Why do apps from the same company look worse on Android than on iPhone? • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by jff » Fri, Apr 08, 2011, 8:16 PM UTC

chicagobob wrote: post #50

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…

I call BS. My neighbor is a "normal" non-geek who has an android phone and even he notices the difference in app quality and bitches about it all the time (his wife has an iPhone). Just because he isn't "trendy" doesn't mean he doesn't know what quality is. Its his work phone, when his contract is up, he's already decided he's going to lobby for an iPhone and the apps are a huge reason why.

Most of my co-workers seem to be moving from iPhones to Android phones. I get the "Nexus S on AT&T" update from one of them every day... he can't wait to ditch his iPhone for a Nexus S.

Of course, we're all scientists, engineers, programmers who recently took a course in Android programming, so my experience probably isn't standard :)

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

#132

Post by ech0sphere » Fri, Apr 08, 2011, 9:01 PM UTC

rgbrgb wrote: post #123

ech0sphere wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

It's important to note that minimalist != disregarding aesthetics for functionality. Minimalism is an aesthetic. I would argue that Apple's designs set the industry standard for minimalism.

yes, you are correct. I misused the minimalism analogy. the command line was the minimalist champion, and in my opinion, linux still holds that crown, despite apple's influence on minimalist implementations of windowing systems and UI.

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

#133

Post by GregCox » Sat, Apr 09, 2011, 12:08 AM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #87

irons wrote: post #45

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. OS market share is the easy metric, but it's not the right metric. Read the last six paragraphs: http://expletiveinserted.com/2011/04/02/ios-versus-android-o... Applying the Windows/Mac analogy to the mobile market is like trying to cram modern geopolitics into a cold war framework. You'll ruin your…

Does your link realise that their first couple of graphs are for the "phone" market, not the "smartphone" market? It makes about as much sense as lumping in Apple's laptops or Samsung's TVs and the text only occasionally seems to recognize this, almost as if they drew the graphs thinking they referred to smartphones and then lightly edited the text rather than remove them when they realised their mistake. Makes them…

Yes, his link (me) realizes that. The point of the graphs is that Apple is the only manufacturer growing significantly relative to the market, so to call them dead in water is ridiculous.

Also, the share growth for all phones is relevant, because smartphones are almost certainly the largest component of that. Absent a breakdown of Samsung's growth by phone category, the most generous way to evaluate their smartphone share growth is to make the simplifying assumption that all of Samsung's growth comes from smartphones. Even then, their growth is a fraction of iPhone's growth and the point is made.

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

#134

Post by shaspefu » Sat, Apr 09, 2011, 5:08 AM UTC

njharman wrote: post #115

MichaelApproved wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Could you elaborate? I'm getting into Android development, and I'm wondering what I'm missing that's in iOS.

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

#135

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sat, Apr 09, 2011, 9:18 AM UTC

GregCox wrote: post #133

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your link realise that their first couple of graphs are for the "phone" market, not the "smartphone" market? It makes about as much sense as lumping in Apple's laptops or Samsung's TVs and the text only occasionally seems to recognize this, almost as if they drew the graphs thinking they referred to smartphones and then lightly edited the text rather than remove them when they realised their mistake. Makes them…

Yes, his link (me) realizes that. The point of the graphs is that Apple is the only manufacturer growing significantly relative to the market, so to call them dead in water is ridiculous. Also, the share growth for all phones is relevant, because smartphones are almost certainly the largest component of that. Absent a breakdown of Samsung's growth by phone category, the most generous way to evaluate their smartphone…

Apple's not been growing relative to the US smartphone market though. It's been flat for a year (while Android has taken share rapidly) which, despite the ominous overtones, is what "dead in the water" means, a ship without wind not going anywhere (sales still need to rise about 60% to keep up with market growth so the analogy isn't perfect, but they rarely are).

What you seem to be missing is that makers of both types of phone are losing share in dumbphones, even as they gain share in the more lucrative smartphone market.

If you had numbers for smartphones only, it's likely that about 4 or 5 companies would have higher growth than Apple. Almost certainly in the case of the second graph, because Apple has a higher marketshare and the same mathmatical trick that makes them look good against the Samsung who sell 1 in 4 phones, would make them look bad against the samsung that used to have 5% of the smartphone market but are catching up to and probably overtaking Apple soon.

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

#136

Post by teyc » Sat, Apr 09, 2011, 1:59 PM UTC

If you get invited to a party for fashion designers, you'd better spend some time picking the right thing to wear.

If you get invited to a geek party, remembering to shave alone would put you above the 90th percentile.

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

#137

Post by GregCox » Sun, Apr 10, 2011, 4:52 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #135

GregCox wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, his link (me) realizes that. The point of the graphs is that Apple is the only manufacturer growing significantly relative to the market, so to call them dead in water is ridiculous. Also, the share growth for all phones is relevant, because smartphones are almost certainly the largest component of that. Absent a breakdown of Samsung's growth by phone category, the most generous way to evaluate their smartphone…

Apple's not been growing relative to the US smartphone market though. It's been flat for a year (while Android has taken share rapidly) which, despite the ominous overtones, is what "dead in the water" means, a ship without wind not going anywhere (sales still need to rise about 60% to keep up with market growth so the analogy isn't perfect, but they rarely are). What you seem to be missing is that makers of both typ…

Yes, you're right. My preceding comment ignores the shift from dumb to smartphones.

But seriously, read what I wrote in the post. This internal shift of mix between smartphones and dumbphones, or the rise of many Android manufacturers who aren't in the top 5 (e.g. HTC) is exactly the point. I wonder whether the intent of the "switchers" from dumbphone to smartphones all have the same intent to run apps.

I also noted and amplified the rapid Android share growth using the same "mathematical trick" you mention.