Yesterday, before Google I/O kicked off, I wrote a piece about my worry that Google is winding down Android development. Well today, after reading people talk about the keynote (I haven’t yet taken time to watch the 3 hours), I’m still not sure.
True, Google previewed Android “L”, of which the most impressive part is the user interface (Material Design). This is a significant improvement over the previous UI theme “Holo” which was introduced in ICS (Android 4.0) back in 2011. Most significant are the animations and effects that are obviously powered by GPUs. The user interface concept using “depth” and animations is very similar to iOS 7. The problem is, what versions of Android will be able to run this user interface? To what extent will there be support libraries that enable older Android versions to use it? Given the reliance on GPUs, only a small subset of the animations may make it to older devices.
As always, this is in stark contrast to the situation in iOS. iOS7 supports iPhone 4 which was introduced in 2010, even before ICS was introduced. Although iPhone 4 struggles with some of the animations, it does work rather OK. It is highly unlikely that Material Design will go back that far.
Although Google has succeeded in nullifying the fragmentation issue in many respect through their Google Play Service strategy, and by also providing support libraries which help apps provide backwards compatibility, there are limits to what you can do without renewing the whole OS. Furthermore, solving the software fragmentation issue independently of hardware can actually make the hardware fragmentation issue worse. Also keep in mind that new OS releases can actually help cut off old devices and reduce hardware fragmentation.
In the case of Material Design, the question that developers will face is whether or not to update their apps to support the new look-and-feel. This depends largely on how many users will migrate to the new OS (KitKat is now on 13.6% of devices after being introduced about 8 months ago, iOS7 hit 87% after 7 months), and how difficult it will be to support users on older versions.
In the case of iOS7, supporting both iOS6 and iOS7 was not easy. At the same time, iOS7 adoption was very fast. Hence it made a lot of sense for developers to fully transition to iOS7 only.
For Material Design, the decision will be more complex. The option to fully transition to Material Design and to abandon the Holo UI will not be an option unless Google prepares support libraries that allow Material Design to work on old devices and old OSs. As I said, since Material Design probably makes full use of the GPU, this will be complicated. It could almost be Vista-like.
If Google’s support libraries do not work on a significant number of old devices, then developers will have to support both the Holo UI and the Material Design UI simultaneously. Instead, I expect most developers to simply stick with the Holo UI for a while.
In summary, I think Android has tried hard to move forward and that is confirmation that they are still eager to provide a user experience that is comparable to iOS. They are not slowing down in this regard. The problem is that Android “L” needs a lot of developer support for Material Design to succeed, and the fragmentation issue is likely to be a hinderance.
Personally, as an occasional Android Developer, I wholeheartedly welcome Material Design. I’ve only skimmed through the docs, but in addition to providing a better look, a lot of the nagging issues in the Holo UI have been addressed. I’m particularly happy that small things like overflow indicators have been added to scrollable tabs. Bottom sheets (much like action sheets in iOS) are also a very nice way of handling overflowing controls. I’d be happy if developers could get a support library that may not have fancy animations, but has the same widgets as Material Desgin.
As for the other announcements in the keynote, they actually confirms my concern that Google is trying a bit too hard to find success in other markets. It’s interesting how things like Android Auto have morphed into a CarPlay look-alike. This once again suggests that Google is better off quickly copying Apple rather then trying to pry open markets by themselves. As such, Android Wear is probably a waste of time.
What we really need right now is some feedback from Android developers. Are they excited about Material Design, or are they concerned about the extra effort?
Update
I’ve skimmed through the Google I/O videos, and it looks like the vast majority of Material Design will be exclusive to “L”. Creating a UI that is optimized on both “L” and previous versions of Android does not look like it will be much of a problem as long as you aren’t using the new “L” UI controls.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
It’s hard to say. It looks like the transition to Material Design will be slow, primarily because it will take time till the majority of devices will be able to run it. Hence most developers will also be slow to adopt it. They may be especially slow to adopt the new UI controls because that would break compatibility with older devices.
For the high-end, this isn’t good.
For the low-end, this means that there will be minimal hardware fragmentation issues due to lack of GPU power for example. For this segment, it’s probably good.
Naofumi Kagami 