The number one issue I have with Android is that while this looks cool, because of the fragmentation of the OS delivery between vendors- I have no idea which phone or timeframe when I could see the rollout of Material 3 Expressive.
More than 10 years later, shopping for an Android phone with the latest OS is a nightmare. Android leadership keeps on getting shuffled around, Google changes priorities every 6 months it seems. Despite Apple flubbing the ball on AI, at least I know that the phone will be supported for at least 4 years.
They will need to improve on their ecosystem commitments if they'd like people like me to switch back.
Google doesn't control what other vendors do; that's the beauty of open source. (You can argue how open Android really is these days but it's still more open than iOS.)
Pixel have other issue, quality control and run on Samsung exynos hardware with bad performance and connectivity.
I'd argue that Android is technically more open than iOS but in practice it isn't. Google have dark pattern and elaborated ways to get Android user to stay in the 'walled Google play service garden'.
Like when you install a third party store and Google play protect warns you it may be insecure.
Or having to press install for every app installed outside of the store, over and over.
The fact you can't get push notification without enabling the Google play services, which is the core framework of the Google data collection happening on every Android.
I have fdroid installed on a pixel and I didn't hit any warnings beyond needing to enable side loading. As for push notifications, if you are developing an app, you can build your own infrastructure for that or rent it from someone else. If you are concerned about google software you can, with effort, reflash with another OS.
All of the above either don't exist on iOS or only exists in the EU.
Personally I've never had issues with Samsung modems and I am honestly confused what people are doing with their phones that require high power CPUs.
Every product is going to have issues in one form or another. The question is which issues affect your personal use of the product. I'm too new to Pixel to comment on whether switching to it is a good or a bad thing in my case, but I have been happy with the trade-offs so far. Ironically, one of the reasons why I went with a Pixel was to avoid much of the Google software ecosystem.
My problem was that all the modern Samsung watches have a battery life that wont get you through the day without removing half it's features, and charging solutions that are unreliable. If half the time you want to use the watch it's dead, it stops being a product you place value on or even rely on. I found myself checking time on my phone, despite the watch being on the same hand I'd grab the phone with, because I could rely on my phone to show my something other than a dark mirror.
I used to have a gear sport, it was fine, held charge for 2-3 days, had more sensors, and was all around a good device, but all watches after were a massive step down, even if they moved from tizen to wear os.
I'll give wearables one more try if someone has a good device to recommend, but as it stands I'd prefer to just spend the extra second to pull out my phone, and for health metrics, wear a more discrete and longer battery life device.
A headphone jack is unfortunately a problem with a pixel. Otherwise I would still own one. I had a Pixel 1, then a pixel 3a, then Google decided to get rid of a basic feature that every phone should have. So I stopped buying them.
For everyday use, wireless headphones offer a superior experience simply due to the lack of a cable, and for the cases where an audio output is desired, it should be easy to connect the phone to an audio interface. Is any of this a problem in the Android ecosystem?
> For everyday use, wireless headphones offer a superior experience simply due to the lack of a cable
Surely this is offset by a) having to charge it and b) not being able to replace the battery when it dies
Not to mention a cable can be debugged easily; i don't even know which device my bluetooth headphones is connected to let alone why it's not working as expected.
I can’t believe, after so many YEARS, that people are still so hurt about the damn headphone jack. Even given the existence of adapters, some just won’t let it go and are willing to die on such a ridiculous hill. It’s like still being upset about computers not coming with CDROM drives anymore.
I've gone through like 3 of those for one of my other devices. They're way too easy to lose and sometimes they outright don't work. It's a product that should not have to exist in 2025.
I use my built-in headphone jack daily and would buy another phone if it went out.
I understand your frustration but I think the reality is that the vast majority of people simply do not use wired headphones, so it doesn't make financial sense for them to keep it.
The problem with a Pixel is the hardware is always a step or two behind what other vendors are doing at the same price point, and they tend to be weirdly buggy for a first-party device. For example the bug where Pixel phones are randomly unable to call emergency services has been happening for years and keeps regressing again and again.
I've been using Pixel 8 for nearly a year now and I agree that it's surprisingly buggy. Also, the chip is excessively power-hungry, especially for the performance it offers. In addition: the modem is bad and very power-hungry as well. And the cherry on top for me was the subpar fingerprint scanner. Can't recommend.
Buy a phone with an unlocked/unlockable bootloader, and use custom ROMs to stay up to date long after the manufacturer has stopped caring about support. Unlocked phones seem few and far between nowadays, but there's still some. Here's another not-so-subtle recommendation for the Google Pixel line.
I've been using a Moto X4 (8 years old!) with LineageOS for 6-7 years. I'll probably get an open box (for a discount) Pixel soon, and probably put GrapheneOS on it.
If you buy something from some other random manufacturer that is using the open source android code then yes you are going to have a different experience since they want to add their "special touch" which invariably is shite.
I wish Google would stick with a design paradigm for a bit for once.
It's not just their own apps that need updating, it's everyone else's, too. Most of which will never happen, so users are stuck in a hodgepodge of several generations of different design paradigms.
Material was fine. So was Material 2. So was Material 3. So is Material 3 Expressive, I guess. Just stick with something!
It's astonishing that anyone can say this with a straight face. Just unbelievable the effect Apple has on some people. Gruber finally getting disenfranchised. Eeven my most annoying/obsessive iOS-fan friends have admitted that they are jealous of my camera, my ability to do real multi-tasking, upload photos with the screen off, have the audio and BT audio work reliably. It's just stunning what some iOS users don't know.
I worked on a couple of Internet of Things projects 5-6 years ago, working on Android was a breeze with BLE, and other IoT protocols. iOS on the other hand, you’re lucky you can get a pairing even. But I’m sure this has been improved today.
> You can now customize Quick Settings to squeeze in more of your favorite actions like Flashlight and Do Not Disturb.
I feel I'm missing something. Hasn't customizing the quick settings been possible forever?
In fact the only thing preventing me from having the single tap Do Not Disturb in the quick settings is that these same UX people removed the option in the latest version of Android, and buried it in a "Modes" menu for no reason at all.
Super happy to have that back, but good grief, trying to pitch a rollback as an innovative new feature is pretty audacious.
An article that's not even 600 words long immediately offering to use AI to make itself even shorter has to be up there on the useless-AI-shit-for-the-sake-of-it leaderboard.
"This article describes yet another infuriating redesign by the Android design team who cannot seem to stick with a paradigm and improve it for more than a year before trashing it and doing something entirely new for no reason other than boredom."
"Big refresh" seems like an exaggeration compared to the overhauls Android has gotten in the past. These are pretty subtle design tweaks. Which is fine; I don't think Android particularly needs a huge overhaul at this point.
Given how much of a downgrade the last visual refresh was (Android 12 I think?), this is news I do not welcome. Anyone else remember the lock screen being a giant two line clock with no way to customize it, or the way the settings buttons got way bigger for no good reason? It was awful. I don't look forward to seeing what they will screw up this time.
Related to that lock screen "quirk", the latest UI/UX "feature" that bugs me no end is the fact that on Pixel phones you can't remove the Google search bar on the home screen... yet there is now a Gemini widget available that does much more useful things, so in order to use it, you'd have two full width horizontal bars on your home screen. I assume this is going to evolve with Android 16 releases, but it's a really dumb feature.
The Wear OS looks the most exciting here. I'm looking forward to a Pixel 4 Watch with a better battery life, having google maps and android app support.
This will be my last Pixel phone. I had the original and it was perfect. No fluff. Simple. Each version gets worse and worse. 7 is horrible. Still can't remove the stupid date from the home screen.
So many people I work with (in tech) were on Android for years, and all eventually switched to iOS.
My biggest issue with Google is they aren't convicted in anything they do. They just guess, or try 5 different things, and see what sticks. That makes it a mess for users, as the UX constantly changes.
I also can't understand why Google decided a circular face made sense for Wear. It's good for analogue watches, and garbage for everything else. Try reading a message where words are either cut off, or you're stuck basically using a square inside the circle. It makes no sense other than because Google didn't want to 'copy' Apple with the rectangular shape.
Google gave out the HTC Evo at I/O in 2010, which was what got me to switch to Android.
At the time, it had a much bigger screen than an iPhone and gave you more control over the device. It could play Flash games/apps, and let you use the apps/keyboards/etc you wanted without a company's blessing.
Apple is a lot more open now than they used to be, in ways that might have driven power users to Android before.
I'm curious, how would you say they're more open these days? I've always resisted iOS since I can't do the most basic thing on it which is install software independent of the manufacturer saying I can. If that changes I'd be interested, but do you think Apple is moving in that direction?
Funnily enough the first smartwatch that was interesting to me was a round watch, so I got the Pixel watch. I don't mind having the UI not being as usable (debatable), but I much rather have a nice looking watch, more like a classic watch. That's like, your and my opinion, everyone has their preferences.
> So many people I work with (in tech) were on Android for years, and all eventually switched to iOS.
There is a curious demographic of people that worked closely on/with Android in the early years that have a particularly extreme allergy to it today.
Sundar gets a lot of deserved stick, but Andy Rubin was no saint when it came to guiding development either, as demonstrated by the memory holed Skyhook fiasco. ( https://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/536913/google-android-sk... ) JBQ resigning from the AOSP really was the sign that true believers in the Android ecosystem are simply suckers.
It is such a missed opportunity it's unbelievable. iOS shouldn't be in contention at all.
Yeah, I agree. I have a Pixel Watch 3 and generally like the circular form factor. I wish they did more with it at times, but I feel like that's kinda what I'm seeing from the previews in the OP blog post
The thing that made me switch, funny enough, is the 'budget phone' category. The Moto G line and low-end Pixel line completely abandoned the "small, 200-300 dollar phone" segment. And so I got a brand new iphone SE for $200. Havent gone back, and probably wont at this point now that I've moved over and use the family plan for apple one etc.
Your comment seems out of date. There's no $200-300 iPhone anymore. iPhone 16e is the cheapest model I think? That's $600usd? But there are in fact $200-300 Moto phones still and new ones every year, with decent specs for the price and fairly close to stock Android OS. No, they dont have 6 or 7 year of OS upgrades, but that was never a realistic option in the budget Android phone market anyway. It would be unfair and inaccurate to Moto "abandoned" that low end market.
The Samsung A5x line usually goes towards 300 dollar/euro pretty quickly and e.g. the A56 get 6 years of updates. The Pixel 8a is currently 369 Euro in my country and has a long update cycle.
Just for reference, last year my friend bought a new Xiaomi 13T for $35 more (so +13%), which destroys this phone by every metric except synthetic CPU benchmarks. Apple really is heavily overpriced.
The catch being that's a phone from 2022. Sure, if that's acceptable. I was just referring to current models rather than models from multiple years ago
It outperforms samsung A5x series handily, has better battery life, better carrier support, has full warranty from apple, including same-day in-store service. Who cares what year it is from?
Storytime: my partner used to be a long time Samsung fan. She had the phone, tablet, headphones and watch and probably more gear that I don't even know about. Then she moved to Canada with me. Because of how poor the QA in their ecosystem is, after an update her latest-model Samsung watch couldn't pair with her one-year-old model Samsung phone, which severely diminished its usefulness (this was a heavily reported issue at the time). So we went to a mall and entered a store with big SAMSUNG logos everywhere, and were told to go skip rocks. They would not even touch the devices with the same logos they had on their shirts, because both the phone and the watch were bought in a different country.
There was an Apple store in that mall as well, so we walked in and asked "if we buy an apple product here, and there is an issue with it while we are in a different country, would they help us in an Apple store there". The answer was "well yeah of course why wouldn't they" with a "what's the catch" tone and raised eyebrow.
Needless to say she is now fully switched over. Even after two years, she gets delighted every now and then by how smooth the experience is. I recall many "LOL Samsung could never" events.
My current Pixel 6 is my last android phone due to the UX issues that keep piling up with every single update. Last one I noticed: Turning on bedtime mode is now double (2) the clicks it used to be.
I purchased a phone in a European country without an official Apple Store, so I bought it from a "Premium Authorized Apple Retailer." After one year, the phone broke. While in a different country, I visited an Apple Store to have it repaired under warranty. However, they informed me that I needed to return to the original store where I purchased it to activate the warranty.
My experience with Apple doesn't sound so different from yours.
Yes, in some European countries Apple doesn't have physical stores and relies on official partners for retail for physical stores. In some of these countries, you can still shop online on the official Apple store for that country. Major down side is you can't get Apple care at all.
The difference is my partner didn't buy her gadgets from a retailer. It was all from physical Samsung stores and under extended warranty. It sounds like an oversight on the retailers side that they didn't 'activate' your warranty for some reason.
But yeah, official stores and Apple Care not being available is a major downside, which is why I'm waiting until Im back to Canada to get an iPhone (it's also quite a bit cheaper on that side of the Atlantic).
One limitation I know of with Apple Care is that if you need to replace your device under warranty, they will need to mail it to you from the country of purchase, but you will get a temporary device while you wait for that. Samsung would never...
Here's a counterpoint: Apple has no official presence in my country and if you have any problems with their products, you will be told to go pound sand. This is in spite of them being significantly more expensive than in countries like the US (where they already cost at a premium).
On the other hand, a guy I know well bought a mid-tier consumer Samsung SSD in China a few years ago (970 Evo IIRC), run it into the ground doing video encoding pretty much non-stop, contacted the official Samsung retailer in our country asking for a replacement, and they seemed happy to accommodate him.
YMMV. From my point of view, Korean companies seem much more customer-oriented overall.
My fave issue is Android as the moment is when I try the Gemini app is automatically changes the default assistant app to Gemini. And since Gemini isn't an assistant app, it doesn't work for that :/
But on your topic, my partner has an iPhone and they disable all kinds of features and then wonder why nothing works smoothly. They have a Mac, and airpods, and still don't have anything working together effectively. Just through simple self sabotage
Differently-shaped buttons and more swoopy animations are not what Wear OS needs. Wear OS needs better information density and more attention to detail in interaction design and implementation rather than appearance. The whole thing feels like it was designed in After Effects and implemented to spec with no user feedback in the process at all.
I continue to strongly prefer the Pebble UI after all these years. It just does a much better job with the basics like notifications and alarms. it's not even close.
Another "big refresh". I've already disabled animations because of the faintly ridiculous system-wide overscroll effect [0] which makes every menu and webpage bounce like the viewport is made of gelatin, so I'm a little bemused to see them doubling down on "natural, springy animations". I know this is "old man yelling at cloud" of me, but I don't care for my notifications to "subtly respond" to adjacent ones being dragged.
Is what I have never, ever heard. I don't what to shit on designers, who also need to justify their job, but it would be cool to see some ACTUAL improvements to important things. Like battery life.
Wew, this is great and all, but when am I going to be able to disable the list of trending topics or search history in my search bar, or at least hide it entirely? Never? I have to learn about the spirit airlines emergency landing and some bs about the NFL even though I'm not even in that country? Idk that customization feels paramount if I can't control what I see as I'm using the device.
Looks seriously ugly but beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that's only my personal opinion.
Thankfully I won't ever get to see it anyway as majority Android vendors aren't using any of Google's UI stuff (my Oppo Find N5 basically looks iPhoney with ColorOS).
So really this should be titled "Google Pixel phones will be getting..."
Google is allergic to normal interfaces nowadays. Everything about Material when it rolled out rubbed me the wrong way, Rounded edges? Extra real estate? Everything is bubbles.
I'll take cold, basic, and data-full interfaces instead of the wasted real estate in the era of CSS-ifying every user interaction to death.
As an iOS user so many of the headline effects this Android update mentions seem to be already part of my iOS experience. Thus this seems to be catch ups to iOS.
In human–computer interaction, baby duck syndrome denotes the tendency for computer users to "imprint" on the first system they learn, then judge other systems by their similarity to that first system. The result is that "users generally prefer systems similar to those they learned on and dislike unfamiliar systems". The issue may present itself relatively early in a computer user's experience, and it has been observed to impede education of students in new software systems or user interfaces.
The number one issue I have with Android is that while this looks cool, because of the fragmentation of the OS delivery between vendors- I have no idea which phone or timeframe when I could see the rollout of Material 3 Expressive.
More than 10 years later, shopping for an Android phone with the latest OS is a nightmare. Android leadership keeps on getting shuffled around, Google changes priorities every 6 months it seems. Despite Apple flubbing the ball on AI, at least I know that the phone will be supported for at least 4 years.
They will need to improve on their ecosystem commitments if they'd like people like me to switch back.
If you care about always having the latest software with the latest Google features just get a Pixel. 7 years of OS and security updates: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en
Google doesn't control what other vendors do; that's the beauty of open source. (You can argue how open Android really is these days but it's still more open than iOS.)
Pixel have other issue, quality control and run on Samsung exynos hardware with bad performance and connectivity.
I'd argue that Android is technically more open than iOS but in practice it isn't. Google have dark pattern and elaborated ways to get Android user to stay in the 'walled Google play service garden'.
Like when you install a third party store and Google play protect warns you it may be insecure.
Or having to press install for every app installed outside of the store, over and over.
The fact you can't get push notification without enabling the Google play services, which is the core framework of the Google data collection happening on every Android.
I have fdroid installed on a pixel and I didn't hit any warnings beyond needing to enable side loading. As for push notifications, if you are developing an app, you can build your own infrastructure for that or rent it from someone else. If you are concerned about google software you can, with effort, reflash with another OS.
All of the above either don't exist on iOS or only exists in the EU.
Personally I've never had issues with Samsung modems and I am honestly confused what people are doing with their phones that require high power CPUs.
It's been years since the performance of any high-end phone SoC has felt like a bottleneck and the Pixel 9 modem has been very good.
> Pixel have other issue
Every product is going to have issues in one form or another. The question is which issues affect your personal use of the product. I'm too new to Pixel to comment on whether switching to it is a good or a bad thing in my case, but I have been happy with the trade-offs so far. Ironically, one of the reasons why I went with a Pixel was to avoid much of the Google software ecosystem.
> that's the beauty of open source
Many would argue that that kind of fragmentation is also its biggest downfall.
What happens when one of those updates bricks your battery so it only lasts an hour or so off charger?
They replaced my battery free of charge when they did that.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted, considering that this actually happened:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/01/google-pixel-4as-rui...
My problem was that all the modern Samsung watches have a battery life that wont get you through the day without removing half it's features, and charging solutions that are unreliable. If half the time you want to use the watch it's dead, it stops being a product you place value on or even rely on. I found myself checking time on my phone, despite the watch being on the same hand I'd grab the phone with, because I could rely on my phone to show my something other than a dark mirror.
I used to have a gear sport, it was fine, held charge for 2-3 days, had more sensors, and was all around a good device, but all watches after were a massive step down, even if they moved from tizen to wear os.
I'll give wearables one more try if someone has a good device to recommend, but as it stands I'd prefer to just spend the extra second to pull out my phone, and for health metrics, wear a more discrete and longer battery life device.
Buying a Pixel phone seems pretty easy? I rarely upgrade and stopped looking at the others.
> I have no idea which phone or timeframe when I could see the rollout of Material 3 Expressive.
Not a problem with a pixel
> More than 10 years later, shopping for an Android phone with the latest OS is a nightmare
Not a problem with a pixel
> They will need to improve on their ecosystem commitments
Not a problem with a pixel
A headphone jack is unfortunately a problem with a pixel. Otherwise I would still own one. I had a Pixel 1, then a pixel 3a, then Google decided to get rid of a basic feature that every phone should have. So I stopped buying them.
For everyday use, wireless headphones offer a superior experience simply due to the lack of a cable, and for the cases where an audio output is desired, it should be easy to connect the phone to an audio interface. Is any of this a problem in the Android ecosystem?
> For everyday use, wireless headphones offer a superior experience simply due to the lack of a cable
Surely this is offset by a) having to charge it and b) not being able to replace the battery when it dies
Not to mention a cable can be debugged easily; i don't even know which device my bluetooth headphones is connected to let alone why it's not working as expected.
Also no microSD slot. Decent internal storage, but the ability to expand, swap, and pull from a dead phone shouldn't be underestimated.
Same here. Would still have a Pixel, but I'm not giving up my choice of headphones.
You don't have to, you can still use headphones with a USB-C adapter.
I can’t believe, after so many YEARS, that people are still so hurt about the damn headphone jack. Even given the existence of adapters, some just won’t let it go and are willing to die on such a ridiculous hill. It’s like still being upset about computers not coming with CDROM drives anymore.
It all went to shit when they removed the floppy drive.
I've gone through like 3 of those for one of my other devices. They're way too easy to lose and sometimes they outright don't work. It's a product that should not have to exist in 2025.
I use my built-in headphone jack daily and would buy another phone if it went out.
I understand your frustration but I think the reality is that the vast majority of people simply do not use wired headphones, so it doesn't make financial sense for them to keep it.
The problem with a Pixel is the hardware is always a step or two behind what other vendors are doing at the same price point, and they tend to be weirdly buggy for a first-party device. For example the bug where Pixel phones are randomly unable to call emergency services has been happening for years and keeps regressing again and again.
2021 https://www.vice.com/en/article/google-pixel-bug-prevented-u...
2022 https://old.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/y039zn/i_compi...
2023 https://www.androidauthority.com/psa-google-pixel-911-emerge...
2024 https://old.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/1ano09x/pixel_...
I've been using Pixel 8 for nearly a year now and I agree that it's surprisingly buggy. Also, the chip is excessively power-hungry, especially for the performance it offers. In addition: the modem is bad and very power-hungry as well. And the cherry on top for me was the subpar fingerprint scanner. Can't recommend.
Not a problem with an iphone
The walled garden is a problem with an iPhone. The OS treating me like a toddler is another.
Buy a phone with an unlocked/unlockable bootloader, and use custom ROMs to stay up to date long after the manufacturer has stopped caring about support. Unlocked phones seem few and far between nowadays, but there's still some. Here's another not-so-subtle recommendation for the Google Pixel line.
I've been using a Moto X4 (8 years old!) with LineageOS for 6-7 years. I'll probably get an open box (for a discount) Pixel soon, and probably put GrapheneOS on it.
> at least I know that the phone will be supported for at least 4 years
It's 4 (mid) to 7 years (flagship) for Samsung.
https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-android-updates-114...
Just get the Google Pixel phones?
If you buy something from some other random manufacturer that is using the open source android code then yes you are going to have a different experience since they want to add their "special touch" which invariably is shite.
I wish Google would stick with a design paradigm for a bit for once.
It's not just their own apps that need updating, it's everyone else's, too. Most of which will never happen, so users are stuck in a hodgepodge of several generations of different design paradigms.
Material was fine. So was Material 2. So was Material 3. So is Material 3 Expressive, I guess. Just stick with something!
They've been copying iOS for years, time to bring some of that Windows "consistency" into the mix.
To be fair, as of late, iOS has been copying Android more than the other way around - think notifications and widgets.
Those were both more than 10 years ago.
And both from WebOS.
Not really, the proper widgets people mean were introduced in iOS 14 which was 5 years ago.
It's astonishing that anyone can say this with a straight face. Just unbelievable the effect Apple has on some people. Gruber finally getting disenfranchised. Eeven my most annoying/obsessive iOS-fan friends have admitted that they are jealous of my camera, my ability to do real multi-tasking, upload photos with the screen off, have the audio and BT audio work reliably. It's just stunning what some iOS users don't know.
Do you think that audio (or bluetooth) doesn't work reliably on ios? Why?
I worked on a couple of Internet of Things projects 5-6 years ago, working on Android was a breeze with BLE, and other IoT protocols. iOS on the other hand, you’re lucky you can get a pairing even. But I’m sure this has been improved today.
Current "material design" is the anthesis of what "material design" was originally supposed to be.
Which was what exactly? I always felt they had a nebulous definition
> You can now customize Quick Settings to squeeze in more of your favorite actions like Flashlight and Do Not Disturb.
I feel I'm missing something. Hasn't customizing the quick settings been possible forever?
In fact the only thing preventing me from having the single tap Do Not Disturb in the quick settings is that these same UX people removed the option in the latest version of Android, and buried it in a "Modes" menu for no reason at all.
Super happy to have that back, but good grief, trying to pitch a rollback as an innovative new feature is pretty audacious.
You can expand or shrink every tile now instead of only being able to swap position of the tiles. So more tiles per page.
An article that's not even 600 words long immediately offering to use AI to make itself even shorter has to be up there on the useless-AI-shit-for-the-sake-of-it leaderboard.
"This article describes yet another infuriating redesign by the Android design team who cannot seem to stick with a paradigm and improve it for more than a year before trashing it and doing something entirely new for no reason other than boredom."
Android Kiki to Android Bouba evolution:
From square icons and sharp Roboto to blobby amoeba-shaped designs and rounded fonts.
Also, Chile mentioned!
"Big refresh" seems like an exaggeration compared to the overhauls Android has gotten in the past. These are pretty subtle design tweaks. Which is fine; I don't think Android particularly needs a huge overhaul at this point.
I actually thinks this looks great as a current iOS user. Apple's latest software quality (or lack of it) has made me want to try out Android again.
Looks good. I’m happy. Now if they can please change their apps icons to not all look the same, that would be really nice.
It looks nice visually, I just hope they don't add more gesture shortcuts I can't disable
Given how much of a downgrade the last visual refresh was (Android 12 I think?), this is news I do not welcome. Anyone else remember the lock screen being a giant two line clock with no way to customize it, or the way the settings buttons got way bigger for no good reason? It was awful. I don't look forward to seeing what they will screw up this time.
Related to that lock screen "quirk", the latest UI/UX "feature" that bugs me no end is the fact that on Pixel phones you can't remove the Google search bar on the home screen... yet there is now a Gemini widget available that does much more useful things, so in order to use it, you'd have two full width horizontal bars on your home screen. I assume this is going to evolve with Android 16 releases, but it's a really dumb feature.
The Wear OS looks the most exciting here. I'm looking forward to a Pixel 4 Watch with a better battery life, having google maps and android app support.
This will be my last Pixel phone. I had the original and it was perfect. No fluff. Simple. Each version gets worse and worse. 7 is horrible. Still can't remove the stupid date from the home screen.
that annoyed me as well (pixel 8a)
but i just switched to my go-to launcher, Nova. I've used it quite a bit over the last years.
Wasn't Nova sold to some advertising company?
So many people I work with (in tech) were on Android for years, and all eventually switched to iOS.
My biggest issue with Google is they aren't convicted in anything they do. They just guess, or try 5 different things, and see what sticks. That makes it a mess for users, as the UX constantly changes.
I also can't understand why Google decided a circular face made sense for Wear. It's good for analogue watches, and garbage for everything else. Try reading a message where words are either cut off, or you're stuck basically using a square inside the circle. It makes no sense other than because Google didn't want to 'copy' Apple with the rectangular shape.
Still on Android.
All the Apple gear I use belongs to my employer.
You should listen to some Apple development podcasts, grass is not so green on the other side.
There are also plenty of unfinished things, some of them have turned into memes by now.
Google gave out the HTC Evo at I/O in 2010, which was what got me to switch to Android.
At the time, it had a much bigger screen than an iPhone and gave you more control over the device. It could play Flash games/apps, and let you use the apps/keyboards/etc you wanted without a company's blessing.
Apple is a lot more open now than they used to be, in ways that might have driven power users to Android before.
I'm curious, how would you say they're more open these days? I've always resisted iOS since I can't do the most basic thing on it which is install software independent of the manufacturer saying I can. If that changes I'd be interested, but do you think Apple is moving in that direction?
They are, but I'll not be fully convinced until there's a Graphene OS equivalent for iOS.
Funnily enough the first smartwatch that was interesting to me was a round watch, so I got the Pixel watch. I don't mind having the UI not being as usable (debatable), but I much rather have a nice looking watch, more like a classic watch. That's like, your and my opinion, everyone has their preferences.
> So many people I work with (in tech) were on Android for years, and all eventually switched to iOS.
There is a curious demographic of people that worked closely on/with Android in the early years that have a particularly extreme allergy to it today.
Sundar gets a lot of deserved stick, but Andy Rubin was no saint when it came to guiding development either, as demonstrated by the memory holed Skyhook fiasco. ( https://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/536913/google-android-sk... ) JBQ resigning from the AOSP really was the sign that true believers in the Android ecosystem are simply suckers.
It is such a missed opportunity it's unbelievable. iOS shouldn't be in contention at all.
I like circular face on my Garmin Venu. Almost all their watches are round and circle'ish UI flow is used a lot in their OS.
Yeah, I agree. I have a Pixel Watch 3 and generally like the circular form factor. I wish they did more with it at times, but I feel like that's kinda what I'm seeing from the previews in the OP blog post
The thing that made me switch, funny enough, is the 'budget phone' category. The Moto G line and low-end Pixel line completely abandoned the "small, 200-300 dollar phone" segment. And so I got a brand new iphone SE for $200. Havent gone back, and probably wont at this point now that I've moved over and use the family plan for apple one etc.
Your comment seems out of date. There's no $200-300 iPhone anymore. iPhone 16e is the cheapest model I think? That's $600usd? But there are in fact $200-300 Moto phones still and new ones every year, with decent specs for the price and fairly close to stock Android OS. No, they dont have 6 or 7 year of OS upgrades, but that was never a realistic option in the budget Android phone market anyway. It would be unfair and inaccurate to Moto "abandoned" that low end market.
The Samsung A5x line usually goes towards 300 dollar/euro pretty quickly and e.g. the A56 get 6 years of updates. The Pixel 8a is currently 369 Euro in my country and has a long update cycle.
These show as $270 new https://swappa.com/listings/apple-iphone-se-3rd-gen-2022?car...
Just for reference, last year my friend bought a new Xiaomi 13T for $35 more (so +13%), which destroys this phone by every metric except synthetic CPU benchmarks. Apple really is heavily overpriced.
https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=11410&idPhone...
(Prices listed by GSMArena have no relation to reality for both models.)
The catch being that's a phone from 2022. Sure, if that's acceptable. I was just referring to current models rather than models from multiple years ago
It outperforms samsung A5x series handily, has better battery life, better carrier support, has full warranty from apple, including same-day in-store service. Who cares what year it is from?
Storytime: my partner used to be a long time Samsung fan. She had the phone, tablet, headphones and watch and probably more gear that I don't even know about. Then she moved to Canada with me. Because of how poor the QA in their ecosystem is, after an update her latest-model Samsung watch couldn't pair with her one-year-old model Samsung phone, which severely diminished its usefulness (this was a heavily reported issue at the time). So we went to a mall and entered a store with big SAMSUNG logos everywhere, and were told to go skip rocks. They would not even touch the devices with the same logos they had on their shirts, because both the phone and the watch were bought in a different country.
There was an Apple store in that mall as well, so we walked in and asked "if we buy an apple product here, and there is an issue with it while we are in a different country, would they help us in an Apple store there". The answer was "well yeah of course why wouldn't they" with a "what's the catch" tone and raised eyebrow.
Needless to say she is now fully switched over. Even after two years, she gets delighted every now and then by how smooth the experience is. I recall many "LOL Samsung could never" events.
My current Pixel 6 is my last android phone due to the UX issues that keep piling up with every single update. Last one I noticed: Turning on bedtime mode is now double (2) the clicks it used to be.
I purchased a phone in a European country without an official Apple Store, so I bought it from a "Premium Authorized Apple Retailer." After one year, the phone broke. While in a different country, I visited an Apple Store to have it repaired under warranty. However, they informed me that I needed to return to the original store where I purchased it to activate the warranty.
My experience with Apple doesn't sound so different from yours.
Yes, in some European countries Apple doesn't have physical stores and relies on official partners for retail for physical stores. In some of these countries, you can still shop online on the official Apple store for that country. Major down side is you can't get Apple care at all.
The difference is my partner didn't buy her gadgets from a retailer. It was all from physical Samsung stores and under extended warranty. It sounds like an oversight on the retailers side that they didn't 'activate' your warranty for some reason.
But yeah, official stores and Apple Care not being available is a major downside, which is why I'm waiting until Im back to Canada to get an iPhone (it's also quite a bit cheaper on that side of the Atlantic).
One limitation I know of with Apple Care is that if you need to replace your device under warranty, they will need to mail it to you from the country of purchase, but you will get a temporary device while you wait for that. Samsung would never...
Here's a counterpoint: Apple has no official presence in my country and if you have any problems with their products, you will be told to go pound sand. This is in spite of them being significantly more expensive than in countries like the US (where they already cost at a premium).
On the other hand, a guy I know well bought a mid-tier consumer Samsung SSD in China a few years ago (970 Evo IIRC), run it into the ground doing video encoding pretty much non-stop, contacted the official Samsung retailer in our country asking for a replacement, and they seemed happy to accommodate him.
YMMV. From my point of view, Korean companies seem much more customer-oriented overall.
My fave issue is Android as the moment is when I try the Gemini app is automatically changes the default assistant app to Gemini. And since Gemini isn't an assistant app, it doesn't work for that :/
But on your topic, my partner has an iPhone and they disable all kinds of features and then wonder why nothing works smoothly. They have a Mac, and airpods, and still don't have anything working together effectively. Just through simple self sabotage
Differently-shaped buttons and more swoopy animations are not what Wear OS needs. Wear OS needs better information density and more attention to detail in interaction design and implementation rather than appearance. The whole thing feels like it was designed in After Effects and implemented to spec with no user feedback in the process at all.
I continue to strongly prefer the Pebble UI after all these years. It just does a much better job with the basics like notifications and alarms. it's not even close.
Another "big refresh". I've already disabled animations because of the faintly ridiculous system-wide overscroll effect [0] which makes every menu and webpage bounce like the viewport is made of gelatin, so I'm a little bemused to see them doubling down on "natural, springy animations". I know this is "old man yelling at cloud" of me, but I don't care for my notifications to "subtly respond" to adjacent ones being dragged.
[0] https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/83355
That's one of the first things I do with a new phone. Want to make a phone feel sluggish? Wait on all the stupid transition animations designers made
> Man, I wish my Android had 'better' UI
Is what I have never, ever heard. I don't what to shit on designers, who also need to justify their job, but it would be cool to see some ACTUAL improvements to important things. Like battery life.
Wew, this is great and all, but when am I going to be able to disable the list of trending topics or search history in my search bar, or at least hide it entirely? Never? I have to learn about the spirit airlines emergency landing and some bs about the NFL even though I'm not even in that country? Idk that customization feels paramount if I can't control what I see as I'm using the device.
We keep making the screens bigger to make the interfaces even more dumbed down and stupid.
Are we in Idiocracy at this point or what, Google?
Some of you fuckers need to go pick back up The Zen of Palm and re-read it because y'all have no idea what you're shipping these days in comparison.
https://archive.org/details/zen-of-palm
Looks seriously ugly but beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that's only my personal opinion. Thankfully I won't ever get to see it anyway as majority Android vendors aren't using any of Google's UI stuff (my Oppo Find N5 basically looks iPhoney with ColorOS). So really this should be titled "Google Pixel phones will be getting..."
Google is allergic to normal interfaces nowadays. Everything about Material when it rolled out rubbed me the wrong way, Rounded edges? Extra real estate? Everything is bubbles.
I'll take cold, basic, and data-full interfaces instead of the wasted real estate in the era of CSS-ifying every user interaction to death.
data-full interfaces on my small ass phone screen? no thanks!
I wish Google would sponsor or create incentives to motivate devs to support wearos. There is very little useful apps on it.
i like the changes are coming but i wish they didn't remove the old look
I mean... what if i prefer the older version of the UI? my only option is a different launcher or not updating
Looks like shit. It seems that on every UI/UX update, Google products become shittier.
I'll keep using Android anyway because I find Apple UI/UX even more disgusting.
Smartphones don't matter anyway. What most people do in high end devices can be done in mid-tier or even shit-tier devices too.
I kinda want to know what you do for a living.
Great job! for shipping this and Great job! for presentation.
As an iOS user so many of the headline effects this Android update mentions seem to be already part of my iOS experience. Thus this seems to be catch ups to iOS.
In human–computer interaction, baby duck syndrome denotes the tendency for computer users to "imprint" on the first system they learn, then judge other systems by their similarity to that first system. The result is that "users generally prefer systems similar to those they learned on and dislike unfamiliar systems". The issue may present itself relatively early in a computer user's experience, and it has been observed to impede education of students in new software systems or user interfaces.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprinting_(psychology)#Baby...
Are you gonna clarify at all how this is relevant to the original article...?
When I posted it, a lot of replies were from people disliking the changes. I thought my reply would be interesting for those who noticed it too.
No, because their first experience in online discussion was slashdot. They are forever bound to that now.