Mobile Application Development: Be original to paltform specific patterns and conventions

Most of the time it is required that we need to distribute our application on various platform. In such cases we should keep in mind the platform specific rules, patters and conventions, so as not to injustice with any platform. "Design once, ship anywhere" may be good approach in terms of time saving, however we may confuse and detach the platform specific users. We must take care of following basic guidelines:

Don't mimic UI elements from other platforms
Platforms typically provide a carefully designed set of UI elements that are themed in a very distinctive fashion. For example, some platforms advocate rounded corners for their buttons, others use gradients in their title bars. In some cases, elements may have the same purpose, but are designed to work a bit differently.

As we build our app for Android, don't carry over themed UI elements from other platforms and don't mimic their specific behaviors. Try to examine Android's platform apps to get a sense of how elements are applied in the context of an app. If we want to customize the theme of UI elements, customize carefully according to our specific branding - and not according to the conventions of a different platform.

Don't carry over platform-specific icons
Platforms typically provide sets of icons for common functionality, such as sharing, creating a new document or deleting.
If we are migrating our app to Android, please swap out platform-specific icons with their Android counterparts.

Don't use bottom tab bars
Other platforms use the bottom tab bar to switch between the app's views. As per platform convention, Android's tabs for view control are shown in action bars at the top of the screen instead. In addition, Android apps may use a bottom bar to display actions on a split action bar.

Don't hardcode links to other apps
In some cases we might want our app to take advantage of another app's feature set. For example, we may want to share the content that our app created via a social network or messaging app, or view the content of a weblink in a browser. Don't use hard-coded, explicit links to particular apps to achieve this. Instead, use Android's intent API to launch an activity chooser which lists all applications that are set up to handle the particular request. This lets the user complete the task with their preferred app. For sharing in particular, consider using the Share Action Provider in our action bar to provide faster access to the user's most recently used sharing target.

Don't use labeled back buttons on action bars
Other platforms use an explicit back button with label to allow the user to navigate up the application's hierarchy. Instead, Android uses the main action bar's app icon for hierarchical navigation and the navigation bar's back button for temporal navigation.

Don't use right-pointing carets on line items
A common pattern on other platforms is the display of right-pointing carets on line items that allow the user to drill deeper into additional content.
Android does not use such indicators on drill-down line items. Avoid them to stay consistent with the platform and in order to not have the user guess as to what the meaning of those carets may be.