Android and Wear OS are getting a redesign • Hacker News Board

Re: Android and Wear OS are getting a redesign

#131

Post by ngangaga » Wed, May 14, 2025, 2:01 PM UTC

microtonal wrote: post #109

ngangaga wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So? Get the 10 Euro/Dollar Apple USB-C to stereo connector? Works with other phones as well and supposedly has an acceptable DAC. If you really want to charge at the same time and wireless charging is not acceptable, there are also some companies that make small connectors with USB-C power in and stereo out. The reason the jack is gone is that the vast majority of people use wireless buds or headphones. It's the smar…

Nah, I've broken like three of those things and I just resent having another thing to carry around. I've just given up on using wired headphones for the most part with my phone. I just don't know why they thought it was desired to remove in the first place; I've had other waterproof headphones with a jack.

But, I also don't generally expect apple to make consumer-friendly decisions. The headphone jack invokes about 1/100th the rage that using the app store does.

Re: Android and Wear OS are getting a redesign

#132

Post by ranger_danger » Wed, May 14, 2025, 3:10 PM UTC

alpaca128 wrote: post #120

ranger_danger wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then why do they keep it in Macbooks if it makes no sense? To repeat excuses in this thread, people could just use an external DAC if they like cables so much. Comparisons with CD drives I see here are absurd, those drives actually take up a massive amount of space, are obsolete and used by almost no one anymore. Meanwhile headphone jacks are still very widely used. To the people saying "just use an adapter" I would…

I was referring to phones not having headphone jacks, there are still other uses for it on laptop/desktop that I think are more widely used.

> not a very convincing argument

I still believe it either way, but you don't have to.

> If so many people are still complaining about it

I don't think they are, at least not so many relative to the majority of phone users in the world. Tech savvy users are a rounding error in the grand scheme of things.

Re: Android and Wear OS are getting a redesign

#133

Post by the_sleaze_ » Wed, May 14, 2025, 3:11 PM UTC

Am I the only one who -hates- these springy animations? I feel it introduces an artificial lag. When I tap I want instant response, I don't want to have to wait a half second for the boxes to complete their scale transforms.

My canonical example is deleting message threads out of iOS Messages app. For every row in the list you need to swipe allll the way over to the left, wait for the stupid animation, click delete, wait for the stupid animation, click the confirm. Maybe it would improve if the component was responsive during its animation cycle. But ugh.

Re: Android and Wear OS are getting a redesign

#134

Post by O-stevns » Wed, May 14, 2025, 7:30 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #93

ranger_danger wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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's not my hill to die on but I will say use wireless in-ear monitors myself to avoid ever having to deal with adapters because... Adapters are terrible, often wonky in one way or another, incredibly inconvenient for anything but having them lie on a desk. It's also something you easily forget to carry around, or you lose or break because of shoddy build quality.

It's a bad alternative to something that wasn't a problem except it took up space and people still talk about it because there's still a need for something better

Re: Android and Wear OS are getting a redesign

#135

Post by malfist » Thu, May 15, 2025, 12:46 AM UTC

microtonal wrote: post #107

FreakyT wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you're getting downvoted, considering that this actually happened: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/01/google-pixel-4as-rui...

Yes, and Google offers a free battery replacement for affected users: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/15701861 Last time Apple pushed a battery-related software update that avoided shutdowns (good), people had to sue them to get a compensation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batterygate

You had to pick battery or strings attached cash, before the update arrived. And the battery replacement required you to send your phone off for repair leaving you without one, and Google didn't offer an sla for turn around.

And let's be honest, inconveniencing me is hardly acceptable, even if the company makes a token effort to put things back to before they inconvenienced me.

Re: Android and Wear OS are getting a redesign

#136

Post by hulitu » Thu, May 15, 2025, 6:23 AM UTC

idontcareatall wrote: post #79

wiseowise wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've been copying iOS for years, time to bring some of that Windows "consistency" into the mix.

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 kn…

> It's astonishing that anyone can say this with a straight face

I thought it was a joke. Consistency in Windows is long gone.

Re: Android and Wear OS are getting a redesign

#137

Post by hulitu » Thu, May 15, 2025, 6:36 AM UTC

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #36

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.

> Anyone else remember the lock screen being a giant two line clock with no way to customize it,

"We presume you don't like clocks but, we asked Gemini and the majority loves it". Sincerely, your Google Design Team

Re: Android and Wear OS are getting a redesign

#138

Post by hulitu » Thu, May 15, 2025, 6:49 AM UTC

eternityforest wrote: post #5

It looks nice visually, I just hope they don't add more gesture shortcuts I can't disable

> It looks nice visually, I just hope they don't add more gesture shortcuts I can't disable

"Thank you for your feedback. We see that you don't like disabling features so disabling will be disabled in the next version" Cheers, Google (torture) UI Team

Re: Android and Wear OS are getting a redesign

#139

Post by hulitu » Thu, May 15, 2025, 6:54 AM UTC

awill wrote: post #3

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 ga…

> and all eventually switched to iOS

Maybe because the bugs were known from Android.

Yesterday i had to search, why the photos i took 1 minute ago are only visible on the (i)phone but not on the folder shared with the PC.

Re: Android and Wear OS are getting a redesign

#140

Post by hulitu » Thu, May 15, 2025, 7:02 AM UTC

bArray wrote: post #128

kotaKat wrote: post #37

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

(I would suggest to review the fruitful language of your comment...) I always owned an older smart phone, and looking at that new UI I have no idea what some of that stuff does, because it doesn't tell me and the icons have been smoothed and abstracted so much that I can barely tell what they are for. I think the reason why the UI's are dumbing down is because they people using them are changing. We're talking about…

> I think the reason why the UI's are dumbing down is because they people using them are changing.

No. We are not changing. But it seems that there are people paid to make changes. Not to improve, just to change. Why does the Messages app needs a new, much worse UI, every couple of months ?