Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Android 12

android.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 131 posts

Re: Android 12

#101

Post by reayn »

handrous wrote: post #97
reayn wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I've found Apple's slow and steady approach to additions in the iOS UI to be more pleasant than not. I will admit I've only been using iPhones since iOS 10 but have mostly only noticed improvements since then (e.g. the new control panel, amazing animations, app library). Widgets, as well, have been a deal breaker for me, what makes you dislike them? The only real problem I have with iOS as a whole right now i…

I like iOS devices as a slab of glass & metal that becomes various tools (apps). Since there's nothing else that operates that way, the more it becomes like a general-purpose OS, the farther we get from having anything available that behaves that way. The shock of the move from 6 to 7 was pretty large. 6: "slide to unlock" slider that looked like a physical slider-latch, like one you might slide to unlock a container…

I like the idea of having iOS as just a portal to a bunch of your apps, but I think saying something like this would've made much more sense 5+ years ago. Nowadays, 99% of people see their phones are far, far more. Whether that is a good or bad thing depends on the person i guess.

> 7: "swipe to unlock" in thin text on... the background? So what do I swipe? Oh, the screen itself...

I can already detect what is probably a massive difference in technical literacy and age between us but I'll humor myself anyways. I still have an iPhone 3g lying around with the old physical looking slider and while i do agree it made more sense than just swiping up from the background, our great UX overloads at basically every phone company around the release of iOS 7 probably decided that just swiping on the background was more aesthetic and "modern".

Now that I think about it, the same could probably be said for just about any major mobile UI change over the past few years.

Also regarding what you said about the move from a physical home button, I am torn here, I like both approaches very much (as someone who has an iPhone SE and a 13 mini on hand) and can't really decide which is better. Though I will admit that once you really master the fully gesture based UX of newer iOS releases, it is just a tad but more efficient, if less "sensible" overall.

I still do wish Apple made a flagship alternative iphone which was just an 8 plus but with the latest and greatest chip and screen and battery and whatnot but with classic old look and feel, I have no doubt it would sell pretty well too.

> Overall it's just far less relaxing and straightforward than it used to be.

I genuinely believe this is by design, these products (both software and hardware) are being sold to people who already know what's been going on for the most part (and in the case of newbies, this is what they are first introduced to so they never even knew there was another reality) and can easily adapt to the new interface changes. In practice, I remember people being frustrated about the iPhone X's gesture based interface but Apple has improved it to the point where no one really mentions it anymore, it's just a part of the refined iOS experience now i guess.

> Swiping the screen up from the bottom is not a complete replacement for that.

Last note, you have to at least acknowledge that it's mad satisfying to do so, if a little unnatural at first.

Re: Android 12

#102

Post by thiht »

The new accessibility features seem pretty cool. But this design is awful, and these widgets are the worst I’ve ever seen. The clock widget in particular is just… ugly? Wtf, why do they seem so proud of this monstrosity, sticking it everywhere they can?

Re: Android 12

#103

Post by procinct »

unixhero wrote: post #87
Ocha wrote: post #82

Last time I used android it was version 4.1 boasting how it improved responsiveness of the system. Here we are with Android 12 still trying to improve responsiveness and smoothness of the system...

It is really good and has been like forever. You of course have to spend equal amounts as for an iPhone to get a high end experience, and it was like that back then as well. Many people failed to understand this and bought shitty underpowered handhelds, and blamed Android for being laggy.

I had high end Android devices up to Android 7 and still experienced lagging and stuttering. It was clear there were optimisation issues with the software that couldn’t be solved by throwing hardware at.

Re: Android 12

#104

Post by kiwijamo »

procinct wrote: post #103
unixhero wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really good and has been like forever. You of course have to spend equal amounts as for an iPhone to get a high end experience, and it was like that back then as well. Many people failed to understand this and bought shitty underpowered handhelds, and blamed Android for being laggy.

I had high end Android devices up to Android 7 and still experienced lagging and stuttering. It was clear there were optimisation issues with the software that couldn’t be solved by throwing hardware at.

Agree. I have a Samsung S21 which is supposed to be top of the range and I occasionally experience such poor performance that wouldn't be tolerated on a lower end iPhone. Android is really a mixed bag even on high end device. Sometimes it just flies then next minute it lags and stutters so badly...in the same app doing exactly the same thing. I only stay on Android due to pretty much a single app that's not available in iOS, otherwise I would be using an iPhone. They're not perfect but gosh iPhones are so much more polished, consistent and at least reasonably quick/smooth even if you have older/lower end devices.

Re: Android 12

#105

Post by kiwijamo »

vb6sp6 wrote: post #85
Ocha wrote: post #82

Last time I used android it was version 4.1 boasting how it improved responsiveness of the system. Here we are with Android 12 still trying to improve responsiveness and smoothness of the system...

I feel like this has been solved for a while now (at least on pixel devices in my experience)

Performance is still variable on Samsung/Xioami devices in my experience. I have a Samsung S21 which can be really fast one minute and stuttering the next. Possibly it's better on Google's own devices.

Re: Android 12

#106

Post by TranquilMarmot »

MMS21 wrote: post #34

Still no full system backup like iOS

What kind of stuff does iOS back up that Android doesn't?

On Android, all of my photos are backed up to Google Photos. Most games use Google Play's cloud save system. All of my notes are in Google Keep or Google Docs (or Notion) which all are backed up in the cloud. Whenever you switch phones, you can easily select a list of all the apps you want to install and _most_ of them have data backed up automatically.

I think literally the only stuff on my phone that isn't backed up is local files (downloads etc.) but those could easily just be saved to Google Drive instead of on-device.

Re: Android 12

#107

Post by MBCook »

hammock wrote: post #67
no_time wrote: post #20

Looks like grandparent mode is enabled by default with all the whitespace and even lower information density. What's the endgame? In 20 years only a single letter at a time on the screen? >Any information processed in Private Compute Core requires explicit user action before it can be shared with Google (...) If they know everything about the data going in and coming out it's still useless. Also what important APIs d…

>Looks like grandparent mode is enabled by default with all the whitespace and even lower information density. What's the endgame? In 20 years only a single letter at a time on the screen? Just playing to their customer. As time goes on, the demographics of Android users get older and less savvy as everyone else switches to iPhone. (not snark, I have a Pixel myself)

Are they? Or is it change for change’s sake. If it looks like it did the last 5 years it looks “old” so you have to do something.

They did this. It’s trendy. Later they’ll “discover” information density and go in the other direction.

Re: Android 12

#108

Post by MBCook »

kiwijamo wrote: post #104
procinct wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had high end Android devices up to Android 7 and still experienced lagging and stuttering. It was clear there were optimisation issues with the software that couldn’t be solved by throwing hardware at.

Agree. I have a Samsung S21 which is supposed to be top of the range and I occasionally experience such poor performance that wouldn't be tolerated on a lower end iPhone. Android is really a mixed bag even on high end device. Sometimes it just flies then next minute it lags and stutters so badly...in the same app doing exactly the same thing. I only stay on Android due to pretty much a single app that's not available…

Ever since iOS 15 came out I’ve been getting small stutters in CarPlay. I’m on an iPhone 12 Pro so it’s not a hardware speed issue.

You know what? You’re right. It sticks out like a sore thumb because it’s so different from my normal experience. I’m used to some 3rd party apps being terrible but not the OS itself.

(Never used Android for more than 5 minutes, can’t comment there)

Re: Android 12

#109

Post by hammyhavoc »

thomasahle wrote: post #63
no_time wrote: post #20

Looks like grandparent mode is enabled by default with all the whitespace and even lower information density. What's the endgame? In 20 years only a single letter at a time on the screen? >Any information processed in Private Compute Core requires explicit user action before it can be shared with Google (...) If they know everything about the data going in and coming out it's still useless. Also what important APIs d…

> all the whitespace and even lower information density. What's the endgame? I don't think fashion has an endgame.

Whitespace so hot right now.

Re: Android 12

#110

Post by hammyhavoc »

TOMDM wrote: post #12
nly wrote: post #9

Anyone else just stopped keeping track of what version of Android their phone is on? I used to know this stuff, but these days couldn't care less.

For real. For me smartphones are just good enough. They all take nice pictures, they're all fast enough, they all have a nice screen, nice touch controls and nice UI. It just doesn't matter as much anymore. The only thing on here that made me go "oh cool" is the extra dim mode, my 4a really likes scorching my retinas at night.

How are you doing in terms of security patches? On a Nokia 5.3 in the Android One certified program, and it's still on the May 2021 security patch. Go figure.
Post reply on HN