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In my experience, the main reason is that you only need to design for one screen resolution on the iPhone (retina artwork doesn't really affect the screen layou

In my experience, the main reason is that you only need to design for one screen resolution on the iPhone (retina artwork doesn't really affect the screen layout). This makes it a lot easier to statically position elements and create pixel perfect effects. On the other hand, when you're dealing with dynamic layouts, you have to jump through a lot more hoops to make sure the app still looks good as the resolution is scaled up and down (e.g. creating a stretchable images and such and so forth). I also think that Helvetica is a much nicer looking default font.

tryp 16y ago
I'll agree that helvetica looks nicer, but I don't think all the iPhone style gloss and huge spacing looks /better/. Looking at those side-by-sides and knowing that the iPhone versions came first just makes me think that the android versions could be much more information-dense and interactive than they are if they hadn't been limited by the preconceptions of what the existing iPhone version does.
- pflats 16y ago
  Remember, though: contacts are touch-targets. The "huge spacing" is there to make the app easier to use. I think the article even touched on that.
mgcross 16y ago
Yep, I assume the FB app home page is half height to accommodate HVGA devices.
- ben1040 16y ago
  It's not shown in the example on the link, but the Android Facebook app's home screen uses the bottom half to show a stream of recently posted pictures from friends. I suppose the article's author must not have many friends who feel like sharing.
  - mgcross 16y ago
    And that's also a pretty old version of Android FB. The current version includes Places, Chat and replaces Requests with Groups, creating a balanced 3x3 grid of icons.
guelo 16y ago
I don't buy it. As an Android dev you normally just worry about one resolution, Android provides you with the tools (device independent pixels) to make other screens look the same. Just like the iphone, designers are encouraged to provide 2 sets of art assets, for medium and high resolution screens. The real reasons that apps looks worse on Android is that companies don't want to spend the time and money to get the apps polished. As an Android consultant I've come across the attitude from companies over and over again that the Android app should cost less money than the iPhone counterpart. The Android app is always an afterthought and treated as "let's just do a quick port of the iPhone app".
- daniel_solano 16y ago
  With respect to only having to "worry about one resolution", I disagree. Android does give you a set of tools for working with multiple screen types, but it's a bit more complicated than "2 sets of art assets". This only addresses one aspect of different screens: pixel density. This still leaves out different screen sizes. Even then, a "normal hdpi" screen can still be different from another "normal hdpi" screen. It certainly does not help that Google's dashboard for screen and density figures has not been updated in over half a year. As far as your second point goes, I think that companies' attitudes to Android development will change to reflect the evolving marketplace. A year or two ago, Android just did not have the market share to justify a lot of work. Now that Android is commanding significant market share, I think Android development will begin to be seen to be as important as iOS development.
  - guelo 16y ago
    There might be slight differences between "normal hdpi" screens but those differences won't affect a good design and the developer won't have to worry about it. And it definitely has nothing to do with why the meebo app looks like crap. It looks like crap because meebo didn't put the effort into it.
    - asmosoinio 16y ago
      Where is that? I've been looking at this: http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/screens.html http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/screens.htm...

tryp 16y ago

I'll agree that helvetica looks nicer, but I don't think all the iPhone style gloss and huge spacing looks /better/. Looking at those side-by-sides and knowing that the iPhone versions came first just makes me think that the android versions could be much more information-dense and interactive than they are if they hadn't been limited by the preconceptions of what the existing iPhone version does.

pflats 16y ago
Remember, though: contacts are touch-targets. The "huge spacing" is there to make the app easier to use. I think the article even touched on that.

mgcross 16y ago

Yep, I assume the FB app home page is half height to accommodate HVGA devices.

ben1040 16y ago
It's not shown in the example on the link, but the Android Facebook app's home screen uses the bottom half to show a stream of recently posted pictures from friends. I suppose the article's author must not have many friends who feel like sharing.
- mgcross 16y ago
  And that's also a pretty old version of Android FB. The current version includes Places, Chat and replaces Requests with Groups, creating a balanced 3x3 grid of icons.

guelo 16y ago

I don't buy it. As an Android dev you normally just worry about one resolution, Android provides you with the tools (device independent pixels) to make other screens look the same. Just like the iphone, designers are encouraged to provide 2 sets of art assets, for medium and high resolution screens. The real reasons that apps looks worse on Android is that companies don't want to spend the time and money to get the apps polished. As an Android consultant I've come across the attitude from companies over and over again that the Android app should cost less money than the iPhone counterpart. The Android app is always an afterthought and treated as "let's just do a quick port of the iPhone app".

daniel_solano 16y ago
With respect to only having to "worry about one resolution", I disagree. Android does give you a set of tools for working with multiple screen types, but it's a bit more complicated than "2 sets of art assets". This only addresses one aspect of different screens: pixel density. This still leaves out different screen sizes. Even then, a "normal hdpi" screen can still be different from another "normal hdpi" screen. It certainly does not help that Google's dashboard for screen and density figures has not been updated in over half a year. As far as your second point goes, I think that companies' attitudes to Android development will change to reflect the evolving marketplace. A year or two ago, Android just did not have the market share to justify a lot of work. Now that Android is commanding significant market share, I think Android development will begin to be seen to be as important as iOS development.
- guelo 16y ago
  There might be slight differences between "normal hdpi" screens but those differences won't affect a good design and the developer won't have to worry about it. And it definitely has nothing to do with why the meebo app looks like crap. It looks like crap because meebo didn't put the effort into it.
  - asmosoinio 16y ago
    Where is that? I've been looking at this: http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/screens.html http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/screens.htm...