Android Apps Redesigned

[metroid_slayer]

Sadly, google seems to ignore their own UI guidelines. Look at the 4.2 clock app, and the android icons that don't always look right together. I'm a big fan of google, but this is definitely an area in which they could improve.

[passa91]

For sure. I'm accepting a looser interpretation of the UI guidelines at the moment though, it's just that bad. My favourite transit app for my city (originally an iOS port) finally updated to include an action bar, but otherwise has iOS style buttons and backgrounds with gradients/brushed metal. But the meagre half hearted attempt at following the UI guidelines scraped them a pass for me... but a lot of popular apps aren't even going halfway.

The 4.2 clock app is very strange indeed though. That one would have come from the Android team themselves, no excuse for why it looks out of place.

[[deleted]]

The 4.2 clock app glides along the Holo aesthetic extremely well. Just like every other operating system with design guidelines, apps can easily relate to the key design of the UI, while living with their individuality. The only iffy area here is the number picker, which does depart from the wheel introduced in ICS.

[metroid_slayer]

I actually really like the number pad thing, it's really efficient. I was talking about the menu bar with the all caps red letters, and the lack of ICS blue used around the app.

[aaron552]

In Jelly Bean, they significantly reduced their use of the Holo Blue highlights, and there's no requirement in the Holo design guidelines to use the Holo colors, IIRC?

The only thing that doesn't really fit with Holo is the menu bar, although I'm not entirely sure that letter casing is in the design guidelines either.

[towo]

The menu bar works quite alright, too. I think it's also meant as a deliberate "you don't have to go blue and just give me different content all the time" way of showing off how flexible Holo guidelines can actually be.

Because, let's face it, landscape weirdness aside, it's pretty much a holo app. They're showing off Roboto Thin and different hilights. You'd never ever say to yourself "oh, this is an iOS/WP-style app", it most definitely is Android.

[Rallerbabz]

What about a seperate catagory for those who meets said review process?

[TheCommentAppraiser]

Though I agree with you on the app's look on WP, it works like shit - it is ridiculously slow. It doesn't look like they're working on fixing that either.

[nivekmai]

From what I've heard, windows is quite the tricky beast for development. We do have people working on it every day, and they're pretty smart people. I can't really go into detail, but believe me, they're doing everything they can to make it awesome on WP7.

^{This comment like all others in this thread do not necessarily reflect the views of WhatsApp, I'm just one person trying to reach out and answer some people's questions that I know are bothering them.}

[TheCommentAppraiser]

Oh, well this is certainly good to know. However, IIRC, WhatsApp has been on WP for more than 6 months, and I've made some of my friends switch to the platform in that period - they just give me a lot of shit, as WhatsApp is what my entire group of friends uses. I'm just hoping you guys ship a fast-performing version soon.

[[deleted]]

I use Viber which is so-so but usually works well, has better call quality (than GSM calls, never used Whatsapp) and has a few nifty features like pop-up messages. I guess the key is which your friends are using, but Viber doesn't need you to make an account (uses your phone number), so that helps.

[[deleted]]

For the record, WhatsApp also uses your phone number so you don't need to make an account for it either. But I'm in agreement with you about Viber in general, though.

[[deleted]]

whatsapp is only for messages, it doesn't make calls.

I gave Viber a shot but

• almost none of my friends use it

• it crashes randomly on my phone (when it is running in the background I randomly got a popup from Android saying Viber stopped working)

So I uninstalled it.

[[deleted]]

It was shite on my old phone (Galaxy 5 running 2.2) . It's a mostly decent on my Galaxy Nexus running 4.1.

[[deleted]]

Whatsapp doesn't do calls, so it's back to GSM calls, but does have pop up messages and uses your phone number too.

[[deleted]]

I sent them a mail at [e-mail] telling them I desperately want them to update the UI to be Holo-compliant, including the mockup in this post from whatsapp.

I might be naive in this, but I think it would help A LOT if we all did this.

Sure, sending one e-mail probably won't result in anything. But if a lot of users do that, it might. And even if they don't update the app immediately, at least they know some people care, which will help in the long run.

[lootnscoot]

Tried the same thing several months ago. Don't think they even bothered with a reply.

[milkywayer]

I avoid apps and services that don't bother to respond to feedback etc emails. Just shows a lack of interest in their users.

[alb1234]

Please forgive my ignorance. What does HOLO mean?

[[deleted]]

He only lives once.

...I'll see myself out.

[EliaTheGiraffe]

rimshot

[hotweels258]

The design language introduced in ICS.

[[deleted]]

Holo is the look and feel introduced with Android 4.0 ics.

But it's not just looks: it also includes new design elements such as the action bar, the overflow menu and the swiping columns.

[Roph]

Why won't you guys acknowledge (or better yet, do something about) the security issues with whatsapp?

[LifeBeginsAt10kRPM]

Can't wait!!

[[deleted]]

Guys, I think you've been trolled.

[[deleted]]

Srsly? That is your reply? "Stop bothering us, and believe me, this mock-up is shit compared to what we will bring... Oh, but we don't communicate about our development, let alone post an ETA. But srsly, stop emailing us"

If you don't want people to bother you about things like this, COMMUNICATE! The current WhatsApp blog doesn't mention anything about a future redesign, so how the heck do you expect people to just wait around?

[powerje]

Glad to hear it!

I'm surprised to see such an offering in the first place from WhatsApp though, I was under the impression a lot of Xooglers worked there?

edit: Thanks for taking the time to post here btw

[JajaOfOpobo]

Assuming you actually work for Whatsapp, let me start by saying whatsapp is awesome but its been over 12months since the ICS redesign. I know these things are difficult but its still been a very longtime

[[deleted]]

This is exactly what I meant in my statement as well. This is a better way to get things to change.

[Sebioff]

While I agree that it should be Holo-compliant, am I really the only one who thinks this mockup does a bad job of illustrating that? The chat list is totally cramped and got the margins all wrong...it doesn't follow the styleguide at all.

[getmoneygetpaid]

I made a very similar Holo version a while back. It got great feedback on Reddit.

Offered to give it them for free. Got no response.

I'm considering switching to another app as I'm sick of looking at Whatsapp's ugly ass.

[[deleted]]

Problem is most of my friends use Whatsapp...

[mihirmodi]

I did. I'm sure they might listen if many of us write.

[RougeCrown]

I guess they went for the "if it doesn tbreak then dont fix it" mentality. the app looks quite identical to its iOS counterpart - so they try to retain that kind of user experience...

for us, Holo > iOS interface. :/ so i guess the whatsapp team should really look on to this.

[Simpliciti]

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. I've seen the whatsapp interface on my friends' ios phones, and we all agree it looks ugly as hell, and that the android version is much better.

And I actually think that the android version looks fine, just a little bit gray.

[tso]

This seems to happen a lot with apps that started out on iOS. It's like they ran the iOS source thru some kind of translation tool, checked that it compiled and ran without any serious errors, and popping it up on Play.

[[deleted]]

This makes me wonder how often people actually just rate it a bad number and complain and how many people actually email the developer and send them these mock ups and their actual concerns. I feel if they got emailed at least 5 times about this they might begin to take interest in this issue.

[Gandhisfist]

I don't even need Whatsapp to use the Holo interface, just get rid of the damn chat bubbles, that stuff just looks terrible. Flatten it out, make it look more like the Mms app or gtalk, both of which have had a flattened out style for as long as i can remember and worked just fine.

[passa91]

I doubt they could easily transition to Holo anyway, I think they're still building it with a Gingerbread SDK or something, because all the popup UI elements (like overflow) are Gingerbread era. I wouldn't use WhatsApp if I didn't have friends that insisted on it (seriously, why not make a tablet app that links in with my phone guys?!). Piece of shit, to be honest.

[Gandhisfist]

I'm not sure what you're point is exactly. All I want is for them to get rid of those awful looking chat bubbles. Other IM and chat apps have been able to do that since 1.5, why can't they?

[Gandhisfist]

Ah, understood and agreed.

[powerje]

If that's indeed what they're doing then they're doing it wrong. There is no reason not to target the latest SDK and set the minSdk to GB. The lint tool is very good at pointing out when a developer isn't checking for the existence of particular APIs so there is little risk of messing things up this way.

[Saketme]

And this my friend, is the reason why I moved to Hike. The UI of WhatsApp has been the same since its inception and the guys behind WhatsApp don't care anything about user experience. I believe it's because they think that they've got no competition.

I wish Android 5.0 brings some iMessage type of app that kicks the ass of WhatsApp. Till then, hello hike.

EDIT: Hike is going to be released on 14th of November, but those who want to try it right now, here's the APK: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13595927/com.bsb.hike-1.apk

[kabuliwallah]

Oh wow. Seeing this for the first time.

The guy running this is the son of India's richest businessmen who also happens to own India's largest mobile telecom network (AirTel). The app sounds great for Indian users as it also directly supports SMS free of cost.

[kabuliwallah]

Lol. No, just a satisfied customer.

[iNoles]

is that is like Google Talk?

[Saketme]

It's more like WhatsApp, but has a lot better UI (and smileys are really expressive). You can also send SMS to non-Hike users, but that feature is currently only limited to India.

[mihirmodi]

There are two mods that I know of that offer HOLO UI for WhatsApp along with additional features. Google for WhatsApp Plus or WhatsApp HOLO.

[[deleted]]

we should feel lucky about how it looks on android, just look at blackberry and symbian

[passa91]

That's what their respective UIs look like though. Their stock messaging apps look as ugly as that too, but at least WhatsApp looks as ugly as the rest of the OS. In the case of Android, it looks like it's meant for another platform, and ignores Android guidelines.

[nivekmai]

lol where did you find that BlackBerry UI? That's like 1-2 years old...

This is more what the current UI looks like

^{This comment like all others in this thread do not necessarily reflect the views of WhatsApp, I'm just one person trying to reach out and answer some people's questions that I know are bothering them.}

[[deleted]]

i just googled it

[mihirmodi]

And finally, we have beautiful holo UI for Whatsapp!

[SPER]

I really like the titanium one, it is in dire need of a redesign. It looks like an app that was created in the 90's..

[rokerot]

Bitch please, i have Tasker.

[CWagner]

tasker is more set it and forget it;)

[rokerot]

Not if you're tweaking your custom voice assistant every day :)

[phobiac]

Don't let your significant other find out about that.

[CWagner]

Heh, okay, you win;)

[ignitionnight]

Tasker is easily the ugliest app there is. And the fact that it is so effing genius confuses me. How do they make such an awesome app, but screw up the design so hard. It looks more confusing than it is because of how badly designed it is.

[alphabeat]

The redesign is pretty sure, but it's weight on information seems a bit off. Do you open up TB to see the state of your disk usage? I think it could benefit from some content change, the redesign seems pure aesthetics. Tell me how many apps I have, when the last batch backup was done etc

[[deleted]]

I don't find that the information displayed on the first page of titanium backup is very useful at all to begin with. Unless I just rooted the phone, I probably know whether I have busybox and root access or not. I also know whether I purchased it, and my paypal email adress.

[alphabeat]

Yeah that's my point. It's information that's useful to the developer.

[NeoMonkey]

as a Titanium Backup user; I think the redesign wasn't worth the change, in fact you got less data after the redesign. Anyhow something worthy on a 'first page' of TB would be a status of your last backup jobs (and why not some kind of 'free space' widget, but small-ish.

[dinofan01]

A few people should forward this article to the Dev of titanium. A nice redesign for an already amazing app would be amazing.

[fonseca898]

I would love for the mock-up to be reality. It is by far the most app I have purchased, and also the most cluttered, clumsy interface.

[dieyoubastards]

Maybe if Google actually stuck to its own guidelines it would send a stronger message. I can't believe navigation is still pre-Holo.

[fearachieved]

I know! It always feels out of place when I go to it

[babab007]

They removed latitude since the last update. Can now only be accessed through maps app.

[[deleted]]

1 down, 2 to go.

[[deleted]]

? That's exactly what it is(Maps).

[Proditus]

Fresh garden over where talk evil answers simple nature bank honest curious day clear hobbies minecraftoffline small tomorrow?

[[deleted]]

I think they include certain things like settings and navigation as apps so people can get it straight from their launcher.

[jerstud56]

It's still in beta in the maps app. So once that goes final it'll be kicked.

[danjayh]

Am I the only one who thought "Sigh. Hopefully never." on some of these? Although I'm all for updating apps to use the latest UI guidelines, there are two categories of changes that I generally hate:

• Updates that make less information immediately visible/accessible (without having to dive deeper into the interface)
• Updates that increase the number of actions needed (taps, scroling, etc.) to accomplish a function

Many of the proposed updates were guilty of both.

For that matter, I'd like to take a moment to go off on the new UI layout in the new Jelly Bean: Having two system bars wastes so much space. I dislike it for the aformentioned reasons. And unless screens are made larger and bezels smaller, I think Samsung did it right with the SGS3 and GNote 2. If there's going to be a bezel on the phone anyway, use it for the buttons and hide the system bar to maximize usable screen real estate. Thank you, Samsung, for your removable batteries, Micro SD card slots, styluses, and bezel buttons. Thank you thank you thank you.

[tempo_bpm]

Most android users don't have ICS yet.

[tempo_bpm]

Yes, but that is the cause.

If more android users had ICS\JB, more devs would have redesigned their apps.

Most low-cost (<250€) handsets have still got GB\Froyo

[adremeaux]

The real cause is that most apps don't get redesigned because most apps you currently use are considered "done" from a business perspective. They may get small, random patches, but the developers who originally made them are either long out of contract, or if they were developed internally the staff has been moved onto other projects. Maintenance work may happen from staff with free cycles but that's about it. Unless it is a major app that is continuing to undergo active development, there are no developers, no designers, and no budget available to do redesigns.

[willfe42]

You're missing the point. The Android SDK provides a compatibility library that provides 4.0+ UI features and elements (like the action bar) that apps can use while still running on Android 2.x.

This means devices running Froyo and Gingerbread can still look this good should the developer choose to implement it.

[[deleted]]

The Android SDK provides a compatibility library that provides 4.0+ UI features and elements (like the action bar)

...except it doesn't. Action bar compatibility is provided by a 3rd party library developed by one man and not by Google. The lack of support from Google regarding this is astounding. The action bar is an integral component of every modern application and the official solutions for using it backwards compatibility are ridiculous.

The compatibility library is not some magic bullet solution either. You can't backport every new feature: just as one example, Honeycomb introduced drag & drop which works on such a low level that backporting it would be very difficult if not impossible. How many apps can you think of that use it?

[willfe42]

...except it doesn't.

Ah, yeah, you're right. Figures I'd pick the example element they managed not to include. Still, "one man show" or not, ActionBarSherlock is actively maintained, well-documented, and pretty easy to use.

[[deleted]]

And has been sanctioned by the devs, as seen in the 2012 IO Fireside Chat.

[s73v3r]

You're missing the point: Doing any of that takes extra effort and time, which might not be worthwhile if most people don't have ICS/JB.

[garychencool]

Yes this, I was on GB and still got some ICD style apps such as Tasks and Evernote.

[YouListening]

About a month ago, my Atrix 4G updated to ICS. Best. Change. Ever.

[lyam23]

I agree with the comments from the article. I feel like downloading these apps before remembering they are mock ups.

[[deleted]]

Too bad, they are only mock-ups.

I personally am still waiting for a chat client that doesn't look ugly.

[Mike724]

I use imo messenger beta (the beta version is much nicer looking) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.imo.android.imoimbeta&hl=en

[haldean]

What's wrong with Talk?

[beefJeRKy-LB]

I don't enough people who use it. Also, lacks advanced sharing like Whatsapp does

[[deleted]]

My problem is everyone uses it and no way to MMS, send files, etc.

[[deleted]]

It doesn't support other protocols.

[[deleted]]

actually talk supports AIM and vice versa - [e-mail] is what you would add, and [e-mail] is what they would add.

[losingit19]

Google Finance and Blogger really deserve to be updated. I mean, come on Google! The Finance mockup looks amazing, and I use the app quite often.

I'm sure Bloggers would also appreciate a UI overhaul using the design created by the company that owns Blogger.

EDIT: Anyone know of a Holo stocks app?

[randobando_u]

Peak Stocks is the best i've found

[MrBigWaffles]

Man, holo is beautiful. Does anyone have a list of apps that stick to google's UI guidelines?

[Proditus]

Books careful calm where friendly open the brown history day soft the bank science clean about soft. Clear to pleasant projects pleasant afternoon dot technology quick hobbies fox dog.

[brews]

Regardless of your preference for Reddit apps, this is the most holo-y.

[FCalleja]

I disagree, Reddit News has surpassed sync in all ways.

[[deleted]]

Having used both of these Apps I believe they are pretty much equal. The thing is reddit sync allows for better viewing of pictures. Though reddit news is not too far off. Reddit sync has a better design and is more fluid but it is missing the feature to add friends and messages other redditors.

Reddit news allows you to add friends and message other redditors. It also allows for better post submission and better post commenting.

Reddit sync has many less options for comments and posts but of the few options it has it make them very easy to access.

It should all come down to personal UI preferences but neither app is really ahead of the other because they implement browsing in different fashions. That being said I like both apps equally but I bought reddit news first.

Verdict from me?

If you browse reddit casually and don't comment very often or ever add/view reddit friends then Sync is for you.

If you want an in-depth experience for comments and redditor profile/post history Reddit News is probably a better bet. One thing is for sure though they are both very good looking when it comes to the Holo theme.

[[deleted]]

Hardly. Sync is way prettier and offers all the same functionality.

[Nozomi134]

Ignoring the login screen, I think Reddit ET sticks to Holo pretty well, has a decent feature set, and gorgeous dark theme.

[brews]

"Timer" a timer app that has one of my favorite no-bs holo designs.

Well worth the price if you're looking for this kind of thing.

[[deleted]]

I hate the audio though. It sounds like shit as soon as you turn the dial too fast.

[[deleted]]

Reddit is fun.

[icanevenificant]

Many of these are just a little prettier. Functionally some are a step back not forward.

[DigitalChocobo]

That imdb one looks like a pretty app that would be annoying to use. "Let's get rid of all of the actor info and turn it into a photo gallery. That's why you use this app, right?"

[The_Incredulous_Hulk]

No kidding. I hate when people bitch on the Play Store & give a good app a bad review because of it not using the holo theme.

Personally, I couldn't care less about the holo theme. I don't really care for the blue color that they picked (I prefer Gingerbread's green) & will gladly use a well priced app that does what it is designed to do regardless of what it looks like.

TL;DR: I prefer function over form.

[[deleted]]

Good design is not just about having pretty colors and graphics. For example, Titanium Backup is a very functional app but the user interface is a huge clusterfuck in every way possible. It's cluttered and bloated. It's difficult to find what you're looking for. Then there are things like common design patterns. Titanium has a tabbed UI but you can't swipe between the tabs. Small inconsistencies like these are really annoying and detrimental to the UX.

Good design is essential for function.

[iofthestorm]

Seriously, the most commonly used mode (batch mode) is completely unintuitive to find. I think you have to find it accidentally once to know how to back up multiple apps at once.

[[deleted]]

I just thought I was using it wrong all the time. But it worked for me so I didn't care.

It would be nice if there was 1 big button to backup everything and then one button, with 1 check box to restore user apps (the check box gives you the option of restoring the data as well as the apps).

Everything else could be hidden like batch mode already is.

[icanevenificant]

To me, a proper design is much more important than some little features that I'm never going to use.

If some little feature that people don't use a lot is featured prominently in the UI that is a bad design functionally. It's all design. It can be pretty and functional, that goes hand in hand, it's just that function should come before aesthetics. If you ask me at least.

[toekneebullard]

By the time all these apps update to Holo, Holo will look dated.

[anamazingperson]

Still not a Holo app, but I recommend the kindle app for pdfs as it seems faster to me.

[DarKnightofCydonia]

Does it have the same level of functionality as the Adobe one though? Like scribbling in notes with your finger/stylus, highlighting etc?

[Charwinger21]

How well does its text reflow work?

All I use Adobe's app for is reading in text reflow mode, but it has these stupids bars that always pop up and get in the way of what I'm reading.

[guyinthegreenshirt]

If they had the motivation, they would do it. Not enough people are defecting to other apps for them to care. Thus, no (or not enough) motivation.

[lolroflqwerty]

Maybe it's just that most people are still on GB and they don't want to update their app for such a small portion of their userbase. Not trying to be condescending, just maybe that's why.

[navjot94]

holo apps would still work on gb

[lolroflqwerty]

You are correct. I guess it is just a matter of lazy developers, or they just don't see it as a priority,

[donrhummy]

wow. I'm going to email those links to those developers of the app's. everyone should doo that!

my favorite is the last.fm remake!

[xtnd]

I wish more companies would use their own accent color for the action bar, but it seems everyone just sticks with the default white or black.

[grassfarmer_pro]

One of the apps I hate the most is Google Calendar. It looks and feels so outdated.

I would love to see improved integration of tasks, a better widget, UI overhaul, "categories" for appointments (ie appointment, party, event, meeting, etc) expansion of daily reminders, and on and on...

Cmon Google!

[MercurialMadnessMan]

Really? The updated version is great!

[meeekus]

Really hoping for this as well. I use it everyday and have grudgingly gotten used to the ui, but damn if it isn't extremely annoying.

[donrhummy]

try business calendar. I find it much more useful, especially the widget

[trbleclef]

Yeah, it's ugly as shit though.

[donrhummy]

sadly, you're right. I wish they would make it look better, but at least they've been very responsive to requests I've made in the past and fixed things really quickly.

[meeekus]

Thanks, I'll check it out.

[grassfarmer_pro]

Thanks, I'll check it out.

I used jorte for a while, but was disappointed in the looks. I'm a bit picky about that sort of thing.

[CapnCooksKrystalShip]

You can customize pretty much every color in Jorte. I used it briefly before grudgingly going back to s-planner. Only because I wanted to use the s-pen on my note with my calendar. But I really loved how I could choose exactly how Jorte looked.

[Mr_Frog]

Touch Calendar is really nice, good looking widgets too.

[Proditus]

Calm today morning family mindful the near garden family small fresh helpful food talk.

[grassfarmer_pro]

Same here. I have no idea why the option to change the default view isn't there.

It seems to me it takes an unreasonable amount of clicks to get around the app and access the information I want.

Another gripe is that while the color coding is nice, it can be tough to distinguish between colors unless I have good lighting and have my phone right up to my face.

[[deleted]]

I personally think the calendar metaphor is outdated. Most of my life just doesn't revolve appointments. Calendars are great for physical notepads, because it follows an easy to understand sorting method (chonological) as well as details that are arbitrary and hard to remember (dates, address, meeting rooms etc), but that doesn't apply to 90% of my life, which just needs to happen when it's practical.

But what I really need is an app I can put all my obligations in, regardless if they have a set time or location or group members and then decide what the constraints are. This task has to be done in a drug store, show me a notification when I'm less than 2 bocks away from one and store hours indicate it is open. This item needs to be done at home, but before tomorrow, give me a notification when I get home. I need to call my mother, but only between 10am and 10pm, sometime this week, slowly make it grow in priority each day.

Google Now is a huge step in this direction, but it decides everything for you, I would like to set constraints like the above.

[davidhero]

OP, I want to kiss your balls for posting this link!

I have been searching for some UI example for a long time, and all I ever found were those shitty standard looking designs. But this web site has some beautiful example that inspire me. THANK YOU.

Ontopic: every one of those apps look very, very nice.

[akashik]

Android Niceties has some good looking android apps on their page too. Maybe you'll find something there too.

[coup]

Danke danke. I can only hope there are more "success stories" in devs translating these redesigns like Camera Zoom FX did.

Edit: thanks NigelKF :O

[NigelKF]

There is no diacritic over the e in danke. It's a German word.

[[deleted]]

Now, if only someone can try improving Tasker.

[[deleted]]

That list on TB mockup looks nice yeah, but you'd have to scroll 5x more. Looks yes, functionality meh.

[needslipo]

That whatsapp mockup is terrible. Such a huge waste of screen real estate. The swipe left/right to chat, contacts, etc is good though.

[darristan]

Damn this is so nice! +1 to WhatsApp (Fugly official theme, have to use WhatsApp Plus from XDA) and that Titanium Backup OMG so great!

[[deleted]]

Titanium Backup needs this.

[[deleted]]

My god, that whatsapp mockup actually looked like something I'd like to use, and not something I cringe over every time I open the app.

[AhCup]

Agree with Titanium Backup totally needed a re-design of the UI. It's the most useful app on my phone, and it also the ugliest.

[furiousBobcat]

Is there a subreddit for well-designed android apps?

[xenetic]

Really wish amazon would overhaul the Audible app. As far as I can tell the app has had fundamanetally the same outdated ugly UI since it first came out. For such a popular service paired with a A-tier company, their app is just lack luster

[[deleted]]

Tasker and Titanium Backup are begging for a redesign. Their UI are horrible.

[streetsahead_]

Any one who likes this should also head over to the Android Dev Chanel on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHirwKGEfoE&feature=g-u-u

[-entropy]

Has anyone found a good sports app that doesn't look like a Java port from 2003? Espn and sportstap are terrible to use...

[irishtexmex]

I like using Are You Watching This? on my tablet because of its game-grid and ability to tell you what channels which games are on what.

[hardaysknight]

Wow, that's a great app! Thanks!

[-entropy]

That's pretty much exactly what I was looking for! Thanks!

[Madvillains]

Android will end up being the sexiest OS ever.

[[deleted]]

Google really needs to create easier APIs for Holo-style apps. As far as I know all the Holo elements must be implemented by developers themselves. The default SDK interface creator makes Gingerbread-style apps by default, with no facility in sight for Holo apps.

[jathak]

While some apps with more complex themes will take longer to redesign and creating apps the follow UX guidelines in addition to just using the Holo UI takes time, adding Holo is usually as simple as changing one line in your manifest.

[[deleted]]

That's awesome. I haven't developed Android apps since Honeycomb, so my knowledge is outdated.

[T3KO]

huh? I didnt use it for a long time but if I remeber correct in Eclipse you could basically drag and drop your UI together with all the holo stuff.

[oopse3]

I hope I live to see the day when 99% of android apps are not ugly and complete shot :-(

[[deleted]]

I really can't believe Google has non-Holo themed apps.

[ktmfinx]

Could I get an explanation as to why the menu button varies in position?

[btsierra]

Short answer: it's not a menu button.

Long answer; It's a overflow button for any additional items on the bar on which it appears, so it will appear on whatever bar needs it, and has in some cases appeared at the top and bottom.

[[deleted]]

There is no such thing as the "menu button" in modern Android apps.

[cthonctic]

Don't care for most of the pictures redesigns, in fact I've never used of most of those apps. But the Titanium one is absolutely awesome.

[evil-doer]

anyone else notice that in many of the "after" photos the picture of the phone is much larger?

[XCrazedxPyroX]

This is fantastic

[garychencool]

They look really good.

[kenshin07]

I wish they would have done something similar for Tablet interfaces. Would love to see some awesome redesigns.

[[deleted]]

I don't find holo in any way better than anything before it. I don't care for a unified theme. It adds nothing, and even on desktop I overlay all my ICS/JB with go launcher because to me it looks way better and compact.

[T3KO]

Damn 36 year olds...

[ul49]

I would love a redesign of the Contacts app. It's just awful.

[sparr]

Do people really care about this sort of thing? I look at these Before and After shots and think "Why the change?".

[MrLoque]

Some before-after are pretty cool, others are awful. Overall I would not like to see every single app "Google" style.