| "even now when I show Whereoscope on Android to iPhone users, I need to explain the basics of navigating an Android phone to them before they can use it." I just can't let this stand. I have an iPod Touch and an Android, and I struggle a lot with the iPod Touch. Even making the MP3 player (iTunes?) do what I want is a challenge, and that is a native Apple app. I also had a lot of problems with iPad apps when I tried the iPad of a friend. The lack of a back button is a problem if the browser pushes you into some other app (YouTube or Maps), for example. I could go on and claim that Android usability is so much better than iPhone (which I personally feel it is). But lets just assume that this guy is used to the iPhone and hence can cope with it better than with Android. Also, if his users struggle with his app on Android, it is probably his fault. What is stopping him from giving it the same interface as the iPhone version? iPhone has one button, Android has 4. So it should be possible to use the same interface on Android, assigning one button to behave like the iPhone button. Btw, you don't actually have to use Eclipse for Android development. You can do everything with the command line, and hence integrate the development environment (simulator, build script) into any editing environment you want. I am not sure if the same is possible for XCode, but I don't think it is. If XCode does Java, you could probably even use XCode for Android development. |
But Android users don't expect Android apps to behave like iPhone apps - so the affordances don't carry over.
They kept tapping the context menu, or holding down list items: actions which are normal on Android but nonexistent on iOS.