There’s an interesting post at The Radioactive Yak, by Reto Meier, Google Developer Advocate, who takes a good look at an Android app and explains how it might be improved. While the analysis is very interesting and informative, the comments have turned into a discussion of whether apps should have an Exit option.

I personally, don’t think Android apps should have an Exit option. It’s not an Android Idiom. People should just (expect to) use ‘Back’. However, I can see why users might think there should be a way of closing apps. This has been a issue under Windows Mobile for a decade and a half. Microsoft have fiddled with this over the years but there are valid arguments on both sides whether users should be able to close apps. I personally think Android is different in that there’s no shared idiom from the desktop and people should learn to use Android as it was originally intended.