Android UI Patterns

With all due respect to the developer who wrote this post, standalone apps are relatively easy - you start jumping into the rabbit hole when you start getting into server API integration and doing processing off the main thread (AsyncTask, IntentService, Service, unit tests lions tigers oh my), layouts that don't suck, and custom animations... Making an Android app look sexy/good is an art in itself that I am still trying to learn. At a certain point of app complexity, writing an Android app becomes less about writing an Android app and more about writing a well-structured, async/decoupled and performant app in Java. Why is iPhone development relatively easy? Well, for one thing, the territory is well trodden. And it is based on the beautiful foundational framework of Cocoa, which has its roots in NeXTSTEP. Cocoa masters have been able to switch to iOS and tell people/show people how to code properly. Cocoa has been around for a while; the Android SDK is a WIP (but it has come a long, long way since Cupcake). Also, Java lacks compiler-level support for/doesn't have blocks and categories (two of the things that make Objective-C a joy). And, love it or hate it, you will start to miss CoreData when you don't have anything near equivalent on Android. Some of my favorite resources for learning Android: The best book for the money (frequently updated, author has huge SO reputation) http://commonsware.com/Android/ Reto Meier's blog http://blog.radioactiveyak.com/ Styling…

http://www.androiduipatterns.com/ Granted, the community is smaller and the starting point is substantially lower (e.g. getting developers of iOS ports to read the Android design guidelines in the first place), but it is the same kind of culture.

I don't like that this web site is called "Mobile UI Patterns." As others have pointed out, this is more specifically iOS design patterns. While some things can be similar, Android and iOS have different design patterns, and I think that should be respected when developing an application. Personally, I dislike when an Android app is made to look like an iOS app. For those, who want Android design patterns, there is this web site: http://www.androiduipatterns.com/

(Re-posted at the suggestion of dang.) As someone who develops on both iOS and Android, and uses an Android phone, there was a lot in this article that I agreed with. Particularly Apple's prioritisation of beauty over design. One weakness was the discussion of undo and Android's supposed strength due to its dedicated back button. This didn't convince me: the back button on Android sometimes undoes operations, but often it doesn't [1]. [1] http://www.androiduipatterns.com/2011/12/back-button-androids-achilles…

FYI, this UI pattern is called "Quick Return": http://www.androiduipatterns.com/2012/08/an-emerging-ui-pattern-quick-… I had been looking for this pattern's name after having seen Chrome on Android implementing it for their navbar. I find it useful on mobile where scrolling a long distance can be laborious.

Seems this is a general mobile trend, not just iPhone: http://www.androiduipatterns.com/2012/06/emerging-ui-pattern-side-navi… It's nice to see some convergence in mobile UIs.