MTown2013

Everyone’s arguing about the rating for the design, but can we go back to the menu button for a second and talk about why the hell it’s still there? Vlad talked about how it’s more intuitive than the Galaxy Nexus, but I don’t get it. What makes a dedicated recent button great is that you move between apps faster. Two quick taps and you’re in another app. On the GS3 and every other non 4.0 phone, you have to press and hold, then wait, then switch. I’ll never get another phone that doesn’t have a dedicated recent button.

I get that having a menu button is nice for legacy apps, but how is this implementation better than on-screen buttons that’ll add in a menu button if necessary? Many apps now use the action bar, making a dedicated menu button pointless.

Check out GoodNews. If you add the podcasts through google reader then it works just fine. It’s pretty functional, but needs some work in obvious places (at least to me).

I’ve been looking for a good podcast app with Holo stylings and so far this is the best (that’s all I need it for, I still prefer Google Reader for RSS feeds). I know it’s not their top priority but they could make a few changes: 1 add in a navigation back button (the icon that goes in the top left). This shows hierarchy and lets you know whether there’s a higher level or not, and since most of the menus right now look the same, this app NEEDS this. Also using the stock back buttons (on the actual phone) is unsettling given android’s method of functioning. 2 fix the notification so that it goes into the app rather than playing or pausing. Once they figure out how to add in play/pause buttons like google music then they could put those back in. 3 Make it so that when you close the app through ICS’s swipe to kill function it actually closes the app. Right now it runs at about 80mb or RAM and while that’s fine if I’m using it, I still want the ability to remove it when I’m not.

TL;DR Nice podcast app. Could use a bit of work though.

Beweather is another app that follows the Holo Guidelines. It was good before, but the updated UI looks even cleaner. Look at the pro screenshots to see the new UI