Yesterday Google unveiled Android Design, a very nicely done (and sorely need) portal that instructs third-party developers on how they should go about designing their applications, both in terms of making them look nice, and in providing a consistent experience for users.

But while these guidelines are a big step forward for Android, there’s another issue: Google doesn’t really have any way to ensure that developers actually follow them. After all, there’s essentially no approval process for an application to get admitted to Android Market — provided you aren’t bundling malware or violating Google’s Terms of Service, you’re in.

So what is Google’s plan?

Yesterday I spoke with Matias Duarte, the Director of User Experience for Android (and the man ultimately responsible for its look and feel). And while he was coy about Google’s plans, he did give some hints. Namely, that Google will be working to give developers significant incentives to follow the UI guidelines.

Below is a transcript of my conversation with Duarte (note that I was transcribing on the fly, so the responses may be slightly paraphrased).

Q: Google isn’t going to block applications from Android Market that don’t conform with the design guidelines you’ve laid out, so what’s your plan to help ensure that developers follow them? Have you considered allowing developers to go through some sort of optional approval process that earns them a badge or some other kind of distinction indicating they have a good design?

Duarte: We don’t have anything to announce yet, but I think something like that would be a terrific idea — we’d love to do positive incentives for developers. We can have workshops and office hours… developers could submit their applications or even their mock up designs for feedback or to get a stamp of approval, or a seal of acceptance — something along those lines.

Q: Some of the complaints I hear regarding Android design have more to do with the tools available than with the best practices that were laid out on the new Android Design site. Are there any updates coming to the set of developer tools available?

Duarte: Nothing specific to announce, but we do generally want to continue to improve developer tools. There’s a lot of stuff planned for this year. And the Android Design site is just the first sapling of what we want it to grow to be. There will be more content on Android Design, more code examples and workshops to help get the most out of it. And tools to help make it easier to follow the guidelines without additional work for developers.

Q: Consistency seems to be a big focus on the new Android Design site, but isn’t the issue for a lot of applications pixel-perfect design (or lack thereof)?

Duarte: Screen metrics and typography and color and all of those sections (on the Android Design portal) should help. But the thing about pixel perfect design is that we actually don’t think it should be a challenge to develop beautiful designs just because they have to be flexible. People have to think more like web developers and less like console developers.

There are 20 bajillion beautiful sites on the interweb — they all manage to accommodate a variety of screen and window sizes. Developers just need to use the same kinds of tricks to do beautiful designs for Android. That’s what we did for all of our (official Google) applications — they work from 3.4 inch to 10 inch screens and higher while maintaining correct ratios.

Q: How much of the ultimate design of Ice Cream Sandwich was really known and mapped out when Honeycomb was released? Or were you figuring a lot of it out on the fly?

Duarte: While working on Honeycomb, we had some ideas of where to go with ICS. We knew some things would be open problems that we’d have to solve, and didn’t know how we would. Then as we started on ICS we were able to take some of those ideas and some worked out exactly as we thought — others we realized, “Shoot, now we need to go back and redo this”… Almost everything had some tweaks when took it back to the tablet (for ICS), the most dramatic being some of the fundamental look and feel.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Tired of looking at Android apps that are decidedly more homely than their iOS counterparts? Google is too — and it’s finally doing something about it.

Today the Android team has launched an official ‘Android Design’ portal, featuring an extensive guide outlining UI best practices that developers should work to use as they’re building their apps. You can find the new site right here.

Android’s visual shortcomings have been well documented (you can find a video of me discussing this issue with Android’s Director of User Experience, Matias Duarte, right here). In the old days (say, when the original Droid launched) it really was often downright ugly — and the apps were even worse, with buttons that did unexpected things and UIs that looked generic and amateur.

Things have gotten a lot better since then. Android’s OS updates have progressively gotten better looking, and Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, is a huge step forward. But third party apps are still an issue — there are some exceptions, but generally speaking I still find that iOS apps are better looking than they are on Android.

This may help change things. There’s a lot of material on the site, which includes sections on general style guidelines, design patterns, and ‘building blocks’ that are part of Android’s default UI — and each section has numerous subsections. The guide has an emphasis on UI elements introduced with Android 4.0, like the Roboto font, so owners of older handsets may not see the benefits immediately, but it’s definitely a good move for the long term.

That said, most of the anecdotal stories I’ve heard about the difficulty in building Android apps have been related to the developer tools (and the fact that developers can’t make ‘pixel-perfect’ designs as they can on iOS, because there are a variety of screen resolutions they have to accommodate for). Thankfully we’re hearing that improved tools are on the way as well, and last week’s news that all Android 4.0 handsets that include Android Market will include the default ‘Holo’ theme will also be a big help — though it will be a while before the majority of users are running that OS.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

It looks like someone over at HTC just can’t keep their mouth shut. Not that I’m complaining, mind you: the newly-leaked HTC Ville looks like a device after my own heart.

The Boy Genius himself reports that the Ville has a 4.3-inch qHD (that’s 960

We had a blast yesterday at our Mobile First Crunchup and 6th Annual Summer Party at August Capital. At our CrunchUp, we had some amazing speakers and special guests. Even Chamillionaire managed to make a certain speaker sweat and started a debate on why Android doesn’t have a decent phone.

Later in the day, the drinks were flowing at August Capital and even Ron Conway was spotted enjoying a margarita or two. Our summer party was a huge success and we want to thank everyone who came. We hope you had as much fun as we did.

Follow @MJ_Isaac@MJ_Isaac
Mike Isaac

Annnnd Chamillionaire takes the mic at #crunchup.

July 29, 2011 4:11 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

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Shirley Hornstein

+10 to @tristanwalker for making sure his kicks match the orange #crunchup after-party bracelets perfectly. Inside information?

July 29, 2011 3:47 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

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Harry McCracken

Kevin Systrom of Instagram says that an Android version is “absolutely” going to happen. #crunchup

July 29, 2011 3:51 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

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Oren Jacob

“Get a room guys.” @erickschonfeld to @chchien and guy from U of Florida. #crunchup . #QOTD

July 29, 2011 4:04 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

Here’s a deeper look at the CrunchUp:

• MG Siegler sits down with HTML5 developer Joe Hewitt
• Erick Schonfeld talks with Instagram founder Kevin Systrom and Churn Labs founder Omar Hamoui
• Jason Kincaid with Bump’s Jake Mintz, Soundtracking’s Steve Jang, and Google’s Matias Duarte
• Blockboard, a neighborhood app
• Next Jump’s mobile app, Ella
• Chamillionaire on Android
• Android’s Matias Duarte

A huge thank you to our sponsors who made this all possible. We couldn’t have done it without you. For more pictures, please check out our Flickr page.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

“I’ve used all these different devices — they suck.”

Short. Sweet. To the point. Rarely do you find that at tech conferences. Luckily,

Today during our Mobile First CrunchUp in Palo Alto, CA, our own Jason Kincaid led a panel focused on designing the mobile experience. On the panel were Bump’s Jake Mintz, Soundtracking’s Steve Jang, and Google’s Matias Duarte (the Director of User Experience for Android). Not surprisingly, much of the talk was iOS versus Android. Such is the state of the mobile world right now.

It was a good panel for such a talk because Soundtracking is iPhone-only right now, Bump is out there for both iPhone and Android, and Duarte is obviously an Android guy. Jason came right out with it. “Why are iPhone applications better looking than Android applications?”

After a laugh, Duarte answered. “Why are Sicilians more handsome than other gentleman?,” he asked, which brought even bigger laughs from the audience. In other words, this is a case where beauty is in the eye of the beholder, in his view.

But then he tried to answer the question more directly. “There’s no reason why you can’t have a beautiful Android app or an ugly iPhone app,” Duarte noted, saying that he sees a ton of Android applications every day (obviously), and many of them are very nice-looking.

“The Android ecosystem is honestly just a little younger,” he continued, to explain why some may view things this way. “You need to give people time to develop on it.”

Mintz had a theory along the same lines. “Right now we find it harder to hire Android developers. People who are really excited about mobile — iOS came out first,” he noted, again signaling that the iOS first-mover advantage. “They learned iOS first.”

But he also had another theory. “I bet if you put 100 designers in a room, more are Mac users and more are iPhone users,” Mintz said. “It’s reflecting the users of the platform,” he continued.

Jang agreed with Mintz. “There’s a cultural advantage working on the Mac platform. Most designers use Macs,” he said. “But now there’s an opportunity on both platforms for designers,” he continued, indicating Android’s huge growth.

All seemed in agreement that over-time, Apple’s iOS app design advantage will even out.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

HP’s buyout of Palm may have won them webOS, but it doesn’t seem to have won them many friends within the company. There are only so many names within Palm that are so oft-mentioned that I could name them off hand — and of those, the talent seems to be disappearing left and right. First to go was interface mastermind Matias Duarte, followed shortly thereafter by Rich Dellinger, best known for coming up with webOS’ incredible notifications system.

And now, they’ve lost another; I’m hearing from an unshakably solid source that Lynn Fox, Vice President of Public Relations, left the company earlier this week.

Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>

Article courtesy of TechCrunch