Digital Redesign Update: Android App
 

Moderator's Note - This announcement was posted at 12:51 pm ET on 8 April 2014. The datestamp on this post has been adjusted to move this post to the top of the thread queue and make this the original post.

Hi everyone,

Today we take another step in the overall redesign of our digital channels—the launch of the redesigned United mobile app for Android devices.

In redesigning the Android version of the app, our eCommerce team used data from our current app to understand which features and functions were most important to customers. There’s a lot we’ve packed into this release, including some completely new functionality.

Here’s an overview:

Updated functionality
As with the iOS app released a few months ago, the Android version updates popular tasks like booking and checking in for a flight, monitoring flight status and checking your MileagePlus account summary. Some of the notable updates include:

• An easier way to see all the boarding passes for reservations with more than one traveler.
• The option to book award travel with multiple segments.
• Redesigned seats map graphics that are easier to view.

New functionality
The app also has several new functions that were introduced with the iOS version, such as travel cards and a travel wallet, as well as extras like Sudoku, a checked bag fees calculator, a currency converter and airport maps.

Really new functionality
Unique to this release and (for the moment) the Android app are a few changes designed to improve overall usability:

• Text navigation along the top screen
• Ability to scroll both vertically and horizontally
• The screen will re-orient when rotated so you can use the features in either direction
• For multiple travelers or viewing multiple flight statuses, the data will now stack to show more information at-a-glance
• When you are signed in to the app, any active reservations in your account will have travel cards
• Widget is available on the home screen for quick access into the app

We will introduce many of these elements to the iOS version later this year as we continue to update and improve our app across iOS, Android and Windows devices. And our digital improvements won’t stop there—our new website is in the works. In the next few months, we will begin to launch the new united.com. It will be a phased approach that will span all of 2014, and you can expect that the Preview program will be a key part of each release.

In the meantime, the updated Android app (which is compatible with KitKat and previous operating platforms) is now available from the Google Play store.

-UA Insider

Android users: redesigned United app (v2.0.10) hitting Google Play
 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...mobile.android

google play updates can take hours, if not days to roll out. i'm on v. 2.0.10.

http://imgur.com/T0lMJ3P.jpg

to no surprise, it takes a lot of cues from the iphone version, but with more blue. i found that the prehistoric-looking old android app was very functional, except when it came to modifying already checked-in itineraries.

one fault i've found is that my future reservations are listed top to bottom in reverse chronological order, which makes no sense.

Mine was auto-updated 30 minutes ago.

nice update...except for the whole reverse chronological order of your reservations.

Looking forward to a new website and functionality. Also look forward to an updated Windows App to mirror Android and iOS

Looks nice. The old app was so much better than other airlines and hopefully this retains that functionality. Possibly rehashing suggestions from the iOS thread but I haven't read it...

-Reverse chronological order for reservations screen doesn't make sense
-The "View Reservation" link on the left takes you directly to the "Find a reservation by confirmation number" page when I think it should go to a list of my current reservations (presumably they'll all be listed in the travel wallet on the other side of the screen and this is a non-issue)
-The seat maps are zoomed in too far and can't rotate to make efficient use of the screen
-If there is a way to manually change the tiles on the home screen, i.e. switch airport maps tile link to account status, I can't figure it out.

I installed it 15 minutes ago and these were the exact feedback I came here to post about. :D^

Being a network engineer by trade, 17MB for this app seemed heavy to me but I have not explored all of the nooks and crannies yet.

Thanks for the update. I wonder if you can convey a suggestion to the developers? I installed the update today and I have two gripes:

1. I have to sign back in, and
2. The update removed my old shortcut from the phone's desktop.

Item 1 is minor and probably a good idea for security. Item 2 is also not very important in the grand scheme, but it's a little irritant that could probably be fixed with only a little effort. United's isn't the only Android app I've seen do this. Most apps don't, though, so I hope there's a way to avoid it in future.

I'm assuming that this item:

1. Cannot sign in, "United data services not currently available"

...is an unrelated temporary glitch.

after a few minutes of playing with the apps i agree 100% with these two posts

The plainly idiotic (SCREENS ARE VERTICAL!) seatmap design has managed to stick around despite other fixes from the initial iOS app. My guess is that it was someone's brilliant idea and they can't give up on it.

First thing I noticed, and how frustrating! I have 45 reservations in my account, and to get to the one that's this week's, I have to scroll all the way to the bottom.

Also, the reservation list is excessively cluttered. They put my name on every line item. While I recognize that if I have multiple travelers to worry about, this could be helpful, but that should be a setting. At 45 reservations, wasting 45 line items of real estate is a waste. Plus it gets in the way of seeing what I need to see to identify the reservation -- the city pair and date.

Finally, when opening a reservation, it expands out all the flight details by default. Again, wasting space, and makes scrolling through an 8-segment reservation more lengthy. Instead, the basic data should be there and you can expand out the details if you want them on a per flight basis. Or make it a setting.

also, i would hope united takes their own advice (tweeted this morning) and bakes in a bump in screen brightness when viewing a BP in the app. instagram does this automatically when capturing/editing pictures, so it can be done.

http://i.imgur.com/Bm6rEbg.jpg

In iOS it's not a big deal as PassBook automatically increases the brightness when you access a BP in your PassBook. I'm not sure why anyone would go though all the steps to use the BP within the app (that's the whole point of PassBook).

I agree with all the feedback so far (p.s. passbook is Apple-only, we're reliant on the United app for our boarding passes).

As a workaround for the bad display of reservations: tap the wallet in the top right and you can see reservations listed in (correct) chronological order after your boarding passes (hopefully there aren't too many of those :p).

Just cracking it open.

Agree 100% on the issue of needing to reestablish the shortcut, this is just poor deployment.

Some things aren't clear. Right on the home back there is a big box for "Flight Status" where you can search for flights in several ways by scrolling right/left. But on the top bar of the home page there is another "Flight Status" link, labeled with exactly the same text, which operates completely differently and is apparently intended to be where you can save flights for look up later, but when you click on "Add a flight status" it takes you to the same place as the big box does, just with the added step in between. I see no way to "save" a search, but may be missing it.

When you're on a form (like status search) where there are boxes to enter text, the cursor is placed in the first box by default, but you then need to click in the box to open your keyboard. Sloppy.

I'll reserve judgement until I've used it for awhile, but it seems like common operations that used to be on the home page are now buried elsewhere, while the giant picture of a place takes up fully half the screen. Is something like an airport map lookup really something that FFs use enough to warrant space on the home page?