Nathan SnelgroveFeb 1, 2023

Love @gruber’s take on this: https://daringfireball.net/2023/01/meanwhile_over_in_androidtown

I was just trying to explain this to a friend who couldn’t believe I was “an Apple fanboy.” (I’m a UX and web designer for a living, so come on.) Gruber says it much better than I do.

Meanwhile, Over in Androidtown

Spending a few hours perusing the state of the art in Android Mastodon clients gives me the distinct impression that Android is forever stuck in its Window 3.x era of UI polish and design. It’s rough.

Daring Fireball
Show threadJohn GruberFeb 1, 2023
@nathansnelgrove One thing I learned long ago is that people like us who prioritize design, UI, and UX can empathize with and understand the choices made by people who prioritize other factors (e.g. raw feature count, or software being free-of-charge). But it doesn't work the other way: most people who prioritize other things can't fathom why anyone cares deeply about design/UI/UX. Thus they chalk it up to being hypnotized by marketing or something.
Show thread🇺🇦 Maksim Lin 💙Feb 3, 2023
@gruber Interesting that in the list of "other factors" you didn't list "respecting people using our products enough to let them make their own choices", which has always been my primary criticism of the my-way-or-the highway approach that has been the hallmark of Apple's design, UI/UX philosophy for over a decade.
Show threadJohn GruberFeb 4, 2023
@maks I’d say that falls under the “system level tinkering” or whatever words I used that I did mention.
Show thread🇺🇦 Maksim Lin 💙
@gruber To me your article starts from an assumption that the look & feel of the iOS apps "style" (for lack of better word), the "liviness", is something everyone wants, it's right there in your use of "table stacks". But I would argue thats just an ascetic design preference that you currently hold, maybe others preferred the skeuomorph fad that's now come & gone. My point was that I wouldn't judge Android or iOS app ecosystem just by my *personal* design tastes.
Feb 4, 2023 at 3:12amWeb
Show thread🇺🇦 Maksim Lin 💙Feb 4, 2023
@gruber PS. I and at least a few others, have a soft spot for brutalist architecture.
Show threadJohn GruberFeb 4, 2023
@maks I have a soft spot for brutalist architecture, done right, too. I was trying to describe Android from its own perspective.
Show threadJohn GruberFeb 4, 2023
@maks Android apps aren’t just designed with a different style. They’re more crude.
Show thread🇺🇦 Maksim Lin 💙Feb 5, 2023
@gruber crude? As in missing features or UI design choices? Pretty much every commercial Android app project I've worked on over the last decade has had feature parity with its iOS counterpart so that's certainly not my experience in Android ecosystem. In regards to design choices, well as I said that's a deeply personal thing, so that's why I advocate for as much variety of choices for people as possible.
Show threadJohn GruberFeb 5, 2023
@maks Show me the Android apps that should make iPhone users jealous.
Show thread🇺🇦 Maksim Lin 💙Feb 6, 2023
@gruber *sigh* buts that my whole point, its such a personal thing: show me the iOS apps that will make *me* jealous.
Show threadJohn GruberFeb 6, 2023
@maks Ivory, Fantastical, Tot, NetNewsWire, Carrot Weather, Overcast. That’s just from my first home screen.
Show threadJohn GruberFeb 6, 2023
@maks If you have no taste, I can’t help you.
Show thread🇺🇦 Maksim Lin 💙Feb 6, 2023
@gruber That's the thing with taste, one man's meal is another's compost.
Show thread🇺🇦 Maksim Lin 💙Feb 6, 2023
@gruber Or to put it less colloquially, given the huge range in peoples tastes in: food, music, literature, fashion, visual arts, architecture, hobbies, etc, I am actually very surprised that you would hold the view that your personal tastes in UI design would be more universally held than in all those other fields of subjective human creative endeavour.