15 ms·

Why don’t designers take Android seriously?

134 points by amitkumar01 13y ago

andric 13y ago
Android doesn’t drive early adoption, so it would make sense to leave it out while you let iOS “take the cake” so to speak, for a while at least. Android, being the dominant platform with a huge mass of people in the early-to-late majority part of the bell curve, makes sense for when you want to scale.
- chetanahuja 13y ago
  "Android doesn’t drive early adoption" Surely you're going to provide data or some citation to back that huge assertion.
  - tomelders 13y ago
    Feel free to refute them with your own evidence.
wallflower 13y ago
From personal experience and from hearing 1st person stories of startups who went Android second, it takes at least 2x to even 3x the amount of time to build an Android app. This is why when a very talented Android engineer like Sarah Haider (Twitter's Android lead) goes from Twitter to Secret, it is a big deal. There are many strong, capable iOS technical leads out there and probably a fraction thereof in Droidlandia (using Pareto's famous rule, probably 4 - 5 good iOS technical leads for every 1 good Android technical lead). To make an app on Android look good, the responsibility lies much more on the developer than the designer. The designer on iOS can easily use IB. Not so much Android Studio or Eclipse. At the highest levels (slightly below Jake Wharton), talented Android developers who care about the user experience and can deliver compelling, beautiful apps can name their own price.
- tomasien 13y ago
  Eclipse is also HORRIBLE. Horrible, horrible horrible. Objective-C isn't exactly easy to understand, but Xcode is. I could functionally make things work in Xcode in 2 days having no experience with C or Objective C, I've probably spent 6 weeks in Eclipse in my life and I still couldn't really tell you how to do things. I have to re-learn it every time I want to do something, especially with the UI.
  - jaydz 13y ago
    Give Android Studio a shot. Makes laying out the UI in XML a breeze with its excellent intellisense.
    - tomasien 13y ago
      I've heard that, and that's fine - I appreciate the suggestion and will probably use it, but if that's actually the best then people will take Android dev more seriously when the best is the standard IDE. Right now Eclipse is the default and it blows.
      - eropple 13y ago
        Eclipse is the default for most Java development, but I know fairly few serious Java developers who use it. Some do, I'm not saying they don't exist, but IntelliJ--of which Android Studio is a fork--is generally the go-to tool amongst the experienced, skilled Java folks I know. Double for Scala. (I used nothing but IDEA for Android work at my last job, for about eighteen months - Eclipse is certainly not required and doesn't really make it easier.)
        fallinghawks 13y ago
        Second this. Not to say I'm an experienced Java developer, but after trying both, I'm sticking with IntelliJ, which was introduced to me by a Google SSE who definitely favored it over Eclipse.
        13y ago
my3681 13y ago
I develop apps for both major mobile platforms, and when I speak with designers and artists about Android and iOS, they overwhelmingly prefer iOS. Since they use iOS devices themselves, it is their go to platform. It is almost always the one they want to work with. Oddly, when I ask them why, the answers are mostly qualitative. It has nothing to do with "reaching the most people" or "getting exposure". It's a simple matter of taste. Designers tend to choose iOS products because they identify with them. They see Apple as an institution that they would enjoy being a part of in some way. Almost all the designers I know that are worth their salt use and love their macs for working in Photoshop and Illustrator, so it naturally follows that they prefer the iOS platform, regardless of numbers and market share. Admittedly, my sample size is only around 50 or so, but this has been my experience.
- donniezazen 13y ago
  Glad you said that. Apple prepositioned itself as a design oriented company something that designers associate with. Something being easy is highly subjective.
- zacharypinter 13y ago
  Sounds akin to developers picking the companies they work for based on the programming languages/tech stacks they get to work with. I can definitely sympathize.
- baddox 13y ago
  That's not really surprising, since a large portion of mobile developers probably became mobile developers specifically because of what Apple was doing in iOS.
- ryanSrich 13y ago
  As a designer this is exactly why. No android phone nor interface is close to the level of what Apple is putting out - both from an experience and product standpoint. This is also the same exact same reason why I purchase all apple products. I really don't understand the argument of "You're paying more for a lesser product when you buy Apple". Ok - so the hardware isn't as good/powerful, fine, but that's not why I'm buying an Apple product. I'm buying it because of the UX, because of the way the phone feels in my hand, because of the way the keys feel on the keyboard when I press them down, because of how great the applications look and feel when I use them. If android came out with something that looked and felt great I would certainly consider using it. In fact, I purchased a Samsung Galaxy S3 several years ago when it first came out. The phone was absolute garbage - plastic bevels still had molding pieces around the edges, the unnecessary bloatware (which would have been fine if it was remotely useful) was very poorly designed, and overall the phone felt very light and cheap.
Zigurd 13y ago
I was able to successfully train a designer to use the Android SDK's tools when appropriate, and check in graphical assets. In preparatory meetings I insisted the designer be in the room with the coders and product managers as I explained how Android is different. I taught them all how to use conditional layouts and how to test apps for good practices by changing font sizes to see if they really are geometry-independent. Once they saw how easy it is to make other developers' work look less than competent, I could see the switch in their minds flip: They were not doing to be tripped up by users who change font size. This client was the typical kind of client who could easily have fallen into a "portitis" pattern of not designing for the capabilities of Android's layout system. If all parts of the system - product managers, coders, and designers, not have bought into thinking about their part of the project differently from an iOS implementation, the designers would have had no inputs from those other parts of the team re how they were modifying their approach for an Android version of their product. Android has a richer system for adapting code modules to different layouts, and therefore a more sophisticated UX for tablets. It's a pity than many Android apps are low-bidder porting jobs that plaster right over that.
- whytaka 13y ago
  As an app designer, I wouldn't mind a lesson myself!
  - doctorcroc 13y ago
    Likewise. Zigurd, would you mind writing up a short lesson?
    - Zigurd 13y ago
      See above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7457817 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7457817
- LordIllidan 13y ago
  I'd be interested in reading more about this - I'd love to show it to some designers I work with. At the moment, I'm struggling to get the designers to acknowledge that Android and iOS need to be designed seperately. iOS designs can look pixel-perfect due to having only 2 resolutions to care about (ok, iPhone 5+ have taller screens, but same width) Android is a whole different story.
Aloha 13y ago
I wonder how much of it had to do with how graphically inconsistent Android was until 4.x I had Stock Android 1.x and 2.x devices (before switching to iOS), and there was no consistent UI anywhere to be found, even different parts of the base system did things differently, not to mention non-scrollable UI elements that'd render off partially the screen (parts of the menus for example) - and thats just the interface - while android is better now, you still have the supposed fragmentation issues, and the fact that if you have a single device that has some issues with your app, you can end up with comments and ratings that reflect that minority rather than the majority of users for whom it works fine.
mmuro 13y ago
Fragmentation is a real thing, not laziness. Almost 98% of Android users don't run KitKat.
- joezydeco 13y ago
  And then you read about stuff like this[1]: "Mika says it spent 20% of its total development time last year on the process of porting two of its games to Android and then tweaking those titles for individual devices. It could never even get Battleheart to work on Galaxy S phones, because they can't download .apk's larger than 30MB with stock software. For all the months of "thanklessly modifying shaders and texture formats to work on different GPUs, or pushing out patches to support new devices without crashing, or walking someone through how to fix an installation that wouldn't go through," Mika claims it never made a profit off either of its Android games." Geez, I wouldn't go into Android game development after reading this. And we haven't even breached the piracy issues. [1] http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/03/12/mika-mobiles-decision-to-stop-making-games-for-android-raises-troubling-questions-and-concerns-about-apps-on-android/ http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/03/12/mika-mobiles-decisio...
  - batiudrami 13y ago
    That's the original Galaxy S, a device which is now 5 years old. There are plenty of apps which no longer support iPhones that old. "It's too hard" or "it doesn't make enough money" are more than reasonable. A software limitation in a 5 year old device is not.
    - traek 13y ago
      It wasn't 5 years old when the article was written, though. The Galaxy S was less than 2 years old at that time.
    - masklinn 13y ago
      You apparently missed that the article itself is from March 2012, talking about a game (Battleheart) released in June 2011. The Galaxy S was released in June 2010 (so it's not even 4 years old, let alone 5…), it was barely a year old at game release and was not only one of the popular smartphones of the times, as the Nexus S it was also the reference device until November 2011.
drawkbox 13y ago
They design for the devices they have. They also design for the largest part of the viewing traffic of the web (ios). Apple is still a design deity. Apple had the first big app platform and clients still demand iOS first. In game and app development, it still gets the most focus. Finally, and a bit of a trick almost, is the review times are longer for Apple when talking about apps, this causes a focus on iOS earlier many times. Projects tend towards getting iOS ready early and in the queue and approved and the Android platforms second because Google Play is instant almost (Amazon is as slow as Apple on reviews). Like complaining customers that get the most focus, the more difficult to approve platform gets the most focus but only because of its market share and past (new entrants need to be easier). However with Google's beta system on Play more and more projects are starting there now that a good chunk of clients have Android devices. Apple really needed to buy testflight because they didn't have anything as nice. Android is becoming a better test market and something you can iterate on faster early to prepare it for iOS, lots of game developers are thinking this way now, primarily because iOS is so hit driven at launch you have to get right and Google is better long tail is seems.
taspeotis 13y ago
Granted I'm a developer who's just starting out with Android, but for the life of me I can't figure out any reasonable way to position things with percentages and maximum widths. I tried weight_sum and weight and gravity=center and that gets me percentages but then maxWidth is ignored. Most of the advice online seems to be "you must construct additional LinearLayouts".
- georgemcbay 13y ago
  I've been writing Android code for close to 3 years now and I can tell you the problem isn't you. Android layouts are like CSS in that eventually they warp your brain to the point where you can mostly understand them and be productive with them, but they are still kind of ridiculous and make doing things that should be relatively easy much harder than they ought to be. Sadly the whole way the layout system works seeps into the programmatic APIs in all sorts of bad ways too -- like, I just want to set the width of this view... there's no setWidth, wtf? Oh... LayoutParams? What in the hell is all this. Not to mention things like every layout type having its own LayoutParams class and all the fun that comes along with changing say a RelativeLayout to a LinearLayout and then having to both change all your different dpi xml files to match (especially on tablet/phone hybrid apps), and also make a ton of code changes to correct your Java casting, etc. bleh.
  - chroem 13y ago
    Really? I picked up CSS in a few hours but I still can't begin to wrap my head around how to properly work with Android layouts. I really wish Google would let people use HTML and CSS instead of that bizarre relational XML stuff.
    - Nilzor 13y ago
      WebView is your friend.
      - baddox 13y ago
        That can quickly turn into "now you have two problems."
rikthevik 13y ago
Has anyone seen good results with the new Qt mobile tools? I realize that it won't look quite native - but Qt's got a pretty good track record, and if I could write apps using C++ instead of Java, and get some cross-platform capability, I'd certainly be interested.
- Ologn 13y ago
  I have probably been writing and porting more C++ code on Android lately than Java code. I haven't done much with QT. Some of the apps used the SDL library. Some of the apps have been OpenGL 1.x code ported to OpenGL ES. I guess it all depends on what platforms you have in mind.
- stefan_kendall3 13y ago
  I've been burned by cross-platform tools. I tried Sencha Touch, and it was a horrible 2-year mistake. Something that compiles might do better, but at the end of the day you really want to be calling into the cocoa touch framework directly. If Qt lets you do this, great. If it doesn't, look elsewhere.
badman_ting 13y ago
Elephant in the room = adoption rate of current OS version. "Kit Kat is awesome!!" That's great. Who is using it?
- DiabloD3 13y ago
  I am. On my Nexus 5. Compared to a iPhone 5s, this runs circles around it. I'm not trying to start a flamewar or anything, but why are iOS devices so slow and clunky, and why is the UI so... fruity? Its just weird.
  - badman_ting 13y ago
    Terrific.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - youngtaff 13y ago
    I am. I've also got an iPad and seriously considered getting a iPhone instead of my Nexus 4 but iOS's poor keyboard i.e. key caps are always uppercase regardless of shift state, it's hunt and peck rather than swype, and the lack of intents were a deal breaker for me.
    - bluedino 13y ago
      The key caps on my desktop and laptop are always uppercase regardless of shift state.
      - youngtaff 13y ago
        Yes but sure the key idea behind soft keyboards is they can change to reflect what I'm going to type, as for example the iOS keyboard does when I hit the number / punctuation shift key
  - rsynnott 13y ago
    You're in a tiny minority, right now. 2.5% of Android users use 4.4, compared to 19% using 2.3.x, 15% using 4.0.x, and _35%_ using 4.1.x. It's nice that you like it, but it's probably not worth most developers' time using 4.4-specific features for a year or so.
logn 13y ago
>A browser permanently playing catch-up will always be an additional, potentially redundant, layer in the technology stack. If a single OS ends up running >90% of the world’s connected devices, why bother writing software for the browser? I can't agree here. I think the OS world will be fragmented for a very long time (forever) and that the browser world will always have a core set of functionality to write apps once that run everywhere. I don't think Android, iOS, or the desktop browser are going anywhere fast, and so the only platform you can write for that reaches all three is the browser. I suppose the author is predicting the end of desktops/laptops being relevant but even given that (which I don't think will ever happen) there will still be iOS and Android. That's still double the work to release one app on both. People will always try to find the common denominator and the browser is it (even if in another incarnation, e.g., Cordova/PhoneGap). And assuming Android beats iOS, I can't imagine it beats the WWW too. I'd like to see a statistical breakdown of "native" apps with embedded browsers vs actual native apps. And if Cordova simply won't ever offer an elegant enough user experience, then I think Firefox OS will become the winner. The WWW is just so much bigger than Objective C or Dalvik, no one's going to port all that. So, even assuming that one OS rules >90% of devices, what percent of existing webapps/websites is that? And what percent of existing mobile apps' tech stacks is that, accounting for apps that are seemingly native but actually built on web tech?
- psionski 13y ago
  Also it spares you from having to write Java, or worse - Objective C. I went for HTML5 just because I could use a (relatively) sane language and not be forced in walled gardens in the process - like having to buy a $3000 Mac to use a language that looks like it's straight from the 80's (and now they're trying to get me to buy a Mac just so I can view the console output of my Javascript app - I'm starting to think Apple HATES the people that develop software for their devices).
joelgrus 13y ago
Why don't designers make their stacked area charts really oddly proportioned and with muddled palettes so that they're difficult to read? Oh, wait, they do!
- sbuk 13y ago
  The chart is from a well known and respected former Nokia analyst who, incidentally, has a degree in computer science. I guess the question should be; "Why do people on the internet consistently mouth off without checking their facts, which are always a mere search away?"
sedev 13y ago
> The other replies were mostly variations on the theme that Android users don’t pay for apps, they don’t have data plans, you can’t monetise them easily, and designers are all iPhone users and don’t really understand Android users … Socially, excluding Android users seems almost prejudicial. Unlike Android is difficult, this isn’t about about mere convenience; it’s a value judgment on who is worth designing for. Put uncharitably, the root issue is “Android users are poor”. This position sells the opposing argument short. It's not so much "designers believe a priori that Android users won't pay for good design," it's "Android users have a long and well-established track record of not paying for good design." People are still experimenting, and I think that this is actually a case you can rely on market mechanisms to handle. If Android users start demonstrating a willingness to pay for good design commensurate with the difficulty of producing good design for Android devices, there'll be a market opportunity there. Someone will get rewarded for providing people with what they're willing to pay for. This leads into how Bowles sells the other argument short: he conflates design and graphic design when he address the "Android is hard to design for" argument. Design is, to borrow a famous phrasing, how it works. Sure, it was tough to do good graphic design for Gingerbread and it's much easier now. Great. However, the fragmentation and glacially-slow upgrades have a real cost here - to design the same functionality, may require spanning multiple API versions. The comparison to the diversity of Web browsers and viewers doesn't work because that diversity, relies on web standards. The equivalent of web standards that would allow an Android app to do responsive design in the manner of a web app, devices don't have or respect. Fundamentally, it seems like Bowles doesn't get that the answer to his question is "because doing good design work on Android is more expensive and people pay less for it." Sure, you could ask designers to make speculative investments in Android, but I suspect that'll go about as well as asking people to make speculative investments of their professional time and skill usually goes. Professionals who respect their own time and worth, go where they can do good work and get paid well for it. Currently, that means they don't go to Android.
- fpgeek 13y ago
  > The equivalent of web standards that would allow an Android app to do responsive design in the manner of a web app, devices don't have or respect. Oh, really? Let's take a look shall we: 1. Using new APIs if available and falling back gracefully if not: http://developer.android.com/training/basics/supporting-devices/platforms.html http://developer.android.com/training/basics/supporting-devi... 2. Adapting your layout and UI to each device based on screen size, density and other features: http://developer.android.com/training/multiscreen/index.html http://developer.android.com/training/multiscreen/index.html 3. Libraries to help use newer features while being backward-compatible: http://developer.android.com/tools/support-library/index.html http://developer.android.com/tools/support-library/index.htm... And so on. Looks to me like there's plenty of infrastructure to help building responsive apps if you want to.
cclogg 13y ago
"However, the growth patterns of Android are what give it such power. Android utterly dominates in emerging markets." The last point there is an important one. In the US (and various other markets), iOS and Android are not that far apart in user count. In fact I believe in the US now, iOS is taking share back (albeit a minor share lol): http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2014/3/comScore_Reports_January_2014_US_Smartphone_Subscriber_Market_Share http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2014/3/comSc... But anyway, I've enjoyed reading the comments here, and I think the point about designers themselves being more mac-oriented (historically) is a pretty valid reason!
thought_alarm 13y ago
... Or, "How to get me to stop reading after the first paragraph".
- Kiro 13y ago
  Why?
dannyr 13y ago
Designers don't take Android seriously because they are mostly iOS users. It's hard to build on something you cannot really relate to.
- nysv 13y ago
  There also seems to an element of elitism among Apple fanboys, thinking their design is the only one that matters. "Android users obviously picked their device for other reasons than design, so it doesn't have to look as good."
  - sbuk 13y ago
    >..."element of elitism among Apple fanboys," Let's not use pejoratives. While we are at it, let's not project our own assumptions as points of fact.
    - nysv 13y ago
      You are right, I have but a little anecdotal evidence. In my experience there does exists a group of designers who view Apple to be the gospel of UI design, which can sometimes lead to them ignoring other schools of thought.
      - tomelders 13y ago
        So if I've got this right... It's those nasty lazy designerses fault, and has nothing to do with Androids colossal shortcomings either as a platform to develop for, or to earn a living from?
        nysv 13y ago
        No. And I said, these designers are a minority. Android is definitely hard to get "right" design-wise, but it can be done. But if all you are trying to do is make it look like iOS, you are on the wrong track. Monetization issues are a separate problem as far as I can see. While money can shift priorities, but shouldn't affect design.
rmrfrmrf 13y ago
Probably because when Android evangelists (not necessarily Google) market Android as the "anti-Apple" OS, you remind a lot of current Apple users about the days when Windows ruled the earth and all of the anti-usability that came with it.
weixiyen 13y ago
Money is in iOS, so companies prioritize it first. After Android becomes the main platform for monetization, it will probably be taken a lot more seriously. Right now it goes like this in every company. 1) Lets make an iOS app 2) okay we have an iOS app, can someone clone an Android one real quick? It doesn't have to be perfect, just get it done ASAP. > I recognise that I have a fairly rare stance, given the ideology that surrounds platform issues. It's not a rare stance. Android is the hot thing now and has been gaining tons of momentum.
mruniverse 13y ago
Most designers I see have iPhones. I think they just like designing for a platform that they like. It's natural. People who like Linux develop for Linux, etc. Why would you do otherwise?
- ntlve 13y ago
  Make more money perhaps, no source on whether or not well designed apps drive more revenue, just a guess.
mrxd 13y ago
> My uncharitable interpretation for this class of responses is simple laziness What does this mean? If I was uncharitable, I'd say it sounds like he wants designers and developers to work nights and weekends. If there's a business case for supporting Android, then you need more headcount. If not, calling the team lazy is unnecessary. > I do hope, given tech’s rhetoric about changing the world and disrupting outdated hierarchies, that we don’t really think only those with revenue potential are worth our attention. Most designers work for for-profit companies where revenue potential is an extremely important consideration, irrespective of whether they personally sympathize with the poor. There's a valid point buried in here somewhere. It's possible that companies are underinvesting in Android because they've underestimate the opportunity, but blaming this on designers preferring iOS is just weird. A decision as important as the choice of platform is rarely left up to the personal preference of the designer.
lvturner 13y ago
I one thing to consider, is that emerging markets also generally spend less money on applications, and good design is expensive. I've seen two identical apps (games specifically) on Android and iOS, the iOS versions made considerably more revenue than the Android version. So I guess the commonly asked question is "Will we make the same amount of money with a cheaper design?" Obviously this is a bit anecdotal, but I think it's a contributing factor.
saltyknuckles 13y ago
This was more complaining. I wish he would show an example with android UI
justincpollard 13y ago
Rather than asking "Why don't designers take Android seriously?" I'd ask "Why don't companies take Android seriously?" Once a company decides to take Android seriously, it isn't all that difficult to create compelling apps, with or without a designer that is dedicated to the Android platform. While I don't advocate simply copying the iOS experience on Android, a developer with some knowledge of how the platform works doesn't necessarily need a designer's help to modify the iOS experience to fit Android paradigms.
ApacheEcho 13y ago
One sentence answer: Because it's a pain in the ass.
programminggeek 13y ago
Because great designed Android apps don't sell any better than mediocre ones.
huhtenberg 13y ago
> Why don’t designers take Android seriously? Perhaps simply because design doesn't appear to be instrumental to the success on this platform?
wisty 13y ago
> Socially, excluding Android users seems almost prejudicial. Unlike Android is difficult, this isn’t about about mere convenience; it’s a value judgment on who is worth designing for. Put uncharitably, the root issue is “Android users are poor”. How about "Android users want a phone, not apps". If you want a phone, you get an Android. If you want apps, you get an iPhone. Look at the stats for web use. In 2012, there was more Android Webkit use of cellular (more users?), but far more Mobile Safari if you included WiFi. An iPhone / iPad is used as a computer, Android is a phone and mobile browser (for when you can't use a real computer).
- szatkus 13y ago
  No, Android user wants apps. iPhone is just expensive as hell. Android is much cheaper alternative. People who want "just phone with browser" usually buy Nokia Asha or feature phone.
  - gmac 13y ago
    And your evidence is ... ? It seems to me there are more than enough cheap and crappy Android handsets out there to serve the feature-phone market too.
    - szatkus 13y ago
      The cheapest Android phone I found costs 50 euro. You can easily find feature phone for 15-20 euro.
      - rsynnott 13y ago
        Depends where you live. In Ireland, for instance, if you walk into a shop wanting a prepaid phone, you're pretty much getting an Android, with most telecoms. Three, for instance (generally the cheapest major telco), currently lists precisely one non-Android phone in its under-100 euro category, and it's not a feature phone, it's a Symbian smartphone. The rest of its cheap phones are Android, mostly 2.3 and 4.0/4.1. You could buy a feature phone separately and bring it to the telecom, of course, but normal consumers don't do that.
berrypicker 13y ago
Part of why Android development is so frustrating for me is the tools we have to use. If I'm not bashing my head trying to understand fragments and layouts, I'm battling with Eclipse -- constantly closing/refreshing project -- and that incredibly slow emulator.
- ch0wn 13y ago
  Android Studio is way better in every conceivable way the old Eclipse-based ADT and I haven't had speed problems with the Android emulator since they released the x86 images. Have you actually developed for Android in the last year?
  - berrypicker 13y ago
    I never used Android Studio, only Eclipse, since it was what everybody else was using. This was my experience from around 2012/13 sorry for sharing it but it put me off Android.
    - ch0wn 13y ago
      Things have drastically improved. You should give the new toolchain another try. It's far from perfect, but a huge improvement.
bowlofpetunias 13y ago
Yes, Android is gobbling up marketshare, but the growth is at the low end. The cheap plastic boxes made for people for whom design is not a deciding factor. When given a choice, most designers will work for companies and customers that appreciate good design and are willing to pay more for excellence in experience, even at the expense of raw specs. Apple has built its success on aiming for that market. You see this in all products, from phones to cars to houses, so why should Android be any different? The best designers will work on premium products, and Android just isn't. Google doesn't care much for design, and neither do the Android hardware manufacturers (with the possible exception of HTC, and you can see how popular that is in the Android market...), so that creates an ecosystem in which design, visual, industrial and UX, is secondary. Just like good developers don't like to work somewhere where good code is not considered important, designers don't want to work in a market where their talent isn't valued.
ThomPete 13y ago
they dont take it seriously because Google doesent
stefan_kendall3 13y ago
I'm not going to get acquired by Facebook for releasing my powerlifting app on android. So I truly do need to consider the "Android users are poor" statement. They are. I did some math, though, and the time it will take me to learn android and build the android app should be worth my time if I can convert a decent percentage of my old android paid users over to the designed, native app.
mokkol 13y ago
A friend of mine is making at this moment a vector based Android skin file in Sketch. You guys should check it out when it is ready (very soon). http://android.sketchtricks.com/ http://android.sketchtricks.com/
girishkolari 13y ago
Apps in Android market are not under pressure from design competition, people drive the way things they need ... when people accepts things the changes are really slow -- people push change.
anuraj 13y ago
We apply unidesign (works equally well on iOS and Android) for all our apps these days. But we take iOS as the base for design. This is because Android still do not have the design consistency of iOS. Also Android devices come in variety of shapes and sizes and resolutions making it difficult to visualize end result.
watwut 13y ago
"My uncharitable interpretation for this class of responses is simple laziness" That does not make sense. Those designers will not go home sooner for using web. They work how much they work regardless of technology choice. Those who work hard will work hard on both Android and web and those who slack will slack on both. What changes is how much they achieve during their work-time. "it’s a value judgment on who is worth designing for. [...] I do hope, given tech’s rhetoric about changing the world and disrupting outdated hierarchies, that we don’t really think only those with revenue potential are worth our attention. " This argument does not make much sense to me. Those are designers working for companies. Both companies and designers gotta pay bills. Even if they do not, owners want to get rich and there is nothing wrong with it. That is what business is. As for disrupting rhetoric, that one is just a buzzword used to get attention. Getting attention is needed to earn money. Anyone with half a brain know that "disrupting" means either "new" or "has earning potential" these days. By definition, you will disrupt nothing by releasing apps nobody wants to buy WhatsApp and few other successful apps are outliers and not a norm. They did not become successful by nice design only, they become successful by figuring out which features matter right now for their business.
mrottenkolber 13y ago
I don't take native apps in general seriously. The future will be cross platform web apps, and even if its not, I couldn't be arsed to write software for proprietary platforms.
- psionski 13y ago
  Buy a $3000 Mac computer so you can write software in a language that doesn't work anywhere else (and for a good reason)? Sure, where do I sign up :D

134 points by amitkumar01 13y ago

Android doesn’t drive early adoption, so it would make sense to leave it out while you let iOS “take the cake” so to speak, for a while at least. Android, being the dominant platform with a huge mass of people in the early-to-late majority part of the bell curve, makes sense for when you want to scale.

chetanahuja 13y ago
"Android doesn’t drive early adoption" Surely you're going to provide data or some citation to back that huge assertion.
- tomelders 13y ago
  Feel free to refute them with your own evidence.

wallflower 13y ago

From personal experience and from hearing 1st person stories of startups who went Android second, it takes at least 2x to even 3x the amount of time to build an Android app. This is why when a very talented Android engineer like Sarah Haider (Twitter's Android lead) goes from Twitter to Secret, it is a big deal. There are many strong, capable iOS technical leads out there and probably a fraction thereof in Droidlandia (using Pareto's famous rule, probably 4 - 5 good iOS technical leads for every 1 good Android technical lead). To make an app on Android look good, the responsibility lies much more on the developer than the designer. The designer on iOS can easily use IB. Not so much Android Studio or Eclipse. At the highest levels (slightly below Jake Wharton), talented Android developers who care about the user experience and can deliver compelling, beautiful apps can name their own price.

tomasien 13y ago
Eclipse is also HORRIBLE. Horrible, horrible horrible. Objective-C isn't exactly easy to understand, but Xcode is. I could functionally make things work in Xcode in 2 days having no experience with C or Objective C, I've probably spent 6 weeks in Eclipse in my life and I still couldn't really tell you how to do things. I have to re-learn it every time I want to do something, especially with the UI.
- jaydz 13y ago
  Give Android Studio a shot. Makes laying out the UI in XML a breeze with its excellent intellisense.
  - tomasien 13y ago
    I've heard that, and that's fine - I appreciate the suggestion and will probably use it, but if that's actually the best then people will take Android dev more seriously when the best is the standard IDE. Right now Eclipse is the default and it blows.
    - eropple 13y ago
      Eclipse is the default for most Java development, but I know fairly few serious Java developers who use it. Some do, I'm not saying they don't exist, but IntelliJ--of which Android Studio is a fork--is generally the go-to tool amongst the experienced, skilled Java folks I know. Double for Scala. (I used nothing but IDEA for Android work at my last job, for about eighteen months - Eclipse is certainly not required and doesn't really make it easier.)
      - fallinghawks 13y ago
        Second this. Not to say I'm an experienced Java developer, but after trying both, I'm sticking with IntelliJ, which was introduced to me by a Google SSE who definitely favored it over Eclipse.
      - 13y ago

my3681 13y ago

I develop apps for both major mobile platforms, and when I speak with designers and artists about Android and iOS, they overwhelmingly prefer iOS. Since they use iOS devices themselves, it is their go to platform. It is almost always the one they want to work with. Oddly, when I ask them why, the answers are mostly qualitative. It has nothing to do with "reaching the most people" or "getting exposure". It's a simple matter of taste. Designers tend to choose iOS products because they identify with them. They see Apple as an institution that they would enjoy being a part of in some way. Almost all the designers I know that are worth their salt use and love their macs for working in Photoshop and Illustrator, so it naturally follows that they prefer the iOS platform, regardless of numbers and market share. Admittedly, my sample size is only around 50 or so, but this has been my experience.

donniezazen 13y ago
Glad you said that. Apple prepositioned itself as a design oriented company something that designers associate with. Something being easy is highly subjective.
zacharypinter 13y ago
Sounds akin to developers picking the companies they work for based on the programming languages/tech stacks they get to work with. I can definitely sympathize.
baddox 13y ago
That's not really surprising, since a large portion of mobile developers probably became mobile developers specifically because of what Apple was doing in iOS.
ryanSrich 13y ago
As a designer this is exactly why. No android phone nor interface is close to the level of what Apple is putting out - both from an experience and product standpoint. This is also the same exact same reason why I purchase all apple products. I really don't understand the argument of "You're paying more for a lesser product when you buy Apple". Ok - so the hardware isn't as good/powerful, fine, but that's not why I'm buying an Apple product. I'm buying it because of the UX, because of the way the phone feels in my hand, because of the way the keys feel on the keyboard when I press them down, because of how great the applications look and feel when I use them. If android came out with something that looked and felt great I would certainly consider using it. In fact, I purchased a Samsung Galaxy S3 several years ago when it first came out. The phone was absolute garbage - plastic bevels still had molding pieces around the edges, the unnecessary bloatware (which would have been fine if it was remotely useful) was very poorly designed, and overall the phone felt very light and cheap.

Zigurd 13y ago

I was able to successfully train a designer to use the Android SDK's tools when appropriate, and check in graphical assets. In preparatory meetings I insisted the designer be in the room with the coders and product managers as I explained how Android is different. I taught them all how to use conditional layouts and how to test apps for good practices by changing font sizes to see if they really are geometry-independent. Once they saw how easy it is to make other developers' work look less than competent, I could see the switch in their minds flip: They were not doing to be tripped up by users who change font size. This client was the typical kind of client who could easily have fallen into a "portitis" pattern of not designing for the capabilities of Android's layout system. If all parts of the system - product managers, coders, and designers, not have bought into thinking about their part of the project differently from an iOS implementation, the designers would have had no inputs from those other parts of the team re how they were modifying their approach for an Android version of their product. Android has a richer system for adapting code modules to different layouts, and therefore a more sophisticated UX for tablets. It's a pity than many Android apps are low-bidder porting jobs that plaster right over that.

whytaka 13y ago
As an app designer, I wouldn't mind a lesson myself!
- doctorcroc 13y ago
  Likewise. Zigurd, would you mind writing up a short lesson?
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    See above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7457817 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7457817
LordIllidan 13y ago
I'd be interested in reading more about this - I'd love to show it to some designers I work with. At the moment, I'm struggling to get the designers to acknowledge that Android and iOS need to be designed seperately. iOS designs can look pixel-perfect due to having only 2 resolutions to care about (ok, iPhone 5+ have taller screens, but same width) Android is a whole different story.

Aloha 13y ago

I wonder how much of it had to do with how graphically inconsistent Android was until 4.x I had Stock Android 1.x and 2.x devices (before switching to iOS), and there was no consistent UI anywhere to be found, even different parts of the base system did things differently, not to mention non-scrollable UI elements that'd render off partially the screen (parts of the menus for example) - and thats just the interface - while android is better now, you still have the supposed fragmentation issues, and the fact that if you have a single device that has some issues with your app, you can end up with comments and ratings that reflect that minority rather than the majority of users for whom it works fine.

mmuro 13y ago

Fragmentation is a real thing, not laziness. Almost 98% of Android users don't run KitKat.

joezydeco 13y ago
And then you read about stuff like this[1]: "Mika says it spent 20% of its total development time last year on the process of porting two of its games to Android and then tweaking those titles for individual devices. It could never even get Battleheart to work on Galaxy S phones, because they can't download .apk's larger than 30MB with stock software. For all the months of "thanklessly modifying shaders and texture formats to work on different GPUs, or pushing out patches to support new devices without crashing, or walking someone through how to fix an installation that wouldn't go through," Mika claims it never made a profit off either of its Android games." Geez, I wouldn't go into Android game development after reading this. And we haven't even breached the piracy issues. [1] http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/03/12/mika-mobiles-decision-to-stop-making-games-for-android-raises-troubling-questions-and-concerns-about-apps-on-android/ http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/03/12/mika-mobiles-decisio...
- batiudrami 13y ago
  That's the original Galaxy S, a device which is now 5 years old. There are plenty of apps which no longer support iPhones that old. "It's too hard" or "it doesn't make enough money" are more than reasonable. A software limitation in a 5 year old device is not.
  - traek 13y ago
    It wasn't 5 years old when the article was written, though. The Galaxy S was less than 2 years old at that time.
  - masklinn 13y ago
    You apparently missed that the article itself is from March 2012, talking about a game (Battleheart) released in June 2011. The Galaxy S was released in June 2010 (so it's not even 4 years old, let alone 5…), it was barely a year old at game release and was not only one of the popular smartphones of the times, as the Nexus S it was also the reference device until November 2011.

drawkbox 13y ago

They design for the devices they have. They also design for the largest part of the viewing traffic of the web (ios). Apple is still a design deity. Apple had the first big app platform and clients still demand iOS first. In game and app development, it still gets the most focus. Finally, and a bit of a trick almost, is the review times are longer for Apple when talking about apps, this causes a focus on iOS earlier many times. Projects tend towards getting iOS ready early and in the queue and approved and the Android platforms second because Google Play is instant almost (Amazon is as slow as Apple on reviews). Like complaining customers that get the most focus, the more difficult to approve platform gets the most focus but only because of its market share and past (new entrants need to be easier). However with Google's beta system on Play more and more projects are starting there now that a good chunk of clients have Android devices. Apple really needed to buy testflight because they didn't have anything as nice. Android is becoming a better test market and something you can iterate on faster early to prepare it for iOS, lots of game developers are thinking this way now, primarily because iOS is so hit driven at launch you have to get right and Google is better long tail is seems.

taspeotis 13y ago

Granted I'm a developer who's just starting out with Android, but for the life of me I can't figure out any reasonable way to position things with percentages and maximum widths. I tried weight_sum and weight and gravity=center and that gets me percentages but then maxWidth is ignored. Most of the advice online seems to be "you must construct additional LinearLayouts".

georgemcbay 13y ago
I've been writing Android code for close to 3 years now and I can tell you the problem isn't you. Android layouts are like CSS in that eventually they warp your brain to the point where you can mostly understand them and be productive with them, but they are still kind of ridiculous and make doing things that should be relatively easy much harder than they ought to be. Sadly the whole way the layout system works seeps into the programmatic APIs in all sorts of bad ways too -- like, I just want to set the width of this view... there's no setWidth, wtf? Oh... LayoutParams? What in the hell is all this. Not to mention things like every layout type having its own LayoutParams class and all the fun that comes along with changing say a RelativeLayout to a LinearLayout and then having to both change all your different dpi xml files to match (especially on tablet/phone hybrid apps), and also make a ton of code changes to correct your Java casting, etc. bleh.
- chroem 13y ago
  Really? I picked up CSS in a few hours but I still can't begin to wrap my head around how to properly work with Android layouts. I really wish Google would let people use HTML and CSS instead of that bizarre relational XML stuff.
  - Nilzor 13y ago
    WebView is your friend.
    - baddox 13y ago
      That can quickly turn into "now you have two problems."

rikthevik 13y ago

Has anyone seen good results with the new Qt mobile tools? I realize that it won't look quite native - but Qt's got a pretty good track record, and if I could write apps using C++ instead of Java, and get some cross-platform capability, I'd certainly be interested.

Ologn 13y ago
I have probably been writing and porting more C++ code on Android lately than Java code. I haven't done much with QT. Some of the apps used the SDL library. Some of the apps have been OpenGL 1.x code ported to OpenGL ES. I guess it all depends on what platforms you have in mind.
stefan_kendall3 13y ago
I've been burned by cross-platform tools. I tried Sencha Touch, and it was a horrible 2-year mistake. Something that compiles might do better, but at the end of the day you really want to be calling into the cocoa touch framework directly. If Qt lets you do this, great. If it doesn't, look elsewhere.

badman_ting 13y ago

Elephant in the room = adoption rate of current OS version. "Kit Kat is awesome!!" That's great. Who is using it?

DiabloD3 13y ago
I am. On my Nexus 5. Compared to a iPhone 5s, this runs circles around it. I'm not trying to start a flamewar or anything, but why are iOS devices so slow and clunky, and why is the UI so... fruity? Its just weird.
- badman_ting 13y ago
  Terrific.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- youngtaff 13y ago
  I am. I've also got an iPad and seriously considered getting a iPhone instead of my Nexus 4 but iOS's poor keyboard i.e. key caps are always uppercase regardless of shift state, it's hunt and peck rather than swype, and the lack of intents were a deal breaker for me.
  - bluedino 13y ago
    The key caps on my desktop and laptop are always uppercase regardless of shift state.
    - youngtaff 13y ago
      Yes but sure the key idea behind soft keyboards is they can change to reflect what I'm going to type, as for example the iOS keyboard does when I hit the number / punctuation shift key
- rsynnott 13y ago
  You're in a tiny minority, right now. 2.5% of Android users use 4.4, compared to 19% using 2.3.x, 15% using 4.0.x, and _35%_ using 4.1.x. It's nice that you like it, but it's probably not worth most developers' time using 4.4-specific features for a year or so.

logn 13y ago

>A browser permanently playing catch-up will always be an additional, potentially redundant, layer in the technology stack. If a single OS ends up running >90% of the world’s connected devices, why bother writing software for the browser? I can't agree here. I think the OS world will be fragmented for a very long time (forever) and that the browser world will always have a core set of functionality to write apps once that run everywhere. I don't think Android, iOS, or the desktop browser are going anywhere fast, and so the only platform you can write for that reaches all three is the browser. I suppose the author is predicting the end of desktops/laptops being relevant but even given that (which I don't think will ever happen) there will still be iOS and Android. That's still double the work to release one app on both. People will always try to find the common denominator and the browser is it (even if in another incarnation, e.g., Cordova/PhoneGap). And assuming Android beats iOS, I can't imagine it beats the WWW too. I'd like to see a statistical breakdown of "native" apps with embedded browsers vs actual native apps. And if Cordova simply won't ever offer an elegant enough user experience, then I think Firefox OS will become the winner. The WWW is just so much bigger than Objective C or Dalvik, no one's going to port all that. So, even assuming that one OS rules >90% of devices, what percent of existing webapps/websites is that? And what percent of existing mobile apps' tech stacks is that, accounting for apps that are seemingly native but actually built on web tech?

psionski 13y ago
Also it spares you from having to write Java, or worse - Objective C. I went for HTML5 just because I could use a (relatively) sane language and not be forced in walled gardens in the process - like having to buy a $3000 Mac to use a language that looks like it's straight from the 80's (and now they're trying to get me to buy a Mac just so I can view the console output of my Javascript app - I'm starting to think Apple HATES the people that develop software for their devices).

joelgrus 13y ago

Why don't designers make their stacked area charts really oddly proportioned and with muddled palettes so that they're difficult to read? Oh, wait, they do!

sbuk 13y ago
The chart is from a well known and respected former Nokia analyst who, incidentally, has a degree in computer science. I guess the question should be; "Why do people on the internet consistently mouth off without checking their facts, which are always a mere search away?"

sedev 13y ago

> The other replies were mostly variations on the theme that Android users don’t pay for apps, they don’t have data plans, you can’t monetise them easily, and designers are all iPhone users and don’t really understand Android users … Socially, excluding Android users seems almost prejudicial. Unlike Android is difficult, this isn’t about about mere convenience; it’s a value judgment on who is worth designing for. Put uncharitably, the root issue is “Android users are poor”. This position sells the opposing argument short. It's not so much "designers believe a priori that Android users won't pay for good design," it's "Android users have a long and well-established track record of not paying for good design." People are still experimenting, and I think that this is actually a case you can rely on market mechanisms to handle. If Android users start demonstrating a willingness to pay for good design commensurate with the difficulty of producing good design for Android devices, there'll be a market opportunity there. Someone will get rewarded for providing people with what they're willing to pay for. This leads into how Bowles sells the other argument short: he conflates design and graphic design when he address the "Android is hard to design for" argument. Design is, to borrow a famous phrasing, how it works. Sure, it was tough to do good graphic design for Gingerbread and it's much easier now. Great. However, the fragmentation and glacially-slow upgrades have a real cost here - to design the same functionality, may require spanning multiple API versions. The comparison to the diversity of Web browsers and viewers doesn't work because that diversity, relies on web standards. The equivalent of web standards that would allow an Android app to do responsive design in the manner of a web app, devices don't have or respect. Fundamentally, it seems like Bowles doesn't get that the answer to his question is "because doing good design work on Android is more expensive and people pay less for it." Sure, you could ask designers to make speculative investments in Android, but I suspect that'll go about as well as asking people to make speculative investments of their professional time and skill usually goes. Professionals who respect their own time and worth, go where they can do good work and get paid well for it. Currently, that means they don't go to Android.

fpgeek 13y ago
> The equivalent of web standards that would allow an Android app to do responsive design in the manner of a web app, devices don't have or respect. Oh, really? Let's take a look shall we: 1. Using new APIs if available and falling back gracefully if not: http://developer.android.com/training/basics/supporting-devices/platforms.html http://developer.android.com/training/basics/supporting-devi... 2. Adapting your layout and UI to each device based on screen size, density and other features: http://developer.android.com/training/multiscreen/index.html http://developer.android.com/training/multiscreen/index.html 3. Libraries to help use newer features while being backward-compatible: http://developer.android.com/tools/support-library/index.html http://developer.android.com/tools/support-library/index.htm... And so on. Looks to me like there's plenty of infrastructure to help building responsive apps if you want to.

cclogg 13y ago

"However, the growth patterns of Android are what give it such power. Android utterly dominates in emerging markets." The last point there is an important one. In the US (and various other markets), iOS and Android are not that far apart in user count. In fact I believe in the US now, iOS is taking share back (albeit a minor share lol): http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2014/3/comScore_Reports_January_2014_US_Smartphone_Subscriber_Market_Share http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2014/3/comSc... But anyway, I've enjoyed reading the comments here, and I think the point about designers themselves being more mac-oriented (historically) is a pretty valid reason!

thought_alarm 13y ago

... Or, "How to get me to stop reading after the first paragraph".

Kiro 13y ago
Why?

dannyr 13y ago

Designers don't take Android seriously because they are mostly iOS users. It's hard to build on something you cannot really relate to.

nysv 13y ago
There also seems to an element of elitism among Apple fanboys, thinking their design is the only one that matters. "Android users obviously picked their device for other reasons than design, so it doesn't have to look as good."
- sbuk 13y ago
  >..."element of elitism among Apple fanboys," Let's not use pejoratives. While we are at it, let's not project our own assumptions as points of fact.
  - nysv 13y ago
    You are right, I have but a little anecdotal evidence. In my experience there does exists a group of designers who view Apple to be the gospel of UI design, which can sometimes lead to them ignoring other schools of thought.
    - tomelders 13y ago
      So if I've got this right... It's those nasty lazy designerses fault, and has nothing to do with Androids colossal shortcomings either as a platform to develop for, or to earn a living from?
      - nysv 13y ago
        No. And I said, these designers are a minority. Android is definitely hard to get "right" design-wise, but it can be done. But if all you are trying to do is make it look like iOS, you are on the wrong track. Monetization issues are a separate problem as far as I can see. While money can shift priorities, but shouldn't affect design.

rmrfrmrf 13y ago

Probably because when Android evangelists (not necessarily Google) market Android as the "anti-Apple" OS, you remind a lot of current Apple users about the days when Windows ruled the earth and all of the anti-usability that came with it.

weixiyen 13y ago

Money is in iOS, so companies prioritize it first. After Android becomes the main platform for monetization, it will probably be taken a lot more seriously. Right now it goes like this in every company. 1) Lets make an iOS app 2) okay we have an iOS app, can someone clone an Android one real quick? It doesn't have to be perfect, just get it done ASAP. > I recognise that I have a fairly rare stance, given the ideology that surrounds platform issues. It's not a rare stance. Android is the hot thing now and has been gaining tons of momentum.

mruniverse 13y ago

Most designers I see have iPhones. I think they just like designing for a platform that they like. It's natural. People who like Linux develop for Linux, etc. Why would you do otherwise?

ntlve 13y ago
Make more money perhaps, no source on whether or not well designed apps drive more revenue, just a guess.

mrxd 13y ago

> My uncharitable interpretation for this class of responses is simple laziness What does this mean? If I was uncharitable, I'd say it sounds like he wants designers and developers to work nights and weekends. If there's a business case for supporting Android, then you need more headcount. If not, calling the team lazy is unnecessary. > I do hope, given tech’s rhetoric about changing the world and disrupting outdated hierarchies, that we don’t really think only those with revenue potential are worth our attention. Most designers work for for-profit companies where revenue potential is an extremely important consideration, irrespective of whether they personally sympathize with the poor. There's a valid point buried in here somewhere. It's possible that companies are underinvesting in Android because they've underestimate the opportunity, but blaming this on designers preferring iOS is just weird. A decision as important as the choice of platform is rarely left up to the personal preference of the designer.

lvturner 13y ago

I one thing to consider, is that emerging markets also generally spend less money on applications, and good design is expensive. I've seen two identical apps (games specifically) on Android and iOS, the iOS versions made considerably more revenue than the Android version. So I guess the commonly asked question is "Will we make the same amount of money with a cheaper design?" Obviously this is a bit anecdotal, but I think it's a contributing factor.

saltyknuckles 13y ago

This was more complaining. I wish he would show an example with android UI

justincpollard 13y ago

Rather than asking "Why don't designers take Android seriously?" I'd ask "Why don't companies take Android seriously?" Once a company decides to take Android seriously, it isn't all that difficult to create compelling apps, with or without a designer that is dedicated to the Android platform. While I don't advocate simply copying the iOS experience on Android, a developer with some knowledge of how the platform works doesn't necessarily need a designer's help to modify the iOS experience to fit Android paradigms.

ApacheEcho 13y ago

One sentence answer: Because it's a pain in the ass.

programminggeek 13y ago

Because great designed Android apps don't sell any better than mediocre ones.

huhtenberg 13y ago

> Why don’t designers take Android seriously? Perhaps simply because design doesn't appear to be instrumental to the success on this platform?

wisty 13y ago

> Socially, excluding Android users seems almost prejudicial. Unlike Android is difficult, this isn’t about about mere convenience; it’s a value judgment on who is worth designing for. Put uncharitably, the root issue is “Android users are poor”. How about "Android users want a phone, not apps". If you want a phone, you get an Android. If you want apps, you get an iPhone. Look at the stats for web use. In 2012, there was more Android Webkit use of cellular (more users?), but far more Mobile Safari if you included WiFi. An iPhone / iPad is used as a computer, Android is a phone and mobile browser (for when you can't use a real computer).

szatkus 13y ago
No, Android user wants apps. iPhone is just expensive as hell. Android is much cheaper alternative. People who want "just phone with browser" usually buy Nokia Asha or feature phone.
- gmac 13y ago
  And your evidence is ... ? It seems to me there are more than enough cheap and crappy Android handsets out there to serve the feature-phone market too.
  - szatkus 13y ago
    The cheapest Android phone I found costs 50 euro. You can easily find feature phone for 15-20 euro.
    - rsynnott 13y ago
      Depends where you live. In Ireland, for instance, if you walk into a shop wanting a prepaid phone, you're pretty much getting an Android, with most telecoms. Three, for instance (generally the cheapest major telco), currently lists precisely one non-Android phone in its under-100 euro category, and it's not a feature phone, it's a Symbian smartphone. The rest of its cheap phones are Android, mostly 2.3 and 4.0/4.1. You could buy a feature phone separately and bring it to the telecom, of course, but normal consumers don't do that.

berrypicker 13y ago

Part of why Android development is so frustrating for me is the tools we have to use. If I'm not bashing my head trying to understand fragments and layouts, I'm battling with Eclipse -- constantly closing/refreshing project -- and that incredibly slow emulator.

ch0wn 13y ago
Android Studio is way better in every conceivable way the old Eclipse-based ADT and I haven't had speed problems with the Android emulator since they released the x86 images. Have you actually developed for Android in the last year?
- berrypicker 13y ago
  I never used Android Studio, only Eclipse, since it was what everybody else was using. This was my experience from around 2012/13 sorry for sharing it but it put me off Android.
  - ch0wn 13y ago
    Things have drastically improved. You should give the new toolchain another try. It's far from perfect, but a huge improvement.

bowlofpetunias 13y ago

Yes, Android is gobbling up marketshare, but the growth is at the low end. The cheap plastic boxes made for people for whom design is not a deciding factor. When given a choice, most designers will work for companies and customers that appreciate good design and are willing to pay more for excellence in experience, even at the expense of raw specs. Apple has built its success on aiming for that market. You see this in all products, from phones to cars to houses, so why should Android be any different? The best designers will work on premium products, and Android just isn't. Google doesn't care much for design, and neither do the Android hardware manufacturers (with the possible exception of HTC, and you can see how popular that is in the Android market...), so that creates an ecosystem in which design, visual, industrial and UX, is secondary. Just like good developers don't like to work somewhere where good code is not considered important, designers don't want to work in a market where their talent isn't valued.

ThomPete 13y ago

they dont take it seriously because Google doesent

stefan_kendall3 13y ago

I'm not going to get acquired by Facebook for releasing my powerlifting app on android. So I truly do need to consider the "Android users are poor" statement. They are. I did some math, though, and the time it will take me to learn android and build the android app should be worth my time if I can convert a decent percentage of my old android paid users over to the designed, native app.

mokkol 13y ago

A friend of mine is making at this moment a vector based Android skin file in Sketch. You guys should check it out when it is ready (very soon). http://android.sketchtricks.com/ http://android.sketchtricks.com/

girishkolari 13y ago

Apps in Android market are not under pressure from design competition, people drive the way things they need ... when people accepts things the changes are really slow -- people push change.

anuraj 13y ago

We apply unidesign (works equally well on iOS and Android) for all our apps these days. But we take iOS as the base for design. This is because Android still do not have the design consistency of iOS. Also Android devices come in variety of shapes and sizes and resolutions making it difficult to visualize end result.

watwut 13y ago

"My uncharitable interpretation for this class of responses is simple laziness" That does not make sense. Those designers will not go home sooner for using web. They work how much they work regardless of technology choice. Those who work hard will work hard on both Android and web and those who slack will slack on both. What changes is how much they achieve during their work-time. "it’s a value judgment on who is worth designing for. [...] I do hope, given tech’s rhetoric about changing the world and disrupting outdated hierarchies, that we don’t really think only those with revenue potential are worth our attention. " This argument does not make much sense to me. Those are designers working for companies. Both companies and designers gotta pay bills. Even if they do not, owners want to get rich and there is nothing wrong with it. That is what business is. As for disrupting rhetoric, that one is just a buzzword used to get attention. Getting attention is needed to earn money. Anyone with half a brain know that "disrupting" means either "new" or "has earning potential" these days. By definition, you will disrupt nothing by releasing apps nobody wants to buy WhatsApp and few other successful apps are outliers and not a norm. They did not become successful by nice design only, they become successful by figuring out which features matter right now for their business.

mrottenkolber 13y ago

I don't take native apps in general seriously. The future will be cross platform web apps, and even if its not, I couldn't be arsed to write software for proprietary platforms.

psionski 13y ago
Buy a $3000 Mac computer so you can write software in a language that doesn't work anywhere else (and for a good reason)? Sure, where do I sign up :D