Compare the Apple remote (with the iOS “emulator”), Apple TV, and Airplay to Chromecast’s UX, for instance. Apple does have special sauce. They make tools that work together and are understood at a surface level. Everything, including the new keyboards, fits a hardware market driven agenda (quiet, “appy”, small like a phone). Google and Amazon work backwards from services, and Samsung and co just aren’t even playing the same ballgame. They are much more like traditional prebuilt computer companies. MS is kind of coming close with just computers but they are not nearly as sticky as an everything tech company.

On the other hand, it might just be that I can get used to anything. (Err, I also think the Apple TV UI is fine, too. But, perhaps I lack the imagination to envision a better UI.)

I was responding to the parent's comment about Apple TV (the premise) with my conclusion, which is a subjective opinion. Which ironically is the exact same thing as what you're doing. Wasn't trying to flame-bait, but I really didn't feel the need to add more. In summary, compared to other devices, I really do not like Apple TV.

The music app can get too deeply nested, but in general it is above all a consistent tabbed master-view experience in every app. The apis exposed to developers all lend to a very good, consistent experience for everything I’ve tried except YouTube TV, which doesn’t utilize the standard media transport API.

In general I like the idea that casting, while still as deeply integrated as Google Cast, is supplemental to the hardware remote. It’s not an afterthought, and neither is the remote. Both are good IMO.

Truly my only complaint is that the app switching dialogue uses reversed/“physical” swiping direction (like switching desktops with a trackpad). This makes no sense to me, as nothing else does this, including swiping between album covers in now playing. I get it, but it’s inconsistent with the whole rest of the UI.

Having used both of them, I'd profoundly disagree with you on that statement. I consider CarPlay a much more elegant solution than Android Auto. Particularly that android auto will change settings on your head unit. The early versions of it also completely disabled your phone screen.

Second is their customer lock-in.

Those can carry lots of value. And even strength, maybe. But growth ?

And design ? Google can design well enough. Their interfaces are easy and fun to use. Beyond that, regular people don't care.

For me, Google will always be the company that high-jacked scrolling to use for zoom. That still trips me up every time I have to use Google Maps or any other mapping service that copied them on a laptop with a trackpad.

They could keep that default (misguided as I personally think it is) if they just provided an option to let scroll be scroll but they don't.

I'd much rather pay a premium for Apple's UI. I think they do a better job and it's worth paying for.

So you use that for vertical scrolling. How would you do horizontal scrolling on a typical mouse then?

The default of holding left click and dragging the map across to move the viewport is far more intuitive.

Unless you have some supporting evidence that clicking and dragging is more intuitive I would suggest that it's not and that you're just used to doing it because you use a mouse and not a trackpad.

Two finger scrolling is used everywhere else on laptops. It handles horizontal scrolling perfectly.

It shouldn't be hijacked by Google for zoom without even the option to restore the default behaviour.

If Google were "good" at UI they would offer the option of pinch zoom on laptops and just leave scrolling alone.

EDIT: I guess Google Chrome could go all `el.addEventListener('-webkit-pinch-zoom')` on us.

I'm coming to the conclusion that some people are more sensitive to design issues than others. If you are then there isn't much choice, Google certainly isn't an option.

In the US, the number of people who can’t buy an iPhone on a carrier payment plan is small.

The average person doesn’t even care about computers that much anymore.

Besides, computer sales are only 11% of their revenue.

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