[HN Gopher] Android 16 is here
___________________________________________________________________
Android 16 is here
Author : nsriv
Score : 149 points
Date : 2025-06-10 18:29 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.google)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.google)
| nsriv wrote:
| Factory images here: https://developers.google.com/android/images
| jonah wrote:
| From that page:
|
| Warning: The May 2025 update for Pixel 6 (6, 6 Pro, 6a) and
| Pixel 8 (8, 8 Pro, 8a) devices contains a bootloader update
| that increments the anti-roll back version for the bootloader.
| This prevents the device from rolling back to previous
| vulnerable versions of the bootloader. After flashing the May
| 2025 update on these devices you won't be able to flash and
| boot older Android 15 builds.
| rkagerer wrote:
| What's with the AI-generated "Key Takeaways" crap on the right
| column of that page? No thanks, the content is short enough I
| can easily skim it on my own.
| mouse_ wrote:
| Are they still moving forward with killing AOSP?
| edude03 wrote:
| Where did you get that idea?
| mrweasel wrote:
| The notification feature looks nice. I've pretty much exclusively
| used iOS, but honestly notifications is a weak point for iOS, in
| my opinion. I frequently have the 1 notification on my home
| screen, but once unlocked notifications are pretty much
| impossible to find again.
| Groxx wrote:
| I'm certainly happy to see "force grouping". Grouping is a
| great opt-in enhancement, but it never should've been wholly in
| apps' control to begin with - apps in general cannot be trusted
| to not be dumb, gotta have user control to override them.
| argsnd wrote:
| I agree that Android notifications are broadly better than iOS
| but the live activities feature was a good idea and I'm quite
| glad that's been added to Android now
| robertoandred wrote:
| Once unlocked, swipe down from the top of the screen to open
| Notification Center.
| flyinghamster wrote:
| Oh great, I get to learn how to use my phone all over again. We
| need a "leave this the $EXPLETIVE alone" setting for our user
| interfaces.
| eurekin wrote:
| I think this topic returns with some regularity... It often
| ends with justification about the need for a promotion of a
| particular executive that is involved with that inevitably
| undeniable success
| voidfunc wrote:
| UI engineers need to justify their existence.
| hadlock wrote:
| I genuinely think this is the case, and why products don't
| have a LTS interface, even though they ought to. Sign me
| right up for the 10 year LTS interface. I can't recall any
| features in gmail that were added that I actually use besides
| labels, which was an early launch feature. But it's been
| redesigned about 9 times in the last 20 years, each time with
| increasing white space and/or a slightly different font.
| lupire wrote:
| LTS interface is expensive for minimal benefit.
| nawgz wrote:
| Definitely. Those pesky UI engineers are always rewriting and
| refactoring and reworking stuff. Me, a talented backend
| engineer? I would never. My code was perfect initially and
| there's no pressure to show deliverables from my manager
| since they know I'm the best.
| stackskipton wrote:
| Huh? Sure, UI code can change, no one is arguing that but
| API changes, just like for backend, need to be extremely
| thought out and slow. For UI Engineers, UI is API to the
| user and for some reason, when they blow up their API, they
| get praised for it. Most backend engineers are change API
| at much much slower rate.
| Lerc wrote:
| UI engineers should be like vaccines. If they do their job
| well, you should never see why they were needed.
| jrgaston wrote:
| That so many do not see why vaccines are needed is a
| serious problem.
| DannyBee wrote:
| Sure, but what is happening here is basically the
| equivalent of us engineering current-vaccine resistant
| viruses, along with new vaccines, and releasing them all
| together, so that people know vaccines are important and
| are forced to get new vaccines to be safe.
|
| We shouldn't do that, in the same way we shouldn't make
| sure people know UI is important by changing it
| completely every n years.
| echelon wrote:
| I wish we had a dozen phone companies instead of just two.
|
| Please write your legislators and demand antitrust action
| against Apple and Google for the following:
|
| - Lack of One-Tap Web Installs (without scare walls or buried
| settings menus). This is the biggest stranglehold they have.
| Web installs can be done safely and securely via app signing,
| permissions, and signature blacklists.
|
| - First-party defaults for all the platform pieces: Messaging,
| Payments, Photos, Music, Media, Navigation, etc. Every single
| one of these lets Apple and Google squeeze another industry and
| forces us into a pit of no-innovation.
|
| - Default search, in the case of Google, which ropes you into
| their search / ads funnel. They've also bought it out on
| Apple's end.
|
| - Default browser tech, in the case of Apple. It prevents
| innovation on app runtimes and deployment and forces you to
| develop using Apple technologies.
|
| Winning the mobile rights battle will not only liberate us from
| the "promo cycle" plague, it'll stop the tax on innovation and
| introduce healthy competition.
|
| If American legislators and the DOJ / FTC won't act, then every
| other country should. If enough countries put pressure on Apple
| and Google, we'll start to see competition reemerge. Right now
| it's impossible to develop a new smartphone entrant. Even Meta
| and Microsoft with their nearly-unlimited capital couldn't
| fight off Apple and Google.
|
| YCombinator would probably be happy if smartphones became open
| platforms. They'd see healthier margins for startups and less
| direct platform competition. a16z is pushing for this. Just
| because Apple and Google were there first twenty years ago
| shouldn't give them an eternity to rule the entire category.
| kabdib wrote:
| bring back the Windows phone! (srsly, they were pretty nice
| to develop for)
| rawling wrote:
| > - First-party defaults for all the platform pieces:
| Messaging, Payments, Photos, Music, Media, Navigation, etc.
| Every single one of these lets Apple and Google squeeze
| another industry and forces us into a pit of no-innovation.
|
| Don't/can't Android manufacturers provide alternative
| defaults here?
| jsight wrote:
| Yes, and most people hate it when they do that.
| echelon wrote:
| Probably the biggest case for a full-on Google breakup.
| Android being split from the platform components.
|
| A new company probably still couldn't develop platform
| pieces if that chink in the armor was made available by
| the DOJ. But if Google were split along those lines into
| two or more companies, it would provide nice and healthy
| gradients on both the hardware/OS and the
| platform/software sides of the market.
|
| We really do need a Google breakup.
| isaacaggrey wrote:
| I agree with your parent post but why would a breakup not
| equally apply to Apple?
| echelon wrote:
| It should! But the parent was referring to Android
| manufacturers.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| > Probably the biggest case for a full-on Google breakup.
| Android being split from the platform components.
|
| Isn't core Android open source? As long as you do not
| need Google apps and Google services, you can use Android
| OSS right now without Google's platform components.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| Wasn't that what all the 2015 antitrust stuff was about?
|
| Manufacturers were contractually forbidden from doing that.
| rawling wrote:
| Thanks, that helped me find this which does sound like
| it:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_cases_against_Goo
| gle...
| izacus wrote:
| Samsung literally provides their own alternative for all
| of these.
| legitster wrote:
| As someone who owned a Symbian, a Palm OS, and a Windows
| phone - I kind of refuse to listen to this argument anymore.
| _I voted with my wallet_ and all I have to show for it were
| years of mockery from my peers and a drawerful of bricked
| devices.
| rjsw wrote:
| You can buy phones now that are not from Apple or Google, I
| have a Nokia KaiOS one.
| lupire wrote:
| What you want is a government sponsored phone OS. We had
| competition but software has economy of scale. No one wants
| to pay the cost of developing a phone OS used by a small
| fraction of users. Windows and Palm proved that.
|
| And Samsung does sell phones with customized UI and apps.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _I wish we had a dozen phone companies instead of just
| two._
|
| Counterpoint: the resources currently dedicated to Apple and
| Android would then be spread across a dozen operating
| systems, assuming constant consumer spending.
|
| Maybe you think stasis is a good thing, but I (mostly)
| appreciate the progress iOS and Android have made over the
| past nearly two decades. I wouldn't want to currently be
| stuck at iOS 3 or 4 as opposed to iOS 18.
|
| Assuming you actually mean a dozen phone operating systems.
| Because we already do have _lots_ of phone _companies_ , but
| they mostly all use Android.
| demosthanos wrote:
| This knee-jerk reaction is correct more often than not (see the
| terrible iOS redesign announced earlier), but in this case it
| seems like it might be incorrect?
|
| I looked through the highlights linked here and the full
| "What's New" page [0] and am pleasantly surprised to see a few
| new features but no major overhauls of existing ones.
|
| [0] https://www.android.com/16
| danieldk wrote:
| Yep, I just installed on my Pixel 9 and it looks barely
| different from Android 15. Most of the changes seem to be in
| the plumbing. Material Design Expressive will only arrive in
| the next quarterly release.
| nsriv wrote:
| Yeah I think this is being lost in this rollout (and a
| little bit in these comments). Expressive is in the next
| update, since this year is a big hike up in the calendar
| for phone release.
| butlike wrote:
| The issue is this reaction never sticks. Everyone's up in
| arms, but would you really want to go back to Android KitKat
| or iOS 2? Probably not for more than novelty, right?
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Bad faith argument. The opposite of Android 16
| enshitification isn't going back to Android 2, but around
| Android 10-12 or so it was already good enough IIRC. Why
| not keep it like that?
|
| Similar to Windows 11. The opposite isn't going back all
| the way to Windows 3.1, but Windows 7 or so was kinda peak.
|
| So please, justify me the progress, or more exactly, have
| UI designers justify it, because I'm not seeing it. I've
| mostly seen change for the sake of change, wrapped in
| fluffy artsy BS jargon, making it sound like each UI change
| is the second coming of Christ and fixes world hunger.
|
| Because I can justify you how for example KDE 3 and similar
| apps of that era including on Windows XP-7, were visually
| easier and more intuitive to use, than those flat modern
| looks of KDE 5/Windows 11 today.
| legitster wrote:
| More and more features are getting added, so the UI has
| to get reorganized to accomodate for them. A lot of the
| changes for Android 16 are to accommodate wearables and
| folding phones and etc while keeping the controls more
| consistent between them.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Cars have also gained new features, but the steering
| wheel, shifter, pedals, mirrors are still in the same
| places since >50 years. You don't need to get a new
| license and re-learn how to drive every time a new model
| comes out because they moved the steering wheel on the
| ceiling to install a 32 inch LCD screen.
| layer8 wrote:
| I would really want to go back to something like the look
| of iOS 1-6, with clearly discernible UI controls vs.
| content and labels. Not the real-world-mimicry
| skeuomorphism, but the look of the standard UI controls.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Web ruined everything. Got everybody thinking that flag
| rectangles were cool and consistent ui frameworks were
| old fashioned.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Yes, of course I would. Android UI has been horrible ever
| since 12.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| I can live another decade without an app what groups three
| options (one of it is "About") under a hamburger menu on a
| completely blank screen.
| pas wrote:
| yes, who cares, let me launch apps and put widgets on the
| screen, what else?
|
| I like a lot of the new features, but the visual
| (mis)communication language is terrible.
| dzikimarian wrote:
| While I like new notification management or control buttons
| on top of the drawer, I really wouldn't have problem using
| them in Holo design.
| rezonant wrote:
| Are you speaking in general, or is there anything specific
| about this update that has you upset?
| legitster wrote:
| None of the changes have actually been that crazy. And at least
| on my Pixel Google has made new features opt-in after major
| updates.
| ozim wrote:
| It is good for your brain, it is an excellent exercise. /s
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Bo worries, Gemini AI will take care of that! The phone will
| now what you want (and show more ads)
| taurusnoises wrote:
| As someone who's very much on the outside of the Apple / Android
| debate (though I've never owned an iPhone, I do use a Mac and an
| iPad), and as someone who's relatively tech illiterate, how does
| this announcement read in light of Apple's latest liquid glass
| stuff, and the pushback I'm seeing from almost every angle. Is
| this Google announcement at all in response to the negative
| reaction Apple is getting? Does what Google is saying here get
| anyone excited? Maybe even excited enough to switch over?
| mosdl wrote:
| Android is a different beast since OEMs highly customize the
| UX. Samsung could easily make a horrible liquid glass ripoff
| and stick it on Android without Google doing anything.
|
| Most of Google's work on Android seems to be around making
| smaller changes for the UX and bigger internal changes
| (splitting up the OS so individual parts can be updated without
| the OEM involvement, security changes, etc).
| sylens wrote:
| Google announced Material 3 Expressive a month or two ago, way
| before WWDC
| skiman10 wrote:
| And just to clarify, Material 3 Expressive is not shipping in
| these builds, that will be in a quarterly release build in
| probably in the first week of September.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| I've used an Android and Apple phone on and off since the first
| phones were available with the respective OSs. In general, I've
| found the Android UI to be more intuitive (although they've
| both had their boondoggles).
|
| But lately it does seem like spinning wheels on the UI front
| for both. Without a distinct new feature to build the UI
| around, most UI changes just seem like change for the sake of
| change (ie. resume/executive driven design). Both OS seem to be
| approaching a very similar paradigm (Apple becoming more
| androidy IMO lately). Minor changes aren't going to cause major
| changes in popularity. "Liquid Glass" does seem to be
| _uniquely_ disliked, and probably for good reasons, but Apple
| generally has ecosystem and brand lock-in that will put the
| brakes on much ship jumping.
| adzm wrote:
| http://android.com/16 for more information rather than just these
| highlights
| nsriv wrote:
| Was between submitting this and the link I did, but opted for
| the latter because the redesign is coming later. Thanks for
| adding this!
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| I remember my first android device, it had like 512MO of RAM (and
| storage), and it was blazing fast, it could be used as a WIFI
| repeater too (which is why I still have it, although it 2.5G...).
| Fast forward 13 year later or so, if your android device doesn't
| have at least 8gig of RAM and 64gigs of storage, then it's pretty
| much useless given how bloated the OS (and the apps) have
| become...
|
| So basically, Android low end has become useless, I remember 10+
| years ago having to search for something very fast because of the
| context, like something on a map or surf the web for info. It was
| still super responsive with 512MO...
|
| I tried a few cheap Android phones recently... they are simply
| unresponsive, google apps will suddenly shut down because the
| device is out of memory or something... or you try to make a
| call, you make a mistake so you try to hang up, the phone will
| refuse to hang up because it's stuck! you'd have to remove the
| battery to quickly cancel the call! What the hell happened with
| that OS?
| esseph wrote:
| 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.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| Which is unfortunate, because one of the strengths of Android
| was the diversity of the hardware ecosystem (although that
| strength has been lessening as manufacturers have all begun
| to converge on a common set of hardware features). You could
| get a phone that had the features you in particular wanted.
| Needing to buy a particular phone to get a good experience is
| a bummer.
|
| I say that as someone who has had several Pixel phones (and
| Nexus before that) and been happy with them. But yeah, my
| most recent phone is a low-end Motorola that I picked
| specifically for a set of hardware features, but
| unfortunately, as the parent commenter describes, it has been
| a _terrible_ experience for a variety of reasons. I got the
| hardware features I wanted (mostly, no one makes the full set
| I want anymore, see above), and it turns out that I had to
| give up a halfway-decent software experience.
| chasil wrote:
| Can you unlock the bootloader on your Motorola and install
| LineageOS or something else?
|
| If not, are you able to buy another Motorola phone where
| this is possible?
| cptskippy wrote:
| My last 2 phones were Motorola and my most recent is a Pixel.
| Meh...
|
| The Motos came with very little bloatware that was easy
| enough to uninstall or disable. There are just as many new
| Google Apps that just weren't available on Moto phones that
| I've been uninstalling from my Pixel:
|
| Google One, Google Tasks, Google News, Google Lens, Google
| Support Services, Google PDF Viewer, Google Play Books,
| Google Pixel Watch, Pixel Buds, Pixel Studio, Gemini, Safety,
| Find Hub, Google Home
|
| It's not 3rd party, but it's still bloatware.
| dzonga wrote:
| pixel devices are nice when they work. but damn hardware
| quality is shoddy in terms of aging. my pixel 6a battery got
| swollen with less than 3 years. I have a first gen iphone se
| still in use. I also had a pixel 3a that I couldn't find a
| screen replacement for luckily for me -- google accepted a
| trade in when the 6a got released.
|
| the pixels have a overheating problem -- this you can google
| for.
|
| oh yeah, when automatic android updates happen a bunch of
| your settings are reset even something simple as UI-theme.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| My Pixel 6a (my current phone) has no battery swelling.
|
| On the other hand, it takes over a minute to decide that
| it's confirmed a GPS location. The Pixel 3a will do the
| same thing in more like one second. The utter failure of
| the GPS on the Pixel 6a (and possibly other related
| phones?) seems to be a known, common issue.
|
| I do have overheating problems. The phone won't work
| outdoors in climates that are less nice than California.
| Which surprises me, since that's most of the world.
| rstat1 wrote:
| >> the pixels have a overheating problem -- this you can
| google for.
|
| People keep saying this, but that's been every phone I've
| ever had. They all get hot in hot weather and under heavy
| use.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| 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.
| silisili wrote:
| > I tried a few Android cheap phones recently
|
| IMO that's the big 'problem' with Android - any fly by night
| company can make a phone with it, which sours those people on
| Android as a whole and rightfully so. They may not understand
| that it's not Android itself that is awful, but the low spec'd
| phone or 'enhancements' some company added.
|
| Higher end Android phones generally don't have any of these
| problems at all. I can't even remember the last time mine had
| something crash or had to restart. I generally stick to high
| end Moto, Pixel, or Oneplus(current). Some people like Samsung
| but their skin/os is too heavy handed for me.
| paxys wrote:
| It's a problem that 95% of the world can afford to purchase a
| smartphone with a modern OS?
| wijwp wrote:
| That's why "problem" is in quotes. It's a self-inflicted
| and purposeful problem that trades a unified perception of
| Android through flagship devices for broad reach.
| resource_waste wrote:
| >I tried a few Android cheap phones recently... they are simply
| unresponsive
|
| I got $100 motorolas and outside of snapchat and the keyboard
| being responsive, it did the job for months.
|
| I was a bit impressed.
|
| I no longer am afraid to break my expensive phone because those
| worked in the short term.
| goodburb wrote:
| $400 for a 3GB RAM is a "budget" phone?
|
| I paid $200 for a Moto G85 5G with 12GB RAM, 256GB storage last
| year.
|
| Alternatives in the same range: CMF Phone 1/2 and OnePlus Nord
| CE4 Lite 5G
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| The new(er) mid range chipsets indeed are so so nice now.
| Pretty/fully modern process nodes, battery efficient, still
| very respectable cores.
|
| Really glad to see we've finally landed at a place where
| finding an old refurbished flagship is not the only logical
| choice, where the mid-range has a lot going on for it.
|
| Just wish we had some mainline kernel support, could put
| Debian on these things! I've had a OnePlus 6T (2018) that
| supposedly does pretty ok that I've been meaning to try
| Mobian on, and it felt like for a bit Snapdragons were
| getting better and better Linux support. But that motion
| seems to have really tapered off in the last ~2 years?
| nicoburns wrote:
| > I remember my first android device, it had like 512MO of RAM
| (and storage), and it was blazing fast,
|
| Which device was that? My memory of early Android devices is
| that they were anything but fast. It's only relatively recently
| that they've caught up to iPhones in terms of responsiveness.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Remember when these launches used to revolve around the
| codenames. This one is _Baklava_. As much as Material-era
| numbered releases have a style, I miss the _personality_ of the
| confectionary-themed marketing.
| nsriv wrote:
| I liked the unveils of the confectionary themed Androids on the
| campus!
| paxys wrote:
| 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.
| pier25 wrote:
| Couldn't agree more. Quite a fall from grace by Apple.
| rudedogg wrote:
| I thought it looks nice, and gives more focus to the content
| like they intended :/.
|
| The space around a block style tab-bar/navbar is wasted
| anyway, might as well show some of the content. Most apps
| were doing it anyway. Seeing a system tabbar/navbar was
| getting rare in "good" apps.
| nextos wrote:
| Apple did skeuomorphism really well, which is hard and
| requires a lot of design work.
|
| I cannot understand why they gradually abandoned that, as it
| was clearly a competitive moat in terms of usability.
|
| I've seen how computer illiterate or elderly people were able
| to navigate skeuomorphic designs with relative ease. Right
| now, they can't tell what is a button or a field and what
| isn't.
| kstrauser wrote:
| It was primarily because skeuomorphic UIs don't scale well
| with user experience levels. They're easier for novices but
| don't lend themselves well to expert use, unless you add a
| bunch of extra affordances that would seem really out of
| place in a UI meant to look like a real thing. And what
| does a skeuomorphic web browser or email app look ike? We
| don't have those in meatspace.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| inbox/outbox is a holdover from bins setting on your
| desk. but yeah there's not much more to the interface of
| a blank sheet of paper.
|
| I disagree that skeuomorphic can't be used by power
| users. Just throw a bunch of keyboard shortcuts in there.
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| It was less of flat vs. skeuomorphic than dead vs. alive
| elements (https://vimeo.com/64895205).
|
| While the technology to create 'alive' skeuomorphic
| elements now exists, that wasn't the case a few years ago.
|
| Older skeuomorphic designs were static/rasters which were
| clunky to either mix these static elements with animated
| elements (for example the iOS 7 menu title transitions) or
| to have transparency (how can you have transparent
| leather/velvet?).
|
| Liquid Glass is actually an extension of the foundation
| laid by iOS 7.
|
| Many parts of the iOS 7 transition guide might as well have
| been written for Liquid Glass:
|
| - "Make sure that app content is discernible through
| translucent UI elements--such as bars and keyboards--and
| the transparent status bar"
|
| - "Examine your app for hard-coded UI values--such as sizes
| and positions--and replace them with those you derive
| dynamically from system-provided values."
|
| https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/U
| s...
| aaomidi wrote:
| 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.
| danieldk wrote:
| 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.
| argsnd wrote:
| There's some instances of text illegibility that seems to
| be caused by buggy contrast detection and I think they'll
| probably fix that pretty easily since this is only the
| first beta. I think the readability concerns are really
| overblown.
| MisterBiggs wrote:
| Same experience. I hopped on the beta because I thought the
| current version was going to be really bad and I wanted to
| watch them move towards something more functional. Its
| definitely not perfect but the way that the UI reacts in real
| time to holding the phone and elements moving makes it work
| really well and isn't something you can capture in a
| screenshot or video.
| LorenDB wrote:
| My main complaint with Material Expressive is that every other
| button seems to be 85% padding and 15% actual content. What
| happened to reasonable information density?
| legitster wrote:
| For control surfaces, padding prevents misclicks. It's
| actually very important part of perceived interface quality
| when dealing with a handheld touchscreen device.
| robocat wrote:
| Different topic: CSS doesn't have a good way to manage
| nearby clicks? A tap just a few px outside a button should
| click the button? <Input>s can steal focus from nearby taps
| on Mobile Safari (which can also be a fuckup). I hate
| iPhone taps that slip a little and scrollable areas having
| queer interactions (causing usability/accessibility
| issues).
| crazygringo wrote:
| 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.
| robocat wrote:
| > You could, but you don't want it to.
|
| Argue with Apple because Mobile Safari makes a tap close
| to a button click the button (and it causes exactly the
| problems you've predicted, and workarounds are
| difficult). Do you do a lot of close testing?? Because
| the feature is quite noticeable.
|
| Try it yourself on an iPhone (ideally use something that
| can do smaller taps than a finger, with zoom and without
| zoom): https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/...
|
| I recall that similar features are more obvious on
| Android because you can make taps visible.
|
| Virtual keyboards also have interesting responses to
| close taps on key buttons.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| What's wrong with increasing the size of the button?
|
| You can set a (pseudo) element as an invisible
| enlargement of that button but then you will get
| accidental taps.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| Yeah, but the icons and labels could use more of that
| padding and be larger so old folks like me can see them.
| tkzed49 wrote:
| 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
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| 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.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Buttons are whatever for me, but the padding on things like
| notifications and other information text is getting
| ridiculous. The notifications are taking up 1/4 of the screen
| and managing to only show 3 words of an email or text on my
| phone.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| The layer separation on Material has been really not good for
| me. The floating action button is so hard to notice sometimes;
| I've reached out for IT help or support sometimes because I
| just didn't notice it.
|
| I haven't used it yet but the refraction effect on Liquid Glass
| feels like it could be amazingly good at creating a sense of
| layer separation. Static content it's maybe not going to be
| awesome at, but as soon as the there's motion, the non-linear
| motion around the bend of the glass, for me, seems to create a
| very easy perturbance of regular motion that it feels like
| eyes, in their radar like way, instantly know of, without
| having to look closely and interpret.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| In my view the dramatic reduction of depth in Material 2 and
| beyond was a real mistake. That was the one redeeming thing
| it had over other flat UI design systems.
| saubeidl wrote:
| I agree, but that being said, I still think it peaked at the OG
| Material. I miss elevation shadows.
| andrepd wrote:
| Superfluous animations, cryptic icons and UI elements with no
| indication of function and capabilities, and ungodly amounts of
| whitespace that make my 5.8" screen have less information
| density than my 2009 Nokia. That's not what "legible and gets
| out my my way" means to me.
| SebastianKra wrote:
| I'm also disappointed in Apple right now, but the screenshots
| of the Calendar and Gmail Apps in this post are even worse.
| Content in Gmail is separated by kilometers of whitespace with
| not a divider in sight. The calendar reserves 10% of horizontal
| whitespace for this crucial 2014 low-poly wallpaper...
| bitwize wrote:
| Indeed, but Apple still wins when it comes to "wow factor". In
| a year's time Android will look old and busted, and Google will
| have to respond with a similar UI refresh. Of course it won't
| be as pretty, responsive, or slick but it will keep Android in
| the running.
|
| Turns out "pretty" matters -- a lot -- in UI. Sucks for those
| of us who found Windows 9x, NEXTSTEP, or AmigaOS as the
| pinnacle of usability, but users find themselves more
| comfortable with a UI that looks modern even if said UI has
| other detriments like lack of affordance.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Great, another version that my devices won't get.
|
| Currently stuck between 12 and 14, and really there is hardly any
| reason to update.
|
| For technical stuff, better check here,
| https://developer.android.com/about/versions/16/summary
|
| And the promised WebGPU for Java and Kotlin, discussed at
| Vulkanised 2025 apparently didn't made the cut to Android 16.
| whalesalad wrote:
| material design + "Google Sans" is probably the most nauseating
| combo imaginable.
| villedespommes wrote:
| I'm really excited about the Desktop mode, now I can finally
| break free of Samsung!
| nfriedly wrote:
| 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
| culopatin wrote:
| I remember my Atrix had a desktop mode back in... 2011?
| Something like that.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| As am I though it's not in this release.
| ZuLuuuuuu wrote:
| 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.
| zb3 wrote:
| Ah, so the "Linux Terminal" app is not yet ready for any
| announcements. This app with 3D acceleration enabling running
| graphical linux systems is what I'm waiting for, but it looks
| like we'll wait another year..
| chasil wrote:
| Connectbot has a local terminal that I have always used for
| this purpose.
| zb3 wrote:
| But what I was talking about was kernel virtualization where
| the guest OS performs at native speed and without any hacks.
| adhamsalama wrote:
| How does it enable graphical Linux systems? I mean, I did
| already do this by running KDE Plasma on Termux, but why would
| Google allow this?
| zb3 wrote:
| They did with "VmLauncherApp" and I was able to run Fedora,
| however GPU acceleration didn't work.
|
| Now, of course they removed the app :) But there's a "linux
| terminal" app which at least in theory should allow something
| similar since GPU acceleration was mentioned, but the app is
| limited "on user builds"..
|
| Note this uses kernel virtualization, so it's faster and more
| properly separated.
| ferguess_k wrote:
| Let me guess -- they revamped the UI again.
| t1234s wrote:
| Can you use an external monitor with a usb-c hub and a bluetooth
| mouse/keyboard in desktop mode?
| nfriedly wrote:
| It sounds like the new features are coming later this year.
|
| But, some Samsung and Motorola phones already support that (DeX
| and "Ready For"), and there's a kind of janky version that you
| can unlock in developer settings for phones (including Pixel 8
| & 9) that have video output but no built-in desktop mode.
| jakub_g wrote:
| On Pixel 8 + Android 15, I can already connect an external
| monitor via "screen mirroring" feature. My keyboard and mouse,
| which are plugged into USB ports in the monitor, do work.
|
| However the annoying thing is that many apps which display
| video (official TV streaming apps from my ISP etc.) detect the
| presence of an external display, and prevent video playback
| there. Sigh.
| melodyogonna wrote:
| Interesting that these are no longer tied to latest Pixel phone
| releases
| nsriv wrote:
| They're bringing up the phone release to a late August unveil
| and shipping this year, and the Material Expressive update will
| ship after that, so it seems a big one time shift to attempt to
| time it with hardware.
| old_bayes wrote:
| I love the detailed security features. Exactly what I want in my
| OS.
| tootie wrote:
| As a long time Android user, I scarcely even notice OS updates.
| My last 3 phones have felt like they were about the same device.
| absurdo wrote:
| Did they fix the localhost tracking issue?
| idle_zealot wrote:
| It's deeply disappointing to see that the multitasking solution
| for tablets that Google and Apple have settled on is... desktop-
| style floating windows, but without workspaces or window
| snapping.
|
| There's so much space here to experiment with tiling views,
| scrolling columns of windows, whatever. Floating windows are
| cumbersome enough when you have a mouse and big display to spread
| things out on. I've tried this floating window thing in beta on
| my Pixel Tablet and iPad's windowing on the iPadOS 26 beta and
| they're basically worthless. A straight downgrade compared to the
| existing split views. They'd have done better to just let me add
| more apps to a split view.
| hwc wrote:
| If Android is getting desktop windowing, how long until I can
| just plug my phone into a monitor and keyboard and have a usable
| computer?
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| You can plug a keyboard and mouse into your Andriod phone for
| many years. I haven't had one work with a monitor yet, though.
| hwc wrote:
| It almost works. But the monitor just mirrors the phone,
| including its weird aspect ratio and font size.
|
| It's almost usable for playing movies on a TV, but that's
| about it.
| izacus wrote:
| You could do that for years with Samsung phones already.
| fsflover wrote:
| No, you can't. There's no usable desktop software that you
| can run there. Artificial restrictions will stay, although
| might be slightly relaxed. In contrast with Librem 5 running
| GNU/Linux (my daily driver) this is already a reality.
| izacus wrote:
| This is just weird goal post moving.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| I'm surprised they didn't have live notifications or desktop
| windowing. I guess features like that go from Android OEMs, to
| iOS, then to Android itself. Do Google have their own Pixel
| versions of things like that before they make it to Android
| though?
| ptx wrote:
| I'm pretty sure notifications could always be updated after
| being created. The actual change seems to be not that they now
| support "live updates" (as the article says) but that the UI
| now supports a customizable progress bar:
| https://developer.android.com/about/versions/16/features/pro...
| quyleanh wrote:
| Detail of changes in here
|
| http://android.com/16
| ge96 wrote:
| Funny my phone is cheap usually a version behind. Eventually I
| notice the performance and get another one or the screen was
| destroyed. Sucks how the version is capped too by the company ahh
| well pro/con.
| fcpk wrote:
| One extremely disappointing thing that Android has been getting
| under the hood with Google images is ... Play integrity. This
| used to be a relatively simplistic system with three tiers: 0 -
| you are not certified for anything 1 - basic integrity, you need
| to have a genuine android device running google play services 2 -
| device integrity, you need to have a genuine android device with
| core requirements on play and no rooting 3 - strong integrity,
| you need a locked bootloader and signed image with recent
| security update
|
| This API/requirements set was uniquely put by pressure from
| various vendors(think banks and various "security-certification"
| obsessed parties), and was already quite unpleasant, as it
| excludes any form of rooting, even if your root-access is adb
| only. But it gets worse as now non-official images are getting
| excluded not only from strong integrity[0] but also device
| integrity. Numerous apps are now requiring device integrity and
| hence won't be usable even on a locked, signed android image if
| it's not google or vendor-official.
|
| It actually gets worse. Google has been silently restricting the
| api results(as of may): - basic requires a certified device with
| an android platform key attestation - device now requires a
| hardware verified boot, with locked bootloader and recent
| security patch. This excludes lots of devices - strong requires
| security patch on all partitions
|
| And it gets even worse. On recent play stores & android versions,
| as apps have to be installed or updated by google play to get a
| full integirty response. no more sideloading APKs or alternative
| stores.
|
| This is nothing but a clear move to a full lock-in to play store,
| where the majority of vendors live, to end up with a fully locked
| a-la-apple ecosystem. This doesn't improve security, people that
| know still have ways to bypass those restrictions when needed.
| All it does is give the illusion of safety.
|
| I would personally feel like: 1 - rooting should be allowed on a
| certified device with most apps still working. This could be done
| with a locked bootloader too if they provided such an image for
| debug. 2 - alternative os, like graphene, should be given a way
| to pass all attestations, as well as alternative stores, provided
| they follow a set of constraints.
|
| With this in mind, I can't be positive about android 16 and new
| versions going down a grim locked future.
|
| [0] https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/6361-play-integrity-api-
| and...
| smusamashah wrote:
| Not available for Pixel/XL, Pixel 2/XL, Pixel 3/XL, Pixel 3a/XL,
| Pixel 4/XL, Pixel 4a, Pixel 4a 5G, Pixel 5, or Pixel 5a.
|
| I have Pixel 4a and I wanted to get Android 16 to get the smaller
| notification tile buttons back.
| AbuAssar wrote:
| I'll take Material Expressive over iOS's liquid glass any day.
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