> To be honest this just sounds like you're used to whatever Apple is doing and nothing Google would do (except outright copy iOS) would feel "ok" for you.

I've used an Android phone (including 2 Nexus 5x and a Pixel 3a, my current one) my whole life and always thought it looked okay, but not great. I've had an OnCall iPhone for a few months though, and everything just looks way more polished, sane, and even comfortable. The animations are smoother. The colors are more beautiful. The content density is better. And mainly, everything looks less generic.

It's a feeling and I'm only a sample size of 1, but I don't think "you're just used to it" is the correct answer here.

I disagree. You really have to appreciate the scale of Apple’s efforts, and look beyond iOS, which everybody always gets fixated on. This is much broader than “I prefer how iOS looks”. Their documentation, hardware, software, marketing, audio communications, videos and commercials, stores, clothing, packaging, etc. exude consistency and extraordinary care to visual design. Apple’s design is pervasive and truly their identity. As I said elsewhere, they’re not perfect, but I’d claim with enough effort and without any logical gymnastics, we could measure this vague idea to be at least an order of magnitude greater than Google’s.

I work extensively with Android and Apple iOS/macOS (as part of mobile development and simply as a user of hardware) and I think your claim about Apple is pretty much disconnected from reality. As soon as you step outside the marketing veneer, there's plenty of Apple that is really far from "pervasive" of their "identity". Try straying a bit outside the most commonly used documentation pages, most commonly used customer journeys or even use macOS for extended bit of time and you'll see how your claim simply doesn't hold up.

I feel you're just buying way too much into the Apple marketing schtick.

> Try straying a bit outside the most commonly used documentation pages, most commonly used customer journeys or even use macOS for extended bit of time and you'll see how your claim simply doesn't hold up

I've experienced this recently, as a competent (DSLR) photographer trying to find out what I could do with the camera on my new iPhone Pro. I picked up more by browsing TikTok than from Apple's own material. One example was how to create long-exposure photographs from a 'live' photo. The function was actually discoverable through the iOS interface but I wouldn't have thought to try it in the way it was being used in TikTok tutorial.

(whether the long exposure effect is comparable with the equivalent from a dedicated camera is a different question)

I don’t think you’re right, but what’s more interesting to me is just how much our opinions seem to diverge! I’m a developer as well, I use Linux (Debian with StumpWM) as my daily driver, and Mac for work. I’m pretty familiar with Macs, macOS, and iOS I’d say.

There could be so many reasons why we diverge, but I suspect we’d probably disagree on what we consider a “design philosophy” or “the details” in the first place.

Maybe it’s true that I only see the “common” things (and it’s great we agree that the “common” things are consistent!), but I’m curious where you see seriously inconsistent or plainly bad visual design at the proverbial fray that doesn’t exist in other ecosystems of this scale.

with every release macos introduces design elements that are inconsistent with apples own design language, and/or simply horrible (like the notifications icon in preferences _with_ a dot).

esp big sur moved in a big way to a more fisher price look.

that it all seems more consistent than all the rest is just a sad statement more about them than apple...

Indeed, Apple's consistency and care are incredible. I hate their Fisher-Price products, and I wish Google would stop trying to out-Fisher-Price them.

Nah. I've never used any Apple products besides occasionally using someone's iPhone. I'm not used to the UX and to the gestures, but the interface is strikingly consistent. There's still so much clutter in Android. Fortunately, on Android you can customize most things, but Google is restricting more and more what apps can actually touch.

I've had a work iPhone 7 for years now and I'm still entirely confused by its UI due entirely to inconsistency. Where are my apps? Certainly not organized in a handy alphabetical app drawer, they're just randomly arrayed over multiple home screens in whatever order they were installed in, requiring effort to organize and then memorize where every single one is, or requiring search using the keyboard (slower particularly when you don't quite remember the name of the app).

The fact that I can never figure out in any given app how the back button is supposed to work (is it in the taskbar? or at the top of the screen? or am I supposed to swipe from the left?) or where the settings can be (sometimes in the app, sometimes in the Settings app) is deeply confusing.

Sometimes when the keyboard is up, swiping down from the top closes it, sometimes it scrolls. I find that I genuinely have no idea what's going to happen whenever I tap anywhere. The keyboard decides to just change words using autocorrect far more aggressively than my SwiftKey on Android.

Maybe one day I'll learn how to use iOS, but I know that it's definitely not "strikingly consistent".

There is an "app drawer". Swipe left from the home screen. Click in the search box.

That just shows "Siri Suggestions" and I have to type in the box. I don't want to search, keyboards on phones are universally bad. I want an alphabetized list.

Have you updated? It is an alphabetical list one you go into the search box.

My phone claims that it is up to date. iOS 14.5.1

All I see is "Siri Suggestions", no alpha list.

Did you swipe left to right or right to ledt? Should be right to left to get to the "App Library" which has a search bar.

I guess you'll need to be on the last home screen... I only have 1 since this feature was introduced.