I love how the first example the article cites is Apple's innovative and new RoundRects: "In Hipmunk's iOS app, left, pop-overs have rounded corners, something that's more challenging on Android."
Also think the example is bogus - the Android style for popovers, menus etc in ICS just isn't very rounded. The Android app matches the android style...
I think the point is that flourishes like rounded corners and smooth transitions are objectively better, in the same sense that fonts with subpixel rendering and progress bars for long operations (as opposed to a looping animation) are objectively better.
Rounded corners have always bugged me because they're always, always aliased in some way. The 'line' just isn't optically smooth, it's approximated. I personally prefer a clean corner to an approximated curve.
Similarly, in the first example, while I like the transparency effect (probably not for a map), I hate the current trend to have everything 'shine' when it shouldn't. Much as I'm not particularly keen on Win 8, I do like their idea of being 'authentically digital'. In the first example, I'd much prefer to use the UI on the right - even the text looks clearer (it's just not "whoah, cool, printed in glass!")
On 'retina displays' -- iPhone 4/4S and iPad 3 -- a curved line is, for all practical purposes, smooth. And it's not as if Android is made of only straight lines.
I think you're looking at it only from your perspective. If you're making a game for Android and you're using drawing primitives directly and the like I suspect the fragmentation is a non issue.
However, when making simpler applications that lean heavily on the built in widgets writing Android apps is a big PITA in my opinion. I write apps for both Android and iPhone (Because I love money) and it's way way harder to make something look nice on Android than it is on the iPhone.
It's not impossible in Android land. It's just too much work to make it profitable on small utility-ish applications. The ability to do absolute positioning on iOS makes it "easy" to make things look nice. However, in android land when I get custom graphics and designs from my designer it's REALLY a big PITA to make it all look nice and line up.
I personally wish Google had restricted what OEMs could do a bit more.
Why are we still creating apps? Can't these optical nuances can be achieved on both devices using HTML5 and CSS3 and run them in the browser of any modern device?
(I'm legitimately asking, I don't know the answer)
Because many devices still lack decent hardware acceleration. If you're doing a lot of complex UI work with tons of CSS3, some devices just can't keep up. My team investigated building one of our recent apps using only HTML5 and CSS3, and while it rendered smoothly on some newer devices, it performed terribly on older ones. So for compatibility and performance reasons, we moved back to native. Perhaps this is simply anecdotal, but in our experience, your milage may vary when it comes to building mobile web apps, sometimes it's the best option, sometimes it's not.
The top reason I'd think of? Most companies build the iOS version first then port it to other platforms. That's usually under tighter deadlines than the iOS version had and there's not much design flexibility. Just make it work almost identical to the iOS version and it needs to be done tomorrow.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 46.4 ms ] threadhttp://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_E...
Similarly, in the first example, while I like the transparency effect (probably not for a map), I hate the current trend to have everything 'shine' when it shouldn't. Much as I'm not particularly keen on Win 8, I do like their idea of being 'authentically digital'. In the first example, I'd much prefer to use the UI on the right - even the text looks clearer (it's just not "whoah, cool, printed in glass!")
Speaking as a game developer, if you can't make your software fit in more than one resolution then you're headed for trouble anyway.
However, when making simpler applications that lean heavily on the built in widgets writing Android apps is a big PITA in my opinion. I write apps for both Android and iPhone (Because I love money) and it's way way harder to make something look nice on Android than it is on the iPhone.
It's not impossible in Android land. It's just too much work to make it profitable on small utility-ish applications. The ability to do absolute positioning on iOS makes it "easy" to make things look nice. However, in android land when I get custom graphics and designs from my designer it's REALLY a big PITA to make it all look nice and line up.
I personally wish Google had restricted what OEMs could do a bit more.
Also, these are phones -- performance is still important.
Also, can't do infinity blade in HTML 5.
Also, the UI and experience are better in apps.
It is funny to hear that rounded rects are still an issue in 2012. http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_E...