Matias Duarte, the Director of User Experience, Android was at Mobile First Crunch-up and while the panel he was in discussed Mobile Apps, the topic of Apps looking better on iOS than Android came up. It’s a known fact that most app developers have put in more work to make iOS apps look better and Android has suffered in that department, even though it has some really good apps. For Apple and it’s iOS ecosystem, Apps have played a major role in differentiating them from the competition. But now, as Android shipments have surpassed Apple’s iPhone, questions are being raised on Android’s quality.
Duarte replied with his thoughts and admitted that Android is relatively young and hence iOS has some advantage. He also made a point that most designers are Mac users and it’s natural for them to have the best of UIs coming out on that platform. Given that, it might take sometime for Android to catch-up, but it shall happen.
Another major issue for Android has been, tablet apps. Honeycomb has failed miserably and the next major release, Ice-cream sandwich would be out before year end. Martias reiterated that Ice-cream sandwich would fix fragmentation and allow developers to build apps for different form factors in an integrated manner. The mobile game, is getting more competitive and the only winner is the consumer.