The Shocking State of Enthusiast Apps on Android

[Ludatyk]

I thought this was a good discussion about Android vs iOS apps… an article from Matt Birchler on enthusiast apps, mainly those that’s made on their platform (not cross platform).

The Shocking State of Enthusiast Apps on Android

I recently commented on Mastodon that I thought when it comes to third party apps, iOS is remarkably far ahead of Android. My feeling is that you can take the best app in a category on Android, and that would be the 3rd to 5th best app in that category

birchtree.me

John Gruber wrote a post discussing this below along with Federico as well.

Making Our Hearts Sing

More on the iOS/Android cultural divide: Technology is not enough.

daringfireball.net

The Practicality of Art in Software

I’ve been following with great interest this series of articles by John Gruber (and Matt Birchler’s related story) about the chasm between iOS and Android apps. I have some thoughts since expanding my app knowledge beyond iOS and iPadOS is one of my goals for 2023. About a month ago, during my...

www.macstories.net

And for the most part… I agree with Gruber and Federico, but I don’t like the generalization they go about proving their point. Case in point… Sync for Reddit is an Android exclusive app, which I think from a design perspective is better than any reddit app on iOS (imo). It supports both tablet and phone… has tons of features and I personally like how the developer is accessible to their users.

There’s even Palette app, where Sam Beckman made a YT series of getting an app created… it’s a well made app showcasing Home Screen Setups. They are talented designers in the Android community, but I think you’ll see most of them in personalization category where Android is strong in.

 

[mjschabow]

Definitely a loaded topic and I will say that every time I get the itch to move to Android, one that I haven't actually gotten for the last 2 years up until now, the one thing that scares me off is how cohesive the iPhone is, even with 3rd party app design language. And then I counter that fear with the question of "Does it matter?". If the app can function, does that cohesiveness actually ruin my experience?

Fine example is ESPN app. I prefer that app for sports. On iOS it naturally has a dark mode. On Android, there's no option for it. Bugs the crap out of me but again, should I care that much about that?

 

[Technerd108]

I think the reason people like Mac's and iPhones is the software experience and the continuity of it all from apps to the OS itself. One thing the competition has tried and failed to copy. Look at Windows. The settings are not all in one place and some hearken back to like Windows 95. Command prompt, Control Panel, etc. The apps in the Microsoft store are a hot mess and design language on apps can have really dated interfaces. Same on Android except as a mobile OS that is not as old it is not as bad. But some apps are just crap. Some OEM's have a great version of Android while others leave a lot to be desired. The fragmentation when it comes to updates has gotten a lot better but still sucks.

The flip side of that is a lot more freedom from configuration to settings to apps and how you install them. With Apple you are pretty locked down and with Windows and Android you aren't.

I guess you have to pick your poison and live with it.

Personally I like the freedom side of the equation for some things but as a general user experience even without the freedom I think Apple's approach is better and more polished overall. Apple still bugs the heck out of me but the software is pretty good.

 

[ian87w]

As a main Android user, I tend to agree with the notion that apps are better in general on iOS than Android.

It can be boiled down to simple economics. Statistics after statistics have shown that iOS users are more willing to spend money on apps than Android users. This by itself already creates motivations for small developers with minimal resources on where to focus on. And amongst the creatives who have the intuitions for aesthetics and UI/UX, they generally tend to lean on Apple as a brand preference.

Of course, there are great apps on Android, utility and functionality wise. But the polish tend to be secondary. Take a cross platform video editor I use, VLLO. Both Android and iOS versions are roughly the same, but for timeline editing, I can be more precise on the iOS version than Android, for some reason. That speaks on the polish part.

And then there's the tablet support, or lack of, on Android. As someone who is using an Android tablet as the main computer, it's annoying for me to have apps that doesn't even support landscape orientation. Worse, even basic apps like Firefox browsers don't support tablets. Microsoft Office is still buggy on OneUI. it's these small things that ruin the experience, and I'm techy enough to try to find workarounds. Lay users would've just given up.

Nerds and geeks won't mind the lack of polish and would prefer a more functional app, even if it looks like an app designed for Android 3 or Windows 9x.