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Standardizing Android

Google is making a concerted effort to consolidate the design principles of Android and teach developers how to make more visually appealing apps. First came a site for Android tutorials, Android 101, and last week Google announced mandatory Holo Themes for any device running Ice Cream Sandwich with access to the Android Market. Google has now announced a one-stop destination for design guidelines for developers to create beautiful apps. All signs point to Google reigning in the app ecosystem of Android, setting standards and guidelines and pushing for a more tightly controlled ecosystem. This can only mean good things for the world’s most popular smartphone operating system.

Google wants developers to create Android specific apps. Within the new design site, Google says, “while a ‘design once, ship anywhere’ approach might save you time up-front, you run the very real risk of creating inconsistent apps that alienate users … As you build your app for Android, don’t carry over themed UI elements from other platforms and don’t mimic their specific behaviors.”

In other words: do not try to make Android apps into iOS apps. Make them distinctly Android and users, theoretically, will appreciate the unique design elements. In the “Pure Android” section of the design site, there are several “don’ts” that Google points out. Do not put action bars on the bottom of the screen. Do not use right point carets on line items. Do not use labeled back buttons on action bars. Do not carry over platform specific icons. Next to each example there is how it is implemented in Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich compared with how it is done in iOS.

Android not only wants developers to differentiate from iOS, it is implementing design tools that will act as a roadmap for creating unique Android apps. The goal here is to tame the Wild West that is the Android Market. In this way, Android is trying to be more like the Apple App Store. Instead of a free for all hodge podge of apps that work on some devices but not others or different flavors of the platform, the goal is to create a unified system where the Android app knows what flavor of Android it is working on, what the screen size is and the pixel density it is using. Apple developers do not have to deal with these problems.

One of the biggest steps in this goal is the screen size and density buckets created in Ice Cream Sandwich. Developers can design their apps to work on a variety of screen sizes by determining what buckets it will support. The other half of Android’s new design elements are the implementation of Holo themes. On the back end, the goal is for the Android Market to recognize the device, it screen size and pixel density and know that the apps running one of the distinct Holo themes. That is why Google made it mandatory for ICS-compatible apps to use Holo themes. It streamlines the whole system and makes up for differences in devices that may handle source code in separate ways.

The goal is uncomplicated: visually appealing apps that are intuitive, simple and adhere to some basic principles that define Android over any other platform. There are three prongs in Google’s creative vision for Android apps: Enchant Me, Simplify My Life, Make Me Amazing. The onus is on the developer to empower the user. That is true with any type of computing but has not always been the easiest thing to accomplish on Android.

Some developers are not going to like these guidelines, mostly the “build for specifically for Android” concept. Hybrid apps, such as HTML5 apps wrapped by a system like PhoneGap for native functions, are easier and cheaper to develop than starting from scratch with Android. It creates a paradox. Developers want to be able to make money off Android apps, which is by far the biggest issue for publishers on the platform, but many times Android is a second-class citizen after the developer creates the app for iOS or the mobile Web. Yet, if developers do not put in the effort to follow the new principles espoused by Google, they are dooming themselves and resigning that Android is not worth the effort. With hundreds of thousands of devices activated everyday, that would be a poor decision for developers looking to at make money in untapped market verticals.

This all comes down to the consolidation and standardization of the Android ecosystem. Coming from Google, this is long overdue.

Developers – Are you going to follow Android’s new design principles? How can they be improved upon? Let us know in the comments.

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