If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Apple’s iPhone developers must be basking in the reflected glory right about now.
Google showed off its rival Android mobile user interface at its annual developer conference in San Francisco today. A flick of the finger scrolls between pages on the mobile browser or drags items around the screen – just like the iPhone. To enlarge elements on a web page to make them easier to view, Google introduces a small magnification pane that can be dragged around by touch. All very nice – though the interface lacked the classic simplicity of the iPhone and there was no talk of when Android-powered handsets will actually hit the market.
That followed Microsoft’s demo the night before of the multi-touch UI it is planning for the next version of Windows. With two fingers, you can move images around a screen or enlarge them – or you could, if the software was available (after Bill Gates had suggested that a post-Vista Windows might come sooner than expected, Microsoft execs have been back on script this week with a promise of “no later than early 2010.”)
History also suggests that Microsoft is not a pioneer when it comes to user interfaces (this official blog post on the next Windows interface of course skips the fact that Apple was first out with a graphical UI, and who can forget the Tablet PC, which was personally championed by Gates?)
The best that can be said for the latest Google and Microsoft showings: very nice, but it’s not Apple, and it’s not available now. All of which means that when Steve Jobs returns to the stage for Apple’s developer conference on June 9th – where among other things he is expected to show off version 2.0 of the iPhone software – he will have the floor to himself.
