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Android 16 is here

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Re: Android 16 is here

#231

Post by vladms »

spankibalt wrote: post #194
bandoti wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find as time goes on I am less-and-less excited about mobile releases. I’ve had a smartphone since the Google Nexus 1. The desktop experience is always better, and a good book is even more inviting. Curious what other folks are feeling. A lot of these tools seem like useless frivolity. Meanwhile, I have family who constantly get confused whether the iOS phone icon is FaceTime or the “real” phone; and I have to do m…

> A lot of these tools seem like useless frivolity. That's me on a good day; I fuckin' hate smartphones (hardware and software-wise), lol. I have pretty much given up on a slab-style pocket computer (6-7 inch, essentially a deshittified, Samsung XCover-series smartphone on steroids, e. g. S-Pen, exchangeable batteries, audio jack, 1-2 USB-C ports, mSD card slot, lotsa memory, phone-functionality is second fiddle) or…

Why hate them though? They can be great for some things, like messaging, maps, shopping lists and taking pictures. I never consider them "the ultimate computer", and I wouldn't want them to be, mostly because mobile stuff can break/get lost/get stolen.

Re: Android 16 is here

#232

Post by hackyhacky »

hulitu wrote: post #222
paxys wrote: post #23

I like their Material Expressive design a lot more now after Apple's big reveal. While it's still a bit too colorful and whimsical for my liking, it does stay much closer to what I think should be the top UX design ideal - be clear, legible, and get out of the way . On the new iOS every screen feels like some UX designer is shouting "look how amazing I am at this!!" at me.

> be clear, legible, and get out of the way. Which none of the current OSs do (except Linux without SystemD or BSDs, with a custom WM)

Huh? What does systemd have to do with UX? If you want a bare bones Linux GUI, there are plenty of options, e.g. i3, which are completely independent of your preferred process 1.

Re: Android 16 is here

#233

Post by mad182 »

anal_reactor wrote: post #215
bandoti wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find as time goes on I am less-and-less excited about mobile releases. I’ve had a smartphone since the Google Nexus 1. The desktop experience is always better, and a good book is even more inviting. Curious what other folks are feeling. A lot of these tools seem like useless frivolity. Meanwhile, I have family who constantly get confused whether the iOS phone icon is FaceTime or the “real” phone; and I have to do m…

Honestly, I'm happy my phone won't get an update. This way I won't be exposed to new bugs. I'm on Android 13 and the only thing I observed when updating from 12 was that now when I switch apps, the screen blinks for split-second, which is incredibly annoying. Functionality-wise, there's very little that can be improved anyway. It's mostly just fiddling with details of the UI here and there. I think we grew up with te…

> Functionality-wise, there's very little that can be improved

Yep. Honestly can't name a single major new smartphone feature that I would consider a dealbreaker that wasn't available 10 years ago.

The last things that made me excited about a new phone was contactless payments and Android auto, but both are pretty old now.

Now it's just a slightly different ui and maybe a bit better camera when I got a new phone.

Re: Android 16 is here

#234

Post by cenamus »

octo888 wrote: post #226
u5wbxrc3 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can not love this development project enough its the peak of Android custom ROM. I am curious though as to what they have changed so much that it is going to be more difficult.

Oh, they also had the issue that one of the leading devs got forcibly conscripted. Quickly scanning GrapheneOS's posts I couldn't find any detail about the technical challenges. They'll probably post about it in the coming months

I mean, conscription is per definition forced, isn't it?

Re: Android 16 is here

#235

Post by nashashmi »

edg5000 wrote: post #212

"Samsung DeX has helped maximize productivity on phones, foldables and tablets for years. In Android 16, we worked closely with Samsung to develop desktop windowing, a new way to interact with your apps and content on large-screen devices." PS Let me make a guess for the future. Android Desktop mode will improve and people will ditch Windows and instead plug their phone into a USB-C dock that connects it to keyboard,…

This is the future that can’t be more ignored. It is like finally bringing call interrupt feature in internet dial up modems but only after everyone migrated to DSL. Windows Lumia was the first device to bring this functionality from an OS developer. Samsung had this for premium hardware. Apple came up with stage manager for iPad but left it out of iPhone. And no one really cares about this feature enough.

What is this feature in reality? It is just a projected screen with a certain resolution. And then it has apps that appear and open as resizable windows. Android had a downloadable app called something like Sense that did this but the app developers didn’t make apps with resizable windows at the time.

I guess part of the working closely is to cause developers to display apps that can be resized. And resize it for them in the event they refuse.

Re: Android 16 is here

#237

Post by andrewshadura »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #136
tkzed49 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's literally a setting for this. There are separate sliders for "display size" and "font size", the latter of which just makes the font larger

haha yes, I tried to use my kids phone the other day and I had forgotten how much larger I had set the fonts on my own phone. It was impossible to read anything. It's actually a credit to google that you can scale the fonts up so much and then forget you had done it. In the old days, the UI would be broken in various places.

It is still often broken, especially when a non-English locale is set. A family member uses larger fonts in Android, and most labels are barely readable (barel… readab…), UI widgets often don't fit on the screen etc.

Re: Android 16 is here

#238

Post by villedespommes »

nfriedly wrote: post #79
villedespommes wrote: post #41

I'm really excited about the Desktop mode, now I can finally break free of Samsung!

FWIW, Motorola has also had this feature for years, but they call it "Ready For", which is a terrible name. That said, I'm also looking forward to the official Google version coming to the rest of the Android devices

Each year, fewer and fewer Motorola phones actually support this feature over usb-c and it looks like they renamed it to "Smart Connect."

https://en-emea.support.motorola.com/app/answers/detail/a_id...

Shame, I liked it very much since Samsung phones are expensive

Re: Android 16 is here

#239

Post by rickdeckard »

dmix wrote: post #153
paxys wrote: post #23

I like their Material Expressive design a lot more now after Apple's big reveal. While it's still a bit too colorful and whimsical for my liking, it does stay much closer to what I think should be the top UX design ideal - be clear, legible, and get out of the way . On the new iOS every screen feels like some UX designer is shouting "look how amazing I am at this!!" at me.

Have you tried the beta on iPhone? 75% of the time it seems much nicer with 25% degraded. It's a weird mix but I see why they went in that direction. The only real problem is the religious adherence to the glass design language that is hurting it... because there are very good UX/design improvements via the glass, just not everywhere. I wouldn't judge the new Android until I tried it on a phone either.

> The only real problem is the religious adherence to the glass design language that is hurting it

That's also my impression, iOS 26 looks like some UI's were peer-reviewed and thrown back with the note "Not gaudy enough, it's not enough glass! Remember, the theme is 'Liquid Glass', Management wants to see traces of this on every screen!"

Re: Android 16 is here

#240

Post by villedespommes »

ZuLuuuuuu wrote: post #142
villedespommes wrote: post #41

I'm really excited about the Desktop mode, now I can finally break free of Samsung!

I was also very excited about it and that's why I immediately upgraded to Android 16. But it turns out that it is not part of this update. The same with the new Material design, it doesn't come with Android 16 update. So weird that they announced both of these features as if they are part of Android 16.

They actually say in the announcement, it's supposed to be rolled out "later this year."

I really hope it won't be delayed

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