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Why do apps from the same company look worse on Android than on iPhone?

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Re: Why do apps from the same company look worse on Android than on iPhone?

#111

Post by topbanana »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #29
flyosity wrote: post #14

I think it's the standard that is set by the original creator of the UI widgets available on the platform, in this case, Apple vs. Google. I'm an iPhone UI designer/developer and you can make a really nice looking app without doing any custom design work just by using the widgets that Apple provides. A good example of an app that was nearly all stock is Tweetie 1 for iPhone and it won an Apple Design Award. Apple has…

That doesn't excuse the apps that actually write an entire UI from scratch. As I mentioned before, the CNBC app is all custom UI, beautiful and mostly entirely self-contained. However, the android version is a POS thats essentially just a mobile webpage. Built in OS UI is not a factor here. I suspect budget isn't either. Edit: Here's the link to their Android app. The screen you see is basically the whole app. Click…

The iphone has been a viable platform for much longer. For any given company their Android offering will most likely be more immature

Re: Why do apps from the same company look worse on Android than on iPhone?

#112

Post by fpgeek »

trotsky wrote: post #22

Interesting blog, every entry appears to be a substantial jab at the platform itself... not really just "gripes" as I see them. I am impressed with how dedicated he is to the pursuit, not only does he have a blog solely for his android gripes, but he's also made an androidgripes gmail account as well as a twitter account and a facebook page to promote the blog. It doesn't seem to be possible to find the blogger's nam…

To me, the most jaw-dropping post was about WiFi notifications. Android is perfectly capable of doing what he wants, it just seems whatever phone he was looking at didn't have that feature enabled at that time. That "gripe" is pure troll.

It would be like me complaining that an iPhone kept annoying me by showing me nearby WiFi networks everywhere I went. You can flip the switch on that, too (and with the exact same level of effort). Complaining is just being willfully obtuse and insisting the rest of the world should set their defaults the way you want them.

Re: Why do apps from the same company look worse on Android than on iPhone?

#113

Post by jarek »

jrockway wrote: post #49

Because Android users don't care. To make the app look nice, you would need to pay for 100 hours of a designer and 400 hours of programming. If it looks like crap, you only have to pay for 400 hours of programming. Android users don't care, so you make more return on your investment by neglecting design. Apple users all have blogs about the virtues of serif fonts versus sans-serif fonts, so you are not going to sell…

This really hits on a key point: there is practically no money to be made B2C on Android. And this is normal. Historically there has rarely been a software business made rich by B2C. It's much easier to sell large-volume to businesses than it is to deal with fickle individual users.

Adobe doesn't sell most Photoshop licenses to individual users, they sell to businesses for whom the cost of pirating is not worth it. Windows licenses sold to individual users are dwarfed by Windows licenses sold to manufacturers, who buy it because that's what their customers expect. Opera gives away its various browsers, then uses the expertise and the satisfied customer base as arguments when licensing preloaded versions to manufacturers. Swype isn't selling its product to individual users in the app store for $4.99, they're selling to manufacturers whose customers appreciate or demand this software out of the box. Facebook isn't selling its apps or website access because it's so much easier to just sell eyeballs to advertisers.

Games are the major exception, but they only account for so much.

In the physical world, it's by and large the intermediaries that sell to individual users. Most companies producing physical stuff — especially non-premium products that are supposed to sell at scale — don't open their own stores and often outsource issues like individual warranty handling to third parties.

I heavily suspect the iPhone B2C model is an anomaly that may soon be corrected.

Re: Why do apps from the same company look worse on Android than on iPhone?

#114

Post by queenOfEngland »

grandalf wrote: post #42
redthrowaway wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android has more market share than iOS, which would seem to suggest it's moved far beyond the "technical, geeky" crowd. My hunch is that we're starting to see a Windows/Mac differentiation here, with Android emerging as the clear winner of mobile and iOS being reserved for the trendy/artistic/quality crowd. That carries over into the apps themselves, with Android apps (like their windows counterparts) being clean and…

That's a fairly optimistic view. My take is that most purchasers of Android phones are probably quite disappointed with the experience. Whether it's because of battery life, lousy app selection, annoying add-ons by the carrier, or clunky app design. Sure, slimy salespeople hired by the carriers are pushing Android phones and probably lying about features and quality just as they lie about plan details, etc. Yes they'…

My take is that most purchasers of Android phones are probably quite disappointed with the experience. Whether it's because of battery life, lousy app selection, annoying add-ons by the carrier, or clunky app design

In the Eclaire days, with sparse apps and a clunky, half-broken OS, you were absolutely right.

Today, however, you couldn't be further off the mark. A Gingerbread phone is a delightful, delightful beast. The app selection and quality has improved at a blistering pace.

I think this will all bite Google when few people decide to upgrade to a new Android phone. The experience is so mediocre that even a few minutes playing with an iPhone, browsing the app store, or talking to the owner about battery life will cause tremendous buyers remorse.

You mention the Evo yet EVERY SINGLE REVIEW criticized the battery life. How could you possibly not know about that?

Experience so mediocre? Your obsolete bias shows through. I would argue that a good Froyo device, or a normal Gingerbread phone, provides a far better experience to most users.

This page is thinly veiled fanboyism (and, unsurprisingly, was linked by Gruber, which speaks volumes). Worse, it isn't even CORRECT -- they used both an ancient Meebo app, and an ancient Facebook app, to demonstrate their poorly-demonstrated-anyways point. I would seriously consider Marcos Arment as a suspect behind it: His desperation has grown obvious.

Re: Why do apps from the same company look worse on Android than on iPhone?

#115

Post by njharman »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #29
flyosity wrote: post #14

I think it's the standard that is set by the original creator of the UI widgets available on the platform, in this case, Apple vs. Google. I'm an iPhone UI designer/developer and you can make a really nice looking app without doing any custom design work just by using the widgets that Apple provides. A good example of an app that was nearly all stock is Tweetie 1 for iPhone and it won an Apple Design Award. Apple has…

That doesn't excuse the apps that actually write an entire UI from scratch. As I mentioned before, the CNBC app is all custom UI, beautiful and mostly entirely self-contained. However, the android version is a POS thats essentially just a mobile webpage. Built in OS UI is not a factor here. I suspect budget isn't either. Edit: Here's the link to their Android app. The screen you see is basically the whole app. Click…

iOS provides more than just UI widgets. There's a lot more stuff given to developers on iOS vs Android. So if you 3mo to develop app on each platform the month you spend on Android recreating the libs Apple provides is spent making the iOS version "nicer".

Re: Why do apps from the same company look worse on Android than on iPhone?

#118

Post by pflats »

tryp wrote: post #4
stevenwei wrote: post #2

In my experience, the main reason is that you only need to design for one screen resolution on the iPhone (retina artwork doesn't really affect the screen layout). This makes it a lot easier to statically position elements and create pixel perfect effects. On the other hand, when you're dealing with dynamic layouts, you have to jump through a lot more hoops to make sure the app still looks good as the resolution is s…

I'll agree that helvetica looks nicer, but I don't think all the iPhone style gloss and huge spacing looks /better/. Looking at those side-by-sides and knowing that the iPhone versions came first just makes me think that the android versions could be much more information-dense and interactive than they are if they hadn't been limited by the preconceptions of what the existing iPhone version does.

Remember, though: contacts are touch-targets. The "huge spacing" is there to make the app easier to use. I think the article even touched on that.

Re: Why do apps from the same company look worse on Android than on iPhone?

#119

Post by fpgeek »

andybak wrote: post #105
trotsky wrote: post #22

Interesting blog, every entry appears to be a substantial jab at the platform itself... not really just "gripes" as I see them. I am impressed with how dedicated he is to the pursuit, not only does he have a blog solely for his android gripes, but he's also made an androidgripes gmail account as well as a twitter account and a facebook page to promote the blog. It doesn't seem to be possible to find the blogger's nam…

Gruber's just picked it up with no comment other than a strange piece of snide: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/04/07/android-apps-loo... (What is he implying? Assuming sarcasm - he is saying that it's not a coincidence but that some unnamed other parties claim it is. I don't really get it but it seems like he's getting too lazy to actually offer an extended argument these days)

Gruber picked it up because he recognized a kindred spirit. As for the snark, it was just today's way of saying that Apple and iOS are overwhelmingly better than Google and Android. I don't read anything else into that.

Re: Why do apps from the same company look worse on Android than on iPhone?

#120

Post by ech0sphere »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #29
flyosity wrote: post #14

I think it's the standard that is set by the original creator of the UI widgets available on the platform, in this case, Apple vs. Google. I'm an iPhone UI designer/developer and you can make a really nice looking app without doing any custom design work just by using the widgets that Apple provides. A good example of an app that was nearly all stock is Tweetie 1 for iPhone and it won an Apple Design Award. Apple has…

That doesn't excuse the apps that actually write an entire UI from scratch. As I mentioned before, the CNBC app is all custom UI, beautiful and mostly entirely self-contained. However, the android version is a POS thats essentially just a mobile webpage. Built in OS UI is not a factor here. I suspect budget isn't either. Edit: Here's the link to their Android app. The screen you see is basically the whole app. Click…

I think it may be worth mentioning the history of the technologies and companies behind them. Apple has always been more focused on the aesthetics of their products compared to competitors. Their OS and other software products have always been "prettier" than the offerings of MS and the linux community. In contrast, linux has a history of minimalist UI design, disregarding aesthetics for functionality. Developers that work on the new products like iPhone and Android tend to come from the old school and bring they're relative biases and habits with them to this new arena. I think as the android platforms mature, we will see a blurring of the aesthetic lines between the two products much as we have seen in the mac/windows/linux world with OS X, Windows 7, and Ubuntu.
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