Porting iPhone applications to Android? How to convince them NOT to

Question

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 t

Answer 1

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.