When I first downloaded the official Twitter app, I was pleasantly surprised by the intuitive and visually appealing user interface. The reason behind it: Google has given the app its own personal touch so it can be used as an example for developers.
A recent post on the Android Developers Blog mentions,
“For example, the Twitter for Android application that we worked with Twitter to design gives you, the 3rd party developer, a working example of how you can customize and build an application that’s both fun and highly functional. This blog post is meant to showcase these patterns along with some recommended implementations as you start to develop your applications around them.”
“As many of you know, we’ll soon be open sourcing this application code under the Android Open Source Project. We look forward to seeing what you can build starting from this code using these UI patterns. In the meantime, Happy Tweeting!”
They leave us with a teaser,
“Come check out the Android UI patterns session at Google I/O next week to learn more about how this applies across our framework and not just in the Twitter app.”
It seems Google is trying to develop a set of templates for developers to base their app UIs on, or at least in part, which might help standardize the entire user experience within Android and its growing list of apps and developers.
Source: Android Developers Blog
