Why iOS Apps Look Better Than Android Apps • Hacker News Board

Re: Why iOS Apps Look Better Than Android Apps

#11

Post by ja27 » Tue, May 01, 2012, 12:00 PM UTC

The top reason I'd think of? Most companies build the iOS version first then port it to other platforms. That's usually under tighter deadlines than the iOS version had and there's not much design flexibility. Just make it work almost identical to the iOS version and it needs to be done tomorrow.

It is funny to hear that rounded rects are still an issue in 2012. http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_E...

Re: Why iOS Apps Look Better Than Android Apps

#12

Post by tseabrooks » Tue, May 01, 2012, 2:19 PM UTC

davedx wrote: post #4

Sounds like a load of FUD. Fragmentation can cause issues, but it's hardly the nightmare it's portrayed to be in this article. Speaking as a game developer, if you can't make your software fit in more than one resolution then you're headed for trouble anyway.

I think you're looking at it only from your perspective. If you're making a game for Android and you're using drawing primitives directly and the like I suspect the fragmentation is a non issue.

However, when making simpler applications that lean heavily on the built in widgets writing Android apps is a big PITA in my opinion. I write apps for both Android and iPhone (Because I love money) and it's way way harder to make something look nice on Android than it is on the iPhone.

It's not impossible in Android land. It's just too much work to make it profitable on small utility-ish applications. The ability to do absolute positioning on iOS makes it "easy" to make things look nice. However, in android land when I get custom graphics and designs from my designer it's REALLY a big PITA to make it all look nice and line up.

I personally wish Google had restricted what OEMs could do a bit more.

Re: Why iOS Apps Look Better Than Android Apps

#13

Post by winterton » Tue, May 01, 2012, 2:39 PM UTC

alanbyrne wrote: post #8

Why are we still creating apps? Can't these optical nuances can be achieved on both devices using HTML5 and CSS3 and run them in the browser of any modern device? (I'm legitimately asking, I don't know the answer)

Because many devices still lack decent hardware acceleration. If you're doing a lot of complex UI work with tons of CSS3, some devices just can't keep up. My team investigated building one of our recent apps using only HTML5 and CSS3, and while it rendered smoothly on some newer devices, it performed terribly on older ones. So for compatibility and performance reasons, we moved back to native. Perhaps this is simply anecdotal, but in our experience, your milage may vary when it comes to building mobile web apps, sometimes it's the best option, sometimes it's not.