As an Android nut and graphic/industrial/UI designer I've been thinking a lot about this recently, and just had to get it off my chest. Here goes:
UI styling should be about the content, not the interface. Glossy elements just distract from their actual content. There should be a move away from what Apple does with iOS (emulating analogue elements digitally) towards what Microsoft did with WP7. WP7 showed that you can have an interface without any sort of shininess/gradient or analogue elements and still have it be completely usable and beautiful at the same time.
But what I'm really interested in is the future of Android. Gingerbread was a great step ahead in terms of UI styling. But I wonder what we will see when Sense UI, Motoblur, TouchWiz etc. are updated to 2.3? Sense is notorious for faux glossiness and TouchWiz is notorious for being plain ugly. Will WP7 and Gingerbread help these companies realize that the trend is moving away from iOS-eque styling and towards WP7-esque styling? Or will they continue to blindly copy iOS and ignore Google's attempts to beautify Android? My guess is that they will eventually catch on, but it might take a while. Perhaps if WP7 takes off and commands a decent market share these companies will take notice. We've already seen previews of Sony Ericsson's 2.3 TimeScape skin and LG's 2.3 whatever-it's-called skin and they both appear to have abandoned Gingerbread's gradient-less notifications bar and title bar and replaced them with gradients. Too bad.
Also, what will Honeycomb bring? We've now seen previews of the tablet version, and I can see many 2.3 styling cues in 3.0. One thing I noticed though is that it uses blue as the 'accent color'. Gingerbread strongly reinforced orange as Android's accent color so I wonder why they would change this. What I'm hoping is that the accent color can be changed- it's certainly plausible, as the accent color seems to play a huge part in the Honeycomb previews I've seen. Or perhaps phones will remain orange and tablets will be blue? It seems like a strange differentiation.
Hints at UI change in the phone-version of Honeycomb include new text-entry fields (looks like the Android keyboard spacebar symbol but stretched), a new look and swiping interaction for tabs within apps (seen in the leaked Music 3.0 app, the 2.1 News and Weather app and the new YouTube app), and like I mentioned, color accents everywhere. Videos of Honeycomb show pop-ups, scroll bars, loading rings/bars and menus featuring the glowing blue accent.
What I'm wondering about is this 'UI overhaul' that everyone is talking about. Is it going to be mostly visual like the stuff I mentioned above or is it going to completely change the UI paradigms of Android? I think a huge change in UI akin to the WM6.5 > WP7 transition would alienate a lot of users and break a lot of apps. Therefore I'm thinking 3.0 is going to be a few tweaks to the interaction part of the UI, but a huge change to the visuals. I predict they will update almost all of the core apps to match the graphics we are seeing in 2.3 and 3.0, to finally put to rest those complaints that Android looks 'hacked together'. The changes in 2.3 were probably a catalyst, to get developers thinking in this new design language. Google needs a name for it, just like WP7 'Metro'. After all it's up to the developers to make apps that match this style.
I'm a Nexus fan and would never buy a phone without stock Android so maybe this is just me dreaming of an end to carrier/manufacturer skins, but what do you think?
As long as it have the look and feel of ADW.Launcher. It can have what ever UI.
chrizzled said:
As an Android nut and graphic/industrial/UI designer I've been thinking a lot about this recently, and just had to get it off my chest. Here goes:
UI styling should be about the content, not the interface. Glossy elements just distract from their actual content. There should be a move away from what Apple does with iOS (emulating analogue elements digitally) towards what Microsoft did with WP7. WP7 showed that you can have an interface without any sort of shininess/gradient or analogue elements and still have it be completely usable and beautiful at the same time.
But what I'm really interested in is the future of Android. Gingerbread was a great step ahead in terms of UI styling. But I wonder what we will see when Sense UI, Motoblur, TouchWiz etc. are updated to 2.3? Sense is notorious for faux glossiness and TouchWiz is notorious for being plain ugly. Will WP7 and Gingerbread help these companies realize that the trend is moving away from iOS-eque styling and towards WP7-esque styling? Or will they continue to blindly copy iOS and ignore Google's attempts to beautify Android? My guess is that they will eventually catch on, but it might take a while. Perhaps if WP7 takes off and commands a decent market share these companies will take notice. We've already seen previews of Sony Ericsson's 2.3 TimeScape skin and LG's 2.3 whatever-it's-called skin and they both appear to have abandoned Gingerbread's gradient-less notifications bar and title bar and replaced them with gradients. Too bad.
Also, what will Honeycomb bring? We've now seen previews of the tablet version, and I can see many 2.3 styling cues in 3.0. One thing I noticed though is that it uses blue as the 'accent color'. Gingerbread strongly reinforced orange as Android's accent color so I wonder why they would change this. What I'm hoping is that the accent color can be changed- it's certainly plausible, as the accent color seems to play a huge part in the Honeycomb previews I've seen. Or perhaps phones will remain orange and tablets will be blue? It seems like a strange differentiation.
Hints at UI change in the phone-version of Honeycomb include new text-entry fields (looks like the Android keyboard spacebar symbol but stretched), a new look and swiping interaction for tabs within apps (seen in the leaked Music 3.0 app, the 2.1 News and Weather app and the new YouTube app), and like I mentioned, color accents everywhere. Videos of Honeycomb show pop-ups, scroll bars, loading rings/bars and menus featuring the glowing blue accent.
What I'm wondering about is this 'UI overhaul' that everyone is talking about. Is it going to be mostly visual like the stuff I mentioned above or is it going to completely change the UI paradigms of Android? I think a huge change in UI akin to the WM6.5 > WP7 transition would alienate a lot of users and break a lot of apps. Therefore I'm thinking 3.0 is going to be a few tweaks to the interaction part of the UI, but a huge change to the visuals. I predict they will update almost all of the core apps to match the graphics we are seeing in 2.3 and 3.0, to finally put to rest those complaints that Android looks 'hacked together'. The changes in 2.3 were probably a catalyst, to get developers thinking in this new design language. Google needs a name for it, just like WP7 'Metro'. After all it's up to the developers to make apps that match this style.
I'm a Nexus fan and would never buy a phone without stock Android so maybe this is just me dreaming of an end to carrier/manufacturer skins, but what do you think?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just my two cents here but.... I don't get everyone saying android has no polish. I love my Nexus One, I love stock (vanilla) android. I think Touchwiz is an abomination and said as much when that thread came out to put touchwiz on the N1. Sense is pretty but too bloated in my opinion. Don't get me started on Motoblur... I agree earlier versions of android needed work. >2.2 {in my opinion} Personally I think android is fine. (iOS IS pretty, but so what it's also got an evil ecosystem...) The tweaks done to
2.3 are nice but unnecessary (IMHO). I love the way Android looks.... Oh, and I heartily agree with your statement that "UI styling should be about content...."
Sent from my Llama powered N1 courtesy of the xda app! Llama Power!!
If android could come up with a functional UI I might jump back aboard. Til they do WP7 is the only way to go.
Love the look of stock Android on my Nexus One. Love the new Gingerbread visual tweaks and look forward to the OTA.
HATE 3rd party U.I.
z33dev33l said:
If android could come up with a functional UI I might jump back aboard. Til they do WP7 is the only way to go.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android HAS a perfectly functional UI. Thank you.
Sent from my Llama powered N1 courtesy of the xda app! Llama Power!!
Babydoll25 said:
Android HAS a perfectly functional UI. Thank you.
Sent from my Llama powered N1 courtesy of the xda app! Llama Power!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used to think so too... now it just seems laggy regardless of launcher...
z33dev33l said:
I used to think so too... now it just seems laggy regardless of launcher...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What lag? {unless ur using a SGS} I have never experienced this lag u speak of sir. My N1 flies I tell you, flies!!! (I have seen in Samsung's phones however...)
(That is why I don't buy them...)
Sent from my Llama powered N1 courtesy of the xda app! Llama Power!!
Babydoll25 said:
What lag? {unless ur using a SGS} I have never experienced this lag u speak of sir. My N1 flies I tell you, flies!!! (I have seen in Samsung's phones however...)
(That is why I don't buy them...)
Sent from my Llama powered N1 courtesy of the xda app! Llama Power!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Didnt notice it on my Nexus one til I got WP7, now I just gave the nexus to my brother... just seems slow and jumbled by comparison
im glad the orange accents are gone in honeycomb, the blue looks way better, also im glad the green icons didnt made the cut, i really hope this look becomes the standard for both the tablet and the smartphone versions of the os
Android is ok but can be boring....
Personally I love the idea to have more than 1 OS on your device, so you can easily change whenever you want
With Matias Duarte on board we should see some drastic changes in the UI in the upcoming versions.
Look at the Honeycomb on tablets, we're now not required to have physical buttons, virtual controls are there, the switch tasking panel now actually shows us the current snapshot of the appss in the background - awesome idea from WebOS if you ask me.
z33dev33l said:
Didnt notice it on my Nexus one til I got WP7, now I just gave the nexus to my brother... just seems slow and jumbled by comparison
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm a phone addict and I try out almost every phone and OS that comes out. I still don't see what you are talking about, WP7 didn't feel any faster or more polished. It's got a new look and has some ooomph too it, but nothing that noticeable.
Sent from my Llama powered N1 courtesy of the xda app! Llama Power!!
Babydoll25 said:
I'm a phone addict and I try out almost every phone and OS that comes out. I still don't see what you are talking about, WP7 didn't feel any faster or more polished. It's got a new look and has some ooomph too it, but nothing that noticeable.
Sent from my Llama powered N1 courtesy of the xda app! Llama Power!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As am I and I will still admit that the nexus one was the smoothest experience I recieved from an android phone. In all honesty I never thought I'd jump ship and I thought live tiles looked completely retarded. I didnt really think a GPU accelerated UI would mean anything but it did... its just smoother... virtually lag free and though I'm not trying to insult I dont see how you cant see the difference....
z33dev33l said:
As am I and I will still admit that the nexus one was the smoothest experience I recieved from an android phone. In all honesty I never thought I'd jump ship and I thought live tiles looked completely retarded. I didnt really think a GPU accelerated UI would mean anything but it did... its just smoother... virtually lag free and though I'm not trying to insult I dont see how you cant see the difference....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I mean don't get me wrong, live tiles rock (and roll) but maybe it's just my N1 {and Sparky's but I set his up so...}, but I didn't see an overwhelming difference even with the hardware acceleration. I guess it all boils down to (after a certain point) how you have your individual phone configured... I have not yet seen anything worthy of N1 abandonment...t least not yet.
Sent from my Llama powered N1 courtesy of the xda app! Llama Power!!
I thought my N1 was smooth until I tried a Nexus S... now I can't go back.
The Gingerbread stock launcher is silky smooth. WP7 smooth. The scrolling and 3D app drawer is much smoother than LauncherPro or ADW Launcher. Live Wallpapers do not affect performance at all. The new UI elements make android look much more refined. The screen-off animation and the scrolling overshoot glow are amazing. And that's just the UI...
Long live stock Android and Nexus devices!
UI of Android
- The current browser UI is driving me crazy! Especially the back operation could jump to another app is un-acceptable.
- We need to have a mechanism for something like a pop up app. For example, when reading, a quick pop-up to look up a word or access wikipedia. It just need to : select, open with selection. Since Android let all apps open, the user just go back to the last app to continue
- I agree that data is important. The contact is the central of a phone. It can be mail, phone, sms, im, photo, calendar, ... The owner is of-cause need to be part of the contact. And there should be able to browse, jump, classify contacts quickly. I would like to suggest allow tags. An extendable contact db will be very nice.
- Moreover, for tabalet, there should be multi-users, switching profiles, encrypt data, etc. the lock screen should allow change of user
- Please consider the actual usage of a phone or tabalet together with other devices. Android should be part of a bigger system instead of a single computer. Cross interaction with desktop, other tabalets, is a must: ssh should be a standard on every device. There should be neighbour or friends nodes (not people, but devices) that can registers long term or short. There should be a easy way to find the new ip or connection method(bt) for the device. a bluetooth message send to allow register the device and provide a instant connection is good. Porting synergy allow share keyboard, (mouse) and clipboard is good, but need to address the situation where mouse is missing. Send screen shot is useful too. exchange pic, contacts, calendar events, ....
- Make index a ready service, update of index can be done when charging. It can be a mode call sleep, which will do house keeping like : update indexing, clean up space, calculate statistics, exchange data with cloud. The phone would work but will be slow. User can understand that the phone go sleep a while to keep healthy. The index is very valuable : provide fast browsing for things, faster search, and support a multi-dimension browsing experiende.
- clipboard : with multi-history
- Please check lePhone : use of gesture instead of soft key.
- Fast switch between opened apps
- notice : allow user to block call, sms, ... to interrupt. There can be a priority and the user can set the current lock level, priority lower the lock level would not sound, visual or virbaton
- I am not very sure about this : there should be scene : like meeting, driving, atHome, atOffice, etc. which can be auto-detect by various sensers. But too smart a phone can also be troublesome.
allow two phones to compare the app list, find common contacts, temporary play a game with connection (like NDS download play), peer chat (group of devices), share camera, audio, borrow book
current desktop background is not good. Make it easier for user to dress up their phone.
Hi guys,
I’ve been playing around with a number of ROMs on my SGS3 and I’ve noticed something that’s made me wonder…
…and this is just out of curiosity…
What is the score with animations – specifically transition animations – in Android?
What I mean is; there appears to be a disjointed approach to animations within the OS. I’m not just talking about between versions either but often within just one iteration of Android (be it stock or custom).
Often the animation when launching an app is different to the transition animation within the app. Also I’ve noticed some apps have their own – and markedly different – animations. So you can have two apps on the same handset/ROM that transition differently to various screens/activities within. I assume this is because the developers of these apps choose to utilise different animations?
I know transition animations can be changed relatively easily for most root users using something like Anim Mod but here I’m talking about general use – including stock, un-rooted, non-power users too.
The obvious comparator would be iOS where all(?) apps launch with that zoom effect and then transition between screens within the app with that sideways slide effect.
And please don’t get me wrong here – I’m not saying iOS is somehow ‘better’ than Android because of this. Animations alone do not make an OS and I’m certainly of the opinion that openness, customisability, diversity of choice and raw power are far more important – hence why I don’t and probably will never choose to own an iOS device.
However that said some people do like a bit of eye candy and as I’ve said above iOS is the obvious comparator to Android when it comes to mobile OSes.
So why does Android not appear to have a unified approach to animations? Or does it? Do you think this is something Google should look to do – overhaul the animation framework to make it smoother, faster, prettier and more unified; or do you think this would stifle choice and individuality when it comes to development? How important do you think animations are in terms of attracting potential new users and do you think the current approach to animations is enough? I’m aware more care has been taken over transitions generally in JB but is it enough and should it stop there?
Please: no flaming! As I said this is purely out of curiosity – to gauge opinion and information on the subject.
Actually, is very simple: Android is open source, so anyone can modify mostly aspects of the OS (users with their cROMs or manufacturers with stock ROMs).
SunjinSak said:
I assume this is because the developers of these apps choose to utilise different animations?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup, and basically there are two ways to do it:
1 Activity and multiple layouts. In this case, the dev has total control over the transitions, because to move from a screen to another one, simply set other layout (any animation can be developed here). I think this way isn't possible on iOS.
Multiple activities, multiple layouts. In this case the system animations are used to move between screens (because to move from a screen to another one is necessary start another activity). Of course, a custom animation can be used here, and it will be displayed after system animation.
RoberGalarga said:
Actually, is very simple: Android is open source, so anyone can modify mostly aspects of the OS (users with their cROMs or manufacturers with stock ROMs).
Yup, and basically there are two ways to do it:
1 Activity and multiple layouts. In this case, the dev has total control over the transitions, because to move from a screen to another one, simply set other layout (any animation can be developed here). I think this way isn't possible on iOS.
Multiple activities, multiple layouts. In this case the system animations are used to move between screens (because to move from a screen to another one is necessary start another activity). Of course, a custom animation can be used here, and it will be displayed after system animation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, I see.
So presumably there are stock animations in the API that developers can use if they so wish? Otherwise mods like Anim Mod and similar wouldn't work... right?
Sent from my rooted GS3-I9300 running BlackstarV3 ROM using Tapatalk 2
Yes, but the stock animations are limited (change screens, emergent windows, back...) and are managed by Android automatically (I mean, you can't decide the animation to change between screens when you develop an app, unless you develop a custom transition as I said before).
hello,
i want to know how can i create best GUIs, visual effects and other designign in android??
means is there any software for designing??
which tool is use to develope application with customized android controlls and layouts>>\\??
thank you... :
If you 're interested in theming check out the guide about rom theming from xda-university
In general the most standard tool for graphics design is photoshop(or gimp)
div3791 said:
hello,
i want to know how can i create best GUIs, visual effects and other designign in android??
means is there any software for designing??
which tool is use to develope application with customized android controlls and layouts>>\\??
thank you... :
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are talking about apps:
1. Android's Holo design guidelines itself provides best theme and GUI and looks really cool, and many popular apps now have adopted them like Whatsapp, Twitter etc.
2. jQuery Mobile also provides another way of design implementation on Android
3. ActionBarSherlock is another library resource for themeing.
Also, there should be even more ...
So I can use lets say Gimp and Inkscape to design my app.. right??
Hi! I'm missing some of the functionality I had with jailbroken iOS. I just figured I'd ask if there was any way to get any of these features on rooted Android. I've also provided a description for those not familiar with iOS.
Flex 2 - This is sort of like a high-level GUI for the Xposed framework. It allows you modify variables, override method return values, etc.
Phantom - Disables all of Snapchats security/privacy features. With Phantom, you can save Snapchat pictures/movies without the other person knowing.
Activator - This allows you to perform certain action on set triggers. For example, you can mute your phone if you hold the volume down button or open an app if you swipe left on the status bar.
GroovyLock - GroovyLock allows you to redesign your lockscreen using HTML, CSS, and JS.
Eclipse - I'm 99% this is impossible to replicate on Android (given that there's no required design standard), but I'll add it here anyway: Eclipse basically modifies the UI of most apps to give them a dark theme instead of the harsh white that iOS uses for everything. The nice thing about Eclipse is that you can use it with other color schemes too, allowing you to completely change the look of over half your applications without any difficulty.
Hello my friend.
As far as i know, "Activator" can be replaced by "Tasker" on Android. Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm
And for "Phantom" snapchat hack can be replaced by "Keepchat" from xposed on Android. Link: http://repo.xposed.info/module/com.ramis.keepchat
I will reply back if i find something else
Hey guys,
I would like to know which vector design apps are the MOST POWERFUL with a LOT of features on Android? For example, desktop photoshop has a feature that curves texts, and this is a very uncommon feature for mobile art app cause they are pretty much lacking a lot of features. iPad has many more featureful apps in this area, but I want to buy an Android tablet because I design and publish themes for Android, and I want to stick with this OS for my phone and tablet to keep up to date.
I tried Medibang, but it seems to lack some important features like drop shadow and outline, but I don't know if it's just that I can't find it. I tried Autodesk Sketchbook as well, but that one is mostly drawing, and not creating logos, icons, etc.
So, what is the MOST POWERFUL vector designing app for Android tablets/phones?
Does Galaxy Note devices come with an app like this? How featureful is it, compared to desktop level apps like photoshop?
Thanks so much in advance for your help!