UIKit has 'improved' enough for Google to use it?
You've got to be kidding me. Such arrogant ********.
You've got to be kidding me. Such arrogant ********.
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Google Apps for iOS to Switch to UIKit After Decade of Material Design
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As a big user of Google Maps, Youtube and Gmail apps on iOS, glad to see this happen.
But it used to use tvOS components until 4 years ago, when they changed to uniform interface for iOS and Android tv looks. It was unusable at first but has improved, although they still haven't adjusted to the new remote.
Google Pay has one of the worst UX I've ever had. It feels like the designer's task was: "Confuse the user as much as possible, especially with the most used features." The designer succeeded in the task.
Um....that sounds like it's not possible. What do you use for search? DDG? Bing? Yahoo?
I don't really use Google Apps, I have 2 Google Apps on my iPhone, Maps and YouTube, I rarely use them.
Good on them, and about time.
Good on them, and about time.
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When third party apps just work like you expect, that ususally means they are following Apple Styleguide. This is important as iOS users are used to certain UI elements and Android also, which 3party apps should honour, instead of trying to be different.
I'm in two minds about this in general (not just Google). On one hand, I like the apps on my iPhone/iPad to have a familiar and predictable iOS look and feel about them, but on the other hand when I'm using the same app across different platforms (e.g. MS Office, Photoshop, Netflix etc), it jars if that's not a consistent experience.
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Just as the transition from UIKit to SwiftUI is fully underway, Google is beginning to transition all apps to… UIKit?! 🤦♂️
Removing Google is my goal over the next year. Right now I’m working on Amazon. I bought Amazon’s video devices and, like everyone else, bought into the Echo devices. But I want to rid myself of them within the next year or so as much as possible. Google will be difficult as I’ve had a Gmail account for many, many years, and Google search is difficult to get away from.
I’m on year 5 of a 3-year plan to completely stop using all google products. No amount of design tweaks will be changing that for me.
Though I still have a gmail account which will be the last thing to go, the only google app I have on my phone is Waze. Unfortunately, you still can’t beat it for driving directions, IMO.
Though I still have a gmail account which will be the last thing to go, the only google app I have on my phone is Waze. Unfortunately, you still can’t beat it for driving directions, IMO.
Indeed. Just plain ol' bad design.
Wait, Google actually DEVELOPS stuff past the first few years? I've been complaining about the YT app for years because it's outdated (and if that's so it "looks the same as on Android", then I'm glad I'm not on Android.) Google has a pretty good track record of making things "good enough" and then just leaving them... even abandoning them. The YT app needs to be better. Period. Unfortunately, it's not like I can just "get up and go elsewhere"... big tech just keeps on eating their competition...
It's not so much about adhering to a certain style, but yes, they do operate differently. When you make an app using Apple's tools, you can change the way things look to make your app unique, but you probably won't alter things like scrolling behavior or the speed at which transitions happen or how the share sheet is arranged or spacing between UI elements, etc.
When you make an app and its UI components from scratch or import those from your own other OS, it's going to feel different, and often unfinished or unpolished even if it feels perfect on that other OS. On a related note, I make animated/interactive UIs for phone and computer screens used in TV and film, and my goal is to be as close to the real thing as I can, and it does take a lot of work to get things behaving like what we're used to seeing. If the timing is off or corners aren't rounded just the right amount or shadows are too dark or too light or whatever (all things that the OS generally provides defaults for), it just looks clunky.
My guess is Google's apps will continue to look like Google apps at first glance. They will still use their own icons and colors and fonts, but things like attaching files or choosing how to reply to a message or swiping to delete in gmail will feel less awkward on an iPhone.
You can do that without overriding the platform. Take Microsoft Office. The Ribbon exists on Windows, Mac and iPad. There’s something akin to the Ribbon on iPhone and Android as well. While they are recognizable and behave in a similar way on each, they use native widgets and theming on each.
Modern UI design is about following the crowd, not making the UI user friendly. That stopped about 10 years ago in both web and app design. An excellent user interface can't change every couple of years to fool the young'ins into believing that they are special, new, fresh, and invigorating. So now we play whack-a-mole to figure what the software does.
That's incorrect. They have Apple Music on Android, which adheres to Google's interface guidelines. In other words, it is native to the platform.
Having to manually create and bug fix features like dark mode from the ground up (and new screen sizes, etc) are probably why they are moving back to OS level stuff. They would have had system level dark mode day 1 of iOS 13 if they weren’t using their stupid custom design. And it would be real, iOS dark mode, with pure-black and blur-effect tab tars matching the system, not this weird dark grey android looking mess that stands out like a sore thumb from the rest of the system.
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I'm always curious about this. Maybe as a developer you can answer this.
How can an app truly differentiate itself without a unique look and feel? i.e different UI elements and fonts
If every app followed UIkit and Human Interface Guidelines to the letter, wouldn't they all just look like a generic app from Apple?
DDG - I actually switched as I was fed up not being able to find results as they so heavily censor a lot of subjects now, DDG was a breath of fresh air.
For navigation I use Apple Maps, for email Proton mail, for videos a range of services. I don't miss Google in the slightest. I also deleted all social media.
