Porting Iphone Applications To Android? How To Convince Them Not To

I am a contracted Android developer, and I hate when people ask me to recreate the same 'look and feel' that an iPhone application has on Android. How can I convince them that usin

Solution 1:

Android users have different expectations and are used to the handling which is predominant on Android. It worsens the user experience if all other apps act differently from yours

Solution 2:

I think people that will ask you this question think that having the same look and feel for different platforms will unify the experience. To that I think the best answer would be that most android users do not use an iPhone and are therefor not used to this look and feel and also don't care if the app looks the same on iOS, as they never use it. And then you could find some apps that showcase the possibilities of the android framework very well and maybe also take advantages of features not available on iOS. And when you have a bunch of apps (Googles own apps are usually quite good already, e.g. maps) that have a similar look and feel with similar UX paradigms they might get your point.

Solution 3:

One argument that I have used in the past is to point out that Android has a built-in "back" button. This can either take the form of a physical button, as is the case with most handsets, or one built in to the UI as is the case in Honeycomb. On iOS, "back" behaviour is usually handled by a Navigation Controller, often in the form of a UI button which appears in the top left of the screen.

Android users are familiar with the Android "back" mechanism, and iOS users are familiar with the iOS "back" mechanism. Both are equally good, but they are fundamentally different, and it will make your app less intuitive if you use a "back" mechanism which is not consistent with how the OS itself, and other apps work.

While this is but a single example, there are many other examples which can be used to reinforce this.

Solution 4:

You could just try to explain to them that these are different platforms with different behaviours. Maybe make a list of differently behaving UI stuff, and try to show them on concrete examples why Android-users could get confused when things look and feel differently (and therefore stop using their app).