Quite a few lack a settings button. I'd guess at least half of the 141 apps I have don't have one. Apps with settings tend to go 2 different ways as well. Some have a settings button on the app directly, other have an entry in the system wide settings app. As far as how much screen space it wastes, not much, as most apps also only display it when needed. The main point I was trying to make here is the difference in how Apple approached the button question compared to Google and the various other handset manufacturers. Apple built a touch screen device that put the screen front and center. The one button on the front of the device does the same thing every time, and is the only universal thing people do with it. Outside that, programmers have a nearly full face screen to do whatever fits best with their app. Google added buttons and other control interfaces that not all 100% of the apps have use for. While it may not be wasting much space, it is adding things to the device that aren't always needed. We can go round and round on the little things, but I'm looking at this from a high level, seeing how Apple has a different approach overall compared to Google. Those high level choices often reveal why the two companies are on highly divergent paths. I can't even guess what an official Google tablet will be like, since they have both Android and ChromiumOS. On the Apple side, the iPad didn't really surprise me too much.


I can understand the reason, but why does a device with multitouch still need the on screen UI clutter to zoom in and out? By sticking them there in all cases, it shows their goal quite clearly. Run on as many devices as possible, but never provide an optimal experience on any one of them.


It is possible to make something easy to use, and powerful. It just takes a lot of work to do it. Can the iPhone do everything I want? No. But no device is ever likely to do so, even if it is the most complex thing out there. I buy products based on what they do, not on what they don't do or who they are catered to. The iPhone does many things really well. And I'm slowly coming to see the same on the iPad.


Google's goal sounds very similar to Microsoft's goal. And for the desktop computer market, that goal worked well. For the PDA/phone market, it didn't work for Microsoft. They had a good start with their early Windows powered PDAs, but Palm still won out. Then as the smartphone market evolved, RIM won out over Microsoft on the business side, and now the iPhone is leading the way in the consumer space.