Oh for the love of God, we still need convincing of this? Anyone with an ICS/JB phone knows that Android is perfectly capable of looking good. My "least-good" looking application that I use on a regular basis is the Flashlight app, and even then, it's just a big round glossy button.
Android can be beautiful
31–40 of 163 posts
Re: Android can be beautiful
#32Very happy to see the Bump 3.0 on there (I worked on it). ICS and all of it's native apps were a great statement by Google to show how they'd like their apps to look and feel. We followed their queue and used the action bar and view pager to great success. Also having a great visual designer doesn't hurt either.
Re: Android can be beautiful
#33...but only if you skip regular UI conventions
Re: Android can be beautiful
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a complaint about Mobile in general, not Android. People bitch about fragmentation (and it is a bit painful), but in the regard of "everyone has their own UX on top of the system default" iOS is in exactly as bad a boat, if not worse. Some of the most popular iOS apps take their UX off in crazy directions (a common example: Tweetbot). Look closely though. You'll notice the ActionBar is extremely prevalent in…
Maybe you know something about Android, but I doubt you know as much about iOS.
I have written iOS apps (although never public published) and taken classes in iOS development. I am much more of a novice at Android development, but have written a complete (albeit simple, un-networked appliance) app. I've focused more on Android recently because that platform is evolving quickly.
So let's just pretent this isn't a shitty genetic fallacy post and address your challenge head on, "Back up your example and prove to me Android's APIs give more guidance than Android's in how to do ______." I specifically mentioned the Loader pattern.
Compare: Google's Loader pattern: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Loade...
A concrete and common example, doing an async task: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Async...
Compare this to the equivalent API for doing async task usage in iOS: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Perfor...
In iOS There is no concept of a "Loader", so the community has come up with stuff like AsyncUIImageView and friends (code here: https://github.com/nicklockwood/AsyncImageView) which still doesn't entirely solve the problem, because solving the problem takes a lot of framework support.
Sadly, fragmentation is at play again in this; and many Android developers don't use Loaders because they're intimidated or confused or can't use them for their entire panoply of supported devices; so there are a fair share of Android apps that do not use them. You can usually catch this if you change orientation and see things reload from scratch.
Given the rapidly increasing velocity of deployment of 4.0 devices, I think this issue with framework fragmentation is transient.
Re: Android can be beautiful
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Android doesn't have as much "drag and drop" as iOS. For example, you can't add a tab bar at the bottom, nav bar at the top, table view in the middle, set the text of each cell in the table view, and have an app that looks complete and looks like a stock Apple app. If you do that with Android you're just going to have a flat black screen with lines of text crammed next to each other with 0px of spacing. You really ha…
It's not (only) about the consistency of visual style. It's about the the consistency of interaction.
But this is not a problem Android has when apps target 4.0. The ActionBar has been a huge stabilizing influence on the Android interaction pattern; strongly enforcing backpaning, swipe-to-navigate, and consistent locations for navigation.
I'm not sure why you'd say this. Android actually hasn't suffered from tactile UI fragmentation much more than iOS has.
Re: Android can be beautiful
#36I agree that Android can look gorgeous, but that can only go so far. Android's problem is consistency. I've used every alternate android build I could find, and the custom (and default) themes and UI menu system lacked consistency. My favorite was MiUi and even that had terrible consistency issues.
iOS, on the other hand, is supremely superior in this department. The cohesiveness of the experience is second to none. I value that over custom configurations any day. My android phones have been wonderful hack-fests, but at the end of the day, the one thing I can't hack into them is a consistent experience.
Re: Android can be beautiful
#37These seem really inconsistent to me. Feedly looks almost like a metro (sorry, "Windows 8-style") app. doubleTwist looks like an iOS app, as do Square Card Reader and Tumblr. Reddit Sync Pro seems to fit in with Google+, so I assume that's what modern Android apps are supposed to look like. None of these general aesthetics are bad, but the inconsistency seems to be an issue. (Actually, a few of them do look bad to me…
I, for one, revel in diversity of looks, function, and interface. It keeps things fresh and interesting. Especially in an internet that seems to be more and more conformed to the same styles (all of googles products, twitter bootstrap, etc)
Re: Android can be beautiful
#38I just dont see. Beatuiful is extremely subjective, so the title of this is inherently incorrect. And beautiful they may be, but they are not usable, consistent, or friendly. And the ones that are close to being good, have niggling issues like spacing between items, which drives me nuts
Re: Android can be beautiful
#39I agree that Android can look gorgeous, but that can only go so far. Android's problem is consistency. I've used every alternate android build I could find, and the custom (and default) themes and UI menu system lacked consistency. My favorite was MiUi and even that had terrible consistency issues. iOS, on the other hand, is supremely superior in this department. The cohesiveness of the experience is second to none.…
Have you installed any apps on your iOS device? Consistency is pretty hard to come by these days.
Re: Android can be beautiful
#40These seem really inconsistent to me. Feedly looks almost like a metro (sorry, "Windows 8-style") app. doubleTwist looks like an iOS app, as do Square Card Reader and Tumblr. Reddit Sync Pro seems to fit in with Google+, so I assume that's what modern Android apps are supposed to look like. None of these general aesthetics are bad, but the inconsistency seems to be an issue. (Actually, a few of them do look bad to me…
Android doesn't have as much "drag and drop" as iOS. For example, you can't add a tab bar at the bottom, nav bar at the top, table view in the middle, set the text of each cell in the table view, and have an app that looks complete and looks like a stock Apple app. If you do that with Android you're just going to have a flat black screen with lines of text crammed next to each other with 0px of spacing. You really ha…
> Besides, when each app takes up all available real estate, do you really need consistency between apps?
Yes. Consistency between apps is what allows you to start up a new app and intuitively know how to use it. You shouldn't have to re-learn how to interact with each app.
> Distinctive styles are just a nice reminder of what app you're in.
Distinctive style up to a point is useful and pleasant. Gratuitous differences make interaction more awkward. Even at the purely aesthetic level, a reasonable level of consistency improves the feel of the device. When an app looks completely different from all the apps that come with the device, it looks less distinctive and more out-of-place.