Hey everyone, I've been a big fan of K-9 for a few years now. It's been my primary work email app for that time, and I recently removed the Gmail app from my phone and moved over to K-9 entirely. I've been experimenting with other platforms, such as Windows Phone, but the current K-9 mail app is actually *the only reason I continue to own and primarily carry an Android device*.
Largely, this is because of K-9's very capable UI. The biggest key benefit to me is the bottom action bar, which keeps all of the options I need easily reachable while I'm browsing my email with one hand. It's removal from Gmail, in my mind, was the beginning of the end for Google's "design" department. Furthermore, an obsession with hamburger pull out trays and such has eroded the ease of use of their software. Like 90% of Android users, my phone runs a version of Android 4.x, which means it uses the Holo UI design. I prefer apps with a consistent, particularly dark, Holo UI. K-9 excels at offering me this, but there is now a branch dedicated to developing a new UI for "Material Design", which is Google's attempt to implement Crayola branding across their entire product set. Only 5.4% of active device owners have Android 5.x, but there seems to be a significant drive to force users to "upgrade" to Material. Unfortunately, users rarely know about these changes in advance. They get automatic updates installed from the Play Store, and when an app updates with a drastic UI change, it may leave them in a bad situation. They may not know where job-critical functions are on the app, and for many common users, downgrading is beyond their comfort level with the platform. So implementing a drastic UI change like Holo to Material is very harmful to current users, and may leave them stuck in an uncomfortable and unfamiliar environment. Many users choose productivity apps like email clients based on their UI, and removing the very nature of the app that made it appealing is a poor choice. For me, this is a significant inconvenience, but for many, they're going to either stew in disgust but deal with it, or leave the app for another entirely. In any case, for people not wanting this "update", it creates a very poor user experience. Unofficial forks can only go so far, as the Material conversion tends to require a drastic amount of code change, which makes backporting features increasingly more difficult as development progresses. My request is that the K-9 organization drastically reconsiders any notion to "update" the existing K-9 app to Material Design, and if they're so inclined, consider releasing a separate app for those who wish to add pastel colors, excessive whitespace, extraneous animations, and floating buttons to their mail apps. A great example of how this is handled is Mobint's launchers, which are specific to the UI the user wants to use: https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Mobint+Software Continue to support Holo while Holo is still the *primary UI on the Android platform* rather than focusing on a niche percentage of Lollipop owners. Offer users of the existing app a notice of the new UI, but do not force drastic changes on users for the sake of change. Thank you, -Jacob Weisz -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the K-9 Mail Users List. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, email [email protected] To report an issue with K-9 Mail, visit http://code.google.com/p/k9mail/issues/list For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/k-9-mail --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "K-9 Mail" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
