Mobile Central Comes to Android

Those who know me know I am an ardent iPhone user, always excited for new releases and updates. That being said, I must admit, I’m starting to feel a smidgen of jealousy as I watch my Android-carrying colleagues play with the new Northwestern Mobile Central app (our first client to go live on Android).

My first impression of the application was how much it jumped off the screen. The Android screen is a full inch larger than my iPhone, giving the user more real estate to play with. But what really blew me away was the use of widgets, an Android-specific feature. Once you’ve ‘turned on’ a widget on your home screen, you can directly access some of the most useful features of Mobile Central—without even having to open the app. 

These are just some of the benefits of developing native apps, something we at Blackboard Mobile are staunch supporters of. By developing apps specifically for a device platform, we are able to leverage the platform’s unique capabilities—in this case widgets, the vast screen space enabled by Android’s physical “back,” “search,” and “menu” buttons, as well as shortcuts, landscape view, and the integration with your contacts, GPS and so on—to create the best user experience possible that will help our clients keep students, faculty, staff and alumni connected to campus.

And with reports showing the staggering growth in the Android platform (rivaling my beloved Apple iOS), it’s clear Android is here to stay.

Take a sneak-peek at Duke’s Mobile Central app for Android, DukeMobile, to be released later this week: