Why PBS Won't Do Android 331
bogaboga writes "You might be wondering why the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service doesn't have a compelling Android footprint. I was wondering too; until they provided the answer. They say, 'Simply put, it’s too complicated for us to even consider an Android app for the first version; we’ll continue to support those viewers with mobile web. ... As we’re focused on the tablet for this project, we’re only designing for the larger screen sizes. But even there, there are a wide range of sizes and aspect ratios. It’s possible to build flexible sizing for these screen layouts, just as we do for the range of desktop web screen sizes. But the flip side to these wide variations is that in a touch experience, ergonomics plays an important role in the design. Navigational elements need to be within easy reach of the edges of the screens since people often are holding their tablets. If the experience is not fine-tuned to each variation the experience would suffer.' They also cite fragmentation. I'm left wondering whether they didn't find support for various screen sizes on Android developer website. Their budget is undoubtedly limited; are their concerns legit? What companies and organizations have developed Android applications that are good to work with on various screen sizes?"
Re:The perfect is the enemy of the good. (Score:1, Interesting)
As I've said repeatedly, a public organization choosing a platform with a single hardware and software source when there are options available that give you choice should be considered criminal. This is especially true when that platform has a penchant for censorship.
Does every web site have to be an app? (Score:4, Interesting)
Jesus, give us a break. You can't go to a blog or any other site without being nagged to download their special app, usually via an annoying popup.
Re:Mobile apps and screen sizes, legit problem (Score:5, Interesting)
It definitely requires more man hours to visually verify things "look like they should" and this is very real with 50+ configurations of OS/screen size.
yes but they shouldn't need to - after 3 it becomes irrelevant if the number is 30, 50 or 2000. their mobile webview certainly isn't tested on 1000 screens - their web version certainly isn't tested on all screen sizes and resolutions(let's just say 20 possible screen sizes and 20 possible different resolutions and 30 possible viewing distances .. you should get the point, you just don't design things in pixel perfect fashion).
it's more of a problem of wanting it too perfect or having designers unable to think in flexible terms - as if they were designing a desktop app with a scaleable window. btw those ui designers are rapidly becoming useless on apple as well, but maybe they'll have few years still on windows phone(why do you think ios7 is flat design and no longer imitations of things draw for that single screen size.. flat design is easier to make flexible, so they went with that, same with metros just text elements floating around style..)...
Re:The perfect is the enemy of the good. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The perfect is the enemy of the good. (Score:2, Interesting)
It's not just that they are favoring one proprietary platform vendor over everyone else but that they are also repeating their FUD too.
Is it really FUD to say that all the varying screen sizes, etc, make it harder to code a well designed solution? The same issues were raised when the iPhone 5 changed the screen size.
Not to give MS & Windows any credit they don't deserve, but it is a small miracle to be able to support a clusterfuck of hardware combinations & video resolutions. We've all seen the problems Linux has with getting vendors to supply quality drivers. As the mix of possible hardware components & software versions increases so does the complexity of coding a good solution for all of them. The possibility of less than desirable user experiences increases too.
Apple has a long history of limited versions of hardware & software (Macs & iDevices) so it's easier to provide a consistent user experience.
As far as Android apps, make it a good experience for most, a good enough experience for others and some will just have to wait until the first round of app updates. Don't exclude the lot of them just because you can't get them all at the same level at the same time. This is the same issue we see when developing browser specific solutions. Some browsers are not going to get perfect solutions right out of the gate.
Reviews on iPhone (Score:1, Interesting)
Cocos2d-x (Score:4, Interesting)
Using cocos2d-x as an example, I have little trouble programming away in C++ on my desktop at full speed, then checking to make sure that I haven't broken anything on iOS or android. By programming on my desktop I can change screen ratios and whatnot very quickly to make sure everything looks good. My code for iOS and Android has a minimal number of #ifdefs to tweek the very occasional platform specific bits. I love keeping things C++ as it is so wonderfully multi-platform while being able to access the finer bits of the various OSs. Only once have I even run into a tiny bit of trouble with endianness.
The real trick is to make sure that compiling in iOS and Android is kept as simple as possible. For example I keep the android part all command-line. I run a tiny script that compiles and installs the App while awaiting debug data. This then keeps me out of eclipse. The crazy thing is that if there are any android problems I don't even need to close my desktop IDE; just make the changes there and re-run the script.
The final deployment isn't that hard either. I don't presently even distribute desktop versions of the apps. Development is desktop based as it is just so much faster.
So I don't know what exactly the problem is. Personally I was looking into blasting out a Blackberry version of my latest app just to see how easy it would be. My suspicions are that getting any code running on the BB and then uploading it to the BB store will actually be the hardest bits.
Message me if you have any questions about this setup.
Re:Mobile apps and screen sizes, legit problem (Score:5, Interesting)
UI design needs to have every element scalable by percentage.
Tiny screen? Tiny buttons. Tiny text.
Big screen? Big buttons. Big text.
Then the same application that runs on my Android phone can also run on my Windows/Linux laptop/desktop.
Re:Mobile apps and screen sizes, legit problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. It reminds me of the times when there were websites displaying in 640x480 no matter the resolutrion of your screen. Some designers apparently feel excruciating physical pain at the thought that one viewer in podunk might see a single pixel rendered off by 1.
The same people insist on hyper expensive calibrated lights, monitors, paper, and ink to get the colors just right on a flyer even though the readers will be in widely varying light wearing a variety of tinted glasses with completely unknown backgrounds.
They simply don't get relative layouts or the concept that the viewer is supposed to control the presentation.
That is exactly backwards (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't make mobile web *apps*, make mobile web *sites*.
NO! 10000x NO!
Mobile web sites, without exception (that includes you SLashdot) SUCK HORRIBLY.
I can use any modern mobile browser to easily read a normal website. Do NOT give me a feature-reduced 1998 version of your website.
What COULD work, is making a mobile web-app for your site that acts much like a native app, but provides some specialized features hard to do with a pure web page. But it would be totally a side thing and not replace the main site at all.
Apps when done right enhance what you do with a site. Mobile versions of a web page invariably detract.
So if you are going to go web-mobile, make it an app.
Re:Mobile apps and screen sizes, legit problem (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to work with one of these people. I liked him a lot. But he came from the advertising world and from printed media. He was used (years of experience) to being able to start a project with a SIZE.
So the first thing he did on any web project was define a box of a fixed size, and float it in the middle of the page. Change the page size all you liked, the content stayed the same size.
Then he nailed down all the fonts so you couldn't adjust them. He used pictures for text all over the place, because they looked exactly like the fonts he was using, so there was no difference. You wouldn't change the font yourself, right? You'd never know.
And you see this all the time, on the web. Not sure if all the culprits come from print media, but they seem to have that same urge: Control the experience. Completely. Utterly ignore the fact that people have bigger and smaller screens, disabilities which cause them to prefer different font sizes or colors, etc.
Re:The perfect is the enemy of the good. (Score:5, Interesting)
"There was a time when everybody thought information and presentation should be separated, and layout should be left to algorithms. Well, that idea failed."
Nonsense. The idea works brilliantly.
Oh, you mean it was rejected by marketing and 'design?' Marketing always wants something new, it can be deeply inferior and that's just fine, that just makes it easier to sell the next piece of crap. Design just wants an excuse to keep fingerpainting and getting paid for it, and in the process they usually find new and interesting ways to break a UI (but never seem all that concerned about fixing one.)
TeX is far superior to any sort of Word Processor, but no one is going to make a mint off it so you will have to figure that out by yourself instead of letting the ads tell you what to do.
Making an app to do something that is already handled just fine in my browser sounds like a waste of time and effort anyhow.
Former PBS Developer (Score:3, Interesting)
I spent a bit of time developing for PBS before I quit. It was awhile ago, but I had a few run-ins with them after that on a contractor level as well. Their IT department is incredibly dysfunctional and full of itself. Maybe things changed, but when I was there, it was run by English majors and such with no clue, and demoralizing job titles.
PBS has never really been good at keeping basic things in order, so expecting them to either design a great responsive web app or a native app is not really surprising. I really would not listen to anything they say as technical truth. It's a really ugly, bad culture there in IT and they are in no place to talk about anything as a technical authority.