My new project is to port an iOS app to Android platform. Before get started, I'm quite confused on whether I should follow google's guideline since some big titles on Android platform still keep the same look as iOS version. Style here means the entire design of the app, such as app navigation, theme, and layout.
Please help if you have any suggestions!
You should allways follow the style guide of the platform you're targeting. That way it'll be much easier for your users to understand how the app works. If you do the opposite you'll end up with unnecessary cognitive load on your Android users trying to figure out how your iOS-like app works.
If you have the resources, you should follow the guidelines for whichever platform the app is on.
In the past many companies considered iOS to be 'the market' and only made Android apps as an afterthought. As a result, they often simply built an iOS app in Android to save them time and cost. This wasn't done because it was a better way of doing it, just a faster way.
As a side note, the Android operating system, and the associated Design Guidelines have evolved and improved massively over the last few years, whereas iOS has remained relatively unchanged. Android has become the better platform (in my opinion), and the largest (both in terms of users and in terms of revenue). So it is most definitely worth building a well designed Android app. In fact, Android is where most applications should begin, with iOS being the afterthought.
As a heavy Apple user, this is a grudging admission.
