Android UI discussion

[grkM3]

If you iphone lovers just used a rooted gs3 running vanilla android and a few custom tweaks/icons,themes,mms aps and custom galery you would never go back to an ios setup.

The whole point of android is to run what ever you want on it and customize the hell out of it.

you dont like how the fonts,icons,sms look like you change them.

10 min with the way my gs3 looks and runs you would forget about iphone and never look back

I think its funny reading about things that people dont like about android and one guy aboce saying how JB is ok but ics ui sucks when it freaking looks 99% identical to jelly bean.

you would be hard pressed to actually see a difference in the way ics ui looks vs jellybean

Ill bet 10 bucks that mrx85 could not tell the diff between a nexus running ics and a nexus running jellybean.


New thread created
I split off the roughly 2 dozen posts talking about the Android UI out of the 'Official Apple iPhone 5 thread' into a new thread. First because this all has little to nothing to do with the iPhone 5, but also because it's an interesting discussion.

Moderator PM

 

[Capt Caveman]

If you iphone lovers just used a rooted gs3 running vanilla android and a few custom tweaks/icons,themes,mms aps and custom galery you would never go back to an ios setup.

The whole point of android is to run what ever you want on it and customize the hell out of it.

you dont like how the fonts,icons,sms look like you change them.

10 min with the way my gs3 looks and runs you would forget about iphone and never look back

I think its funny reading about things that people dont like about android and one guy aboce saying how JB is ok but ics ui sucks when it freaking looks 99% identical to jelly bean.

you would be hard pressed to actually see a difference in the way ics ui looks vs jellybean

Ill bet 10 bucks that mrx85 could not tell the diff between a nexus running ics and a nexus running jellybean.

/facepalm

I could go on why I prefer my iphone over android but I'm not going to derail or threadcrap this thread like so many here.

 

[grkM3]

/facepalm

I could go on why I prefer my iphone over android but I'm not going to derail or threadcrap this thread like so many here.

Thats one thing people like you dont get,If you dont like one thing on android you can change it.

can you use a different email app or change the way it looks with theme and such?Or like some have said the font are small and crap talk the ui when you can customise the hell out of it.

how about changinf the way the whole phone looks by running a custom rom and making it look and feel exaclty how you prefer it?

there are 3 gs3 phone in my plan and NONE of them look anything like each other and look absolutely nothing like a stock oem gs3.

That is something that is limited on the ios platform and for some reason people think android ui looks and feels like the way it came out the box when you can change everything to make it right.

I would get bored as hell looking at the same os year after year lol but what ever,I can live with it and just wished I could actually sit down and go over so many things your can do on android and help people thiking of switching.

just today at work there was a coworker that kept on asking me about my phone and was telling me he is very close to going to android from a 4s but he honeslty told me the os scares him from the things he read online about it.

10 min of him using my cell and then watching live football on the nfl mobile app on the huge gs3 screen sold him over lol.

 

[Capt Caveman]

thread crap

My last thread derailment response. My vehicle's iphone interface provides a vastly better experience than when I use my gf's android with it. And there are numerous other reasons but not worth wasting my time.

Change the look? Who gives a fuck, I could care less.

Go find another thread to crap in.

 

[grkM3]

My last thread derailment response. My vehicle's iphone interface provides a vastly better experience than when I use my gf's android with it. And there are numerous other reasons but not worth wasting my time.

Change the look? Who gives a fuck, I could care less.

Go find another thread to crap in.

see thats fine and its still people like you that will never give android a chance.

here is a picture of my cell live data logging my E55 and sending a crap load of other sensors to my email that a can look at once I get on the comp and it is also playing music to my car and downloading a bit torrent on my unlimited 4g...

come on over bro the grass is greener on the dark side and chill out and dont get too heated as I had an iphone 3g,3gs and iphone 4 and know exaclty what your are using and been threw all of it.

android has come such a long way in the last year people still think its like it was back in 09.

here is a picture of my live data widgets data logging my car,I can change them from,long term fuel trims,timing,engine knoc on each cylinder and so on and there is nothing on the iphone that would even come close to this and this app was FREE in the market.

Im actually excited for ios to finally get live widgets on the iphone 5 so people can make apps like this on the iphone.

 

[Eug]

^^^ That's cool and all, but to be honest the interface on that screen is hideous.

 

[Oyeve]

^^^ That's cool and all, but to be honest the interface on that screen is hideous.

Word.

 

[grkM3]

^^^ That's cool and all, but to be honest the interface on that screen is hideous.

well yeah I agree but I have those on there nice and big since those 4 things is what I care for the most while driving.

a few swipes over and it looks nice and purdy and nothing like a stock gs3

 

[Anubis]

what exactly do you find so ugly about those screenshots?

 

[Eug]

It's the crappy engineering-type interfaces I see on scientific equipment. Functional, but no consideration whatsoever for aesthetics.

This was one of the complaints about Linux-on-the-desktop. Utilitarian interface. Other complaints included poor support, ergonomics, workflow, etc.

Android inherited those traits from Linux IMO, and only recently has started to pull itself outof it. However, that car monitor widget is exactly the type of stuff we don't want to see regularly on Android.

 

[ControlD]

It's the crappy engineering-type interfaces I see on scientific equipment. Functional, but no consideration whatsoever for aesthetics.

This was one of the complaints about Linux-on-the-desktop. Utilitarian interface. Other complaints included poor support, ergonomics, workflow, etc.

Android inherited those traits from Linux IMO, and only recently has started to pull itself outof it. However, that car monitor widget is exactly the type of stuff we don't want to see regularly on Android.

That must be because we engineers value function over form ... strange I know.

 

[grkM3]

That must be because we engineers value function over form ... strange I know.

Can't wait to see what you think when that same app is on an iPhone 5

 

[openwheel]

^^^ That's cool and all, but to be honest the interface on that screen is hideous.

iOS just has icons in grid pattern. Is it beautiful? No. Is it functional? Yes.
Android is more advanced and customizable. So anyone with half a brain should be able to tailor it beautifully.
Windows Mobile 8 and live tiles is the only interesting innovation. It's also highly customizable.

 

[Eug]

That must be because we engineers value function over form ... strange I know.

Uh, that's what I just said.

However, most consumers aren't engineers, and there are a LOT of people who put a lot of value on form.

Can't wait to see what you think when that same app is on an iPhone 5

I would think it's still totally fugly.

 

[Red Storm]

It's the crappy engineering-type interfaces I see on scientific equipment. Functional, but no consideration whatsoever for aesthetics.

This was one of the complaints about Linux-on-the-desktop. Utilitarian interface. Other complaints included poor support, ergonomics, workflow, etc.

Android inherited those traits from Linux IMO, and only recently has started to pull itself outof it. However, that car monitor widget is exactly the type of stuff we don't want to see regularly on Android.

IMHO Android has way more consideration for aesthetics and whatnot, because we have the option to set the appearance and function to suit our needs. I used widgets to make my phone work faster, and at the same it just happened to look a whole lot better than a typical PC desktop/iPhone (grid o' icons).

I hope Apple finally ditches the strict stone age look one day, but I have little hope for it because that would be a pretty big UI change and it might throw off a lot of users.

 

[ControlD]

IMHO Android has way more consideration for aesthetics and whatnot, because we have the option to set the appearance and function to suit our needs. I used widgets to make my phone work faster, and at the same it just happened to look a whole lot better than a typical PC desktop/iPhone (grid o' icons).

I hope Apple finally ditches the strict stone age look one day, but I have little hope for it because that would be a pretty big UI change and it might throw off a lot of users.

I agree with you here. I guess for those iPhone users that want to change the look of their phones or to add real functionaility like widgets there is always the jailbreak route. If it weren't for an available jailbreak I doubt I would still have my iPhone. With the jailbreak however I can make my phone look like anything I want (even a complete Andoid clone interface if I wish) including widgets on any screen. My wife has been an Android user for quite some time and I guess I am in the seemingly unique position of liking both iOS and Android (sounds like heresy). My preference in phone OS right now would be something like JB iOS > Android > iOS. It would be nice however for Apple to embrace some change in the OS without requiring us to jump through hoops.

 

[Eug]

IMHO Android has way more consideration for aesthetics and whatnot, because we have the option to set the appearance and function to suit our needs. I used widgets to make my phone work faster, and at the same it just happened to look a whole lot better than a typical PC desktop/iPhone (grid o' icons).

Android often provides more options but when it's the coders and engineers designing the stuff, all of the various options kinda suck, and just as importantly, there is little consistency.

That's why for example, I tell my business colleagues to hire a web designer to design their web pages, not a web coder. Sure, it may be cheaper to get a coder to both code and design your business site, but more than likely it will look like @ss. Or worse, it will have all sorts of complex features that serve absolutely no useful purpose. One friend ignored my advice and he got a site that both looked like @ss and had superfluous features. He did that because they didn't have a big budget for the site. Luckily his subsequent business partner was an ad exec, so she took over the reigns of the design, and just had the coder code what she told him to code. After that it looked much better and it was much simpler to navigate.

 

[MrX8503]

^^^ That's cool and all, but to be honest the interface on that screen is hideous.

Its really bad. The devs probably weren't going for aesthetics though.

 

[grkM3]

Its really bad. The devs probably weren't going for aesthetics though.

You have to be kidding me man.I made those widgets look big like that and you can make them look a lot better to fit your needs.

Here is what that app looks like and please tell me what you think.

I also just installed an iPhone theme that took 2 seconds to install and made my gs3 look just like an iOS phone.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

sorry both of those look ugly.

I have no doubt Android phones can be made to look sexy, but those two aren't sexy... at all. Ugly colored fonts. That blue clock in your iOS wannabe screen is just flat out disgusting.

What's that site where people show off their home screen UIs and then people vote them up and stuff?

Edit: http://mycolorscreen.com/

yeah those are pretty nice. I know many of those may not be my taste or other people's tastes, but they certainly aren't ugly. They're well made, clean, matching, crisp.

I realize many people feel that Android has a better UI because you *can* customize it. But that's not really the same thing. You can customize the hell out of Windows and Android and all that crap, but I shouldn't have to. It shouldn't look like ass out of the box. It should look somewhat decent.

THAT is what Ice Cream Sandwich did. If you look at practically all tech review sites, most people acknowledge a huge step up with ICS in basic UI improvements. Gingerbread and Froyo were just honestly a step behind.

Just because you can customize the hell out of a Froyo or Gingerbread build doesn't mean anything. YOU can do it, but that doesn't mean Android by itself is sexy looking. People customize the hell out of their iPhones too, but its basic UI is at least decent.

I agree there's a lack of functionality with no widgets, but not having widgets doesn't make the phone ugly. It makes the phone lacking function. It's like saying if Android operated on the App Drawer only. Having the current Launcher includes the app drawer. So if you had app drawer only and you think that makes it fugly because of your hate for Apple's app drawer only UI, then that means you're saying the subset of Android with its app drawer is also fugly.

I agree Apple needs to up it's game, but that means adding FUNCTIONALITY by means of home screen widgets and other elements. The wall of icons is by no means ugly though.

 

[grkM3]

sorry both of those look ugly.

I have no doubt Android phones can be made to look sexy, but those two aren't sexy... at all.

What's that site where people show off their home screen UIs and then people vote them up and stuff?

Ya okay bro

Haters gonna hate

You can put what ever lock screen you want and trust me me setup is clean and crisp

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Ya okay bro

Haters gonna hate

You can put what ever lock screen you want and trust me me setup is clean and crisp

Ok THAT is what I call good looking. Look, I don't mind you posting screenshots of your own stuff, but if it's like the Desktop threads. If you want to show off your desktop at least make it good looking. There are glaringly ugly UI objects on your home screen. Your clock reminds me of a bad UI like:

Like when people first customized their Android phones and they looked like homescreens used by 15-16 year olds. That might have been cool when I got my first smartphone but people have pushed design limits by now.

Edit 2: I apologize. I read PM's post. Will not discuss this UI thing further.

 

[grkM3]

Your showing lock screens and cluttered crap and saying my setup is not crisp.the point was you can make android look how ever you want and the ui is not bad at all.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Ok THAT is what I call good looking.

Is that a widget being used for the app launcher? Do you know how this one was done?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Your showing lock screens and cluttered crap and saying my setup is not crisp.the point was you can make android look how ever you want and the ui is not bad at all.

That's great you can make Android look however you want.

But that's no excuse for the UI to look like ass out of the box. Ok, that's not the case now as ICS upped Google's game, but looking back Gingerbread was blah, and Froyo and Eclair looked like total trash in comparison.

Would you be ok if Android was just a linux shell interface? You can customize the crap out of everything still.

Not everyone wants to spend 6 hours looking up themes, learning to install them, etc. If you looked at how Android theme progression has gone, the initial phase was with a fascination of widgets. People tried to copy UIs, make weather widgets to mimic HTC, etc. You had a lot of glow-ey fonts and ugly flashy colors. People threw on widgets just because Android could.

As the tools started to build up and consolidate, tools like CM Theme Chooser came along, and good launchers turned up. Now we have a lot more elegant cleaned up themes.

People probably put a bunch of crap on their homescreens first and then realized that it was too much, cut back, and then looked for more beautiful stuff. It's a huge process to go through customizing their phones. No one's first inclination is to design a homescreen like those on mycolorscreen.com that's probably after many iterations of reworking. So my concern is that most people DON'T want to spend their time finding a usable UI. If you give them something that's good to begin with, fewer of them will find the need to go customize as a phone is meant to be used. Those with spare time can still find time to go customize.

Anyway, ICS already answered a lot of UI problems, but to deny that the UI was great to begin with is a bit ignorant I'd say.