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Money quote. If Android were serious about their developers, they would bake in standard animations. Make it easier for developers to build good-looking and goo

Money quote. If Android were serious about their developers, they would bake in standard animations. Make it easier for developers to build good-looking and good-feeling apps, fragmentation issues aside. The beauty of UIKit is if you think like an Apple Engineer (see WWDC10 'Designing Apps with Scrollviews'), you can build almost all of the user interfaces and apps that are standard. Even iMovie. They give you the tools to succeed. No other conference I've been to (WWDC10) was it so apparent they want to give you the framework and knowledge and expert advice to build apps that look good. Apple loves its developers. Not sure about Google's love for their Android developers. > Emotion is a huge factor when people choose what to buy — I’d say maybe even the biggest one. Apple understands this. All iOS devices — all Apple devices, for that matter — are designed with the emotional experience in mind. Why does almost everything in iOS animate? Why did Apple create CoreAnimation, and base UIKit app development so heavily upon it? Because animation, even in small unobtrusive doses, has an emotional affect. It results in a feeling.

ergo98 16y ago
>If Android were serious about their developers, they would bake in standard animations. Why do you presume that they haven't? Every View has intrinsic full animation support, and of course there's a full simile of CoreAnimation in android.view.animation. So why don't Android apps make use of it? Generally as a function of time, care, and craftsmanship. Too often Android apps were second tier, and many Android app writers were doing it to scratch an itch (versus for the iPhone where it is typically productized). Android apps have the potential to be just as slick, just as polished, and just as nuanced and emotional as any iphone app. The state today is that they aren't, but that isn't any intrinsic failure of the platform. Honestly, though, I find that sort of observation superficial and just incredibly boring. Every iphone user when they touch an Android device will immediately comment on the lack of slickness of the non-GPU using transitions. As a day to day Android user, using my phone for virtually everything and anything, this has absolutely ZERO impact on my enjoyment of the device. To say it is unnoticed is still giving it too much credit. It's superficial bedazzling that differentiates based upon the utterly irrelevant.
- wallflower 16y ago
  As someone who will likely be doing a considerable Android port from scratch (hopefully one that does not suck too much) in the first half of next year, thank you for this intel. I think the iPhone user smugness starts at the very beginning - with the swipe to unlock. As Jerry Seinfeld (somewhat incorrectly) riffed in his latest show - "With these new phones you can't get all mad and yell <expletive> and slam the phone down - it has to be (Jerry pantomimes yelling on the phone and then gently swiping to hang up). Jerry also had a brilliant observation on how he goes to lunch with friends and they have their Blackberry in hand and they might be looking at you but they're really not - he termed it - they have painted doll eyes. But I digress, I believe long-term (2011) that you will not be taken seriously if you cannot deliver an Android app. A mobile web site is a poor substitute - and most defy my 1st law of mobile apps - the ability to work with it offline..
- silvestrov 16y ago
  Looking only at the functionality and completely ignoring the design is superficial. Animations are a core part of the design, they make it much easier for normal people to understand transitions and spatial interfaces in the UI, e.g. when going from one screen to another in a hierarchy. And they make it look nicer. (When was the last time a consumer bought a car by specs instead of by looks?) First we had text-based UIs (hello /bin/sh). Then we had static GUIs. Now we have animated GUIs. Many old-school unix gurus couldn't see the need for GUIs, e.g. BrianK said "What You See Is All You Get" about WYSIWYG because he thought GUIs were more limited than text-based UIs. But for normal people, the 'G' in GUI was the important letter and is what enables them to use the computer. edit: added missing word: 'limited'
  - ergo98 16y ago
    >Looking only at the functionality and completely ignoring the design is superficial. Who is completely ignoring the design? My comment was specifically and only about essentially spurious, extraneous chrome -- literally interface bedazzling. It has nothing whatsoever to do with usability, and actually little to do with design. You know I still marvel that Apple is held as the gold standard of design. The iPhones notification system is truly terrible. The messaging system is a god awful sin of design (for the longest time I simply could not believe that the screenshots posted were actually from the esteemed iPhone). Many of the transition effects stink of excess.
pkaler 16y ago
With respect to technology, the problem with Android is the exact problem with Linux on the desktop. The Surface Graphics Manager and Surface Graphics Library are just not as good as Quartz and CoreAnimation. And it seems like no one on the Android team thinks that GPU acceleration of the UI is a key problem. http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6914 http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6914
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
  - blinkingled 16y ago
    "I've played with friends' Evos and I can definitely notice the jerkiness in scrolling the app marketplace." GC is far more likely cause for the jerkiness. The 2.2 and below GC implementation is not very latency friendly. They fixed that in 2.3 with concurrent GC with a target GC pause of 3ms. Looking at 2.3 on Nexus S - there are literally no user visible pauses / jerkiness - I just can't bog it down. GPU acceleration may be useful in some specific cases and I am sure they will get there - but having to support bazillion devices that have different GPUs - that's going to take little longer.
    - hammerdr 16y ago
      Cool. Good news. How much market share does Android 2.3 have? As a developer, I like Android. I really do. I'm pulling for it. But as someone who has helped develop a first class Android application, the hardware fragmentation is the largest headache I've had to deal with. Even pulling out all performance enhancing techniques, it is hard to deliver an experience on a G1 running Android 1.6. I want Google to take a firmer stance around the hardware that powers their devices. Call it brand protection, a licensing requirement or just plain "we're better at tech than you." Please, just make the phones work. Oddly enough, it's Microsoft doing that, not Google.
      - blinkingled 16y ago
blinkingled 16y ago
People like to glorify Apple in every way possible and tout whatever advantages they have but the mistake they make is they don't care enough to understand Android as a platform and its Architecture. Because if they did they will understand that from an developer standpoint Android is absolute delight to develop on. Think about this - when Android goes to tablets with Honeycomb, the same app binary will work with tablets and phones while automagically adjusting the UI to suit the available screen real estate. Now think how Apple did this with iPad. Think about inter-app communication. Intents are another one of the great platform facilities. Your app can get things done at runtime without worrying about if there is an app installed to handle that intent - if there isn't one it will launch the Market app and suggest you to download the necessary app to handle that activity. The cloud Backup APIs and C2DM stuff is way ahead than what Apple has to offer today. Then there are obviously the notifications. Ever heard any one complain about Apple's horrid notification system? Nope - they are all busy looking at UI animations :) Not having to deal with memory management is added bonus. There are a lot of things Android gets right. If they don't have as many rich animations as iOS it doesn't make a whole lot of difference to end users - having crappy notifications on other hand does affect end users negatively. So all put together I think there are lot many pleasant things to say about Android as a development platform. Purely from an "emotional" or "UI" angle it may not be terrific but from an getting work done fast standpoint it surely is a great platform that also happens to look decent enough not to make you puke ;)
- chrisbolt 16y ago
  Think about this - when Android goes to tablets with Honeycomb, the same app binary will work with tablets and phones while automagically adjusting the UI to suit the available screen real estate. Now think how Apple did this with iPad. That may be wonderful for developers, but that will probably make for a horrible user experience.
  - blinkingled 16y ago
    No it won't make a bad experience for anyone. See the AllthingsD video interview with Andy Rubin for a demo. GMail app on the tablet is displayed taking full advantage of extra screen real estate by placing its views side by side. Same app goes on a phone and places its view once screen at a time, new view (view mail for e.g.) activated by click for example. This is exactly what iPad apps do, only that in case of Android one binary will do the right thing on tablet and phones.

ergo98 16y ago

>If Android were serious about their developers, they would bake in standard animations. Why do you presume that they haven't? Every View has intrinsic full animation support, and of course there's a full simile of CoreAnimation in android.view.animation. So why don't Android apps make use of it? Generally as a function of time, care, and craftsmanship. Too often Android apps were second tier, and many Android app writers were doing it to scratch an itch (versus for the iPhone where it is typically productized). Android apps have the potential to be just as slick, just as polished, and just as nuanced and emotional as any iphone app. The state today is that they aren't, but that isn't any intrinsic failure of the platform. Honestly, though, I find that sort of observation superficial and just incredibly boring. Every iphone user when they touch an Android device will immediately comment on the lack of slickness of the non-GPU using transitions. As a day to day Android user, using my phone for virtually everything and anything, this has absolutely ZERO impact on my enjoyment of the device. To say it is unnoticed is still giving it too much credit. It's superficial bedazzling that differentiates based upon the utterly irrelevant.

wallflower 16y ago
As someone who will likely be doing a considerable Android port from scratch (hopefully one that does not suck too much) in the first half of next year, thank you for this intel. I think the iPhone user smugness starts at the very beginning - with the swipe to unlock. As Jerry Seinfeld (somewhat incorrectly) riffed in his latest show - "With these new phones you can't get all mad and yell <expletive> and slam the phone down - it has to be (Jerry pantomimes yelling on the phone and then gently swiping to hang up). Jerry also had a brilliant observation on how he goes to lunch with friends and they have their Blackberry in hand and they might be looking at you but they're really not - he termed it - they have painted doll eyes. But I digress, I believe long-term (2011) that you will not be taken seriously if you cannot deliver an Android app. A mobile web site is a poor substitute - and most defy my 1st law of mobile apps - the ability to work with it offline..
silvestrov 16y ago
Looking only at the functionality and completely ignoring the design is superficial. Animations are a core part of the design, they make it much easier for normal people to understand transitions and spatial interfaces in the UI, e.g. when going from one screen to another in a hierarchy. And they make it look nicer. (When was the last time a consumer bought a car by specs instead of by looks?) First we had text-based UIs (hello /bin/sh). Then we had static GUIs. Now we have animated GUIs. Many old-school unix gurus couldn't see the need for GUIs, e.g. BrianK said "What You See Is All You Get" about WYSIWYG because he thought GUIs were more limited than text-based UIs. But for normal people, the 'G' in GUI was the important letter and is what enables them to use the computer. edit: added missing word: 'limited'
- ergo98 16y ago
  >Looking only at the functionality and completely ignoring the design is superficial. Who is completely ignoring the design? My comment was specifically and only about essentially spurious, extraneous chrome -- literally interface bedazzling. It has nothing whatsoever to do with usability, and actually little to do with design. You know I still marvel that Apple is held as the gold standard of design. The iPhones notification system is truly terrible. The messaging system is a god awful sin of design (for the longest time I simply could not believe that the screenshots posted were actually from the esteemed iPhone). Many of the transition effects stink of excess.

pkaler 16y ago

With respect to technology, the problem with Android is the exact problem with Linux on the desktop. The Surface Graphics Manager and Surface Graphics Library are just not as good as Quartz and CoreAnimation. And it seems like no one on the Android team thinks that GPU acceleration of the UI is a key problem. http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6914 http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6914

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- blinkingled 16y ago
  "I've played with friends' Evos and I can definitely notice the jerkiness in scrolling the app marketplace." GC is far more likely cause for the jerkiness. The 2.2 and below GC implementation is not very latency friendly. They fixed that in 2.3 with concurrent GC with a target GC pause of 3ms. Looking at 2.3 on Nexus S - there are literally no user visible pauses / jerkiness - I just can't bog it down. GPU acceleration may be useful in some specific cases and I am sure they will get there - but having to support bazillion devices that have different GPUs - that's going to take little longer.
  - hammerdr 16y ago
    Cool. Good news. How much market share does Android 2.3 have? As a developer, I like Android. I really do. I'm pulling for it. But as someone who has helped develop a first class Android application, the hardware fragmentation is the largest headache I've had to deal with. Even pulling out all performance enhancing techniques, it is hard to deliver an experience on a G1 running Android 1.6. I want Google to take a firmer stance around the hardware that powers their devices. Call it brand protection, a licensing requirement or just plain "we're better at tech than you." Please, just make the phones work. Oddly enough, it's Microsoft doing that, not Google.
    - blinkingled 16y ago

blinkingled 16y ago

People like to glorify Apple in every way possible and tout whatever advantages they have but the mistake they make is they don't care enough to understand Android as a platform and its Architecture. Because if they did they will understand that from an developer standpoint Android is absolute delight to develop on. Think about this - when Android goes to tablets with Honeycomb, the same app binary will work with tablets and phones while automagically adjusting the UI to suit the available screen real estate. Now think how Apple did this with iPad. Think about inter-app communication. Intents are another one of the great platform facilities. Your app can get things done at runtime without worrying about if there is an app installed to handle that intent - if there isn't one it will launch the Market app and suggest you to download the necessary app to handle that activity. The cloud Backup APIs and C2DM stuff is way ahead than what Apple has to offer today. Then there are obviously the notifications. Ever heard any one complain about Apple's horrid notification system? Nope - they are all busy looking at UI animations :) Not having to deal with memory management is added bonus. There are a lot of things Android gets right. If they don't have as many rich animations as iOS it doesn't make a whole lot of difference to end users - having crappy notifications on other hand does affect end users negatively. So all put together I think there are lot many pleasant things to say about Android as a development platform. Purely from an "emotional" or "UI" angle it may not be terrific but from an getting work done fast standpoint it surely is a great platform that also happens to look decent enough not to make you puke ;)

chrisbolt 16y ago
Think about this - when Android goes to tablets with Honeycomb, the same app binary will work with tablets and phones while automagically adjusting the UI to suit the available screen real estate. Now think how Apple did this with iPad. That may be wonderful for developers, but that will probably make for a horrible user experience.
- blinkingled 16y ago
  No it won't make a bad experience for anyone. See the AllthingsD video interview with Andy Rubin for a demo. GMail app on the tablet is displayed taking full advantage of extra screen real estate by placing its views side by side. Same app goes on a phone and places its view once screen at a time, new view (view mail for e.g.) activated by click for example. This is exactly what iPad apps do, only that in case of Android one binary will do the right thing on tablet and phones.