My phone as a sort of dashboard just doesn't work, I suspect it would require too much customization to really create to work for me and probably anyone else. Usually I want to just open a specific app anyway.
It's 1. a regular app; plus 2. a shortcut to get into that app that can be accessed with one swipe from the lock screen; plus 3. a lock-screen widget that displays if the phone fell asleep while the app was in the foreground; and finally, 4. a separate "lock-screen embedded pseudo-app" (sort of like the Camera one you get to by swiping left on the lock screen), which you get to if you tap the "Remote" Mission Control button without first unlocking the phone. This last view allows people to still use your locked phone to pause the Apple TV it's controlling, if you're not there to unlock it for them.
It's too bad that no third-party app on iOS can achieve this same level of integration.
Ideal is the device is instantly unlocked when I pick it up - which is also the reality I have as an Android user, but you can experience this on iOS as well with jailbreak mods. And with widgets it's then zero swipes to get to my lightbulb controls, which is just sweet.
Shameless plug, I've recently made an app for this, to create custom widgets: https://www.wowidget.com/
With the latest iphones being as fast as they are it's not a game changer to not have widgets, but I definitely found them extremely convenient.
Auto creating homescreen icons is one of the first things I turn off when first setting up an android device.
as a developer i get it, i would like to choose a different browser engine too, but that's mostly for philosophical reasons, not actual utility.
This isn't an either/or scenario. Firefox and Chrome support this on Android. Apple blocking third party browsers has nothing to do with desktop sync.
All major parts of the web now allow users to freely choose their browser with one glaring exception: iOS. Unfortunately, iOS is big enough that it has veto power over the entire web platform. If it won't work on iOS, it won't work on "the web". It's just like the old days of Internet Explorer or Java before it, where a proprietary platform maker had the precious ability to sabotage its open platform competition.
yes, that's exactly what i mean by philosophical.
This is so untrue. Google goes ahead and implements stuff regardless of what Apple does or doesn't do.
Any major feature gets worked out by Google, Apple and Mozilla—like Flexbox and Grid.
All of these companies operate on what's in their interest vs. what makes sense for the web.
Folks should be somewhat satisfied with Apple’s Safari/Webkit announcements today:
General New Features
* Added Safari Web Extensions support for macOS.
* Added Webpage Translation (Beta) for English, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, French, German, Russian, and Brazilian Portuguese. Safari will automatically detect if a translation is available based on your Preferred Languages list.
* Added support for HTTP/3.
* Improved Web Platform Tests pass rate for WebDriver, XHR+Fetch, Service Workers, CSS, and SVG.
Removed Features * Safari no longer supports Flash.
Performance New Features
* Supported incremental loading of PDF files.
* Implemented asynchronous scrolling for overflow: scroll, and <iframe> on macOS.
* Improved tab closing performance.
* Improved IndexedDB performance.
* Improved JavaScript cookie access performance.
* Improved for-of performance.
Privacy New Features * Added a Privacy Report that shows the trackers that Intelligent Tracking Prevention prevented from accessing identifying information.
* Enabled full third-party cookie blocking, and the Storage Access API in Private Browsing mode.
Authentication and Passwords New Features
* Added a Web Authentication platform authenticator using Face ID or Touch ID, depending on which capability is present.
* Added support for PIN entry and account selection on external Web Authentication security keys.
* Added notifying users when one of their saved passwords in iCloud Keychain has shown up in a data breach; requesting a password change uses the well-known URL for changing passwords (https://example.com/.well-known/change-password), enabling websites to specify the page to open for updating a password.
* Added support to Security Code AutoFill for domain-bound, one-time codes sent over SMS; in the following 2FA SMS, Safari only offers to fill the code on example.com, and no other domain. Your Example code is 123446. @example.com #123446
JavaScript New Features * Added support for the BigInt data type.
* Added support for creating custom instances of EventTarget.
* Added logical assignment operator support.
* Added public class fields support.
Media New Features * Added WebP image support.
* Added HDR video playback support.
* Changed to derive <img> aspect ratio from size attributes.
* Support for the Picture-in-Picture API is now available in iOS on iPhone.
CSS New Features * Updated image-set() to support all other image functions including image(), -webkit-canvas(), -webkit-cross-fade(), and -webkit--gradient().
Added :is() pseudo-selector support as a synonym for :matches().
* Added :where() pseudo-selector support for specificity adjustment.
* Added support for image-orientation.
Web Inspector New Features * Added support for a bootstrap script.
* Added a Sources Tab that combines the Resources tab and Debugger tab.
* Added an HSL color picker with P3 support.
* Added information about Web Animations, CSS animations, and CSS transitions to the Timelines tab.
* Improved VoiceOver support.
There's always a great cycle where they cherry pick the best from each other and Android adopted a bunch of things recently like gesture navigation but it's definitely seeming like it's a major catch up from Apple this time with things like on device voice dictation and the general layout / widgets. Less so for the simpler items but for various of these cutting edge items it's been a shame they've been so narrowly deployed on Android where they've mostly been for Pixel only.
Scan something, pay for it, move on.
I always hated Android's desktop, it feels redundant when there's already an app menu, and I can't stand the fact that newly installed apps decide to show up on the desktop. Never used widgets either, they have never made my daily workflow easier at all. YMMV
And the thing you never used never made your daily workflow easier? That sounds... obvious? Try using it for a while and then decide if they're worth it.
Presumably because, if your primary "default" view was already the app list, then it'd be redundant for the home screen to have apps on it. If the "home screen" was secondary, it'd become more of a "widget screen" (like the iOS "widget page", but with the ability to add shortcuts to documents/bookmarks as well.)
Just like a PC desktop (which is secondary in function to the OS apps menu/launcher) is essentially a "widget page" + shortcuts to documents, bookmarks, and common locations.
That is an option that you can disable
I have the Pocket app installed on my iPhone, because I want to be able to share stuff to Pocket, but I don't ever actually use the Pocket app to read stuff.
Then there are utility apps, such as the app that I used to setup my wifi, that I rarely open but still want to keep around in case something goes wrong.
There's all sorts of reasons to have apps installed but not showing in the most prime real estate in the world.
Note that these apps actually do something in some cases, like I have a Twitter app (Chirp) where I'm pretty sure the heavy lifting happens on my phone and the watch just does the display.
> Finally, a way to remove apps from the home screen without uninstalling them
You're talking about a different problem.
The solution in your case is surely to allow the apps to be uninstalled!
Suddenly a lot of Android makes sense - they’re trying to build a little computer that fits in your pocket! Aha! I see!
I am not sure that’s a good model for designing something that is fundamentally not a little desktop computer.
Just not for the gigantic market that Android has.
I've always found Android's design to be really weird compared to iOS or Windows Phone, but seeing it as a "mini computer" explains why their design doesn't make sense to me - because I see phones as a separate form factor that fundamentally changes how it is used [by most people].
They let others prove a market and then they move in and throw vast resources at doing a better version, honestly it's a smart move if you have the cash.
I find it some what ironic though given how friendly they pretend to be to developers.