G+_Marlon Thompson Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Sorry, I don't just want you to release your app on Android On episode 104 Ron Richards made the point that app developers really need to understand that they are shooting themselves in the foot if they ignore Android and don't make a compatible version. But I am going to take a slight issue with that an amend it to tell developers to not just make an Android version of your app but make a focused Android optimised version of your app. The reason for my rant is that today after a year on iOS, cinemagram launched on Android and in my mind its broken. Scroll down a few posts on this page to see my failed attempt to share a gif I made with the app. The app suffers from what Ian Clifton has excellently written about in this post http://blog.iangclifton.com/2013/03/30/the-negative-impact-of-ios-on-android/ of the negative impact of iOS on Android. In the app you can only share natively to twitter, facebook and tumblr but the share button itself is basically broken as G+ is nowhere to be found and you can just share a link via email etc. An its not the only app that dismisses the power of the share feature in Android, I have no patience for any app that does this. Another thing I want developers to know is that on Android we have beautiful apps http://androidniceties.tumblr.com/ and I am becoming weary of apps that don't follow the Holo guidelines or simply make their app a carbon copy of their iOS app. For me that is unacceptable, especially when you consider we have had great looking apps launch on Android first like Shifty Jelly redesigned pocketcasts app and the recent update to the Tumblr app. Finally, embrace functional and powerful widgets when making your apps. My number one task list app is Any.Do and that is mainly because of its widget. Your list appears on the widget as a scrollable list that you can cross off items without ever opening the app. It does wonders for my productivity because I never have to waste time opening the app or getting tempted to check something else on my phone, I just move to the next item on my list. So there you go. I would love others to chime in but I think its time we expected a lot more out of developers to embrace our very powerful platform of choice. What say you Jason Howell Gina Trapani Pocktecasts - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.com.shiftyjelly.pocketcasts#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDIxMiwiYXUuY29tLnNoaWZ0eWplbGx5LnBvY2tldGNhc3RzIl0. Tumblr - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tumblr#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDIxMiwiY29tLnR1bWJsciJd Any.Do - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.anydo#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDIxMiwiY29tLmFueWRvIl0. Photo from http://www.sxc.hu/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Joseph Cappellino Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Marlon Thompson, you hit the nail on the head. My wife recently joined Weight Watchers which comes with an app and we installed it on her Galaxy Nexus. Also, her cousin, who owns an iPhone also had the app installed. As you can guess, it's a direct port of the iOS app. Being only an Android user, the app was completely foreign to her. Plus, it's designed for Gingerbread and prior, so it has that awful menu button, and it obviously doesn't use any of the Android Developers guidelines. I really think that Google should start pulling apps from Google Play that are direct ports from iOS. We will all be better off! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Joe Morrison Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 I have run into a few apps, primarily games, that implement their own (terrible) keyboard rather than using the android native or default keyboards. I don't know if that is cruft from an iOS port or from some bad flash framework, but it really detracts from the experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Victor Ceballos Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 The most important feature on an Android is it's universal share feature: you can share your Google Keep notes to Evernote any time and without issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Marquis Moore Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Being a programmer myself I think a lot of the problem is that developers can be very lazy. The truth is some apps are created first and foremost for iOS. They simply want to appease Android users by creating an Android app regardless of how bad it is. Its not much different than the PS3 and Xbox. A lot of times games are made for the Xbox and ported to the PS3. To me quality devs will take the time and make proper Android apps, the others are just looking for another bullet point when advertising their app. As we all know the cream rises to the top, the rest will fall by the wayside when the market decides. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Ryan Standeven Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Andrew Melder that's a terrible example :-P? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Marlon Thompson Posted April 11, 2013 Author Share Posted April 11, 2013 Andrew Melder yes I agree to some extent as their are some posts that I see sometimes that I would love to share elsewhere but I understand the reason why that may not be possible from within the G+ app. But if I click a link from a story, G+ doesn't force me to stay within the app to view it, so I can still share it once I open it in the browser or if its a video in YouTube. The example I used, Cinemagram , intentionally breaks the share functionality even though it wants you to share outside of its app (to 3 specific services). I finally was able to get one of the gif's out of the app onto G+ and it was pathetic https://plus.google.com/112032489367607291115/posts/QyW6jQisMeJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Paul Tobeck Posted April 13, 2013 Share Posted April 13, 2013 Someone needs to forward this to EA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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