Uncategorized

Android UI unification in Ice Cream Sandwich

Well, this post by Min Ming on Android UI fragmentation has certainly been doing the rounds today, and while there is no doubt that UI fragmentation across Android, and even some of their Google-branded offerings exists, instead of looking at how it’s headed in a positive direction, the post chose to pick on some disparate cases. Hey, it wasn’t made up, and the point stands, but below are how the core Google apps in Ice Cream Sandwich are doing things right in terms of unification, and setting a standard developers and UI dudes and dudettes can certainly use as examples.

By the way, Google, you can do SO MUCH MORE to make things easy for developers in providing some rigid guidelines, and ultimately, for your end users, getting accustomed to a consistent experience across the OS and applications. I mean, really, how hard is it to set up some UI patterns like Android Patterns.

Click to embiggen images! This reduced size view does their gloriousness no justice.

Tabs

Tab_bar

The More icon AKA the new Menu

More

Continue reading

Standard
Uncategorized

A few hours in, some quick, inane thoughts on the Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich

After what seemed like eons, I finally got a Galaxy Nexus in my hand, and I can safely say that this is a most triumphant marriage of hardware and software!

To be honest, I actually haven’t done a lot with the phone, and apart from reaching for the Menu button in the first few minutes, I feel completely at home. Everything looks a little different, and in some cases, more than a little different, but in every case, as of now anyway, it’s for the better.

I’ll save the screenshot walkthrough for another time, but I’ve got some of the new Gmail app over on Android niceties.

Continue reading

Standard
Uncategorized

Kaching and Android. I’m a little confused…

The Commonwealth Bank launched Kaching today.

Kaching

You’ll see quite a few comments in that thread—including my fail—questioning why there wasn’t an Android release, or when it was coming, and CBA responded in that thread, and Andrew Lark replied to me on Twitter saying…

…coming soon. Will launch at same time or close to Apple version. We are committed to both.

I was sated. To be fair, they also mentioned that 91% of mobile visits are from iPhone and Android, of which 79% are from the iPhone. This will change over time, but is a rather compelling argument to go iPhone first.

Then I started reading ZDNet’s Inside CommBank’s Kaching post, and the page on Android confused me.

Continue reading

Standard
Uncategorized

Initial thoughts on Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) and the Galaxy Nexus

That was a fun hour! Live-tweeting the Ice Cream Sandwich live stream, thanks to good ol’ YouTube!

Overall, there is a LOT more polish, everything works incredibly speedily, and the native UI looks and feels better in a million different ways. Stop putting your stupid skins over it, manufacturers; you can’t improve on this.

The Galaxy Nexus looks quite Nexus S-like. 4.65 inch super AMOLED WTFBBQ gorgeous screen, 1280×720 native resolution, 4G / LTE capable, and 3 virtual, on-screen (anchored at the bottom) buttons replacing the physical hardware ones.

Continue reading

Standard
Uncategorized

Android niceties: My Android app visual scrapbook

A few weekends ago—to play around with Tumblr more than anything—I started Android niceties.

9-10-2011_6-18-02_pm

I describe it on the blog as…

A collection of screenshots encompassing some of the best looking Android apps, and / or apps with interesting user interfaces, hopefully providing some inspiration or insight into Android UI conventions.

Please note: These apps aren’t all 100% unique to Android in their UI conventions, and some have iPhone equivalents, but I didn’t want to keep it PURELY, UNIQUELY Android if I felt the UI still worked, and didn’t do Android a disservice (e.g. a Back button)

Continue reading

Standard
Uncategorized

Siri, publish my thoughts on the iPhone 4S

The new iPhone was announced today. Let’s just look past all the idiocy proliferated by the mass media around “IT’S A 4S, NOT A 5”.

A dual-core A5 Chip, 8MP camera, full 1080p HD video recording and voice commands integrated into some apps through their Siri acquisition.

Siri is getting all the attention. It only works on the iPhone 4S.

I’ve used the voice-to-text features on my Android for over a year, and the only time I’ve found it actually useful is to dictate a text message while driving.

Continue reading

Standard
Uncategorized

I don’t care about friends, I care about interests

I thought people had accepted that Google+ isn’t a Facebook clone, and more importantly, understood what Google+ actually is, or is capable of, but no, clearly not.

I hate, HATE having conversations on Twitter. It was fine at once, but to see a stream I already envelope being flooded by back and forth conversation that is so difficult to craft and wordsmith with the character limit, pains me greatly. 

– Me, two months ago

I wasted the afternoon in an asinine discussion, trying to convey social and interest graphs amidst workshops and meetings, and realised halfway through that I shouldn’t have bothered in the first place.

Facebook is for your friends, Twitter is for your interests

Continue reading

Standard
Uncategorized

iCloud + iTunes Match. A viable streaming music option at $25/year?

Media_httpiimgurcomw7_blacx

Today I realised I’ve completely misunderstood what iCloud and iTunes Match do. It got announced at WWDC, and I, for whatever reason, assumed it was simply Cloud storage. In having a conversation with Mr. Colman on Google+ several hours ago, and the latest news that streaming has been added, the nature of what Apple pulled off dawned on me, and it’s rather impressive.

I haven’t downloaded music onto my PC in over a year, because I’m a happy Grooveshark subscriber, but, I know many people still do, and most likely, it’s pirated music.

The basic deal with iCloud + iTunes Match:

  • $25 / year for up to 25,000 songs
  • Stream and download your songs
  • Access your songs on up to 10 compatible (iTunes or iOS requried) devices
  • 256 Kbps versions of all matched songs, regardless of their original quality

Continue reading

Standard
Uncategorized

Patents, trolls, Google, and the rest of this mess.

It’s been a fun day in the world of technology, and for all the wrong reasons. David Drummond, Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer at Google kicked things off with, what in hindsight I’d see as a good ol’ fashioned bitch.

But Android’s success has yielded something else: a hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.

I’m pretty sure “bogus” hasn’t been put in quotes as much in a day. Ever.

Now is as good a time as any to provide some background on the broken software patent system by pulling out some dialogue from a recent episode of the greatly insightful This American Life podcast, When Patents Attack!

Companies that make no products, but go around suing other companies that do make products, over supposed patent infringement are so common in Silicon Valley these days that there’s a derogatory term for it. Trolls. Or patent trolls.

Because patents are so broad…

Continue reading

Standard
Uncategorized

Google+ a week in. Sort out your symmetry! And other musings…

It’s been a week since my initial thoughts on Google+, and my uses for it have changed rather heavily!

The core 6 or 7 peeps I converse with on Wave everyday, yeh, we’re still using Wave for that. We gave it a go, and apart from us having perfected how we use Google Wave and feeling way too comfortable with it, the asymmetry of Circles as they currently stand, didn’t sit well with us. Ok, me anyway. Stand, sit, sheesh, I need to learn how to write…

Media_httpiimgurcomff_ezoii

I noticed it a day in. I just explained it terribly. Today’s TechCrunch post crystallised things.

Continue reading

Standard