iOS UI elements porting on Android

Question

ladies and gentlemen!

Very often on my job I meet the following requirement from the client, when developing android applications: "make it look like and iPhone app".

Yes, I know, that the best way is to offer him canonical Android design with all these patterns like dashboard, using menu button etc... But sometimes this is not the case, as instead, I have to make it look and animate just the same. It's frustrating.

Can you guys, please advice me an android library (if there is one) with iOS-like UI elements? Many thanks in advance, I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

Answer 1

To expand on Martyn's comment, which I agree with.

Perhaps there is a great reason why a client would ask for this, but in many cases I bet they might benefit from being challenged on this requirement. If I was presented with this request, I would first ask "Why?". Perhaps they'd answer as follows:

1. we need a consistent experience across platforms, or
2. it will be more cost effective to design once and apply to each platform, or
3. it doesn't matter why, just do it!

Here are some responses for each:

1. each user will generally have one phone, and won't require the experience on Android to be identical to iPhone - they only care that it works and looks great on their phone. In fact, an Android user would prefer if you used the UI patterns that are more common to the platform, as opposed designing to match iOS. Likewise for an iPhone user.

2. we have found that having a designer create a set of creative for iOS allows us to pretty much use the creative as-is for Android. Even though Android might have Tabs on top, versus bottom, we are still able to take the backgrounds, button styles, fonts and color schemes from one platform to the next. There will be slight differences, but overall the brand and look should translate well. Here is an example of porting a single creative design across platforms: http://daleburgosdesign.com/

3. if they answer in this manner, you might want to consider passing on the job. Pixel perfect matching across platforms is tricky aside from the ideas offered in previous answers (OpenGL and the use of a WebView - via Macarse). If the client can't provide good reasoning for this tricky requirement, then it might be best to search for your next client.

Not a straight forward answer to your question, but I hope you find it helpful!