wolf" lied every time he said there was a wolf. Except the last time. The village committed a logical fallacy in assuming that because he was a liar that everything he said was a lie.).

No, the village people drew a logically strong inference from their analysis of the available data. They would be right in the vast majority of cases. By the thinking in your "boy who cried wolf" analogy, it's ad hominem to observe that a clock is broken, because the clock tells the time correctly twice every day. The fact is that when a meter is known to have a strong bias, it is rational to be skeptical when it gives a result in line with that bias.

>No, the village people drew a logically strong inference from their analysis of the available data.

Wrong. They engaged in a logical fallacy, full stop. The correct response would have been for them to replace the boy with someone who wasn't so prone to lying (and for your clock example, replace or fix the clock). They must check every alarm raised from their designated "wolf watcher".

Interestingly, a good usage of an ad hominem would have been the argument for replacing the boy (e.g. "It's too inefficient to use him as the watcher because he's a liar").

It's not ad hominem to bring up his record of support for one mobile OS during a discussion of another mobile OS. If someone said "keep in mind mg siegler is a socialist!" that would be ad hominem.

OK. Now explain why being an Apple fanboy and an Android troll invalidates the statement that Windows Phone may be a functional mobile platform, more usable than the Android offerings.

While the article praises the iPhone interface and points out several of Android's user interface elements are very similar to solutions also adopted on the iPhone (to be fair, my 128K Palm Pilot arranged apps on a grid, a feature I am almost sure it copied from the Newton, just like about every PDA/smartphone), that's beyond the point. Windows Phone seems very non-iPhone-ish and there is a non trivial possibility Microsoft can actually bring out a decent mobile user experience after more than a decade of miserable failures.

I won't hold my breath, however. I too find it most incredible Microsoft finally hit something.

They said to "keep it in mind" not that it invalidates everything he says.

I keep in mind the fact that Barack Obama is an elected member of the Democratic party when he tells me to vote for a Senate candidate. It doesn't invalidate his opinion about that person, but it certain factors in.