Comment by magicalist | Hacker News Reader

Comment by magicalist | Hacker News Reader

I feel like this whole comments section just fell out of a time machine, which isn't surprising, as this article does as well. This would fit in well with all the 2011 "UX guy roughs it with Android" stories, but it feels weirdly archaic today.

In today's world, it's like writing a story about the time you went to Kmart instead of Target and barely lived to tell about it. They didn't even have price scanners on the end of each aisle! Who cares?

If you're a mobile developer (and do it all, apparently), you should have "lived with" an Android phone years ago. Talk about UX issues (and how about something actually interesting: as a new user, you might have insight on how people should be doing good UX for apps on Android), but leave the drama behind. Talking about it as some horribly broken experience you lived through sounds ridiculous to anyone who actually uses Android[1]

[1] Exception made for the 17.3% of people on Android before version 4. That would be a journey still filled with terrors https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

This doesn't actually address any of his points. I feel like you could change the "4" in your comment to a "5" in a couple years and feel equally justified.

If anything, it's a bigger sin today now that Android has been a player for so long. Things have improved. I guess. But the biggest issues (back button, notifications, messaging, the half-baked shovel-ware app store) seem pretty persistent.

Battery life is marginally better. Most of the benefits eaten up by bigger screens (I'm not complaining much as long as it gets me through a whole day: I just bought a 6.4" Android). Getting rid of the dedicated Search button was a step in the right direction. Swapping the "Options/Menu" or whatever button for an "Open Apps" button was definitely a win. Some wins in some of the OTB apps (Camera). But some noteworthy losses as well (Messages).

It should feel like an alternative. Not a compromise. And too often that's not the case IME.

I would have thought this experience to be anachronistic as well as I thought Android had plenty of time to polish their experience since those stories 2-3 years ago. That's part of the reason I jumped into trying Android. I thought it would be a good experience - just different from iOS, which I welcomed.

As for doing good UX for apps on Android, i think that's almost no different than doing good UX for apps on any smartphone platform. Aside from dealing with the back button and a few other platform specific issues, it's the same set of challenges around touch-based devices and limited screen real estate.

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