Gripes about UI/UX of Android phones/tablets and so called "openness" that is nonsense to consumers.

If you also have an Android phone, you are welcome to email me your gripes as well. If you don't but you want to buy one, read this blog before you do it. :-)

-- A big fan of Google, not Android

  1.  

    Reply to Richard’s reply to “5 Years Later, And Google Still Can’t Get It Right”

    Richard Borcsik sent me a response (also on Google+) to a recent guest post, 5 Years Later, And Google Still Can’t Get It Right. I contacted the original author, who was willing to respond to Richard’s opinions. So here it is. Richard’s email is quoted. In his email, Richard cited some text from the original post, I put them in bold.

    Dear Android Gripes,

    I’ve recently read a guest post on your blog from an Anonymous poster about how “Google Still Can’t Get It Right”. My jaw dropped from the amount of bullshit and uniformed claims. He gives his opinion about the UI/UX of ICS without using it, based on screenshots claiming that if it would be intuitive enough he would understand it. A big part of getting to know an OS is interacting with it; touching, scrolling, going through the menus to see what happens. Many if not all of his difficulties would go away even after 5 minutes of use.

    Let me react to each and every point he raised. IF you feel like you should give opportunity for me to defend the platform against uninformed rants than please post this to the blog. His points are in italics and comic sans bold font.

    You missed the entire point of my post. I’ll repeat what I wrote at the top since you clearly ignored it: 

    “Before you Fandroids whine about how I can’t criticize ICS without having used it, keep in mind that your OS should be intuitive enough that a new user like me can understand immediately what’s going on just by looking at it. iOS lives up to that standard, so that’s the standard I’ll be holding Android to as well.”

    Almost every single button, icon, and string of text in the iOS screenshots I presented is immediately intuitive. If iOS can accomplish this, why can’t Android? Why should I have to fumble around my OS and try to guess what each button does? Why not make everything obvious just by looking at it?

    Alarm app

    He says that the iOS version is beautifully designed. Beautiful just like many other adjectives is relative. I see fake gloss and fake textures. No thanks.

    If you honestly think ICS looks better than iOS, there’s nothing I have left to say about that. You clearly have no design sense whatsoever so it’s not even worth arguing about. 

    It looks the same as it did 4 years ago. I’m aware of the fact that good design is timeless, but I don’t think it applies to UI. The apps and OSs that look like they did 10 years ago are laughed at and pointed to.

    Android changes its look every version and has only gotten worse. The look of iOS has been great from the start, so why should it need to change?

    Now let’s look at the screen on the right (Android). First impression: a flat black square with a bunch of stark white lines. Ugh, it reminds me of a terminal screen. In the upper left you’ve got the header text “Alarms” with a clock icon. In the upper right you’ve got two icons: a check mark and some dots. One symbol is white and one is slightly grayish. Are they buttons? It’s not clear, since they look just like the title text. And if they are indeed buttons, who knows what they do. One might assume the check means “Save”, but if that’s the case, shouldn’t there be a corresponding “Cancel” or “X” button? 

    Nowhere. So I can save, but I can’t cancel? And it’s anyone’s guess what those three dots are for. They look disabled anyway, so I’ll just ignore them. 

    The three dots means more. It’s standard across the UI. As for the check mark: I have no idea since i use a modified version that doesn’t have it.

    LOL.

    Agree that they should be the same color. What do they do? This is where trial and error comes in. Everyone likes it when the feel that they figured out something on their own.

    Seriously, that’s your answer? “Trial and error”? “Everyone likes it when the feel that they figured out something”? Hey, I have an idea. Let’s all go back to using command line interfaces so people can use trial and error and then feel really smart when they figure out what “rm -rf ~/” means. Everyone would like that, right?

    In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s not 1980 anymore. We’re supposed to be done with the era of confusing UIs that people have to use “trial and error” to figure out. A good UI should be immediately intuitive to users. If you admit that Google’s interface requires trial and error, then you admit it’s not as intuitive as it can and should be.

    Next, we have a big “Add alarm” text with a “+” next to it. This looks almost exactly like the header text.  Am I supposed to tap that to make a new alarm? If so, why does it look like header text instead of a button that can be pressed? Ridiculous.

    The header ends with the blue separator. This is present througout the OS in the apps using the “Holo Dark” theme. What’s this fixation with the buttons anyway? It’s clearly a menu entry.

    What’s “clearly a menu entry”? Nothing is clear in ICS because everything looks exactly the same. Buttons, text, headers, menus; they’re all flat white on a black background. I can’t tell what’s what. There are no visual affordances to tell me what’s a button, what’s header text, what’s a menu, what’s tappable and what isn’t, etc. I’m just supposed to fumble around using “trial and error” before I can figure it out?

    Below that, we have the three alarms. OK, a little bit better. I can see the times and the days they’re activated for. But the nice touch of showing “Weekdays” and “Weekends” is not there; instead it lists out all the days. A minor thing, sure, but reveals a lack of polish. Now, are these alarms activated or not? I would assume they are, since there’s no “OFF” or other text indicating otherwise. But then there are these faint gray boxes to the left of the alarms. They look like they could be check boxes. What are they for? If an alarm is not checked, is it off? Or are the check boxes just a convenience for selecting multiple alarms and performing an action on them (e.g., like checking a bunch of emails in Gmail and deleting them)? It’s not that clear. The check boxes also look like they’re disabled controls, since they’re not bright white like the “Add alarm” button. And they’re not even horizontally centered. Laughable.

    The alarms are not activated. This is one of the thongs that you would realize if you spent 1 minute inside the app.

    Yet this is one thing that I don’t have to spend any time inside of the iOS app to realize, because of the extremely obvious “ON/OFF” switch in the screenshot. iOS succeeds where Android fails miserably.

    When you click the check box a toast message appears saying the time left until the alarm and an icon appears in the status bar indicating that there is an active alarm. The next active alarm is also shown on the lockscreen. To understand why they aren’t centered you would just need to press it. (hint: the check mark goes out of the box, this way it’s centered.)

    So they look centered when they’re in one state, and look off center when they’re in a different state? Horrendous design. The iOS switches look centered no matter what state they’re in. Once again, iOS succeeds where Android fails miserably.

    (Also, WTF is a “toast” message? Or was that just an Android autocorrect failure?)

    Finally, at the bottom of the screen you’ve got three more symbols. They don’t look like buttons, just plain icons on a flat black background. And unlike the tab bar in iOS, there are no labels, so it’s anyone’s guess what they do. Are they related to the app? The arrow looks like a “back” icon, but the other two don’t look like anything. The pentagon in the middle looks like it could be an up arrow. Does it take you up a level in the app? And what about the two boxes on the right? Sorry, I’m stumped. 

    Ladies and gentlemen we’ve arrived to the worst point in this rant. These are the software navigation keys (The galaxy nexus doesn’t have hardware keys), present in every app. From left to right: system level back, home (D’oh, it’s a house) and app switcher(box behind box = app window behind app window). Again using a phone for 5 minutes would’ve made this clear

    Seriously, that middle button is a house? Why not make it look like a house then instead of an up arrow? Great job, Google. Why not try hiring some artists instead of engineers for a change?

    WI-FI configuration screen

    Now let’s look at Android. Again, everything is flat; it’s not clear what’s a button and what isn’t. The on/off slider (I’m assuming it’s a slider?) doesn’t look like something that can be manipulated. It looks like a decorative element showing you that WiFi is on. As for the list, which network is currently active? There’s no check mark or highlighting like iOS. Instead you have to read the text to see that one of them says “Connected”. Horrible. Also, I assume tapping a network will connect to it, right? If so, how do I view details of a network without also connecting to it? 

    You should get used to the fact that android is flat and minimalistic.

    THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT OF MY CRITIQUE. Why have a flat and minimalistic UI that not only looks ugly but also makes everything harder to recognize and use? And don’t go telling me “Oh, Android is open so you can just root your device and install another theme, LOLOL!!111”. Google is a $200 billion company, they should have a default theme that looks better than a CS 101 class project.

    There isn’t any fake leather, fake wood, fake metal or fake linen. Yes it’s a slider! God job! What gave it away? Maybe that it looks like a slider, but is just like the rest of the UI: flat and minimal. The network that you’re connected to is always on the top. Always. No it will not connect, but bring up a window with details and a connect button.

    Each item has an unnecessary amount of detail about the security protocols used for the network. Sure, it’s a noble effort to let people know how secure a network is. But honestly, how many regular users know or care what WPA2 is? When Average Joe wants to get on the Starbucks WiFi, he’s not going to say to himself, “oh, that’s only secured with WEP, I better not use it.”  If you want to let people know that a network might not be secure, as a UI designer it’s your job to do the work for them. Don’t assume Joe knows the difference between WEP/WPA/WPA2. Instead, figure out how to translate that technical jargon into something a regular user can understand.  

    It’s not unnecessary. If you look at the signal indicator you can see that if network is secured than there is a lock icon on it.

    The unnecessary part is not the lock icon, it’s the garbage text underneath the network name. The lock icon is enough. 98% of users don’t know or care what “Secured with WPA/WPA2” means, it just clutters up the UI for no reason. That information should only be given when you ask for more details about a network, not on the main screen.

    Finally, the scan/add network/more buttons on the bottom are a joke. The spacing is horrible; they don’t look anything like buttons; two of them are text-only and another is icon-only; and there’s absolutely no reason why “Advanced” has to be a single item in a pop up menu. Ludicrous.

    Agreed. Yes I can agree if someone is right. (Though I should mention that the icon is for the overflow menu.)

    LANGUAGE SETTINGS

    Android, on the other hand, is a jumbled mess. All of the text looks similar, so you can’t easily differentiate item text from header text from explanatory text. It’s not at all obvious which items are grouped together, since everything is just separated by white lines, and the spacing is horrendous. I don’t know which items can be tapped and which can’t, and why some have icons next to them and some don’t. Some text is indented and some isn’t. What a disaster. 

    Hint: header text is in CAPS and there is a line beneath it. The items that are grouped together are the ones between the headers. Everything except the headers can be tapped. The entries with icons: the icons are there because the’re used to launch the setting for that item. Indented text: those logically belong under the one above it.

    Sorry, you can try to explain away this screen as much as you want, but there’s no avoiding the fact these settings are a jumbled mess.  Anyone who spends 2 seconds looking at the two  screenshots can see how much more logical and intuitive the iOS settings UI is compared to Android. It’s literally inarguable. 

    FINAL THOUGHTS

    I could go on with more examples, but I’ve had enough. I’m really amazed at how bad Google is at UI design, and even more amazed that people put up with it. Considering how practiced Google is at ripping off fundamental ideas from iOS (multi-touch, swiping, momentum scrolling, pinch to zoom, on-screen keyboard, etc.) you’d think they could do a better job of ripping off good UI practices also. But no; here they are 5 years after Apple first showed them the way, and they’re still failing miserably at it. Embarrassing. 

    Google is not bad at UI design.

    Actually, yes, they are.

    It’s different than the one that you’re used to.

    Different and worse.

    Ripping off idea? WTF? multi-touch and pinch-to-zoom can be seen in minority report: a 2002 movie. On-screen keyboard? Windows Mobile! Momentum scrolling and swiping? I have no idea where these came from, but surely not from apple. 

    Hilarious. Go back and watch Steve Jobs’s 2007 iPhone introduction. Witness how many of the fundamentals of modern mobile computing UI design were innovated by Apple on that day.  Compare that to the first Android handset demo and see how wrong Google got it, and how much they had to blatantly copy Apple to get where they are today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FJHYqE0RDg.

    You know what’s embarrassing? You ranting anonymously about something that you’ve never seen in real life. I’m not going to rant about iOS because I haven’t used it for extended periods. I also have a name. I’m Richard Borcsik and you can find me on google+. I will also publish this there.

    A challenge you to step forward.

    I choose to post anonymously because (unlike Google and Facebook) I value my privacy. I’d rather not have Fandroids flaming me hate mail and tweets 24 hours a day, thanks. Instead of worrying about what my name is so you can mount a personal attack on me, why not just stick to arguing the facts I’ve laid out? Because nothing you’ve said refutes the fact that the Android UI is horrendous compared to iOS.

  2.  

    5 Years Later, And Google Still Can’t Get It Right

    This is a guest post from an anonymous writer, who is a loyal user of Apple products and a veteran iOS developer.

    I discovered the ICS Paper Cuts blog today and I was looking through some of the screenshots they had of Android Ice Cream Sandwich. As an iOS user since the first iPhone arrived, I don’t have much exposure to Android on a day to day basis. So it was an eye-opening experience for me to see just how bad the UI looks compared to iOS. I’m stunned that even after 4 major versions, the “the world’s most popular mobile platform” (according to Google) still looks like it was designed by first year CS students. It inspired me to do some side-by-side comparisons of Android vs. iOS to illustrate just how amateurish Google’s UI is. A previous post on Android Gripes showed how bad many third party apps look on Android compared to iOS, but here we’ll be looking only at UIs developed by Google and Apple themselves. Fandroids, you can’t blame this junk on lazy third party developers or inept carriers. This is 100% Google’s fault. 

    (Note: I don’t have an Android device of my own, so I’m comparing the Android screenshots from ICS Paper Cuts with similar ones I made myself in iOS. And before you Fandroids whine about how I can’t criticize ICS without having used it, keep in mind that your OS should be intuitive enough that a new user like me can understand immediately what’s going on just by looking at it. iOS lives up to that standard, so that’s the standard I’ll be holding Android to as well.)

    First up is the standard alarm clock app:

    Honestly, where to begin? On the left (iOS), you have a beautifully designed screen with the header “Alarm.” There are three alarms set, each clearly marked “ON” so you know they’re enabled. On the top you can see two controls that are subtly darkened and sunken into the title bar to make them appear like buttons to be pressed. One is marked “Edit” that will no doubt let you edit the alarms. The other is marked “+”. While it’s not as intuitive as “Edit”, it doesn’t take that much brainpower to realize that it will let you add a new alarm. Under the time for the first two alarms, you can see what days each is set for: Weekdays and Weekends. Nice. At the bottom of the screen is a shaded, labeled tabbed interface that clearly shows where you are in the context of the app.  The whole UI is super clean and intuitive. The tasteful gradients, textures, and shadows make the interface appear polished and tangible, like something waiting to be touched. Quite impressive.

    Now let’s look at the screen on the right (Android). First impression: a flat black square with a bunch of stark white lines. Ugh, it reminds me of a terminal screen. In the upper left you’ve got the header text “Alarms” with a clock icon. In the upper right you’ve got two icons: a check mark and some dots. One symbol is white and one is slightly grayish. Are they buttons? It’s not clear, since they look just like the title text. And if they are indeed buttons, who knows what they do. One might assume the check means “Save”, but if that’s the case, shouldn’t there be a corresponding “Cancel” or “X” button? Nowhere. So I can save, but I can’t cancel? And it’s anyone’s guess what those three dots are for. They look disabled anyway, so I’ll just ignore them. 

    Next, we have a big “Add alarm” text with a “+” next to it. This looks almost exactly like the header text. Am I supposed to tap that to make a new alarm? If so, why does it look like header text instead of a button that can be pressed? Ridiculous. Below that, we have the three alarms. Ok, a little bit better. I can see the times and the days they’re activated for. But the nice touch of showing “Weekdays” and “Weekends” is not there; instead it lists out all the days. A minor thing, sure, but reveals a lack of polish. Now, are these alarms activated or not? I would assume they are, since there’s no “OFF” or other text indicating otherwise. But then there are these faint gray boxes to the left of the alarms. They look like they could be checkboxes. What are they for? If an alarm is not checked, is it off? Or are the checkboxes just a convenience for selecting multiple alarms and performing an action on them (e.g., like checking a bunch of emails in Gmail and deleting them)? It’s not that clear. The checkboxes also look like they’re disabled controls, since they’re not bright white like the “Add alarm” button. And they’re not even horizontally centered. Laughable. Finally, at the bottom of the screen you’ve got three more symbols. They don’t look like buttons, just plain icons on a flat black background. And unlike the tab bar in iOS, there are no labels, so it’s anyone’s guess what they do. Are they related to the app? The arrow looks like a “back” icon, but the other two don’t look like anything. The pentagon in the middle looks like it could be an up arrow. Does it take you up a level in the app? And what about the two boxes on the right? Sorry, I’m stumped. 

    The entire Android alarm clock UI is flat, uninspired, and confusing. What can be tapped and what can’t? There’s no shading or texture to quickly let me know. What’s header text vs. a button vs. a list item? They all look exactly the same. If I was teaching an intro class on UI design and a student turned this into me, I’d give it a D. Come on Google, this is pathetic. It’s not that difficult to make a button look like a button!

    Next we have the WiFi list:

    In the iOS app we have a control that obviously looks like an on/off switch to toggle WiFi. We then have a list of networks, with the currently connected network in a different color and a checkmark next to it. It seems clear that if I tapped another item in the list, the checkmark would transfer to that item and that network would then be selected. Each item also has a signal strength indicator, and a lock if it requires a password. Finally, there’s a button with a right arrow symbol. It’s not immediately clear what this button does, though one could reasonably assume that tapping it takes you to more details about the network. Overall, this is a very intuitive UI.

    Now let’s look at Android. Again, everything is flat; it’s not clear what’s a button and what isn’t. The on/off slider (I’m assuming it’s a slider?) doesn’t look like something that can be manipulated. It looks like a decorative element showing you that WiFi is on. As for the list, which network is currently active? There’s no checkmark or highlighting like iOS. Instead you have to read the text to see that one of them says “Connected”. Horrible. Also, I assume tapping a network will connect to it, right? If so, how do I view details of a network without also connecting to it? 

    Each item has an unnecessary amount of detail about the security protocols used for the network. Sure, it’s a noble effort to let people know how secure a network is. But honestly, how many regular users know or care what WPA2 is? When Average Joe wants to get on the Starbucks WiFi, he’s not going to say to himself, “oh, that’s only secured with WEP, I better not use it.”  If you want to let people know that a network might not be secure, as a UI designer it’s your job to do the work for them. Don’t assume Joe knows the difference between WEP/WPA/WPA2. Instead, figure out how to translate that technical jargon into something a regular user can understand.  

    Finally, the scan/add network/more buttons on the bottom are a joke. The spacing is horrible; they don’t look anything like buttons; two of them are text-only and another is icon-only; and there’s absolutely no reason why “Advanced” has to be a single item in a popup menu. Ludicrous.

    Moving on, let’s check out a screen in the settings app:

    In iOS, related items are grouped together, and each section is clearly delineated thanks to the contrast between the white rows and the textured gray background. Item text is easily differentiated from header text. The former is bold and black, while the latter is bluish gray and etched into the background. Each setting has a clear on/off switch or else a gray arrow indicating that tapping it will lead to an adjustment of that setting. The entire UI is clean and obvious.

    Android, on the other hand, is a jumbled mess. All of the text looks similar, so you can’t easily differentiate item text from header text from explanatory text. It’s not at all obvious which items are grouped together, since everything is just separated by white lines, and the spacing is horrendous. I don’t know which items can be tapped and which can’t, and why some have icons next to them and some don’t. Some text is indented and some isn’t. What a disaster. 

    I could go on with more examples, but I’ve had enough. I’m really amazed at how bad Google is at UI design, and even more amazed that people put up with it. Considering how practiced Google is at ripping off fundamental ideas from iOS (multi-touch, swiping, momentum scrolling, pinch to zoom, on-screen keyboard, etc.) you’d think they could do a better job of ripping off good UI practices also. But no; here they are 5 years after Apple first showed them the way, and they’re still failing miserably at it. Embarrassing. 

    Update (1/4/2012) Richard Borcsik sent me a response (also on Google+) to this guest post. I contacted the original author, who was willing to respond to Richard’s opinions.

  3.  

    Gripes from a long time Android user

    Editor’s notes: this is a guest post from an anonymous writer, including buggy apps (Google Music Beta and Facebook app in particular), inconsistant buttons and icons, ugly looking, and more. Thank you!

    I’ve been a long time supporter of Google Android. I’ve been using it since it was first officially released way back on the G1 and since the G1 I’ve moved around to several different phones and I’ve got several gripes that I want to share. Firstly I’m a big supporter of Google Android and Google I love the way Google handles all my accounts and the way I can customize it. I keep saying to myself well maybe I should go to the iPhone again etc etc.. but the main reason I don’t is because of Gmail etc.

    Here are my gripes. iOS 5 was recently announced and Apple stole Google’s thunder with their demonstration of their new and improved notification panel, they’ve made it slicker, more organized, more customizable and they’ve made the way notifications appear better than what Google Android is currently doing. Secondly the Google Talk application could be one hell of an application but I don’t think Google sees the potential. It is a great application and it allows me to stay in touch with everyone but I don’t have the ability to add photos, or documents or ANYTHING. Major pain in the ass. Going back to previous articles you’ve mentioned the applications on Google Android are awful. Most of them don’t work properly, they all use different notification icons, none of them follow any guidelines. A lot of developers haven’t updated their Froyo notification bar icons to Gingerbread styled icons, developers haven’t optimized Gingerbread icons to be large enough for the Honeycomb notification tray applications are seriously lacking. However I could buy an iPhone and have everything be consistent and organized.

    Also there are a lot of inconsistent issues with Android whether its the hardware buttons (back being the worst) or whether its icons in the operating system - I was recently uploading something to Picasa and got a “failed upload” and the notification icon was Froyo styled when the uploading icon was Gingerbread styled.

    A lot of Google’s applications don’t match other applications like Google Docs. The Google Music Beta application is the biggest piece of s**t I have ever used, it is slow, large, and out right ugly. Honestly I’m starting to think Google doesn’t have any good designers that work at that company. Who ever is making the applications should be sitting down with the Android team and everyone else with an Android app and disgusting consistency and cross version support for all icons (Honeycomb, Gingerbread, and Froyo) f**k I honestly. How difficult would it be for developers of any application available for Google Android to give users an choice for Honeycomb, Gingerbread, or Froyo styled icons? Honestly SMS Popup does it - they even support all the disgusting skins (Sense, TouchWiz, Blur) etc..

    Also Facebook for Android is the biggest piece of s**t, and they’ve yet to impress me. It seems like Google Android is still 10 years behind Apple and Apple is constantly improving their platform when Google trails in behind trying to compete with what Apple has perfect (iTunes, iBooks, etc..) I wish Google would re-focus the entire project from the ground up asking themselves what can we do to continue being open but having a more respectful image? 

    Perhaps giving some developers incentive to make great applications for the platform. Microsoft did it with Windows Phone 7 they gave them money and advertising time etc, Apple does it too (not to the extent Microsoft did it but they still did it) 

    Finally make a side loading application for the people that want rooted apps and what not that way normal people like consumers don’t see them.

    I’ve got more coming but for now I think this is all.

  4.  

    Nikolai Sander is perfectly right

    Editor’s note: The following is a guest post by an anonymous guest. Thank you!

    I greatly appreciate that finally I know now, that I am no alone with my opinion about Android.

    I have my 20+ Apps on the App Store. One of my Apps even won the prestigious EMMAs award recently. It’s also ported to Android and will fit nicely in your comparison of good iPhone Apps and bad Android Apps from the same company. Although I think the Android version is as good as could be.

    I experienced exactly the same of what Nikolai from EDOSoft wrote and I was wondering – so far – why nobody else is complaining about the bad Android SDK.

    And, same for me, I also did a lot Windows (.NET) developing in the past 20 years and was used to use a good development environment and development tools. Especially debugging and UI-Design tools are crucial for a good and stable App.

    I thought so far, that other Android developers have not seen anything else but this old fashioned and incomplete toolset and API so they are happy with what they have available.

    As an iPhone developer it is really like going back in time at least 3 years and it is more than frustrating to use this old fashioned Android SDK and API.

    So far, I mostly rejected if customers asked me for an Android version of an App. I experienced that most of them didn’t understand my reasons and arguments.

    Now I can point them to your website.

    Thanks for your Android Gripes investigations!

  5.  

    Android apps worse than iPhone? There are reasons

    Editor’s note: The following is a guest post by an anonymous reader. He wrote to answer the question previously posted in this blog, why do apps from the same company look worse on Android than on iPhone. He has “done tons of iPhone work and as of late has been doing a lot of conversions to Android”. Thank you!

    Our standard estimate for an Android version is about 150% for equivalent functionality of an iPhone app.  We warn our clients that even with that, it won’t be as “slick” as the iOS version.

    Why?

    Apple’s SDK is gold. Core Animation forms the heart of UIKit and is incredible.  Core Data is usually a huge win for us.  Those two things alone are massive, but the cleaner, more easily customizable widgets on iOS are a big advantage too.  Let’s not forget Interface Builder and a far superior desktop simulator.

    WAY less QA.  Fewer hardware variations, and each iPhone generation is better in every way than the last.  If it works okay on an iPhone 3G, we know we’re not going to have performance problems on any recent device.

    One screen size. It’s so much easier for our graphics design team to create an awesome UI if they can design to the pixel.  Some UIs scale easily to different resolutions and/or aspect ratios, but others don’t.  We can use both on iOS, but not on Android.

  6.  

    Why do apps look worse on Android than iPhone, a programmer’s perspective

    Editor’s note: The following is a guest post by Nikolai Sander, CEO of EODSoft. He wrote to answer this question, why do apps from the same company look worse on Android than on iPhone. Thank you, Nikolai.

    I think I also know the reason why Android apps have so much worse UI’s.

    I’m an independent developer with over 20 years of experience, working for bigger and smaller companies. I have about 10 iPhone apps in the app store with over 10 million apps sold.

    I just recently ported one of my apps to the android platform and was shocked when I learned the User Interface API. It is the worst UI library I have ever worked with (and I have worked with quite a few)! I would even go so far as calling it amateurish. It looks like it was designed by at least 3 to 4 different people without common design guidelines. The naming conventions are inconsistent and the static nature of declaring the UI in xml files might work for the web but for a dedicated device interface it’s a nightmare. This along with the fragmentation of devices (mainly different resolutions) it is close to impossible to create a nice UI on Android devices.

    I wouldn’t blame the developers or designers of the apps for the bad UI. After all most of them wrote the iPhone version first and they sure have all the assets (bitmaps etc.) available but in most cases I assume that they got so frustrated with the UI SDK on the Android that they decided to create a simpler one in order to not waste too much time. I know I have. Trying to get the UI look right on the Android platform is a trial and error process and with trial I mean “you try it on all possible device resolutions and encounter mostly errors”. On the iPhone, you just build it in Interface Builder for 2 resolutions (320x480 and retina, which is almost identical to the iPad) and you’re done.

    Believe me, I’m not an apple fan boy. My background is actually Windows for most of my career but I have never ever seen anything as bad as the Android UI SDK. I’m a huge fan of Android and really want it to succeed but am deeply disappointed by what I’ve encountered.