I've been using Android since version 2 and for most of the time since about 4/5 I feel it's been getting worse, not better. With every new phone there are more things to disable or work around or re-learn or just plain live with the irritation of.
It seems Google is still trying to chase Apple when it comes to UI but if I wanted an Apple UI I'd be using one already, and I don't. I only hope Linux (yes yes, Android is Linux, but you know what I mean) is ready for day-to-day use on phones by the time Android finally becomes too horrible to use, much as it has become on the desktop fairly recently as Win10 nears EOL.
If Google is chasing Apple’s UX, I’m not sure they’re going a very good job. As someone who regularly uses iOS and Android, loads of little bits of Android UX are irritating enough that I can’t see Android becoming my primary mobile platform.
That’s funny, because as someone who just switched from Android to iPhone i feel the opposite. Android nails some basics that iOS really misses on, like notification handling and gestures.
Notifications I can take or leave, they’re not really too important for my usage. In fact most just get sequestered into morning/evening summaries if they’re enabled at all.
Gestures and UI animations on Android feel weird to me though. Compared to those of iOS, gestures feel “disconnected” from somehow (something to do with touch tracking) and the animation curves feel more mechanical and less organic.
> I only hope Linux (yes yes, Android is Linux, but you know what I mean) is ready for day-to-day use on phones
I'm not sure what you mean. Are you talking about having a typical desktop Linux distribution on the phone (eg: Ubuntu, Arch) instead of an OS that is made for a phone? What is wrong with something like LineageOS or other alternatives?
The names didn't come to mind while I was bashing out the previous post, but kind of - Mobian, PureOS, Ubuntu Touch, Postmarket, etc. (Though I have zero interest in using a command line or editing config files on a touch screen, so hopefully a little more polished than desktop Linux.)
Lineage is a great version of Android, but it tracks AOSP so it's always (I think?) going to be a fork of whatever Google is doing and probably won't diverge massively from wherever mainstream Android goes.
I'm pretty much in the same boat, all my smartphones have been Android phones and I was always excited to see what changed from version to version because Google had a good track record. I didn't agree with every change but for me, the change from Android 11 to 12 was unbelievably mindboggling, and a complete change of pace from everything before. And worst of all, you could not disable everything I list:
- Everything suddenly had to be a large round button which took up more space than necessary. The notifications + quick options menu in particular became suddenly bloated. In particular the keyboard press preview when from neat little rectangles to large distracting circles to the point where I had to turn it off.
- A ton of transparent elements were removed with a simple black box, which removed a sense of continuity when using my phone. Dragging down my notifications didn't show me the app in the background, and switching between apps didn't show my wallpaper in the background. It might seem minor, but it's such an odd change to make after so long and I struggle to see why Google decided to remove the ability to see everything behind the notifications menu.
- Android 12's UI colour schemes were suddenly dictated by your phone's wallpaper, but the palettes are a selection of garish pastel colours. Until Android 13 toned it back a bit I was reliant on using a monochrome wallpaper to have the notifications menu (now a screen-filling behemoth) not be a selection of greens.
- Google introduced a stretchy rubber effect when scrolling through everything which to me was suddenly jarring (especially when it'd break at the bottom of a page or while holding my finger in place). I clearly remember it being the first thing I tried to disable, but the only option that seemed to stop it was to remove animations as a whole.
- Google removed the old split screen feature and replaced it with a less functional "app pairs" system. Before Android 12 you could pin any app to the top half of your screen and switch around other apps on the bottom half, a great feature if you wanted to multitask or simply wanted to watch a YouTube video while jumping between browsing the web and messaging friends. With the new app pairs system, you can only split the screen between two select apps, and you need them both to be open before you attempt it - if you want to swap out the bottom app, you have to unpair the two apps and repair the top app with a different one, which just seems worse in almost every way. It made attempting to multitask a nightmare which takes up a lot more time than it requires[1] - and despite multiple complaints for the last few years, Google hasn't commented on it whatsoever[2]. It also generally coincided with when Google made YouTube Premium let you watch videos in a window or in the background on mobile.
Again as someone who's always liked Android and was excited about new updates, I've hit the point where I can't bring myself to look at anything new because of all the recent decisions, UI changes, and introducing confusingly odd features which I don't have the ability to disable or customise to my liking.
I really wonder sometimes how many of the decision makers on Android products are actually using iphones. That would be a great statistic to know. I'll bet it's higher than we would like. And I would likewise bet the number of iphone decision makers using android is at or near zero.
I haven't yet met a designer who understands the concept (let alone the merit) of Android's universal "back" button, I think almost everyone involved in "UX" decisions anywhere is an Apple user at this point in time.
It seems Google is still trying to chase Apple when it comes to UI but if I wanted an Apple UI I'd be using one already, and I don't. I only hope Linux (yes yes, Android is Linux, but you know what I mean) is ready for day-to-day use on phones by the time Android finally becomes too horrible to use, much as it has become on the desktop fairly recently as Win10 nears EOL.