The Android operating system has steadily been growing as the World’s most used OS on smartphones and mobile devices. But with that growth has come massive fragmentation. For example, if you have a Sony smartphone you will find that your user interface is a lot different than using let’s say a HTC Android smartphone.
Smartphone makers were happy to use this freely available software in the shape of Android. It came the ability to make the phone look and feel like it was “their own” interface. This freedom has unfortunately lead to major headaches for the phone makers as they try to keep their customers happy with regular updates of the operating system.
Android is continuously upgrading their OS, and when the phone makers have a customised user interface on their devices, they too must update their phones and the OS with each upgrade. This is obviously time consuming and costly for the manufacturers. Android has in some cases had to intervene with phone makers to try “push” them to upgrade their operating systems for their customers to ensure the quality of Android is maintained.
You may have noticed recently that iPhone users received an update to their iOS. I won’t say it ran smoothly, but it ran pretty smoothly and everyone was able to avail of this update. With iPhone one thing is for sure… there is only one iPhone!
Unfortunately for Android this scenario would never happen. Because of fragmentation, users are left at the peril of the phone manufacturers and if they choose to update to the latest version or not.
Android have for sometime now been trying to come up with a solution to this issue and are trying hard to reduce the fragmentation amongst devices. Today they announced a new weapon in their armour to reduce fragmentation and that is an app designers / developers guide to designing apps.
The comprehensive style guide for app developers discusses what fonts, colours and layouts etc. to use when designing an Android mobile app. Those interested can view the dedicated website and full guide here http://developer.android.com/design/
It has to be said that the new look and feel is a great improvement, but does bear a lot of similarities to the Windows phone design and feel. Hopefully this move will help remove some of the awful user interface disasters that are widely available on the Android market today.
