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canthonytucci

One more checked off my list!

Just gave it a try and it works as smoothly and plesantly as on my iPhone.

I have to wonder why they still don't have pull to refresh though.

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Possibly because Twitter has a patent on "pull to refresh"

http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/27/pull-to-refresh-the-patent/

That is merely a patent application, not a patent. Also, an example of misleading tech journalism that dcurtis didn't change on his website even after multiple people pointed this out.

I guess the hypothetical reality is more interesting than real life.

Does the distinction matter to most software developers? From my perspective, the legal risk is almost identical. Something will most likely make its way through the patent office. At that point you can be sued and (unless you're independently wealthy and have plenty of free time or you have an employer who will take care of your legal defense) the quality of the patent doesn't matter.

Android Design guidelines actively discurage this pattern - it supposedly too "iOSish" and protected by patterns.

you mean it's too intuitive? would actually work? offers a sense of familiarity? wouldn't want that on android... nooo sir.

Your first point is subjective, your second point is confusing (pull to refresh is the only way refreshing works?) and your third point implies that people are already familiar with it (on Android you're mostly not, I've only ever seen it on lazy iOS ports).

http://android.cyrilmottier.com/?p=598 is a really nice blog about why it's an anti pattern on android (and no, it's not to be different from iOS).

iOSey or not, it's quite easy to discover, and is accessible from anywhere within the thing that you're pulling. On a phone as big as my Galaxy Nexus, it would be nice not to have to reach all the way to the top of the screen, as this requires me to adjust how I am holding the phone when I was previously in a "casual scrolling through items" position.

Ditto. However, it doesn't explain why it isn't on the iOS version as well.

The reason that I can think of is because Instagram refreshes (or rather pulls in) an entire new batch of photos. The expected UX for pull to refresh is that usually builds new data on top of the previous data, ie: Twitter, instead of loading entire new batch.

*patents

Indeed. :)

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