‘Android is ugly’ has been the catch cry of iPhone users for years. And they weren’t wrong. For the most part, despite its enormous feature set and flexibility, Android as a platform was ugly. Many applications simply reused assets from their far superior iOS versions, and those that did make use of native Android UI elements were neither attractive nor intuitive. I’ve never really liked iOS, and so couldn’t understand how iPhone owners could dismiss its many limitations so easily, instead focussing on how pretty it looked. Until I bought my first Windows Phone. I was captivated by the attractiveness and intuitiveness of Windows’ user interface, and loved that every application for the platform fitted in with Microsoft’s overall design philosophy. I was so caught up in its design that I (almost) forgot about the young platform’s failings. But the experience opened my eyes to the importance of good design, and I longed for a beautiful, unified experience on Android, which has always been the most feature-filled mobile platform.
Then Matias Duarte joined Google, and with Ice Cream Sandwich came Holo, which turned the proverbial ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. Android finally had carefully articulated design principles so that developers could easily make applications that were stunning and functional. Unfortunately, some of the big-name developers have, for whatever reason, decided to shun Google’s vision and persisted with their own design ideas, which frankly don’t fit with the cohesive experience Google has brought to Android. Fortunately, there are an increasing number of applications available that do respect the Android Design Guidelines, including some good replacements for official applications, as well as completely original apps that provide awesome features wrapped up in a neat, holo package. The following are my top five holo apps for this week:
Reddit Sync
I only ventured into the chasm of doom that is Reddit for the first time about three weeks ago. Since then, my productivity and social life have taken a massive turn for the worst. I have found, in my travels, that Reddit Sync is the best way to take my addiction to this real-life-destroying, incredible portal of information with me when I’m forced to leave my flat. I can quickly browse AdviceAnimals using Reddit Sync’s inline image preview, and tapping on the text will take me straight to the thread itself. You can completely customise which subreddits are displayed as scrolling tabs, but the application comes preconfigured with a number of the classics, such as the front page (obviously), r/pics, r/funny, and r/science. It has a number of sorting options, and pretty much all the features I imagine one would need in a mobile Reddit client. And most importantly, it is gorgeous. It makes full use of Google’s Android Design Guidelines and implements a beautiful and intuitive way user experience, which makes it all the more easy for conversations with strangers to begin with ‘did you see on Reddit today?’.
Reddit Sync is a fast, beautiful Reddit client, and is available for free (ad-supported), or you can buy the pro version for $1.55 if you hate ads.
Tasks
Tasks comes in both a free (ad-supported) flavour, and a paid version for $0.99.
Tweet Lanes
At this stage, Tweet Lanes is free and awesome. Once it’s complete, the developer may charge for the application, since there is a ‘Free for Life’ option in the settings, but even so, it would be worth the purchase.
Timer
It defaults to a light theme, but a dark theme is available. Scrolling can be changed from vertical to paginated simply by swiping horizontally, and you can enable scrolling with the volume keys if you’re into that. Tags allow you to sort your saved pages however you like, which can come in handy if, like me, you tend to want to keep everything you read for future reference. I can’t recommend Pocket highly enough, particularly in an exposé of holo applications and beautiful Android design.
This article was a guest piece written by James Finnigan as part of our ongoing hunt for new writers – well done Jim!
Good article would add another free alternative for timing apps – Time Meter https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rk.timemeter
The more apps using ADG that I see and use, the more dated iOS looks and feels.
Stupid article. Apps are Holo by default (that are targetted above API level 11, which any developer in the past 18 months would have done), there is no work at all required by the developers unless they go out of their way to style it otherwise. Holo apps certainly look better, but all recent apps should look Holo so there’s no point trying to single out apps that utilise it.
Hi Rob, thanks for your input. While technically that might be correct, some applications definitely make better use of the theme and the Android Design Guidelines than others. Take the official Facebook application for example – it is compiled against the correct API level to receive Holo styling, but it is not really a Holo application.
The point of articles like this one are to highlight the efforts of developers who make the effort to craft applications that make full use of the unique features and design of the Android platform.
Just wanted to add that by highlighting those that make full use of Holo theming we can recognise and reward them for their hard work.
Free alternatives to two of them: Timer & Stopwatch (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jakubd.timerandstopwatch) and Notes (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nononsenseapps.notepad). Different apps by different devs, but both have the great Holo styling and same functionality last time I checked.
Copied from the Play Store on my phone and the links aren’t working… Notes is by a dev named NONONSENSEAPPS and Timer & Stopwatch is by Jakub Dyszkiewicz.
Hi Glenn, you’re right those applications are great alternatives. If I recall, Notes was released slightly before Tasks. I used to use it, but switched to Tasks as I felt that it had more task-centric options such as reminders, which Notes did not have. Not sure if the situation has changed since then, but both are good examples of Holo.
I personally didn’t like Timer & Stopwatch. I thought it was too cluttered. It could be the small screen size of my dated Nexus S though!
Thanks for the feedback.
The best guest-written article yet. Good work Jim!
Nice read. 🙂
Nicely done, Jim!