| "Android is Android" I don't like the fact that Google's apps, all of them, feel foreign on iOS and OSX. Chrome has its own PDF renderer, settings pane, maximize behavior (before Yosemite), other little things. The iOS apps feel like the Android ones. Google seems to be creating its own little OS inside of every other OS and the baseline is Chrome (OS). Wasn't there an effort, or talk about, to have Chrome do its own thing in Windows 8? This is why Material Design is important to Google. It targets the lowest common dominator, web browsers, and seems like it runs the same on a powerful computer or low-spec'd phone. While Material looks good, I feel that they may have held back a little because of browser limitations (you cannot do overlay blurring like iOS, for example). Anyway, a lot of people love the common feel of apps across platforms. People seem to really like that about SublimeText and Chrome. I personally don't. I thought it was in poor taste when Apple made Safari and iTunes behave as if it were on OS X when running on Windows and I think Apple even had its on OS X-style update windows for the windows apps. It's a fine line. As a developer Id rather code once and ship than to figure out all of the little idiosyncrasies for every platform. As a certain type of user I want apps to act like the other apps on my platform of choice, most users probably don't care or notice though. |
Overall, I think a little convention breaking is good. First, code once is a genuine advantage. It means faster releases across more platforms and more benefit to users. Second, it generates a little internal competition. If more apps break OSX maximize and users like it, maybe Apple will change it.
In the best cases, the freedom to invent the wheel yields gradually improving wheels.