The number one issue I have with Android is that while this looks cool, because of the fragmentation of the OS delivery between vendors- I have no idea which phone or timeframe when I could see the rollout of Material 3 Expressive.

More than 10 years later, shopping for an Android phone with the latest OS is a nightmare. Android leadership keeps on getting shuffled around, Google changes priorities every 6 months it seems. Despite Apple flubbing the ball on AI, at least I know that the phone will be supported for at least 4 years.

They will need to improve on their ecosystem commitments if they'd like people like me to switch back.

I wish Google would stick with a design paradigm for a bit for once.

It's not just their own apps that need updating, it's everyone else's, too. Most of which will never happen, so users are stuck in a hodgepodge of several generations of different design paradigms.

Material was fine. So was Material 2. So was Material 3. So is Material 3 Expressive, I guess. Just stick with something!

> You can now customize Quick Settings to squeeze in more of your favorite actions like Flashlight and Do Not Disturb.

I feel I'm missing something. Hasn't customizing the quick settings been possible forever?

In fact the only thing preventing me from having the single tap Do Not Disturb in the quick settings is that these same UX people removed the option in the latest version of Android, and buried it in a "Modes" menu for no reason at all.

Super happy to have that back, but good grief, trying to pitch a rollback as an innovative new feature is pretty audacious.

An article that's not even 600 words long immediately offering to use AI to make itself even shorter has to be up there on the useless-AI-shit-for-the-sake-of-it leaderboard.

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.

Android Kiki to Android Bouba evolution:

From square icons and sharp Roboto to blobby amoeba-shaped designs and rounded fonts.

Also, Chile mentioned!

"Big refresh" seems like an exaggeration compared to the overhauls Android has gotten in the past. These are pretty subtle design tweaks. Which is fine; I don't think Android particularly needs a huge overhaul at this point.

Looks good. I’m happy. Now if they can please change their apps icons to not all look the same, that would be really nice.

I actually thinks this looks great as a current iOS user. Apple's latest software quality (or lack of it) has made me want to try out Android again.

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

Another "big refresh". I've already disabled animations because of the faintly ridiculous system-wide overscroll effect [0] which makes every menu and webpage bounce like the viewport is made of gelatin, so I'm a little bemused to see them doubling down on "natural, springy animations". I know this is "old man yelling at cloud" of me, but I don't care for my notifications to "subtly respond" to adjacent ones being dragged.

[0] https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/83355

The Wear OS looks the most exciting here. I'm looking forward to a Pixel 4 Watch with a better battery life, having google maps and android app support.

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 garbage for everything else. Try reading a message where words are either cut off, or you're stuck basically using a square inside the circle. It makes no sense other than because Google didn't want to 'copy' Apple with the rectangular shape.

This will be my last Pixel phone. I had the original and it was perfect. No fluff. Simple. Each version gets worse and worse. 7 is horrible. Still can't remove the stupid date from the home screen.

Differently-shaped buttons and more swoopy animations are not what Wear OS needs. Wear OS needs better information density and more attention to detail in interaction design and implementation rather than appearance. The whole thing feels like it was designed in After Effects and implemented to spec with no user feedback in the process at all.

I continue to strongly prefer the Pebble UI after all these years. It just does a much better job with the basics like notifications and alarms. it's not even close.

> Man, I wish my Android had 'better' UI

Is what I have never, ever heard. I don't what to shit on designers, who also need to justify their job, but it would be cool to see some ACTUAL improvements to important things. Like battery life.

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

Wew, this is great and all, but when am I going to be able to disable the list of trending topics or search history in my search bar, or at least hide it entirely? Never? I have to learn about the spirit airlines emergency landing and some bs about the NFL even though I'm not even in that country? Idk that customization feels paramount if I can't control what I see as I'm using the device.

Looks seriously ugly but beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that's only my personal opinion. Thankfully I won't ever get to see it anyway as majority Android vendors aren't using any of Google's UI stuff (my Oppo Find N5 basically looks iPhoney with ColorOS). So really this should be titled "Google Pixel phones will be getting..."

Google is allergic to normal interfaces nowadays. Everything about Material when it rolled out rubbed me the wrong way, Rounded edges? Extra real estate? Everything is bubbles.

I'll take cold, basic, and data-full interfaces instead of the wasted real estate in the era of CSS-ifying every user interaction to death.

I wish Google would sponsor or create incentives to motivate devs to support wearos. There is very little useful apps on it.

i like the changes are coming but i wish they didn't remove the old look

I mean... what if i prefer the older version of the UI? my only option is a different launcher or not updating

Looks like shit. It seems that on every UI/UX update, Google products become shittier.

I'll keep using Android anyway because I find Apple UI/UX even more disgusting.

Smartphones don't matter anyway. What most people do in high end devices can be done in mid-tier or even shit-tier devices too.

Great job! for shipping this and Great job! for presentation.

As an iOS user so many of the headline effects this Android update mentions seem to be already part of my iOS experience. Thus this seems to be catch ups to iOS.

In human–computer interaction, baby duck syndrome denotes the tendency for computer users to "imprint" on the first system they learn, then judge other systems by their similarity to that first system. The result is that "users generally prefer systems similar to those they learned on and dislike unfamiliar systems". The issue may present itself relatively early in a computer user's experience, and it has been observed to impede education of students in new software systems or user interfaces.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprinting_(psychology)#Baby...