6 ms·

Can you give concrete examples of things that needs to be totally revamped, or are you just parroting the Apple fanboism here?

by studer 16y ago

buster 16y ago
While i think that the current 2.2 UI is great, one thing that always striked me is the inconsistency of colors on widgets (well, since there are widgets, not always ;) ). For example, the google buzz widget, youtube widget and settings widget is black.. facebook and twitter (facebook came preinstalled) is white/blue. It'd be ok for non preinstalled apps.. also atleast it should be skinnable. LevelUpStudios widgets are a good example of skinnable (Beautiful *). That's more of an issue of 3rd party components though, as i believe widgets (like apps) use the correct theme per default and 3rd parties have to change it. Apart from that, i have no complains. But what do you know.. maybe the PalmOS design god comes up with some surprise :)
ashishbharthi 16y ago
Yes currently I have iPhone but I don't like the fact that I will have to pay Apple $100 per year to run my own apps on my phone. I am a Java Developer and I love the fact that I can write Android apps in Java. For that reason I always wanted to move to Android. I went to stores every time new Android device launched but I am not satisfied with the User Interface and touch screen sensitivity. Android UI is not quite up to the level where iPhone UI is or for that matter Palm WebOS UI.
- endtime 16y ago
  You really haven't answered the question - what UI things need to be changed? I have very little exposure to Android, so I'm just asking out of curiosity rather than defensiveness.
  - studer 16y ago
    Extensive downvoting and contentless replies is good enough of an answer for me :)
    - endtime 16y ago
      I think that was more a result of the unnecessary comment about "Apple fanboism" than your actual question.
  - jcl 16y ago
    There are lots of things that could be improved. Here's my pet peeve: Android regularly checks the Android Market for updates available for your apps. It doesn't just check for updates to apps you currently have installed, but for any app you ever installed, including ones you later removed. I guess the logic is that if you uninstalled an app because of a bug, you will want to know when it is updated so that you can try it again. If Android finds any updates, it posts a little "market" icon in the notification bar. If you select the notification, it takes you to a screen showing your downloads, which lists every app you have ever installed. From that screen you can update installed apps (one-at-a-time only), and you can reinstall uninstalled apps. The problem is that the download screen only tells you an app is updated if it is currently installed. There is no way to tell which uninstalled apps have been updated. So if you have tried out a large number of apps, you can easily be in a situation where the notification icon tells you several apps have updated, but when you go to the download page, all your apps appear up-to-date. This greatly reduces the value of update notifications.
    - gmjosack 16y ago
      This is the drive me crazy though i havent experienced it since moving to a 2.x device. Applications no longer appear in downloads view once you uninstall them.
  - vaporstun 16y ago
    I'll give you a few examples. I was an iPhone user for 2.5 years and switched to an Android phone a month and a half ago. (thank you Google I/O!) First, there are 2 calendar apps and 2 email apps. One calendar app is just called "calendar" and the other is called "corporate calendar" I think the idea is to have the exchange calendar in one app and the regular one in the other. But this is unnecessarily complicated. Why not just one calendar app like the iPhone which has all calendar events? Likewise, there is an Email app for any non-Google accounts, then GMail. So when I get an email, it may open in either app which have a completely different look and feel. While that's mostly fine for a geek like myself, it is confusing to any normal users and is a UI mess. And there are many other things throughout the interface which lack polish. The phone app, for example. When in a call, my fiancee accidentally hit the home button. She then went into the phone app to get back to the call because she had to enter things on the dialpad to continue. (she was on the phone with a 1-800 number's automated system) So she went back to the phone app to get back to the call. But that opened to the call log. So she went to the dialpad and tried entering the numbers like she was told, but that dialpad is the dialpad for initiating a new call, not for the current one, so it didn't work. The system timed out and she had to make a new call again. For reference, the way you're supposed to do it is to pull down the notification bar where to get back to the current call. In contrast, on the iPhone when you hit the home button, there is a green strip across the top of the screen that says "Return to current call" so it is trivially easy, and if you go back to the phone app in the middle of the call, it takes you right back to the current call. While on the phone app, when an incoming call comes in on it is difficult to figure out how to merge calls or hang one up and answer the other. To be honest, I still haven't figured it out yet. On the iPhone, the call comes and it has 3 big buttons: Hold current call and answer, Merge calls, End current call and answer. Trivially simple, good UI. Other things, the Android virtual keyboard SUCKS compared to the iPhone. It's predictive text is just not as good and my typing speed has been cut in half with this device because it fails so often. The gallery app, while flashy and 3D is slow and laggy, and I yearn for the simplicity of the iPhone gallery. I don't need my pictures flying around in 3D if it detracts from usability with performance issues. Often on my Droid, I hit the home button and all I see is my background. I often have to wait a few seconds for my shortcut icons to load, then a few more for my widgets to load and refresh. It's terribly frustrating. And sometimes they don't all load, I just have to swipe on the screen to get it to work. I shouldn't have to wait for my home screen to load. Mobile Safari is just a much nicer browsing experience than the Android browser. I've even tried Dolphin, but find it leaves a bit to be desired. It is just not as good at zooming, panning, etc. as Mobile Safari which is HUGE for a browser on a smartphone. With so little screen real estate, I don't want to spend my time frustrated with that aspect of the browser. Overall, the OS just feels sluggish in nearly every way. I don't know how to quantify it, but everything is less smooth and responsive. It's sad that my 2 year old iPhone 3G feels faster and more responsive most of the time than my new Droid. I even tried overclocking the thing to 1GHz and it still felt like a dog compared to the iPhone. And it is almost certainly all software because the processor in the newer Droid is certainly faster than the iPhone 3G, especially when overclocked. But it still felt slower. Overall, there are many more little UI problems all throughout Android which make it far more frustrating to use. I don't hate it entirely, I wouldn't have switched if I did, but it is annoying and I am willing to live with it because of a) Verizon and b) the Hackability. But I'm a big geek, I simply would not recommend an Android phone to most of my family/friends and that is a big problem.
- axod 16y ago
  I just got the Nexus One, first exposure to Android. The UI seems pretty good to me, love the notification area, menus are easy and intuitive. (I've used an iPhone for ages, but I'm pretty sold on Android now. I switched my SIM over the other day and may well not switch back).
replicatorblog 16y ago
The fact that the Android Marketplace lists apps in Dollars, Pounds, Euros, Yen, and other currencies. You need a currency conversion app just to use it. That is an example of TERRIBLE UI.
- jrockway 16y ago
  Well, it's going to charge your account in that currency. It's up to your bank (or maybe Google payments) to do the conversion. One thing is certain: you aren't going to be getting the market price on the exchange. (If they did it the other way around, charging you in your native currency, then it's the developer that would pay the currency exchange fee.)
  - replicatorblog 16y ago
    Right, but the Android OS should convert it into the units of measure of the country so there is no confusion on the user's part. This is just one example of where Google supposdly A/B tests the thickness of lines, but don't care about the big picture issues that will hinder adoption.
    - cma 16y ago
      How does Apple handle this? USD only?
      - aaronbrethorst 16y ago
        Pricing tiers. Currency conversion rates cause the amount of money you make elsewhere in the world to fluctuate. http://www.onlinenerd24.de/2009/03/02/iphone-appsore-tier-price-list/ http://www.onlinenerd24.de/2009/03/02/iphone-appsore-tier-pr...
  - theBobMcCormick 16y ago
    I gotta agree with him on this one. There's no reason the market app couldn't display the current conversion into your local currency whenever you browser the market.
pkulak 16y ago
The app launcher is in 3D and snaps to the closest row, so that right before you click on an app, it bounces forward or back about half a row and you miss or hit a different row. To tell the difference between a tap and a scroll, you need to wait some period of time. Just a fraction of a second. However, if it's a scroll, that means that by the time you figure it out, the finger will be a centimeter or so from where it started. On Android (in the browser mostly), when it learns it's a scroll, the page jumps ahead the distance that it missed, totally taking you out of the "scrolling" metaphor because of the sudden, jerky movement. The iPhone and WebOS (I think) just start moving without skipping to make up ground. This makes it just seem like your finger slipped a tiny bit before gaining traction, which is seamless. And forms. Do I need to say anymore? They just look terrible. Like a website from the late '90s. There are some more, but I can't think of them right now.

Can you give concrete examples of things that needs to be totally revamped, or are you just parroting the Apple fanboism here?

by studer 16y ago

Can you give concrete examples of things that needs to be totally revamped, or are you just parroting the Apple fanboism here?

buster 16y ago

While i think that the current 2.2 UI is great, one thing that always striked me is the inconsistency of colors on widgets (well, since there are widgets, not always ;) ). For example, the google buzz widget, youtube widget and settings widget is black.. facebook and twitter (facebook came preinstalled) is white/blue. It'd be ok for non preinstalled apps.. also atleast it should be skinnable. LevelUpStudios widgets are a good example of skinnable (Beautiful *). That's more of an issue of 3rd party components though, as i believe widgets (like apps) use the correct theme per default and 3rd parties have to change it. Apart from that, i have no complains. But what do you know.. maybe the PalmOS design god comes up with some surprise :)

ashishbharthi 16y ago

Yes currently I have iPhone but I don't like the fact that I will have to pay Apple $100 per year to run my own apps on my phone. I am a Java Developer and I love the fact that I can write Android apps in Java. For that reason I always wanted to move to Android. I went to stores every time new Android device launched but I am not satisfied with the User Interface and touch screen sensitivity. Android UI is not quite up to the level where iPhone UI is or for that matter Palm WebOS UI.

endtime 16y ago
You really haven't answered the question - what UI things need to be changed? I have very little exposure to Android, so I'm just asking out of curiosity rather than defensiveness.
- studer 16y ago
  Extensive downvoting and contentless replies is good enough of an answer for me :)
  - endtime 16y ago
    I think that was more a result of the unnecessary comment about "Apple fanboism" than your actual question.
- jcl 16y ago
  There are lots of things that could be improved. Here's my pet peeve: Android regularly checks the Android Market for updates available for your apps. It doesn't just check for updates to apps you currently have installed, but for any app you ever installed, including ones you later removed. I guess the logic is that if you uninstalled an app because of a bug, you will want to know when it is updated so that you can try it again. If Android finds any updates, it posts a little "market" icon in the notification bar. If you select the notification, it takes you to a screen showing your downloads, which lists every app you have ever installed. From that screen you can update installed apps (one-at-a-time only), and you can reinstall uninstalled apps. The problem is that the download screen only tells you an app is updated if it is currently installed. There is no way to tell which uninstalled apps have been updated. So if you have tried out a large number of apps, you can easily be in a situation where the notification icon tells you several apps have updated, but when you go to the download page, all your apps appear up-to-date. This greatly reduces the value of update notifications.
  - gmjosack 16y ago
    This is the drive me crazy though i havent experienced it since moving to a 2.x device. Applications no longer appear in downloads view once you uninstall them.
- vaporstun 16y ago
  I'll give you a few examples. I was an iPhone user for 2.5 years and switched to an Android phone a month and a half ago. (thank you Google I/O!) First, there are 2 calendar apps and 2 email apps. One calendar app is just called "calendar" and the other is called "corporate calendar" I think the idea is to have the exchange calendar in one app and the regular one in the other. But this is unnecessarily complicated. Why not just one calendar app like the iPhone which has all calendar events? Likewise, there is an Email app for any non-Google accounts, then GMail. So when I get an email, it may open in either app which have a completely different look and feel. While that's mostly fine for a geek like myself, it is confusing to any normal users and is a UI mess. And there are many other things throughout the interface which lack polish. The phone app, for example. When in a call, my fiancee accidentally hit the home button. She then went into the phone app to get back to the call because she had to enter things on the dialpad to continue. (she was on the phone with a 1-800 number's automated system) So she went back to the phone app to get back to the call. But that opened to the call log. So she went to the dialpad and tried entering the numbers like she was told, but that dialpad is the dialpad for initiating a new call, not for the current one, so it didn't work. The system timed out and she had to make a new call again. For reference, the way you're supposed to do it is to pull down the notification bar where to get back to the current call. In contrast, on the iPhone when you hit the home button, there is a green strip across the top of the screen that says "Return to current call" so it is trivially easy, and if you go back to the phone app in the middle of the call, it takes you right back to the current call. While on the phone app, when an incoming call comes in on it is difficult to figure out how to merge calls or hang one up and answer the other. To be honest, I still haven't figured it out yet. On the iPhone, the call comes and it has 3 big buttons: Hold current call and answer, Merge calls, End current call and answer. Trivially simple, good UI. Other things, the Android virtual keyboard SUCKS compared to the iPhone. It's predictive text is just not as good and my typing speed has been cut in half with this device because it fails so often. The gallery app, while flashy and 3D is slow and laggy, and I yearn for the simplicity of the iPhone gallery. I don't need my pictures flying around in 3D if it detracts from usability with performance issues. Often on my Droid, I hit the home button and all I see is my background. I often have to wait a few seconds for my shortcut icons to load, then a few more for my widgets to load and refresh. It's terribly frustrating. And sometimes they don't all load, I just have to swipe on the screen to get it to work. I shouldn't have to wait for my home screen to load. Mobile Safari is just a much nicer browsing experience than the Android browser. I've even tried Dolphin, but find it leaves a bit to be desired. It is just not as good at zooming, panning, etc. as Mobile Safari which is HUGE for a browser on a smartphone. With so little screen real estate, I don't want to spend my time frustrated with that aspect of the browser. Overall, the OS just feels sluggish in nearly every way. I don't know how to quantify it, but everything is less smooth and responsive. It's sad that my 2 year old iPhone 3G feels faster and more responsive most of the time than my new Droid. I even tried overclocking the thing to 1GHz and it still felt like a dog compared to the iPhone. And it is almost certainly all software because the processor in the newer Droid is certainly faster than the iPhone 3G, especially when overclocked. But it still felt slower. Overall, there are many more little UI problems all throughout Android which make it far more frustrating to use. I don't hate it entirely, I wouldn't have switched if I did, but it is annoying and I am willing to live with it because of a) Verizon and b) the Hackability. But I'm a big geek, I simply would not recommend an Android phone to most of my family/friends and that is a big problem.
axod 16y ago
I just got the Nexus One, first exposure to Android. The UI seems pretty good to me, love the notification area, menus are easy and intuitive. (I've used an iPhone for ages, but I'm pretty sold on Android now. I switched my SIM over the other day and may well not switch back).

replicatorblog 16y ago

The fact that the Android Marketplace lists apps in Dollars, Pounds, Euros, Yen, and other currencies. You need a currency conversion app just to use it. That is an example of TERRIBLE UI.

jrockway 16y ago
Well, it's going to charge your account in that currency. It's up to your bank (or maybe Google payments) to do the conversion. One thing is certain: you aren't going to be getting the market price on the exchange. (If they did it the other way around, charging you in your native currency, then it's the developer that would pay the currency exchange fee.)
- replicatorblog 16y ago
  Right, but the Android OS should convert it into the units of measure of the country so there is no confusion on the user's part. This is just one example of where Google supposdly A/B tests the thickness of lines, but don't care about the big picture issues that will hinder adoption.
  - cma 16y ago
    How does Apple handle this? USD only?
    - aaronbrethorst 16y ago
      Pricing tiers. Currency conversion rates cause the amount of money you make elsewhere in the world to fluctuate. http://www.onlinenerd24.de/2009/03/02/iphone-appsore-tier-price-list/ http://www.onlinenerd24.de/2009/03/02/iphone-appsore-tier-pr...
- theBobMcCormick 16y ago
  I gotta agree with him on this one. There's no reason the market app couldn't display the current conversion into your local currency whenever you browser the market.

pkulak 16y ago

The app launcher is in 3D and snaps to the closest row, so that right before you click on an app, it bounces forward or back about half a row and you miss or hit a different row. To tell the difference between a tap and a scroll, you need to wait some period of time. Just a fraction of a second. However, if it's a scroll, that means that by the time you figure it out, the finger will be a centimeter or so from where it started. On Android (in the browser mostly), when it learns it's a scroll, the page jumps ahead the distance that it missed, totally taking you out of the "scrolling" metaphor because of the sudden, jerky movement. The iPhone and WebOS (I think) just start moving without skipping to make up ground. This makes it just seem like your finger slipped a tiny bit before gaining traction, which is seamless. And forms. Do I need to say anymore? They just look terrible. Like a website from the late '90s. There are some more, but I can't think of them right now.