The Unlock Screen
Now the first image is the ipod and the other three images are of the different android devices. Just looking by the image you can easily see that even a known computer user or a two year old kid would know how to unlock the ipod because it simply says ‘slide to unlock’. Whereas no where in android device it says how to unlock or what to do? Does the user have to have to swipe or slide and if so which direction. User would have to keep on guessing its not simple and intuitive! A user doesn’t want to play a guessing game and waste five seconds of his life on it. I showed it to five people in my circle who has never used a smart phone and all of them struggled for few seconds with android. Android makers are firm believers that they differentiate their products from other platforms but differentiation is good if its for better and not for the worst.
One of the the reason i like android is because of the widgets and according to me its best feature of android. Its colourful intuitive, easy to read like my calendar, mail, messages, social updates and many more with0ut even going into app. Windows phone tried to do that with their metro look but god it sucks, the colours used, makes me puke. I strongly believe if they don’t change the look of metro style its destined to fail unless they make it work with windows 8. Windows 8 does have metro UI but it will work because of the strong legacy of its computer operating system.
The Name Tags
Perfection lies in the details we all know that and at times doing a lot of things at the same time unable us to do some real quality work. Small things matter now I am going the compare simple things which we as computer geeks might find it obvious but asking same question to a non gadget user would be impossible to think. In iOS devices all the apps can be downloaded from the App Store word itself is quite self explanatory. Where can you get the app from? simple ‘the app store’ quite obvious I guess but the same thing in android is called Market. Yes the market and to be fair it looks like market as well, being a search company I can’t believe the search options available on android it is horrible. The App store and the Market once u are told that it is the app store of android, its quite easy but for a person who has never used a smartphone and is alien to the whole concept it is a myth as android comes with lots of craplet by device maker and network provider.
Downloads and Home Screen
I am going to mention another obvious thing which we as geeks take it for granted but its not the case for everyone. Once you download apps from app store it goes to the first available space, mostly on the last page whereas in android it goes to app drawer. From there if we want it on home screen we have hold the app and it will move to home screen and you can put it wherever you want like one of your home screens. Simple right not really my dad spent hours trying to figure it out because its not obvious. Why would he think of keep on holding the app button in the first place and second of all that can be used to move the app to home screen. As we all know its only difficult until we don’t know how to do it but putting it in a way that its logical is the key to better UI. Simple questions like why would clicking a menu button give me settings option? WHY?
Multitasking
Multitasking is a key feature on smart phones now I am not going say the apple has got the best multi tasking system because it doesn’t. Till the ice cream sandwich or honey comb release windows phone 7 had the best multitasking system and android simply copied it. Previously in android each device maker has separate button to enable multi tasking which was quite irritating and again wasn’t obvious. With the new ice cream sandwich they have got a separate digital button for it which makes it a lot clear. Thing I hate it is that they created a simple gesture slide to close the app in multitasking smart right but again a non user wouldn’t know until told. Why can they simply put a cross button where there is the multitasking window so its easy to close and user knows number of apps running. Android battery life is the worst on all smart phones as it is, this could have certainly granted them some extra stand by time.
Current Suggested
When apple came with Macintosh and introduced GUI(Graphical User Interface) to public it was groundbreaking but now as we move along its the time of Natural User Interface meaning portraying real life gestures into the digital world. For example swipe to go to the next page is a Natural User Interface taken from reality and how we change pages in a book with a swipe gesture.
iCloud features, notifications, facetime and siri all this features are not groundbreaking, revoltuionary or going to change the world in any ways but the point is apple nows how to make a big deal about this features which where created years ago and put them out with brilliant marketing! I mean there Lion update one of their top 250 features was to be able to work on an app in full screen! The way they are going to change how people think is through facetime? are u kidding me? seriously I can’t believe people but that crap? that is what you have to show a demo of for 5mins saying how awesome it is to work in full screen? Those are the kind of things I expect from a six year old boy doing presentation for school not a multi billion dollar company launching their new product and their top features. At the end I would like the agree to an earlier post ‘Death of a Lamppost: Why people only know about the iphone’ it is because they know how to show it all even their tiny little features which google and android lacks in particular. Whose to blame? well everyone because it is everybody’s platform and nobody’s the owner of it they expect the other person to do it!
Its been said that the best piece of technology is the one which comes without a manual and that my friend is what android needs to pursue to achieve its full glory.
[itechdiary]
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