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Android 16 is here

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Re: Android 16 is here

#331

Post by M95D »

xinayder wrote: post #309
SchemaLoad wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Material is fine, but it feels pretty uninspired to me. Like the corporate art version of UI. Big flat inoffensive blobs, washed out pastel colours, etc. The new iOS demo kinda makes me feel excited to try the new update, once they iron out a few of the poor contrast spots.

It used to be better when Material Design came out. It was more rectangular, looked better. Take a look at Android 10. It was much more "expressive". Now, it's just round, as if they're trying to copy the trend set by Apple. I updated my Galaxy S21 to Android 15 and I hate it. The new design occupies TOO MUCH space, I could check almost all my notifications (I only have 3-4 apps that send me notifications) with a qui…

> a single notification occupies like 1/5th of the screen

> I must manually open Spotify and control it from there

It seems like they did it on purpose, the purpose being the management of your attention.

Re: Android 16 is here

#332

Post by aaomidi »

microtonal wrote: post #39
aaomidi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I decided to install the beta to get a more informed opinion. I think the UI looks better when you’re holding it vs seeing it in the pictures. Control center, however, sucks.

I installed the iOS beta and thought it was as bad, if not worse than the WWDC demos. In a lot of cases, text becomes outright unreadable. Control Center looks like a mess with all the transparency. Like the grandparent I'm much more excited by Material Design 3 Expressive.

Maybe I've dodged this by having a fully black background!

Hope they improve on some of these issues.

Re: Android 16 is here

#333

Post by officeplant »

bandoti wrote: post #169
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.

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…

>>> Curious what other folks are feeling. A lot of these tools seem like useless frivolity.

Personally I feel like phone OS releases need to slow down to a 2-3 year cycle and lock in on bug fixes.

My iphone 16e has some of the most glaring bugs I've seen in an iOS release in quite some time (Slow motion capture crashes the camera app unless you set it to 120fps first in settings, 240fps is broken).

I feel like we could all use a break from the update cycle for software to actually get patched and optimized.

Re: Android 16 is here

#334

Post by officeplant »

nashashmi wrote: post #302
xattt wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like Apple’s announcements for iPad OS are telegraphing that docking might be supported in yet-to-be-released iPhones.

There is only one purpose for the iPhone to have a usb c connection. Just one. The dock. Like all things apple, watch them muzzle it to keep sales of the IPAD high.

Convergence is finally going to happen 15 years later than I wanted it to, and by that time I'm not gonna want to own a smartphone anymore.

Re: Android 16 is here

#335

Post by officeplant »

StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #286
mad182 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> both are pretty old now They are not that old and we still don’t have proper dashboard integration. I would like directions there rather than on the central console. Plus there has been nice features trickling to user from release to release. I like that you can easily use your phone as a clock with a magnetic dock. Translation and text selection in screenshot were nice. Search from picture highlight is great. Phon…

>>> we still don’t have proper dashboard integration

The last place I want mobile devs to get their buggy little code is my dashboard. Hell I don't even really want a screen there, but I make an exception for tiny info screens if they come with real gauges on the side. That same shitty little screen currently shows a directional arrow and mile/feet till the next turn passed to it by Carplay/Android Auto. Thanks Ford for getting one small thing right with my E-transit, shitty massive touchscreen radio/AC controls non-withstanding.

Re: Android 16 is here

#336

Post by bombcar »

RamRodification wrote: post #292
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,…

> 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, mouse and display This seems like such a killer feature to me. And every time I watch a video of someone trying out DeX it seems to work so well. Yet it never seems to take off. I don't understand why. What am I missing? App ecosystem not good enough fo…

Because Microsoft is the one who needs to do it - or maybe Apple.

Both have an ecosystem that operates in both worlds (though Microsoft keeps killing their phones and doesn't currently have one) - so they could do it.

It's obvious that the iPad could be a Mac now, there's no technical limitation. So the iPhone could be, too.

Re: Android 16 is here

#337

Post by sellmesoap »

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…

I got myself a lenovo duet 10" detachable second hand and put postmarketOS on it, it's got standby for days and a pen. No SD but a couple of usb-C ports a fun little Linux box!

Re: Android 16 is here

#338

Post by esseph »

TiredOfLife wrote: post #268
esseph wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing that happens to every OS, features and bloat. That said, Pixel devices all the way. No gross UI reskin, no having multiple copies of the same type of app (Samsung camera vs android camera, dialers, keyboards, etc.). Fast, stable, good features. If it's not a pixel device, you're probably going to have a "mid" experience.

> No gross UI reskin Pixel experience is literally same thing as Samsung One UI - a gross UI reskin > no having multiple copies of the same type of app (Samsung camera vs android camera, dialers, keyboards, etc Google is the one that forces the multiple copies of same app thing

Not true.

Vendor blobs are used in third party phones that have different hardware. Or, in some cases, because the phone seller wants to track you or try an offer an additional "value add" with their version of the app.

They don't have to do any of that.

Re: Android 16 is here

#339

Post by sans_souse »

surgical_fire wrote: post #82
esseph wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing that happens to every OS, features and bloat. That said, Pixel devices all the way. No gross UI reskin, no having multiple copies of the same type of app (Samsung camera vs android camera, dialers, keyboards, etc.). Fast, stable, good features. If it's not a pixel device, you're probably going to have a "mid" experience.

I had 2 OnePlus devices in the past 7 years, and I had a great experience with both. Very stable, nice UI, no hardware/batery issues, very responsive. I don't know if I trust Google to make decent hardware. I am highly suspicious of Pixel phones.

I own a Pixel 7 and two OP7 Pro 's. The OP7Pro runs much smoother and reliably, the physical buttons + the slider switch are sturdy and I would still recommend people buy this phone today. $I don't call things I don't want to have "features" It's just more bloat in my mind.

Re: Android 16 is here

#340

Post by robocat »

gf000 wrote: post #313
crazygringo wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could, but you don't want it to. Buttons are e.g. often floating above content, or adjacent to other buttons. It's just as bad to click a button you don't want to, when you're merely trying to scroll, or highlight text, or click another button. Making a button's clickable area larger than the button itself can be desirable in limited circumstances, but it's not a general-purpose solution.

As a proof.. well just use HN on your phone. It absolutely sucks, so those UI puritanists - please learn a lesson and at least make touch targets reasonably sized!

Exactly: we need an easy way to increase the tappable area of the vote buttons. You can't just add a invisible tappable wide border because the tap zones must not overlap. It is hard to design to be contained within a component. I had to use customised elements/CSS because the tappable area depends upon where a control/component is placed next to another control/component.

I also recall an obscure fix necessary for Mobile Safari. If you wanted something clickable near an you needed to take care how you designed it because otherwise the would steal the click. You could add an onclick handler (Mobile Safari has a bunch of heuristic hacks where onclick= will cause differences to touch behaviours when a touch is on an element that has a click handler. You could also use a button which might or might not be more accessible depending on needs and design. I recall I needed a lot of fiddling depending on each control.

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