Google Shows Off Android 12's Huge UI Overhaul (arstechnica.com) 52
At Google I/O 2021 today, Google confirmed that Android 12 is getting a huge new design. Ars Technica reports: Google calls the new design "Material You," and just like in the leaks, it's a UI that changes colors like a chameleon. For now, this design will only show up in Google Pixels, but Google says it will roll out across the ecosystem to the web, Chrome OS, smart displays, cars, watches, tablets, and every other Google form factor. The new interface is powered by a "color extraction" API that can pull the colors out of your wallpaper and apply them to the UI. This sounds exactly like the Palette API that was introduced in Android 5.0 (along with the original introduction of Material Design), but it's apparently a second swing at the color extraction idea, and Google is heavily using it in the UI now. The demo interfaces featured customized highlight colors, clock faces, widget backgrounds, and more, all matching the color of your wallpaper. Besides new colors, there are also tons of layout changes to the quick settings and notification panel. The first public beta of Android is now available. Google Pixel smartphones as far back as the Pixel 3 are eligible, as well as several devices from device-maker partners, including ASUS and OnePlus.
Wow. (Score:2, Insightful)
They wasted no time stealing the iOS UI and features.
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Are they paying Apple 30% right off the top?
Less contrast (Score:4, Informative)
As if modern UI's weren't difficult enough for those with less than perfect eyesight already, we now have AI to minimize the contrast based on the background.
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Don't worry they will fix the contrast issue next year and break something else. Then they will switch it back the following year. The circle of tweaking must continue. We can't have good enough left alone.
Re:Less contrast (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't worry they will fix the contrast issue next year and break something else. Then they will switch it back the following year. The circle of tweaking must continue. We can't have good enough left alone.
What else do the UX designers do if they don't change everything every few years?
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Re:Less contrast (Score:5, Funny)
As if modern UI's weren't difficult enough for those with less than perfect eyesight already, we now have AI to minimize the contrast based on the background.
I'd trade in all my karma to give you an upvote but I can't see it with the light-grey text on the white background.
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now have AI to minimize the contrast based on the background.
I realize the definition of "AI" is pretty loose, but this is ridiculous.
$fontColor = ( avgBackgroundColor() + 10 );
is not AI.
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is not AI.
This utterly lacks I, Artificial or otherwise.
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Yep, some idiot let the UI/UX designers out of the basement they'd been locked in...someone had unscrewed half the light bulbs, put some house music on and told them it was a modern art exhibit, it worked well for a while.
Re:Less contrast (Score:5, Informative)
If you look at the images of it you will note that they have high levels of contrast. Contrast has increased overall.
It's annoying how on many stories someone always rushes in to post a generic complaint about the topic that is often irrelevant or just flat out wrong. Much preferred it when it was just someone posting frosty piss instead of a karma whoring comment.
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Are we looking at the same pictures? Look at this one: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp... [arstechnica.net]
The clock has a light yellow-green color on a light-grey-green background. The notification "bubbles" are again light green but with dark green text. I'm not sure what you're comparing to but it is much less contrast than traditional black on white. It reminds me of an old broken CRT where the electron beam is off so the entire screen is tinted green.
If I didn't know this was a feature, I'd assume the screen was broken
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Scroll down the article a bit. You can actually adjust it, not just colour but also things like line thickness. There is an example with lines around the buttons.
Just OK (Score:4, Funny)
Pretty good for poor people. We iPhone users already have perfection. We even have âoesmart quotesâ and other cool features. Itâ(TM)s like being in the future!
Lame (Score:1)
It's ugly and animated for no reason other than so that the UI devs have a job this year. Every year they will keep making changes and animating this and that, never mind it makes some user experiences worse. Who cares? They need a job right?
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Re:Lame (Score:5, Informative)
PS: how do I make top level comments, rather than simply replies to other people's comment. If I hit the "post" button at the top, it simply makes a reply to the last posted comment? thanks.
https://imgur.com/Z5wJFlL [imgur.com]
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Does anyone else think this isn't a "huge UI overhaul"? To me a "huge UI overhaul" means improving the functionality of the device, introducing new metaphors for UI interaction, etc. This is basically a color change done in a clever (?) way.
For a large company, "huge XX overhaul" means an excuse to justify keeping/hiring a lot of people in a huge project that cost the company a lot of money, and in the process build or keep some senior VP's empire.
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Yeah but the old UI was ugly too, so it's a slight improvement.
Re: Lame (Score:2)
One of the first things I do on a new Android device is go to developer options and disable all animations. I hope that still works. Animations are latency.
Horrible (Score:3, Informative)
Am I the only one who thinks this is the worst idea in the history of ideas?
Touch the red button, grandma. No...not that one...
Re:Horrible (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I the only one who thinks this is the worst idea in the history of ideas?
Touch the red button, grandma. No...not that one...
Yes, it's a stupid idea. My wallpaper is something I pick because it looks good... as wallpaper. That doesn't in any way mean the colours in it make for an attractive or useful UI.
Remember in... oh... Windows 3.0 circa 1990, when you could just pick UI colours and make things look the way you wanted? Sure, I had the occasional user who made things bright red on mustard yellow, but that was their business. What's with this trend the last decade plus where user control over appearance has been stripped? It started with a couple simple programs that managed to have customized windows instead of standard rectangles with OS-defined buttons in the corners etc, and got much, much worse since then. Cell phones have just continued the trend of stupidity.
How it took Google years to give us a "dark mode" when it should've just been a user's option to set 'background colour = black, foreground text = white' I dunno.
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How it took Google years to give us a "dark mode" when it should've just been a user's option to set 'background colour = black, foreground text = white' I dunno.
With one sentence you clearly have demonstrated that you have no idea how the UI or programming works. There's a reason why original "dark mode" actually involved inverting the entire display, and that is largely because changing the colour of 2 elements from a highly complex system will achieve precisely one thing: breaking the UI.
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How it took Google years to give us a "dark mode" when it should've just been a user's option to set 'background colour = black, foreground text = white' I dunno.
With one sentence you clearly have demonstrated that you have no idea how the UI or programming works. There's a reason why original "dark mode" actually involved inverting the entire display, and that is largely because changing the colour of 2 elements from a highly complex system will achieve precisely one thing: breaking the UI.
And yet... I've also demonstrated that I lived through the era that disproved what you're saying. As long as a user has control over standard UI elements and programs adhere to system-controlled colours, it does work. The reason this "breaks the UI" today is because individual content is permitted to do whatever screw-job it wants. A web site can just decide it's going to send black background and white text, while a different site does the inverse. Sure, the artistic people behind the sites win, but we
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Speaking of Windows, it has had this feature since at least version 8. I use it all the time with a rotating set of wallpapers. It works well, the accent colours it picks are suitable and they are only used in places that won't cause confusion.
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Sure, I had the occasional user who made things bright red on mustard yellow, but that was their business.
It became the hotdog theme. Good times.
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i was called weird for wanting to change the font on my phone
i have changed every font in every device and every program i possibly can to ubuntu(/mono) because the characters 1Il| are all distinct
i would like uppercase i to have a base and a top, too, so it is more easily visible from pipe | but ok
Re: Horrible (Score:3)
On the plus side, the buttons are bigger with actual text labels. I'm hoping Apple follows that part of this design.
Where's ACR? (Score:2)
Any word on if they enabled call recording API that they previously crippled?
It looks like they ran out of ideas so now they're just coding fluff.
Once they stop innovating it gives open phone platforms like Ubuntu Touch time to close the gap -- and I hope it happens.
They Should Extend Support First (Score:2)
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When you have an Android device critical components of the system are issued as updates in the Play Store. For years while you use the device. It isn't all bundled in a splashy 'version update' where whole generations of product are dropped at once.
Different things must look different (Score:5, Insightful)
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It does. The new buttons are higher contrast and the borders are more defined. It's almost as if they listened to feedback on this one.
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Advertising (Score:2)
All this effort just to sell advertising. What a world.
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Better than selling sugar water to kids for the rest of your life.
Nice idea but... (Score:2)
I hope there us an option to use a different image for the theme as for the wallpaper. Using an image as a theme is quite clever but forcing it to be the wallpaper ruins the idea. I mean, if you put the picture of someone you love as a wallpaper, it doesn't mean you want a skin toned ui.
Liley More Trash (Score:2)
Call recording? (Score:1)
Will Andoid 12 allow for call recording again? Or are consumers still not trusted with that technology?
Why ? (Score:1)
But... why ????
"because we can"
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Designed for me my ass. This looks like complete g (Score:2)
It doesn't even look like you can customize it all that much. Just basic stuff PCs have been doing for decades.
This UI update make the phone look like a child's toy even more.
I'm glad (Score:2)
I'm glad that my phones and devices no longer get new OS versions, because I don't think I can live through learning yet another stupid UI.
LCARS (Score:1)
That's what it reminded me of. Noone else got that?