{"id":38354,"date":"2023-02-01T15:46:20","date_gmt":"2023-02-01T20:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=38354"},"modified":"2023-02-14T15:39:19","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T20:39:19","slug":"the-state-of-enthusiast-apps-on-android","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/01\/the-state-of-enthusiast-apps-on-android\/","title":{"rendered":"The State of Enthusiast Apps on Android"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/birchtree.me\/blog\/the-shocking-state-of-enthusiast-apps-on-android\/\">Matt Birchler<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/birchtree.me\/blog\/the-shocking-state-of-enthusiast-apps-on-android\/\"><p>I recently <a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@birchtree\/109749886968446937\">commented on Mastodon<\/a> that I thought when it comes to third party apps, iOS is remarkably far ahead of Android. My feeling is that you can take the best app in a category on Android, and that would be the 3rd to 5th best app in that category on iOS.<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>This app (again, in beta) is way behind apps like <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/reeder-5\/id1529445840?uo=4\">Reeder<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/unread-an-rss-reader\/id1363637349?uo=4\">Unread<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/netnewswire-rss-reader\/id1480640210?uo=4\">NetNewsWire<\/a> in both functionality and design.<\/p><p>This app was presented to me as an example of how Android apps are better than iOS apps, and it instead made me more confident in my opinion.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/2023\/01\/meanwhile_over_in_androidtown\">John Gruber<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=34605535\">Hacker<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=34611552\">News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/2023\/01\/meanwhile_over_in_androidtown\">\n<p>Whilst we iOS users celebrate the recent releases of <a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.cloud\/@icecubesapp\">Thomas Ricouard&rsquo;s Ice Cubes<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/tapbots.com\/ivory\/\">Tapbots&rsquo;s Ivory<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/vaccor.space\/tusker\/\">Tusker<\/a>, and look forward to the imminent release of other new Mastodon clients like Shihab Mehboob&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getmammoth.app\/\">Mammoth<\/a>, over on Mastodon <a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@gruber\/109745760003909477\">I asked what the best clients for Android are<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Long story short: <em>crickets chirping<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The app that got the most recommendations is <a href=\"https:\/\/tusky.app\/\">Tusky<\/a>, an <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/tuskyapp\">open-source<\/a> client available free of charge. It&rsquo;s fine, and for now, it&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;ve got on my home screen on my Pixel 4. But if Tusky were an iOS app, it wouldn&rsquo;t make the top 5 for Mastodon clients.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/01\/24\/ivory-1-0\/\">Ivory 1.0<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"the-state-of-enthusiast-apps-on-android-update-2023-02-03\">Update (2023-02-03): <a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/2023\/02\/making_our_hearts_sing\">John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/2023\/02\/making_our_hearts_sing\">\n<p>Android enthusiasts don&rsquo;t want to hear it, but from a design perspective, the apps on Android suck. They may not suck from a feature perspective (but they often do), but they&rsquo;re aesthetically unpolished and poorly designed even from a &ldquo;design is how it works&rdquo; perspective. (E.g., Read You doesn&rsquo;t offer unread counts for folders, has a bizarrely information-sparse layout, and its only supported sync service was deprecated in 2014. It also requires a frightening number of system permissions to run, including the ability to launch at startup and run in the background.) And as I wrote <a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/2023\/01\/meanwhile_over_in_androidtown\">yesterday<\/a>, the cultural chasm between the two mobile platforms is growing, not shrinking. I&rsquo;ve been keeping a toe dipped in the Android market since I bought a Nexus One in 2010, and the difference in production values between the top apps in any given category has never been greater between Android and iOS. And that&rsquo;s just talking about phone apps, leaving aside the deplorable state of tablet apps on Android.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Of course there are Android users and developers who do see how crude the UIs are for that platform&rsquo;s best-of-breed apps. But we&rsquo;re left with two entirely different ecosystems with entirely different cultural values&#x2009;&mdash;&#x2009;nothing like (to re-use my example from yesterday) the Coke-vs.-Pepsi state of affairs in console gaming platforms.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sfba.social\/@steven_aquino\/109793098082561124\">Steven Aquino<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/sfba.social\/@steven_aquino\/109793098082561124\">\n<p>iOS apps may attract more software aesthetes, but it&rsquo;s also the case accessibility on iOS is far more expansive and polished than on Android. This isn&rsquo;t to say Google ships inaccessible crap or cares less, but they certainly don&rsquo;t match the breadth and depth Apple provides. This is well known in a11y circles. Not a trivial matter.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thejollyteapot.com\/2023\/02\/2\/on-the-state-of-android-apps\">Nicolas Magand<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/thejollyteapot.com\/2023\/02\/2\/on-the-state-of-android-apps\">\n<p>Outside of Google&rsquo;s own apps and others from big tech companies, apps on Android are generally terrible. Feature-wise they do the job, they are stable enough, not too buggy, decently integrated with the OS, but they are either ugly, weird, or both.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macstories.net\/stories\/the-practicality-of-art-in-software\/\">Federico Viticci<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.macstories.net\/@viticci\/109795865424519311\">Mastodon<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macstories.net\/stories\/the-practicality-of-art-in-software\/\">\n<p>To say that I found the ecosystem worse than I remembered would be an understatement.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>I do appreciate the greater freedom Android grants power users who care about aspects such as split-screen multitasking, total control over default apps, or theming. But the whole experience feels fragmented, and as a result crude, when it comes to using your phone with apps in everyday life. The general baseline of quality for design and expected system features is simply higher on iOS.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"the-state-of-enthusiast-apps-on-android-update-2023-02-14\">Update (2023-02-14): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/23577729\/mastodon-android-ios-iphone-app\">Barbara Krasnoff<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/23577729\/mastodon-android-ios-iphone-app\">\n<p>On the other hand, I have to admit that when I hear about an app that looks really easy and useful, go running to its site to see if I can try it out, and find that it&rsquo;s only available for iOS, I can become, for a moment, something akin to an angry five-year-old. I want to play with this new toy, and I deeply resent anyone who says I can&rsquo;t.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matt Birchler: I recently commented on Mastodon that I thought when it comes to third party apps, iOS is remarkably far ahead of Android. My feeling is that you can take the best app in a category on Android, and that would be the 3rd to 5th best app in that category on iOS.[&#8230;]This app [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-02-01T20:46:23Z","apple_news_api_id":"d2a0db5c-7814-4334-a5ac-3fbabb6b0b01","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-02-14T20:39:22Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A0qDbXHgUQzSlrD-6u2sLAQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[248,249,1718,52],"class_list":["post-38354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-android","tag-androidapp","tag-mastodon","tag-rss"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38354"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38465,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38354\/revisions\/38465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}