13. KYM India User Survey 2011:
50% want Android
35% want iPhone
Source: http://news.in.msn.com/technology/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5435652
14. "Operating System is most
important criteria for selecting
a mobile phone (87%)"
Source: http://news.in.msn.com/technology/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5435652
24. "Native scrolling for mobile web
apps... or at least the closest thing
to it!"
"Bugs...: Lots of other hard to
describe discrepancies with native
scrolling..."
- http://joehewitt.github.com/scrollability/
- not about developer tools (can sometimes take some pain)\n- not about some internal in-house tool\n
- Software development has been around longer than 6 months\n- Learn from desktop\n
- Java's primary UI/Widget Toolkit\n- since roughly 1996\n- know any Swing app? USE any Swing app?\n
- Write UI once, run anywhere!\n- AMAZING!\n
- Write UI once, run anywhere!\n- AMAZING!\n
- in Theory it sounds great\n- but there's one problem:...\n
- Established, generally accepted on Desktop\n- Same old discussion is going on for mobile\n
- Why? Hardware? Prefer HTC over Apple? Better camera?\n
It's the SOFTWARE that makes the difference.\n
- sometimes unknowingly\n- features, look, location of buttons, even fonts and colors\n- Cross-Platform UIs look odd and alien to users.\n
- feels odd and alien\n- doesn't belong\n--> virtually no cross-platform consumer apps on the desktop\n
- it's a bad idea on the desktop\n- it's a bad idea on mobile.\n- it's a conceptual mistake that can't be fixed through better technology.\n
\n
- ppl are used to it\n- don't think it's odd that GMail doesn't look like Outlook or Mail.app\n- able to use facebook, Google+ although UI looks foreign/alien in comparison\n- everything that make cross-platform UI a bad idea seem to be absolutely OK on the web. Why?\n
- When users open their web browser, they know that they are entering a very diverse space: All web pages look different. That's OK.\n- Bookstore\n
- Expect --> full of books and magazines with different sizes, layouts, content structures, colors and content.\n- Not surprised!\n- Would be unpleasantly surprised, if the next season of the show you collect on DVD has a different packaging.\n- Encyclodia: Different paper. Different font. Paper-back, not leather bound.\n--> unexpected unpleasant surprise\n--> Just like apps with a foreign, cross-platform UI that run alongside your normal native apps. They don't fit in your collection. \n--> In the bookstore - the browser - that is OK, though. Users expect it.\n
- if done right, runs on every major platform\n- We can ruin it for ourselves, though.\n
- by mimicking native UI.\n- if we mimick native UI with web tech --> never quite look and feel the same\n- only look native-ish on one platform\n\n
- it's an imitation\n- look outdated as soon a new OS version comes out\n
- fools errand.\n- waste of time.\n--> biggest problem:...\n
- everything else will disappoint.\n- The mimicking can come quite close to the real thing, but it will never be exactly as good.\n- But users don't care how something is implemented: If it looks like my other apps, it should behave like my other apps.\n- make the user forget that he's "in the bookstore" where everything is different.\n- take our own freedom to do what we want away from us.\n- So what should we do?\n
- Don't imitate native!\n- You will only disappoint because you won't be able to fully satisfy the expectations users have of an app that looks native.\n- Instead, pleasantly surprise.\n- Now what about mobile, specifically?\n
- An app that has an icon on the home screen is perceived by the user as "an app", no matter if \n-- browser without the toolbar, \n-- wrapped in a PhoneGap shell \n-- a "real" native app.\n- icon --> app\n- Rest: implementation details\n
- So if the user perceives it to be a native app like all the other apps, it has to behave like one.\n- Otherwise the user will be disappointed. \n- You move your device to landscape mode --> no animation? Disappointment. \n- The thing that looks-like-a-table-view-but-really-isn't is jerky when you scroll it? Disappointment. \n- The swipe gesture....? Disappointment. \n- The element you are dragging around on the screen with your finger always lags behind and jerkily jumps to where your finger is every half a second instead of buttery smoothly following its movement? Disappointment.\n\n- So mobile web apps always disappoint? No!\n
- The web has its own thing going. \n- And once the user opens the browser or, as it were, "enters the bookstore," --> full creative freedom of coming up with a great, unique UI for your app. \n- You will pleasantly surprise your users instead of disappointing them.\n
- Because users expect cross-platform UI in the browser + lower expectations.\n- So the big question remains....\n
- it depends.\n- "What do I want to achieve with this mobile app?"\n
- if it's none of those, don't even bother.\n- Restaurant: Opening times, menu?\n- You'd be much better off making a beautiful mobile website + SEO instead of wasting your money on an app.\n- Being "in the App Store" is no golden magic ticket to success: You can't just put anything in there.\n
- if you do make an app, make one that you would want to use. Otherwise, don't even bother.\n- What if I DO have a great idea and want to target iOS, Android and WP7?\n
- the easiest way to be on par with native apps is to be a native app\n- If it's in the App Store, people will apply the same quality criteria to your app as to every other app, no matter what technology you've built it with. \n- Telling your customers "Well, of course the scrolling is jerky, it's built with web technologies!" will not fly. \n- Apple has hour-long sessions just about how to make your table views scroll smoothly\n- They don't care what technology you've used to build it.\n- But isn't it so much easier and faster to build apps with web technologies?\n
- It's a myth that it's so much easier and faster to build an app with web technologies. \n- It could very well take longer and still have a worse user experience. \n- Building a simple native app is, well, simple. \n- It might be way more complicated to build it with web technologies (esp. if you try to mimic native).\n
- I'm convinced stunning mobile web applications are possible today.\n- Just don't mimick native.\n
\n
So if you don't want to sell your app, don't have a big budget, don't need any native-only device features like access to the camera and want to be available on multiple mobile platforms, you should consider building a mobile website or web app.\n
- So putting ideologies and technology preferences aside and considering just your end user, I'm convinced that - when targeting the App Store - you can provide the best, smoothest, most polished experience if you create a native app.\n- Might very well change\n- Still no non-brower cross-platform UI.\n
- not for the "Chrome" but maybe for a detail view or a formatted document\n- One more thing...\n
- If a person is familiar with a certain single instrument, they may have a confirmation bias to believe that it is the answer to everything.\n\n\n
- Web tech is great, but might not always be the answer to everthing.\n- Know how to build boats, can necessarily use exactly the same technology to build houses\n- Might not always be the tool to deliver the best UX.\n- Don't be afraid to learn something new! It's not that hard!\n\n