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Why PBS Won't Do Android
bogaboga writes "You might be wondering why the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service doesn't have a compelling Android footprint. I was wondering too; until they provided the answer. They say, 'Simply put, it’s too complicated for us to even consider an Android app for the first version; we’ll continue to support those viewers with mobile web. ... As we’re focused on the tablet for this project, we’re only designing for the larger screen sizes. But even there, there are a wide range of sizes and aspect ratios. It’s possible to build flexible sizing for these screen layouts, just as we do for the range of desktop web screen sizes. But the flip side to these wide variations is that in a touch experience, ergonomics plays an important role in the design. Navigational elements need to be within easy reach of the edges of the screens since people often are holding their tablets. If the experience is not fine-tuned to each variation the experience would suffer.' They also cite fragmentation. I'm left wondering whether they didn't find support for various screen sizes on Android developer website. Their budget is undoubtedly limited; are their concerns legit? What companies and organizations have developed Android applications that are good to work with on various screen sizes?"
As an Android and iOS developer, it is tough to support all possible screen sizes, aspect ratios, hardware specs and versions of Android. Sometimes not having a newer version of Android(>= 4.0) you miss a lot of features that people come to expect and your code is riddle with backwards compatibility stuff just to support Gingerbread, or worse(ie: Donut).
Of course, it doesn't help that Google just made the Action Bar part of the backwards compatibility package, after all of this time not supporting it and saying just use the Sherlock library, which has it's own share of complications and headaches.
With videos it's even harder, my new phone only records in *.3gp files(for video, Razr Maxx HD), which means you have to have more transcoding on the backend to make it available to others.
And then you have the Note and Note 2 which are just mini-tablets and not really phone sized anymore. And the lack of support in Android(which iOS has btw) to figure out if you are on a phone or not, really hurts the user experience.
The cost is great, and the hassle is hard to justify, so with a fixed budget I am not surprised they aren't developing for it just yet.
And think even with the fragmentation going on the iOS land, they still only have like 5 screen sizes to worry about (in the tablet area), so you can really tweak the user-experience on each version of the iPad/iPad mini to make the most of the real estate and hardware. Plus they all share a common base with most of the features already there, so it makes it easier to program for, and less backwards-compatibility stuff in your code to mess with and support
This sounds like they have zero experience in application design,
... and are trying to micromanage the interface. .
Most likely:
no
and yes
Sounds to me like designers talking. People who come from graphic design or ad-agencies and now do web design / interface design.
They usually want to micromanage the rendering. Because it has to look exactly as designed. Not just an interface with four buttons, but four buttons spaced in a perfectly pleasing way, perfect white space to text ratio, and please no substitute font! (Oh no, just the idea of that makes my black turtleneck crinkle.)
It definitely requires more man hours to visually verify things "look like they should" and this is very real with 50+ configurations of OS/screen size.
yes but they shouldn't need to - after 3 it becomes irrelevant if the number is 30, 50 or 2000. their mobile webview certainly isn't tested on 1000 screens - their web version certainly isn't tested on all screen sizes and resolutions(let's just say 20 possible screen sizes and 20 possible different resolutions and 30 possible viewing distances .. you should get the point, you just don't design things in pixel perfect fashion).
it's more of a problem of wanting it too perfect or having designers unable to think in flexible terms - as if they were designing a desktop app with a scaleable window. btw those ui designers are rapidly becoming useless on apple as well, but maybe they'll have few years still on windows phone(why do you think ios7 is flat design and no longer imitations of things draw for that single screen size.. flat design is easier to make flexible, so they went with that, same with metros just text elements floating around style..)...
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
...and the 1 star flame review is the enemy of good. We tried android apps and although they worked fine on most devices, we were rewarded with a chorus of whiny complaints and horrible reviews about how the UI wasn't perfect in all orientations and sizes.
Greed is the root of all evil.
they are also repeating their FUD
No, it's that after actually examining real technical issues they found the FUD was not FUD at all, but a reality based concern where web apps on Android was the only feasible approach given the funds they had.
I am surprised more companies don't go the web route to support android - responsive design helps address the broad scale with many small increments, and Google has focused a ton on Chrome speed improvements over the ability to update older systems with newer development frameworks.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My god, people, go out and hire an app developer
I'm a mobile app developer of 16 years standing, and programmer for more than 30 years. And I'm with him and not you. You don't know what you are talking about.
Sure it's easy to make a good desktop app with a arbitrarily resizable interface. And it's easy to make a poor mobile app with a arbitrarily resizable interface.
But the best mobile apps ARE designed for fixed size screens. That's because the screen size is small compared to the size of the minimum UI element (dictated by the size of a fingertip. Quite simply screen space is at a premium. Not only does the optimum specific arrangement of UI elements vary, the optimum UI hierarchy varies. Screen designs are best when a designer considers the specific sizes. Auto layout is a always a compromise, and one that gets worse the smaller the screens in question,
They can be cookie cutter-ed from existing apps in less than a couple weeks by people who do this for a living. Apps like these aren't that hard.
The answer here is that your standards are low. That's why you think auto-layout is good enough. His opinion differs not because he knows less than you, but because his standards are higher.
People will eventually learn to treat Android devices the same way as PCs. Nobody is voicing concerns regarding variety of PC resolutions (or even number of monitors), nobody suggests testing on thousands of "PC devices" out there. Android is the new PC.
Coding etudes
"There was a time when everybody thought information and presentation should be separated, and layout should be left to algorithms. Well, that idea failed."
Nonsense. The idea works brilliantly.
Oh, you mean it was rejected by marketing and 'design?' Marketing always wants something new, it can be deeply inferior and that's just fine, that just makes it easier to sell the next piece of crap. Design just wants an excuse to keep fingerpainting and getting paid for it, and in the process they usually find new and interesting ways to break a UI (but never seem all that concerned about fixing one.)
TeX is far superior to any sort of Word Processor, but no one is going to make a mint off it so you will have to figure that out by yourself instead of letting the ads tell you what to do.
Making an app to do something that is already handled just fine in my browser sounds like a waste of time and effort anyhow.
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