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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?

#121

Post by actf »

Derbasti wrote: post #72
actf wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never really understood the Windows/Mac analogy here. I think the main reason many people end up using Windows over OSX, or any other OS, has always been the availability of software. People use Windows because there is a lot of really good software that just isn't available on other platforms. Granted this is slowly becoming less of an issue now that OSX is gaining some ground, but it is still an issue for a lo…

Do you really think that? I used to be a Windows user, then switched to Mac by way of Linux a few years ago. Now I have to use Windows at work and I have a really hard time finding good Windows programs besides Office. The Mac selection frankly feels way better and bigger to me. I would go even further and claim that the main advantage of OSX over Windows is the app selection in both quality and quantity!

Yes, it's absolutely still true, although certainly to a lesser degree than a few years ago. The obvious easy example is games. The number of AAA games available on OSX is still tiny compared to what's available on Windows.

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

#122

Post by arron61 »

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)

His column is barely readable nowadays. He picks all the stories and "small" snippets that try to position android and google as a failure. No explanation. No argument. Nothing at all.

And since there are no comments, he totally paints a one-sided story.

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

#123

Post by rgbrgb »

ech0sphere wrote: post #120
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…

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.

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

#125

Post by c0nsilience »

Wow you guys are all missing the point. It's not even just about the look of the apps, but it's also the animations, features, etc. The iPhone apps are much more fluid and often sometimes more feature rich and less buggy than their Android counterparts. Take Facebook, for example: the iPhone was the first to get Facebook check-ins, YouTube videos automatically open in the YouTube app without being prompted (a major annoyance for me with Android) and it supports Facebook Chat.

This is just one of many examples as to why iPhone apps are more polished than Android. It's not just because they're more pretty.

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

#126

Post by sdh »

redthrowaway wrote: post #31
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…

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…

"Android has more market share than iOS"

Where are they? I read this statement all the time, but I barely know anyone who has an android phone. Not a scientific measurement, but still ...

"Android emerging as the clear winner of mobile and iOS being reserved for the trendy/artistic/quality crowd"

I really disagree with this statement. First, you can't generalize iOS buyers like this, but more importantly, how do you define winner? Market share? Phones with Android installed on them? How many of these Android users are buying apps?

As a developer, the only measurement I care about is how many of potential buyers of my app are there. Android might have more installed OSes, but iOS has more app buyers.

That's the real reason you see companies focused on iPhone app development and not Android app development.

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

#127

Post by bogomips »

lloeki wrote: post #83
_frog wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. A lot of people are coming to Android as a step up from feature phones. In fact a lot of Android phones ship without any way to install third party apps and act as essentially glorified feature phones. I'd love to see the statistics of Android phones sold with the Android store versus iOS device sales to get a better idea of where the two platforms stand in relation to each other.

A friend of mine bought a HTC Desire Z (of which the G2 is a variant) but while it is supposed to be in the powerhouse department (at the opposite end of the spectrum of a Galaxy Spica) its UI feels jerky, laggy and generally unwilling to respond to some user actions. My friend, despite being on the geeky side, seems not to notice it and because he seems to enjoy the phone I'm reluctant to make him notice and ruin it…

I don't disagree with your observations about a pre-Gingerbread device, however it is remarkable how much 2.3 has improved. It is very competitive with the iPhone now from a spit and polish perspective, even on older hardware. So imagine the shine on a device like an upcoming Galaxy S II.

This segues to arguments that have a freshness dating. Android used to have crap hardware (the G1 was junk). Now it has amazing hardware. Android used to have no apps. Now it has an unbelievable number of apps, and almost all of the top tier apps. Android used to be a duct-tape clunky mess. Now (Gingerbread) it's a completely different beast: It is actually a loveable operating system.

So if Android made most of its gains when it was a shadow of what it is now, what are the detractors left with?

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

#128

Post by rsynnott »

arethuza wrote: post #93
chicagobob wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have a work iPhone, a personal iPad and I used to have a relatively dumb personal phone. I "upgraded" the personal phone to a low end Android phone (a Samsung Galaxy Europa) and I've been really disappointed with it. Of course, what people now tell me is "but that's a bad phone" - and I think that's the problem that Android faces - the actual end user experience is largely determined by the quality of the hardware…

It would be most interesting to see what percentage of Android phones sold are these sorts of super-cheap devices (in this country, a Galaxy Europa is about 80 euro on pre-paid; they won't even sell it to you on contract. By contrast, a Galaxy S is about 550 on prepaid or 150 on contract), versus the high-end devices which we hear so much more about.

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

#129

Post by rsynnott »

burgerbrain wrote: post #34
tomkarlo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"FTC disclosure, Apple?" Paranoid, much? Even if you believe Apple has any need to do something like this, I think we can agree it would probably be done in a more subtle and effective manner than sponsoring an "Android gripes" blog that essentially nobody reads.

>Implying that AAPL could only operate a single astroturf site, instead of legions.

Astroturfing is almost always found out, and usually quickly, and comes with a very nasty backlash. See, for instance, the recent fuss over the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 astroturfing.

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

#130

Post by rsynnott »

d_r wrote: post #99
EwanToo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the screen resolution issue is easily overlooked - my wife had the Sony X10 mini, with a screen resolution of 240 x 320, and a lot of other cheaper Android phones have a similar resolution. If an app developer wants their phone to work on the whole range of Android phones, the app interface needs to cope with these very low resolution screens.

Agreed, just it adds another "I need to test this" configuration for devs. Have you found that many apps don't support this resolution? Google actually tracks screen sizes of devices that access Android Market: http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/screens.htm... It appears that 240x320 (small + low density) accounts for 2.3% of users. While unrelated to UI, another very handy page tracks Android versions…

One note of caution; while the platform version thing is up to date, the screens one is from August 2010. 240x320 is probably an even smaller minority now, as it only really showed up in Sony's 'mini' devices, which did not sell well and seem to have been effectively discontinued; there are no released plans for a current-gen one.
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