
Apps made for one OS shouldn't insist on aping the design elements of another - okket
http://www.macworld.com/article/3075537/ios/google-is-making-the-same-mistake-now-that-microsoft-did-in-the-90s.html
======
ericdykstra
User interfaces should be designed for the _user_ , not for the operating
system. I feel like more apps should embrace their uniqueness rather than
aping whatever Apple/Google/whatever puts out as the "new standard" every time
their design team decides to go in a new direction.

A lot of user interface design is managing user expectation (things people
have gotten used to, like where a "create" button is or what a "share" icon
looks like) versus optimizing for long-term usability of an app (something
like Snapchat, with its seemingly-esoteric UI that is actually efficient once
one is used to using it).

The only reason the author gives for taking this position is that
"Participating on someone else’s operating system means you’re on their turf.
The author even admits that "I’m not saying either design is superior." So app
companies should forego optimizing for user experience to pay respect to the
platform that they're on? This is a totally backwards position; apps should
respect their users. If that means following all the OS guidelines for a
sparingly used app, that's fine. But if that means creating a unique UI and
app flow for long-term user happiness, then the app company owes no respect to
the "local conventions" of the OS.

edit: clarity

~~~
anexprogrammer
> But if that means creating a unique UI and app flow for long-term user
> happiness, then the app company owes no respect to the "local conventions"
> of the OS.

This PoV has engendered more hatred in me towards software creators than
probably any other. Not bad considering I spent 25 years creating software.

If I'm on Gnome/Android/Windows 10/OSX/Whatever, frankly I'd prefer
_everything_ follows GUI guidelines, standards guides and looks, acts and
feels like a native. Trouble is _everyone_ knows best.

iTunes "knew better" and made Windows look and feel like a Mac. Fine, except
it made the program clunky and stand out for being different. Apple knew best
with iMessage and decides it should _invisibly_ merge sms and their own
messaging. Result? A dozen times a day it would hang for 10 minutes or so
trying to connect to data-unreachable imessage servers. Just send a damn SMS,
which is what I wanted in the first place. Google came up with Hangouts that
at first release (i've not revisited it) managed to leave out every essential
of a messaging app. It was sort-of pretty, but very broken.

Google and Microsoft always know best and don't even respect their _own_
standards, let alone anyone else's. Neither are any good at all at designing
GUIs and frankly should just stop. Outsource to someone who can. Samsung
should take note of this too.

I don't want 40 different unique UIs all optimising app flow for long term
user happiness as that's anarchy with 50 (sic) different ways of doing things
in those 40 apps. I'd prefer it felt a little dated to work on Android or
whatever if it was then seamlessly perfect in gestures, GUI and function.

Everyone needs to just stop knowing best. 99.9 times out of 100 they don't.

~~~
Bahamut
> Everyone needs to just stop knowing best. 99.9 times out of 100 they don't.

And yet, your hatred is directed at the PoV that companies should respect an
OS's conventions, yet who says that the OS knows best?

~~~
scarecrowbob
Well, if "best" is "follows conventions", then maybe the folks that set the
conventions "know best"?

~~~
Bahamut
My point was the direct contradiction in statements there. Choosing the
choices that a platform makes as the standard setter is arbitrary in a
fashion, as why should those standards be the standard? There is no real
reason why that makes it better.

~~~
ultramancool
Yes there is - it makes your app integrate better with the platform. Sure, the
initial choices may have been completely arbitrary, but as an app developer
you have to live by them now. Consistency is the reason. Users learn the
platform and learn its standard UI paradigms. Should you choose not to follow
them, your users will not be very pleased to say the least, often confused as
to why your app doesn't operate like everything else on their device.

------
ajoy39
Material Design isn't just about Android Apps though. They make libraries for
websites too, and have guidelines for all types of devices built into the
spec. Google isn't using MD in their iOS apps to bring Android design to iOS
they're using MD in their iOS apps because they believe MD should be a
universal design paradigm for applications and web apps. You can argue that it
shouldn't be, you can not like it as a design framework in general, but it's
not about Android vs iOS it's about Google's vision of application design
regardless of platform.

~~~
imissmyjuno
The article's point still stands though: sticking to a platform's design ==
jarring user experience.

Not to say that I agree that it's necessarily bad: his example of Word on Mac
vs. Windows is actually interesting bc, given sufficient differences, users
would have a hard time switching between the two if they own both platforms
and the applications look completely different. I think it should be possible
to retain certain UI paradigms (e.g. back buttons, toolbars) while staying
uniform across all platforms in other respects.

~~~
emodendroket
I've always felt like people who were buying Office for Mac probably cared
more about having a consistent experience than having a Mac-like one and they
probably should have hewed more closely to the Windows look and feel. It's
like emacs -- how many people choose to use Aquamacs or something instead of
just the traditional one?

~~~
dpark
> _I 've always felt like people who were buying Office for Mac probably cared
> more about having a consistent experience than having a Mac-like one_

Why would you assume that someone buying Office for Mac is more familiar with
Office for Windows than the Mac they own that they want to run Office on?

That could be true for some customers. It's certainly not true for all
customers. It's probably also not a given that even someone very familiar with
Office for Windows would want Office for Mac to act like that, instead of like
a Mac app.

~~~
Aldo_MX
> Why would you assume that someone buying Office for Mac is more familiar
> with Office for Windows than the Mac they own that they want to run Office
> on?

Because Windows had like 90% of the market share?

~~~
dpark
That's the 90% that didn't buy a Mac. Why does the 10% want a Windows-feeling
app when they didn't buy a Windows device?

------
simula67
Google is acting more like Microsoft.

They are building huge moats around their business ( Android, Chrome etc ) so
it becomes harder to use some Google products without using others.

Google discontinued 'Google Sync' (
[https://support.google.com/a/answer/2716936?hl=en](https://support.google.com/a/answer/2716936?hl=en)
).

It favors Google Finance and Youtube over its rivals in search results page.

They 'have not figured out' how to allow extensions in Chrome mobile.

They had no-poaching agreements with rival companies.

I am almost a Google fanboy, but I suspect they will be no different to
Microsoft in a few years. Letting products stagnate, pushing the tech industry
backwards but making a pretty profit for investors.

~~~
beisner
To be fair, Chrome for iOS won't ever have extensions because Apple requires
all HTML rendering to be done with their web viewer (which can be embedded in
other apps), meaning that Google simply can't control the rendering of the
page (and thus implement the majority of chrome extensions). The app is
basically just a wrapper for the same browser that Safari uses.

~~~
joe_fishfish
Chrome on Android is a different story though. Firefox on Android allows you
to use add-ons for the web version of Firefox with no fuss. Why can't Chrome
do the same?

~~~
mschuster91
Because the very first thing many people would install is Adblock Plus.

Google, however, desperately needs mobile advertising, because people are
using desktop/laptop PCs less and less (and more and more people use
adblockers on these), and mobile advertising is the only space not yet
"disrupted" by ad blockers.

~~~
leadingthenet
I'm not sure how valid that claim is, since Content Blockers are a thing on
iOS and I'm sure there are similar solutions on Android.

~~~
marak830
I think it's more towards the school of thought of 'if it isn't easy, most
people won't.

Installing an ad blocker isn't as easy as installing an add on someone links,
you have to actively search for it (and require root on Android? Not 100% sure
about that. For chrome this is, I have ff on my Android).

~~~
NoGravitas
If you want to block ads in apps as well as the browser, you have two options.
One is an adblocker that's implemented using the VPN API. This doesn't require
root, but it does mean that all of your data usage will appear to come from
the adblocker app, rather than your specific apps. The other is to use an app
that adds blocklists to /etc/hosts. This does require root.

------
kmiroslav
The author should launch iTunes on Windows and realize that Apple is pulling
the same kind of crap on Windows.

Large companies have large egos.

~~~
wodenokoto
I actually think it's a pretty okay marketing strategy. If you truly believe
your own interface is a selling point,then you need to show it off to people
who aren't familiar with it.

If iTunes truly has a superior user experience (ha!) people will think, hey
wouldn't it be nice if all my apps were like that.

~~~
tkubacki
"If iTunes truly has a superior user experience "

It has not

~~~
wodenokoto
I thought the parenthesis made that quite clear.

Anyway, in the early days of iTunes on Windows, the design and looks was a big
selling point.

------
whack
It's worth pointing out one major difference between Word 93 and Google apps
in 2016. Back in 1993, we were pretty much living in a 1-device-per-user
world. People had one computer, and they used all their apps on that one
computer. Hence, if consistency is the goal, the only thing to be consistent
with is other apps on that computer.

However, in 2016, we're living in a multi-device world. A single person can
easily own a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop as well as a desktop. Some of them
may be iOS, others may be Windows, and others may be Android. And they are
likely to use the same apps (eg, google Maps) on all of those different
devices. Hence, I would argue that consistency across devices today, is more
important than consistency across different apps. As someone who owns a mix of
both Mac and Android products, I would like for Google docs to look and behave
similarly no matter which device I'm on, even if it means that Google Maps
ends up looking differently from Apple-Music.

~~~
maxxxxx
Of the apps I use most of them I use on only one device. So it's better to
stick to the platform guidelines.

------
simonh
While in general I'd agree with Jason, in this case I can't. There's a big
difference between the case of Word on the Mac back in the 90s and Google apps
on iOS.

I use Gmail, Google Maps and Google Docs, but I use them equally on iOS and on
the web. What I want from these apps is a consistent UI on the web and in the
iOS apps. I couldn't give two craps about what it looks like on Android. No
disrespect to Android, but that's just not an issue for me.

Jason's position is reasonable. Making the UI on iOS more like iOS conventions
would have advantages and for some people this would be a better option, but
there's an extra issue here he's not acknowledging.

------
tluyben2
I must be a very weird person I feel lately (this theme is recurrent on HN); I
don't actually notice the difference. I use iOS & Android and if the app works
well I don't notice if it doesn't behave 'like it is supposed to do' on the
respective OS. It is _far_ more noticeable on desktops. However, if
copy/cut/paste (Firefox on Linux notably which is unusable because I cannot
copy to/from it), file dialog and drag & drop works with the rest of the
applications and the application is solid otherwise as well I don't care about
that either and probably won't notice it. I notice it with software that
presents me a hard to use custom file open/save dialog only. And I tend to
just not use that anymore.

But on mobile; if the app is good (I for one like Google docs) I don't believe
many people actually notice this difference.

~~~
hollander
Have you tried to remove your Firefox profile on Linux? Just rename it so you
can move it back later if needed. Then try to copy/paste. Then disable all
addons and try again. It should work of course.

~~~
tluyben2
I tried a few things and then gave up; I will revisit. It is a known problem
as there are a lot of posts all over the web from people with the same issue.

------
erikb
The funny thing is: I understand his argument, but the Android like Google
apps where what finally made the iPhone a little usable for me. I have it for
nearly a year now and still every day wish myself back to the times I had a
Nexus 4. It is just way more efficient. I don't what the goal of a normal
iPhone user is. But my goal is to get things done as fast as possible. I need
to work. But for that iPhones are really painful to use. And I don't know but
if you have seen the Gmail App, can you ever go back to the Mail app from iOS?
It's like a Porsche vs a rikshaw. Why would anybody want to use the latter
one?

------
bikamonki
I agree with the point being made: I would be really pissed if a desktop app
had the window management buttons on a different corner, even the same corner
but different icons would feel bad. However, mobile apps are more like
websites rather than desktop apps. The 'shell' has to be consistent with UI
design and behaviour whereas the 'content' can have a UI relevant to function
and maybe a different brand. For example, if you open gmail on Chromium and
Safari, you'd expect it to behave and look the same on both.

------
Zelmor
"and the target of dislike and rage from many people who love Apple products."

He managed to lose me in the first paragraph. Not a record, but really close.

~~~
adamlett
Do you usually find that you enjoy reading articles in _Mac_ World to the end?

~~~
Zelmor
I don't even know if that's a made up magazine or a real one. :)

------
fenomas
This seems like a trivially silly article. In essence it argues: "OSes are
special sauce and apps are commodities - Google should recognize this and stop
trying to differentiate their app designs."

That's certainly a valid opinion, but its reverse is just as defensible - if
one considers services to be special sauce and OSes to be commodities, then it
directly follows that app UIs should first be consistent across platforms. And
considering that Google's entire business model is based on the latter view,
why on earth would they take the author's view?

------
Dylan16807
Just some icons and menu colors? If that's their biggest problem then they're
doing well.

~~~
runholm
What you are describing is the entire field of interaction design. It's not
"just some icons and menu colors".

~~~
Dylan16807
No I'm not. The two different UI styles are extremely similar. Look at how
little changes on the screenshot of apple music, the _good_ example.

Complaining about the direction of the three dots that make up the menu button
is the ultimate in bikeshedding.

------
tn13
Honestly as a user I think Apple and Google can fry frogs with their design
guidelines. I want app makers to make apps that are fun to use and enjoyable
and more importantly useful. I could not care less if they are following
company X's design guidelines or company Y's design guidelines.

There is nothing earth shattering or innovative or useful about Apple or
Material design guidelines. It is just an attempt to establish their brand.

~~~
cloudjacker
Remember when Facebook and Google had strict styling "guidelines" for their
login buttons that were completely different and didn't fit aesthetically on
anybody's login screen together?

That was big ego

------
Zigurd
The article has some good points. Material Design is a fine convention for
Android and for Google's Web apps, and is well-supported for those if you use
Google's libraries and frameworks. But I would not recommend that app
developers should take MD to iOS. iOS has it's own conventions. Observe them.
On top of all that, Web UI design lacks universal conventions. There isn't
much to be gained by aping Google's style on the Web, unless you really like
it. Every developer needs distinctive design elements in the areas that are
not covered by platform conventions, and their Web UI is a good place to
develop distinctive elements.

BUT that doesn't mean Google is making a mistake, except possibly on iOS. If
Google's iOS apps are not close enough to iOS conventions, Google is, at least
potentially, confusing their iOS users.

------
jetskindo
If Google docs had a mac like ui on ios, the author would be writing about how
inconsistent Google docs is. "They should unify their design"

~~~
TeMPOraL
And by "unify" the author would most likely mean "change all the other apps to
have Mac-like UI".

------
throwaway13337
Google is also resembling Microsoft in the sortof-broken-but-usable cross-
product features.

For example, when I browse to google maps, and try to look at the reviews list
of a point of interest on the map, it takes me to a google search - completely
out of the context I was in - and opens as modal dialog in that search area.

There are lots of examples of similar functionality. Individually, its
harmless, but as a whole, it feels sluggish and clunky.

This kind of behavior seems to be common in large software companies that have
separate divisions with communication issues between them.

It's sad to see Google go down that road.

------
torgoguys
Reading the headline, I was half expecting the article to say that Google's
just-announced Instant Apps initiative is the resurrection of ActiveX in IE, a
comparison I'm just waiting for some journalist to make. (To this point, I've
mostly read nothing but praise for the idea (instant apps). I see instant apps
as another sad retreat from the promise of the open web.)

------
makecheck
While I prefer adherence to the OS’ conventions, I can handle variations as
long as they solve some problem. For example, one could argue in favor of
something like a non-standard icon if that makes gestures easier to discover
than they are by default on iOS.

Gratuitous redesigns are silly though, and by nature have to consume
engineering effort that otherwise would’ve been spent elsewhere. And when
engineering effort has clearly gone into a new veneer while there are still
broken app _features_ , I become really angry. Too many apps on iOS alone have
been “updated” with redesigns and mysteriously lost functionality in the
process (or _effectively_ lost functionality, by hiding previously-known
features somewhere new).

------
pervycreeper
tl;dr--- Google is the equivalent of 90s-era Microsoft because it is angrily
disliked by some Apple fans, and it incorporates Material Design in its iOS
apps.

~~~
bitmapbrother
But it's okay for Apple to inflict their design on Android because it's Apple.

~~~
MBCook
But they __DON 'T __. That 's the amazing thing here.

Apple does on Windows, which everyone has known sucks since the early 2000s.

But when they released Apple Music on Android? It followed platform
conventions. It actually made news in the Apple community because Apple DIDN'T
make the Android app look like iOS. The Apple people I follow were actually
surprised that Apple decided to be a good citizen instead of going with the
usual "We know best".

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Particularly irritatingly: Google disables “shake to undo”, which I've
actually needed, instead making it “shake to give feedback”, which is never
something I've needed.

Presumably just to upset iOS users?

------
vmateixeira
They're just looking after they're business. By having the same applications
layout/behaviour, it will help users to switch to Android easily in the
future.

------
JustSomeNobody
What a sad and click bait-y article.

So, there's not a million other examples of apps that also don't follow the
iOS style?

This article was written just to beat the Android vs iOS war drums.

~~~
davidcollantes
I don't think it is click-bait, nor to incite wars. I think it expresses
clearly something I noticed long ago: Google apps's--under iOS--UX/UI is
completely different from the rest. They look odd, they do not behave as an
iOS user would expect an iOS app to behave. Same as the Microsoft applications
he mentions.

I love that Google has picked a unique UI/UX for Android, that's great. Yet,
when providing apps for iOS, they should behave, and conform like the rest of
iOS apps do.

------
werber
The only google app I regularly use on my iPhone is their Photos app, and I
like that it's cohesive across platforms. The subtle switch to being material
design land on iOS gives me reassurance that my pictures will be safe in
google's cloud. This feels worlds away from the design wars 20 years ago, when
all you got was frustration and no real user benefit.

------
proyb2
That's why we all have different furniture.

------
edko
Apple has strict rules for allowing apps into the iOS AppStore, and they are
enforced for every developer, including Google. While I disagree with the
contents of the article, the rant should not be against Google only. If
material design apps are accepted then it is not only Google's "fault".

------
Arnt
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that most users of google apps also
use google-as-a-website.

So what's google to do, provide consistency between the app and other apps or
between the app and the corresponding web UI?

That isn't a simple question with a simple answer...

------
digi_owl
I for one miss the 3.x-4.x Holo UI.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Holo was the best UI Google ever did. It felt like the future. Now I feel like
Android is living in some wannabe iOS thing with paper-based skeu.

------
Tyler-Durden
Material design is not android design. It is googles design concept. Being
surprised that the company uses it for their applications, is like an American
traveling to a far off country called Great Britain and be surprised they
speak English there

------
JackPoach
And Microsoft is 'unmaking' many of the mistakes it made in the past two
decades

------
ysavir
I think the author misses the point. Using a native-looking interface will
only encourage users to stay on their iTems, and Google (not so) secretly
wants to convert those users to their own native platforms+.

------
isidoreSeville
I've never really used iOS so can someone tell me if this is even a real
problem?

The apps shown in the linked piece seem totally fine to me, so maybe there are
better examples out there?

~~~
MBCook
They seem fine to you because you don't use iOS.

I'm guessing you're an Android person. Have you run across apps that don't
feel like Android apps? They feel like someone made a least-effort attempt to
port an iOS app over to "the other platform" and the result is just sort of
jarring and weird?

That's the issue. It's not necessarily that they look bad, your app can look
like what you want. The issue is that they don't follow lots of little
platform conventions that you get used to and so they feel foreign and
slightly annoy you every time you try to use them.

------
rdiddly
UI "conventions" (i.e. fashions) wouldn't be such a big deal if people adhered
more closely to first principles like discoverability, etc.

------
jasonm23
The more you understand product design and usability, the more you value
consistency with the platform.

The problem is, no one starts out with this knowledge or value system.

------
PSeitz
an apple fanboy dislikes android, quelle surprise

------
no_gravity
According to the author, they made that mistake in 1993.

In 1993, Microsoft's market cap was under $30 billion. Today it is over $400
billion.

------
ja27
"Boo hoo" \- every Android user with an app drawer full of iOS rounded rect,
flat, gradient-shaded icons.

~~~
MBCook
So you recognize that it is a problem. I've heard that kind of complaint from
Android users before and they're correct.

So shouldn't Google fix it on iOS?

Apple, of all people, did it right when they brought Apple Music over to
Android. I'm still amazed at that. They don't have a good history (i.e.
everything they released on Windows).

------
samwestdev
Another crappy Jason Snell's Original

------
johnloeber
Making analogies between Microsoft in the 90s and X without mentioning the
huge antitrust lawsuit[0] always seems dubious to me. The evolution of
Microsoft as a business is not purely due to its product strategy.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp).

~~~
frgewut
Actually Google currently is facing some serious anti-trust cases as well.

~~~
tluyben2
Maybe Google is better at hiding it or just being 'less evil', but MS was
pretty open with their 'destroy everything that comes in our path'. I think it
is important to mention that when mentioning the antitrust case.

Edit: I was against the antitrust case at the time even though I did not like
nor used MS /products/ and did not approve of their practices. I believed they
got that power because they managed to get enough people drink the coolaid and
that's a part of what a business does; kudos to them basically. Still don't
like most software they make, but as a company it seems a lot better now. Why
restrict that? I have another opinion (I would be _for_ the antitrust case
now) now as I grow older.

~~~
hulahoof
MS wasn't aware they needed to hide it, Google's advantage..

~~~
tluyben2
There have been other antithrust cases which were about abuse of power (AT&T
Co) so they should've been aware?

------
grawlinson
Microsoft _now_ aren't that great with the following examples:

* Constant starting/shuttering of their mobile OS offerings.

* Disregarding user privacy in Windows 10 (and extending that to Windows 7/8 via updates)

* Forcing users of Windows 7/8 to update to 10. It's basically malware at this stage.

* Removing admin abilities in Enterprise offerings of Windows 10.

~~~
vt240
What admin abilities were removed in Windows 10 Enterprise?

~~~
tremon
For one, you can no longer completely disable certain (feature) updates. The
most you can do is delay the feature by a year.

~~~
vt240
That doesn't seem to be what they claim in [1] for a managed environment. We
are still using 2008 R2 and Windows 7, but it is getting to the point where we
need to at least upgrade Windows Server. What a headache.

[1] [https://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/itpro/windows/manage/int...](https://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/itpro/windows/manage/introduction-to-windows-10-servicing)

~~~
tremon
You mean because of the existence of the LTSB branch? Yes, that may be an
option for some. However, LTSB still doesn't give the administrator control
over feature updates: it just removes feature updates completely.

~~~
vt240
No, I mean the continued existence of WSUS and Configuration Manager. Although
I find it really unclear. It says under CBB servicing, "When devices are being
managed through Windows Server Update Services, the same workflows are
executed as with Windows Update except IT administrators must approve releases
before installations begin."

Are you saying that there is no selective feature control anymore, you have to
accept the entire feature pack or not? That different from the past, but it is
really hard to compare since Windows didn't really operate on the CU model
before. What is the analog to a feature pack?

~~~
tremon
But the bullet point immediately following that says:

 _Microsoft will not produce servicing updates for a feature upgrade after its
corresponding CBB reaches the end of its servicing lifetime. This means that
feature upgrade deployments cannot be extended indefinitely_

Microsoft will not keep releasing security updates for "old" feature versions:
miss too many feature updates, and you also no longer get security updates.
And with a declared feature cadence of roughly once per 4 months, it means
when you defer a feature for more than 8 months, you will no longer receive
security updates either.

As for feature packs, I do not know if Microsoft will continue to maintain
optional features for the desktop. The impression I got is that they are
moving towards a unified desktop image across all deployments.

~~~
vt240
Interesting, thanks for the discussion on the subject. I just can't see moving
away from Windows 7 embedded / Windows 7 enterprise in the near future. I
envision all sorts of nightmare scenarios where we have to redeploy all the
embedded hosts because of some update on the development machines. It wont
necessarily be Microsoft's fault directly, but some vendor other vendor driver
or such will have to be updated due to the new 'feature' pack. Hah.

------
DeadReckoning
Totally disagree. I love the iOS material design apps like Inbox and Google
Photos

------
d0m
TL&DR: Author doesn't like material design

------
deprave
WebKit and Blink: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

------
vixen99
He says "Truth be told, just as I used Word 5.1 back in the day, I use many
Google services today."

Just as? No, he paid good money for the Microsoft software.

~~~
vblord
Do you think MS Word should have been free? Or that google should have charged
for it?

------
pan69
Three words for the author of this post: iTunes for Windows

~~~
drunken-serval
It's mentioned explicitly as an example of what not to do.

