It looks like several known apps for iOS (Foursquare, Spotify) now adopt the sidebar that already was present in Facebook app (screenshot is from Spotify for iPhone):
- AFAIK, this is not a standard iOS control (I thought it was typical in Android apps), so, are iOS apps showing that sidebar to keep consistency with their respective Android versions? Or is it a new tendency regarding UX, regardless of having both Android and iOS versions of the apps?
- I'm not sure if the recommendation is, for an iOS app having also an Android version, to try to make them look as similar as possible, or it should be better to keep iOS looking in a way more familiar for its users (tool bars, tab bars...). I've seen that several apps tend to be quite similar for both platforms (Facebook, Spotify, Foursquare), but there are also apps that look different in each one (Evernote, Dropbox?).
- Regarding such sidebar control, where can I find a free, easy to customize, and allowed for commercial apps one?
Thanks!