While I’ve taken a look at the language of the Android Design Guidelines already, today I want to think about how it will affect developers and users, if at all. It’s fine and dandy for Google to release these guidelines, but Android applications aren’t going to start following these rules overnight.
What stands in the way of these guidelines being adopted? Short answer: a lot. Long answer: well, read on and find out.
While every operating system has an over-arching look that developers will strive to adhere to, Android’s look and feel has evolved throughout the years without giving third-party developers the chance to catch up. With all of the different apps’ user interface styles, trying to corral everyone into an easy-to-understand place UI-wise can be difficult.
To combat this, Google recently released the Android Design guides for Ice Cream Sandwich. Today I’m going to take a look at the language used in these guidelines to see where Google’s intention lies.
I have too many people that aren’t my friends on Facebook. Instead of a place that allows me to share my life with my closest friends and family, Facebook feels more like a restaurant where everyone that you have ever known keeps trying to sit at your table. Old friends, friends of friends, and people that I don’t even know have all been added, deleted, replaced, and ignored.
Path aims to solve this problem. Instead of allowing (or encouraging) me to have four hundred friends, Path wants me to share with the people that really, genuinely matter to me. Is this new app (and its philosophy) going to make its way onto your phone? Let’s find out.
It seems like you can’t talk about Android without talking about fragmentation. While the sheer number of phones is largely to blame, one of the bigger contributors to Android’s lack of unification is the manufacturers’ practice of adding a custom skin to the core Android operating system.
This needs to stop. Here’s why.
I know. Believe me, I know; you’re sick of reading about the iPhone. That’s cool with me. Trust me, I understand completely. Still, that’s what I’m going to write about, kind of. My expectations for Android 4.0, coming from a strong background with iOS.
If I haven’t already lost you, read on.
