CookieDev

Tech aspects of choosing platform (iOS or Android)

3 min to read

Pay attention not only to the geo spread of users but also to main tech details.

Designing an Android app is based on the general flow of Google's Material Design Guidelines from which designers use table sizes, icon spacing, color palette recommendations, and many other things.

For iOS refer to Apple's Human Interface Guidelines. These guidelines are not strict, instead share recommendations for achieving intuitive design. So, Apple's guidelines give designers more freedom than Google's. Here are 5 main differences between the Material Design Guidelines and Human Interface Guidelines.

1 Depth and perception. iOS design prefers to have depth. That means that lines are thin and blurred margins make elements seem to float in their own spaces. Google strictly to material design which looks like sheets of paper.

2 Animation. In iOS, it is something with pure utility. It should be simple and discrete. Android wants animations to enhance the user experience and enliven the design.

3 Navigation. Apple limits navigation options, making designers think carefully about what functions to include. But this restriction usually leads to comfortable and intuitive designs. Google's take on navigation is rather laid back. It can be anywhere. On the one hand, this freedom can boost creativity but on the other can also lead to designs that aren't all that user-friendly.

4 Buttons. In Android, functional buttons support the Upper case format and are designed to have shadows, while in iOS they are flat and have no shadows. Also, in iOS, there's a floating action (call-to-action) button placed in the tab bar. Android's analog of the same button is located at the screen's bottom-right corner.

5 Typography. iOS and Android offer their system fonts. San Francisco is the choice for iOS design and Roboto is for Android. And though basic text sizes are very similar in both platforms, to build text hierarchy, Android mainly uses more white space between texts, while iOS goes with bold type.


Tetyana Holovchenko
Co-founder, Marketing specialist at CookieDev
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