Chapter 2 of 2

Android

Objective

Rebuild the iOS design for Android without it becoming a second product: one service, one set of decisions, two platforms that each feel native.

Context

Android was not a port. The iOS work was finished first and became the reference; the Android work is a translation of it, screen for screen, into a platform with different conventions for where things sit and how they move.

The temptation on a second platform is to redesign. The discipline is to change only what the platform changes. Every decision in the iOS chapter holds here. What differs is the grammar.

The Android booking screen over a map of Barcelona, pickup set from the map pin, destination field empty, and the Ride now button available — Ride now, with no destination entered. The passenger who has not decided yet is a normal passenger, not an incomplete form.

The same booking screen with a destination entered and a heart to save it, a route drawn on the map, a row showing fare, distance and time, and the same Ride now button and payment method — The same screen with a destination. It adds what depends on one: the route and the estimate. Ride now and the payment stay as they were, because the ride itself does not.

The Android on-the-way screen, a map of Barcelona with the route to the pickup, a two-minute estimate, and the driver's photo and name in a card with a call button — On the way, on Android. The same map, the same route, the same driver first. What moved is the menu and the cancel, into where Android keeps them.

Decision

Two ways to begin, kept as two states

A taxi takes you before it knows where. That is a real difference from a ride-hailing app, where the destination is the first field and the price depends on it, and it is the difference that was easiest to lose in a redesign. So the booking screen has two states rather than one form. No destination is complete on its own: pickup from the map, payment, options, and Ride now live. Defined destination adds a line and a heart to save it, and with them what only a destination can give: the route and the estimate. Ride now and the payment do not change. The street hail, translated into a screen.

Decision

The same wait, in the platform's own hand

Put the two platforms side by side and the wait is the same wait: route drawn to the passenger, minutes left, driver's face and name before the car. That is the design surviving the translation. What changed is the grammar. The menu is a drawer that slides in from the edge. The cancel is a text action in the corner rather than a bordered button. The schedule lives on a floating button. The keyboard, the back gesture, the system font: all Android's, none of them the design's to override.

Result

The Android app shipped alongside iOS and is on Google Play today, three major versions on. What the translation demonstrably kept: every decision from the reference, including the one that matters most, a booking that can begin without a destination.

No figures from the redesign were shared with me, and none are claimed.

Next chapter: The website, one claim and everything in service of it.